THE ISLES OF GREECE

Don Juan, Canto III

This lyric is found in Don Juan, a long poem which shows Byron at his best and his worst. It shows his versatile genius at its height.

The setting of the song in the long poem is as follows: Don Juan, the hero of the story, in his wanderings, has been wrecked off the coast of Greece and cast unconscious upon the beach. He is found by Haidee, a beautiful Greek girl, the daughter of a wealthy sea pirate, Lombro, and is concealed by her in a cave near the shore. She comes to him day by day, and, with the assistance of her maid, nurses him back to health. Her father goes away to "fleece the flags of many nations." He meets storms and other disasters, and is detained many months. Haidee thinks that her father has been drowned or killed, and, not fearing his return, invites Don Juan to Lombro's mansion, where they live in splendor. As a climax to their joyous life they plan an elaborate banquet and are in the midst of its merriment when the father returns. What follows the coming of Lombro is another story.

Besides the diversions at the banquet offered by dwarfs and dancing girls, a poet of great fame is called upon to sing. The song that he sings is The Isles of Greece.

He sings of "the glory that was Greece," and contrasts her former honor with her modern degeneracy. Although the spirits of those who drove out the Persian invaders are ready to rise and fight for the independence of their country, the living, in cowardice, are dumb.

Byron makes the poet sing a song that came from his own heart. At the time these lines were written Greece was struggling to free herself from Turkish tyranny. Byron's consecration to the cause of Greek independence proves how sincerely he felt the emotions presented in these stanzas. Three years after this time he gave his life for the Greek cause. Through the good services of England, France, and Russia, five years after his death Greece was made free.

The poem is valuable for its strong patriotic emotion, its suggestive and illuminating classical references, its appeal to the imagination, its pleasing rhythm, its graceful phrasing, and for the beauty of its general conception.

The poet begins to sing his song under the inspiration of the golden days of Greece, but must change his theme to a complaint that modern Greece is too degenerate to fight for her liberties. He feels yet enough of the old patriotism to blush for such a dishonored country. But there is no hope, and he wishes that he may be placed on "Sunium's marble steep," where he may sing his "swan-song" to the waves-and the world, and die of grief for the lost liberty of Greece-of shame for his degenerate people.

THE ISLES OF GREECE

1

The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sapho lived and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all except their sun is set.

2

The Scian and the Teian muse,
The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse;
Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds that echo further west
Than your sires' "Islands of the Blest."

3

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 Persian's grave,

I could not deem myself a slave.

4

A king sate on the rocky brow

Which looks o'er sea-borne Salamis;

And ships, by thousands, lay below,
And men in nations;-all were his!
He counted them at break of day-
And when the sun set, where were they?

5

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?

6

"T is something, in the dearth of fame,
Though linked 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 Greece to blush-for Greece a tear.

77

Must we but weep o'er days more blest?

Must we but blush? Our fathers bled. Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, To make a new Thermopyla!

8

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!"
"Tis but the living who are dumb.

9

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet-
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget

The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave-
Think ye he meant them for a slave?

10

Place me on Sunium's marble steep,
Where nothing save the waves and I
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine-
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!

-George Gordon Byron.