It was Archidamia, the Spartan queen, Brave as her father's steel; She stood like the silence that comes between The flash and the thunder-peal. She looked in the eyes of the startled crowd; Calmly she gazed around; Her voice was neither low nor loud, But it rang like her sword on the ground. "Spartans!" she said--and her woman's face Flushed out both pride and shame-- "I ask, by the memory of your race, Are ye worthy of the name? "Ye have bidden us seek new hearths and graves, Beyond the reach of the foe; And now, by the dash of the blue sea-waves, We swear that we will not go! "Is the name of Pyrrhus to blanch your cheeks? Shall he burn, and kill, and destroy? Are ye not sons of the deathless Greeks Who fired the gates of Troy? "What though his feet have scathless stood In the rush of the Punic foam? Though his sword be red to its hilt with the blood That has beat at the heart of Rome? "Brothers and sons! we have reared you men: Our walls are the ocean swell; Our winds blew keen down the rocky glen Where the staunch Three Hundred fell. "Our hearts are drenched in the wild sea-flow, In the light of the hills and the sky; And the Spartan women, if need be so, Will teach the men to die. "We are brave men's mothers, and brave men's wives: We are ready to do and dare; We are ready to man your walls with our lives, And string your bows with our hair. "Let the young and brave lie down to-night, And dream of the brave old dead, Their broad shields bright for to-morrow's fight, Their swords beneath their head. "Our breasts are better than bolts and bars; We neither wail nor weep; We will light our torches at the stars, And work while our warriors sleep. "We hold not the iron in our blood Viler than strangers' gold; The memory of our motherhood Is not to be bought and sold. "Shame to the traitor heart that springs To the faint soft arms of Peace, If the Roman eagle shook his wings At the very gates of Greece! "Ask not the mothers who gave you birth To bid you turn and flee; When Sparta is trampled from the earth Her women can die, and be free."