Oft perchance my acts have wronged you, But ye dare not charge me this, That the Persian is my master, When ye think of Salamis. More I might; but it sufficeth,-- Here I wait the word of doom; Strike! But think that I, the culprit, Raised your city from the tomb. *....*....*....* Guilty! Well! The fate of others Now at length descends on me; Envy strikes the loftiest ever, As the lightning on the tree. Banished! Athens aye hath willed it For her truest souls of yore; Now I know thee, Aristides, As I never knew before. O forgive me, gallant rival, If I e'er have wrought thee ill; Think but of the glorious morning When we stood on yonder hill, When Miltiades arrayed us In the central ranks to stand, When we charged adown the mountain On the motley Persian band, When the shouting wings swept forward, And we stood, like sea-cliffs fast, Smiling to behold the nations Break in foam upon us cast; When we chased them to the galleys, Slaughtered thousands by the wave, Sent them back in rout to Susa, Heaped the mound above our brave, And forever through the ages Sounds our glory, rolling on, For Miltiades and Athens, For ourselves and Marathon. Men of Athens! By your sentence I am banished from your state; Humbly to that doom I bow me, And I leave you to your fate. Not to me thine awful ending, Athens, shall the years unfold; Long shall night have closed these eyelids Ere that ruin men behold. Still, when I am long forgotten, Shall thy haughty sway extend, Isles and cities, lords and kingdoms, Forced to court, to sue, to bend, As, from year to year increasing, Still thy marts new wealth enclose, And thy far-resplendent treasures Dazzle e'en thy fiercest foes. Wider ports and swifter navies, Broader fields and richer mines, Deadlier fights and braver armies, Statelier halls and fairer shrines, Loftier accents poured in council, Nobler thoughts in sweeter song, Loud proclaim the crown of Hellas Doth of right to thee belong; Till thy heart be drunk with glory, And thy brain be crazed with power, And the gods o'erhear thy boasting In some mad, triumphant hour.