Day breaks in light and glory--’tis the hour Of conflict and of fate--the war-note calls-- Despair hath lent a stern, delirious power To the brave few that guard the rampart walls. Far over Marmora’s waves th’ artillery’s peal Proclaims an empire’s doom in every note; Tambour and trumpet swell the clash of steel, Round spire and dome the clouds of battle float; From camp and wave rush on the Crescent’s host, And the Seven Towers[27] are scaled, and all is won and lost. XXXIX. Then, Greece! the tempest rose that burst on thee, Land of the bard, the warrior, and the sage! Oh! where were then thy sons, the great, the free, Whose deeds are guiding stars from age to age? Though firm thy battlements of crags and snows, And bright the memory of thy days of pride, In mountain might though Corinth’s fortress rose, On, unresisted, roll’d th’ invading tide! Oh! vain the rock, the rampart, and the tower, If Freedom guard them not with Mind’s unconquer’d power. XL. Where were th’ avengers then, whose viewless might Preserved inviolate their awful fane,[28] When through the steep defiles, to Delphi’s height, In martial splendour pour’d the Persian’s train? Then did those mighty and mysterious Powers, Arm’d with the elements, to vengeance wake, Call the dread storms to darken round their towers, Hurl down the rocks, and bid the thunders break; Till far around, with deep and fearful clang, Sounds of unearthly war through wild Parnassus rang. XLI. Where was the spirit of the victor-throng Whose tombs are glorious by Scamander’s tide, Whose names are bright in everlasting song, The lords of war, the praised, the deified? Where he, the hero of a thousand lays, Who from the dead at Marathon arose[29] All arm’d; and beaming on the Athenians’ gaze, A battle-meteor, guided to their foes? Or they whose forms to Alaric’s awe-struck eye,[30] Hovering o’er Athens, blazed in airy panoply? XLII. Ye slept, O heroes! chief ones of the earth![31] High demigods of ancient days! ye slept: There lived no spark of your ascendant worth When o’er your land the victor Moslem swept. No patriot then the sons of freedom led, In mountain pass devotedly to die; The martyr-spirit of resolve was fled, And the high soul’s unconquer’d buoyancy; And by your graves, and on your battle-plains, Warriors! your children knelt to wear the stranger’s chains. XLIII.