| |
| FAMINE hath worn them pale, that noble band;— | |
| Yet round the long beleaguer’d wall, | |
| With wasted frame, and iron hand, | |
| Like watching skeletons they stand, | |
| To conquer or to fall. | 5 |
| |
| Hark!—Hark! the war-cry. Swells the shout | |
| From wild Arabia’s wandering rout, | |
| From turbid Nilus’ swarthy brood, | |
| From Ibrahim’s host who thirst for blood, | |
| ’T is answer’d from the echoing skies, | 10 |
| Sons of Miltiades, arise!— | |
| |
| Aged men, with temples gray!— | |
| Why do ye haste to the battle fray?— | |
| Home to the couch of ease, and pray.— | |
| But ah! I read on those brows of gloom, | 15 |
| That your sons have found a gory tomb, | |
| And ye with despair and grief opprest, | |
| Would strike ere ye share their clay-cold rest.— | |
| With features pale, yet sternly wrought | |
| To all the agony of thought, | 20 |
| Yon widow’d mothers mount the tower, | |
| To guard the wall in danger’s hour:— | |
| Fast by their side in mute distress, | |
| Their little sons unwavering press, | |
| Taught from their cradle-bed to know | 25 |
| The bitter tutelage of wo, | |
| No idle fears in their bosoms glow, | |
| But pride and wrath in their dark eyes glance, | |
| As they lift their martyr’d father’s lance. | |
| |
| Yet more!—Yet more!—At beat of drum | 30 |
| With wildly flowing hair, | |
| Helle’s beauteous maidens come, | |
| The iron strife to dare.— | |
| Sadly sweet from those lips of rose, | |
| The death-song of Bozzaris flows, | 35 |
| It is your dirge, ye turban’d foes!— | |
| Rise, soul of Pindar! strike the shadowy lyre, | |
| Start from your sculptured tombs, ye sons of fire! | |
| Snatch, snatch those gentle forms from war’s alarms, | |
| And throw your adamantine shield around their shrinking charms. | 40 |
| |
| Louder swells the battle-cry; | |
| God of Christians! from the sky | |
| Behold the Turk’s accursed host | |
| Come rushing in.—’T is lost! ’T is lost!— | |
| Ye bold defenders, die!— | 45 |
| O thou, who sang’st of Ilion’s walls the fate, | |
| Unseal thy blinded orbs, thine own are desolate. | |
| |
| The stifled sob of mighty souls | |
| Rises on the glowing air, | |
| And the vow of vengeance rolls, | 50 |
| Mingled with the dying prayer: | |
| “Now, by the spirits of the brave, | |
| Sires, who rode on glory’s wave, | |
| By red Scio’s wrongs and groans, | |
| By Ipsara’s unburied bones, | 55 |
| Our foes beneath these reeking stones, | |
| Shall find a grave.” | |
| |
| Earth heaves, as if she gorged again | |
| Usurping Korah’s rebel train, | |
| She heaves, with blast more wild and loud, | 60 |
| Than when with trump of thunders proud, | |
| The electric flame subdues the cloud, | |
| Torn and dismember’d frames are thrown on high, | |
| And then the oppressor and oppress’d in equal silence lie. | |
| |
| Come, jewell’d Sultan, from thine hall of state! | 65 |
| Exult o’er Missolonghi’s fall, | |
| With flashing eye, and step elate | |
| The blood-pools count around her ruin’d wall.— | |
| Seek’st thou thus with glances vain | |
| The remnant of thy Moslem train?— | 70 |
| Hither they came, with haughty brow, | |
| They conquer’d here,—where are they now? | |
| Ask the hoarse vulture with her new-flesh’d beak, | |
| Bid the gaunt watch-dog speak, | |
| Who bay’d so long around his murder’d master’s door,— | 75 |
| They, with shriek and ban can tell | |
| The burial-place of the infidel, | |
| Go! bind thy turban round thy brow of shame, | |
| And hurl the mutter’d curse at thy false prophet’s name. | |
| |
| Ancient and beautiful!—who stand’st alone | 80 |
| In the dire crusade, while with hearts of stone | |
| Thy sister nations close the leaden eye | |
| Regardless of thine agony. | |
| Such friends had He, who once with bursting pore, | |
| On sad Gethsemane a lost world’s burden bore.— | 85 |
| Leave, leave the sacred steep | |
| Where thy lone muses weep, | |
| Forth from thy sculptured halls, | |
| Thy pilgrim-haunted walls, | |
| Thy classic fountains’ crystal flood, | 90 |
| Go!—angel-strengthen’d to the field of blood. | |
| Raise thy white arm,—unbind thy wreathed hair, | |
| And God’s dread name upon thy breastplate wear, | |
| Stand in His might, till the pure cross arise | |
| O’er the proud minaret, and woo propitious skies. | 95 |
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