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, 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? 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 Thermopylæ! 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 you 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 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. 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! HELPS TO STUDY. Historical: The decline of Greece is the theme of this poem. Byron represents a Greek poet as contrasting ancient and modern Greece, showing that, in modern Greece, "all except their sun is set." Notes and Questions.