Oh! yet--for there my steps have been; These feet have pressed the sacred shore; These limbs that buoyant wave hath borne-- Minstrel! with thee to muse, to mourn, To trace again those fields of yore, Believing every hillock green Contains no fabled hero's ashes, And that around the undoubted scene Thine own "broad Hellespont" still dashes,-- Be long my lot! and cold were he Who there could gaze denying thee! GREECE AND HER HEROES From 'The Siege of Corinth' 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 gray, Claimed kindred with their sacred clay; Their spirits wrapt the dusky mountain, Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain: The meanest rill, the mightiest river, Rolled mingling with their fame forever. Despite of every yoke she bears, That land is glory's still, and theirs! 'Tis still a watchword to the earth: When man would do a deed of worth He points to Greece, and turns to tread, So sanctioned, on the tyrant's head; He looks to her, and rushes on Where life is lost, or freedom won. THE ISLES OF GREECE From 'Don Juan' 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, But all except their sun is set. The Scian[108] and the Teian[109] 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 Persians' 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.