Thou too art gone - and so is my delight: DANTE IN EXILE. (Prophecy of DANTE, Canto i.) ALAS! with what a weight upon my brow The sense of earth and earthly things come back, The heart's quick throb upon the mental rack, And the frail few years I may yet expect Hoary and hopeless, but less hard to bear, On the lone rock of desolate Despair To lift my eyes more to the passing sail Which shuns that reef so horrible and bare; Nor raise my voice - for who would heed my wail? I am not of this people, nor this age, And yet my harpings will unfold a tale Which shall preserve these times when not a page Of their perturbèd annals could attract An eye to gaze upon their civil rage, Did not my verse embalm full many an act Worthless as they who wrought it: 't is the doom Of spirits of my order to be rack'd In life, to wear their hearts out, and consume And wasting homage o'er the sullen stone, My mind down from its own infinity – To live in narrow ways with little men, A wanderer, while even wolves can find a den, Ripp'd from all kindred, from all home, all things That make communion sweet, and soften pain To feel me in the solitude of kings Without the power that makes them bear a crownTo envy every dove his nest and wings Which waft him where the Apennine looks down On Arno, till he perches, it may be, Within my all inexorable town, Where yet my boys are, and that fatal she, Their mother, the cold partner who hath brought And feel, and know without repair, hath taught THE ISLES OF GREECE. (SONG OF A Greek.) THE isles of Greece, the isles of Greece! The Scian and the Teian muse, The hero's harp, the lover's lute, The mountains look on Marathon And Marathon looks on the sea; And musing there an hour alone, I dream'd that Greece might still be free; For standing on the Persians' grave, I could not deem myself a slave. A king sate on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And where are they? and where art thou, My country? On thy voiceless shore The heroic lay is tuneless now — The heroic bosom beats no more! And must thy lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine? 'T is something, in the dearth of fame, Though link'd among a fetter'd race, To feel at least a patriot's shame, Even as I sing, suffuse my face; For what is left the poet here? For Greeks a blush - for Greece a tear. Must we but weep o'er days more blest? Must we but blush? Our fathers bled. Earth! render back from out thy breast What, silent still? and silent all? Ah! no; the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent's fall, And answer, "Let one living head, But one arise, we come, we come!" 'T is but the living who are dumb. In vain in vain: strike other chords; Fill high the cup with Samian wine! Leave battles to the Turkish hordes, 1 You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet, The nobler and the manlier one? Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! It made Anacreon's song divine: He served - but served Polycrates A tyrant; but our masters then Were still, at least, our countrymen. The tyrant of the Chersonese Was freedom's best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades! Oh! that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind! Such chains as his were sure to bind. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Such as the Doric mothers bore; |