400
Whose best success were sacrilege.
Not so had those his fancy numbered,[353]
The chiefs whose dust around him slumbered;
Their phalanx marshalled on the plain,
Whose bulwarks were not then in vain.
They fell devoted, but undying;
The very gale their names seemed sighing;
The waters murmured of their name;
The woods were peopled with their fame;
The silent pillar, lone and grey, 410
Claimed kindred with their sacred clay;
Their spirits wrapped the dusky mountain,
Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain;[pf]
The meanest rill, the mightiest river
Rolled mingling with their fame for ever.
Despite of every yoke she bears,
That land is Glory's still and theirs![pg]
'Tis still a watch-word to the earth:
When man would do a deed of worth
He points to Greece, and turns to tread, 420
So sanctioned, on the tyrant's head:
He looks to her, and rushes on
Where life is lost, or Freedom won.[ph]

XVI.

Still by the shore Alp mutely mused,
And wooed the freshness Night diffused.
There shrinks no ebb in that tideless sea,[354]
Which changeless rolls eternally;
So that wildest of waves, in their angriest mood,[pi]
Scarce break on the bounds of the land for a rood;
And the powerless moon beholds them flow, 430
Heedless if she come or go:
Calm or high, in main or bay,
On their course she hath no sway.
The rock unworn its base doth bare,
And looks o'er the surf, but it comes not there;
And the fringe of the foam may be seen below,
On the line that it left long ages ago:
A smooth short space of yellow sand[pj][355]
Between it and the greener land.

He wandered on along the beach, 440
Till within the range of a carbine's reach
Of the leaguered wall; but they saw him not,
Or how could he 'scape from the hostile shot?[pk]
Did traitors lurk in the Christians' hold?
Were their hands grown stiff, or their hearts waxed cold?
I know not, in sooth; but from yonder wall[pl]
There flashed no fire, and there hissed no ball,
Though he stood beneath the bastion's frown,
That flanked the seaward gate of the town;
Though he heard the sound, and could almost tell 450
The