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.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!

On Suli's rock and Parga's shore Exists the remnant of a line

Such as the Doric mothers bore; And there perhaps some seed is sown The Heracleidan blood might own.

Trust not for freedom to the Franks,

They 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.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!

Our virgins dance beneath the shade,-
I see their glorious black eyes shine;

But, gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves.

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 mine,Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!

Lord Byron

199

A CHORUS FROM FAUSTI

SUNG BY THREE ARCHANGELS, BEFORE THE LORD AND

THE HOST OF HEAVEN

RAPHAEL

THE

,

"HE sun makes music as of old

Amid the rival spheres of Heaven,
On its predestined circle rolled

With thunder speed: the Angels even
Draw strength from gazing on its glance,

Though none its meaning fathom may
The world's unwithered countenance

Is bright as at Creation's day.

GABRIEL

And swift and swift, with rapid lightness,

The adornèd Earth spins silently,
Alternating Elysian brightness

With deep and dreadful night; the sea
Foams in broad billows from the deep

Up to the rocks, and rocks and Ocean,
Onward, with spheres which never sleep,

Are hurried in eternal motion.

MICHAEL

And tempests in contention roar

From land to sea, from sea to land,
And, raging, weave a chain of power,

Which girds the earth, as with a band.

A flashing desolation there

Flames before the thunder's way;
But Thy servants, Lord, revere

The gentle changes of Thy day.

CHORUS OF THE THREE

The Angels draw strength from Thy glance,

Though no one comprehend Thee may ;-
Thy world's unwithered countenance
Is bright as on Creation's day.

Goethe

200

TO EVENING

IF

Faught of oaten stop or pastoral song
May hope, Opensive Eve, to soothe thine ear,

Like thy own brawling springs,
Thy springs, and dying gales;

O Nymph reserved,—while now the bright-haired sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,

With brede ethereal wove,
O'erhang his wavy bed;

Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing;

Or where the beetle winds
His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum,-

Now teach me, maid composed,
To breathe some softened strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale,
May not unseemly with its stillness suit;

As musing slow I hail
Thy genial loved return.

For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp

The fragrant Hours, and Elves
Who slept in buds the day,

And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge
And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,

The pensive Pleasures sweet,
Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene;
Or find some ruin ’midst its dreary dells,

Whose walls more awful nod
By thy religious gleams.

Or, if chill blustering winds or driving rain
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut

That, from the mountain's side,
Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires;
And hears their simple bell; and marks o'er all

Thy dewy fingers draw
The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!

While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves;
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,

Affrights thy shrinking train
And rudely rends thy robes;

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,

Thy gentlest influence own,
And love thy favorite name!

William Collins

201

TO NIGHT

YSTERIOUS NIGHT! when our first parent knew

Mrice

, from report divine, and heard thy name,

Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, -
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet, 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus, with the host of heaven, came,
And lo! creation widened in man's view.
Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find,
Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind!
Why do we then shun death with anxious strife?
If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life?

Blanco White