Thus, usually, when _he_ was asked to sing, He gave the different nations something national; 'T was all the same to him--"God save the King," Or "Ça ira," according to the fashion all: His Muse made increment of anything, From the high lyric down to the low rational;[cx][194] If Pindar sang horse-races, what should hinder Himself from being as pliable as Pindar? LXXXVI. In France, for instance, he would write a chanson; In England a six canto quarto tale; In Spain he'd make a ballad or romance on The last war--much the same in Portugal; In Germany, the Pegasus he'd prance on Would be old Goethe's--(see what says De Staël);[195] In Italy he'd ape the "Trecentisti;" In Greece, he'd sing some sort of hymn like this t' ye:[196] 1. 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. 2. The Scian and the Teian 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."[197] 3. The mountains look on Marathon--[cy] 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. 4.[198] A King sate 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? 5. 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![cz] And must thy Lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine? 6. 'T is 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. 7. Must _we_ but weep o'er days more blest? Must _we_ but blush?--Our fathers bled. Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, To make a new Thermopylæ! 8. What, silent still? and silent all? Ah! no;--the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent's fall, And answer, "Let one living head, But one arise,--we come, we come!" 'T is but the living who are dumb. 9.