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!
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 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!

FOOTNOTES:

[108] Homer.

[109] Anacreon.

GREECE AND THE GREEKS BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

From 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'

Ancient of days! august Athena! where,
Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul?
Gone--glimmering through the dream of things that were:
First in the race that led to Glory's goal,
They won, and passed away--is this the whole?
A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour!
The warrior's weapon and the sophist's stole
Are sought in vain, and o'er each moldering tower,
Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power.

. . . . . . .

Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth!
Immortal, though no more! though fallen, great!
Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth,
And long accustomed bondage uncreate?
Not such thy sons who whilome did await,
The hopeless warriors of a willing doom,
In bleak Thermopylae's sepulchral strait--
Oh, who that gallant spirit shall resume,
Leap from Eurotas's banks, and call thee from the tomb?

Spirit of Freedom! when on Phyle's brow
Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train,
Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour which now
Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain?
Not thirty ty