Tore from the father's trembling arms
His all-accomplished maid.
For her, how happy had it been
And heaven had spared to me
To see one sad, ungathered rose
On my ancestral tree.

Ex. CXII. THE ISLES OF GREECE.

THE isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,

Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
And all, except their sun, is set.

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 which echo further west
Than your sires' "Islands of the Blest."

The mountains look on Marathon-
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And, musing there an hour alone,

BYRON.

I dreamed that Greece might still be free:
For, standing on the Persian's grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.

A king sat on the rocky brow

Which looks o'er sea-born 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?

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?

'Tis something in the dearth of fame,
Though linked among a fettered race,
To feel at least a patriot's shame,
Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here 2
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
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopyla!

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.

In vain-in vain: strike other chords;
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,

And shed the blood of Scio's vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call-
How answers each bold bacchanal!

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 ?

The tyrant of the Chersonese

Was freedom's best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades!

O that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind!

Such chains as his were sure to bind.

Trust not for freedom to the FranksThey have a king who buys and sells

In native swords and native ranks

The only hope of courage dwells;

But Turkish force and Latin fraud
Would break your shield, however broad.

Place me on Sunium's marbled 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 mineDash down yon cup of Samian wine!

Ex. CXIII.-NAPOLEON.

J. PIERPONT.

His falchion flashed along the Nile;
His hosts he led through Alpine snows;
O'er Moscow's towers, that blazed the while,
His eagle flag unrolled,—and froze.

Here sleeps he now, alone! Not one

Of all the kings, whose crowns he gave,
Bends o'er his dust;-nor wife, nor son,
Has ever seen or sought his grave.

Behind this sea-girt rock, the star,
That led him on from crown to crown,
Has sunk; and nations from afar
Gazed as it faded and went down.

High is his couch;-the ocean flood,
Far, far below, by storms is curled;
As round him heaved, while high he stood,
A stormy and unstable world.

Alone he sleeps! The mountain cloud,

That night hangs round him, and the breath

Of morning scatters, is the shroud

That wraps the conqueror's clay in death.

Pause here! The far-off world, at last,

Breathes free; the hand that shook its thrones,

And to the earth its miters cast,

Lies powerless now beneath these stones.

Hark! comes there, from the pyramids,
And from Siberian wastes of snow,

And Europe's hills, a voice that bids
The world he awed to mourn him ?-No:

The only, the perpetual dirge

That's heard there, is the sea-bird's cry,― The mournful murmur of the surge,

The cloud's deep voice, the wind's low sigh.

Ex. CXIV.-UNIVERSAL FREEDOM.

HENRY WARE, JR,

OPPRESSION shall not always reign:
There comes a brighter day,
When freedom, burst from every chain,
Shall have triumphant way.
Then right shall over might prevail;
And truth, like hero armed in mail,
The hosts of tyrant wrong assail,
And hold eternal sway.

Even now, that glorious day draws near,
Its coming is not far;

In earth and heaven its signs appear,
We see its morning star;

Its dawn has flushed the eastern sky,
The western hills reflect it high,
The southern clouds before it fly;-
Hurra, hurra, hurra!

It flashes on the Indian isles,

So long to bondage given;

Their faded plains are decked in smiles,
Their blood-stained fetters riven.
Eight hundred thousand newly free,
Pour out their songs of jubilee,
That shake the globe from sea to sea,
As with a shout from heaven.

That shout, which every bosom thrills,
Has crossed the wondering main,

It rings in thunder o'er our hills,
And rolls o'er every plain.

The waves reply on every shore,
Old Fanueil echoes to the roar,
And "rocks" as it ne'er rocked before,
And ne'er shall rock again.

What voice shall bid the progress stay

Of truth's victorious car?

What arm arrest the growing day,

Or quench the solar star?

What dastard soul, though stout and strong,
Shall dare bring back the ancient wrong,
Or slavery's guilty night prolong,

And freedom's morning bar?

The hour of triumph comes apace,
The fated, promised hour,
When earth upon a ransomed race,
Her beauteous gifts shall shower.
Ring, Liberty, thy glorious bell,
Bid high the sacred banner swell,
Let trump on trump the triumph tell,
Of Heaven's avenging power.

The day has come, the hour draws nigh,
We hear the coming car;

Send forth the glad, exulting cry,
Hurra, hurra, hurra!

From every hill, by every sea,

In shouts proclaim the great decree,

"All chains are burst, all men are free!"
Hurra, hurra, hurra!

Ex. CXV.-THE PILGRIMS AND THE PEAS.

A BRACE of sinners, for no good,

Were ordered to the Virgin Mary's shrine, Who at Loretto dwelt, in wax, stone, wood, And in a fair white wig looked wondrous fine.

Fifty long miles had those sad rogues to travel,

WOLCOT.

With something in their shoes much worse than gravel: