In the day, in the night, In the burning day, in the dolorous night, Her sun-browned cheeks are stained with weeping. Her watch-fires beacon the misty height:— Why are her friends and lovers sleeping? “Ye, at whose ear the flatterer bends, Who were my kindred before all others,— Hath he set your hearts afar, my friends? Hath he made ye alien, my brothers, Day and night?” Hear ye not? Hear ye not From the hollow sea the sound of her voice; The passionate, far-off tone, which sayeth: “Alas, my brothers! alas, what choice,— The lust that shameth, the sword that slayeth? They bind me! they rend my delicate locks; They shred the beautiful robes I won me! My round limbs bleed on the mountain rocks: Save me, ere they have quite undone me!” Hear ye not? Speak at last! Speak at last! In the might of your strength, in the strength of your right, Speak out at last to the treacherous spoiler! Say: “Will ye harry her in our sight? Ye shall not trample her down, nor soil her! Loose her bonds! let her rise in her loveliness,— Our virginal sister; or, if ye shame her, Dark Amnon shall rue for her sore distress, And her sure revenge shall be that of Tamar!” Speak at last! 1870. CRETE. Though Arkádi’s shattered pile Hides her dead without a dirge, Lo! where still the mountain isle Fronts the angry Moslem surges! Hers, in old, heroic days, Her unfettered heights afar ’Twixt the Grecian Gulf to raise, And the torrid Libyan star. From her bulwarks to the North Stretched the glad Ægæan Sea, Sending bards and warriors forth To the triumphs of the free; Ill the fierce invader throve, When, from island or from main, Side by side the Grecians strove: Swift he sought his lair again! Though the Cretan eagle fell, And the ancient heights were won, Freedom’s light was guarded well,— Handed down from sire to son; Through the centuries of shame, Ah! it never wholly died, But was hid, a sacred flame, There on topmost Ida’s side. Shades of heroes Homer sung— Wearing once her hundred crowns— Rise with shadowy swords among Candia’s smoking fields and towns; Not again their souls shall sleep, Nor the crescent wane in peace, Till from every island-keep Shines the starry Cross of Greece. THE OLD ADMIRAL. Gone at last, That brave old hero of the Past! His spirit has a second birth, An unknown, grander life;— All of him that was earth Lies mute and cold, Like a wrinkled sheath and old Thrown off forever from the shimmering blade That has good entrance made Upon some distant, glorious strife.