VII. Well didst thou speak, Athena's wisest son! There no forced banquet claims the sated guest, VIII. Yet if, as holiest men have deemed, there be A land of souls beyond that sable shore, With those who made our mortal labors light! Behold each mighty shade revealed to sight, The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who taught the right! IX. There, thou!-whose love and life together fled, Have left me here to love and live in vain Twined with my heart, and can I deem thee dead, When busy Memory flashes on my brain? Well I will dream that we may meet again, And woo the vision to my vacant breast: If aught of young Remembrance then remain, For me 't were bliss enough to know thy spirit blest! X. Here let me sit upon this massy stone, XI. But who, of all the plunderers of yon fane On high, where Pallas lingered, loth to flee The latest relic of her ancient reign; The last, the worst, dull spoiler, who was he? Thy free-born men should spare what once was free; XII. But most the modern Pict's ignoble boast, To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath spared: Cold as the crags upon his native coast, His mind as barren and his heart as hard, Is he whose head conceived, whose hand prepared, Aught to displace Athena's poor remains: Her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard, Yet felt some portion of their mother's pains, And never knew, till then, the weight of Despot's chains. What! shall it e'er be said by British tongue, Though in thy name the slaves her bosom wrung, The ocean queen, the free Britannia bears The last poor plunder from a bleeding land: Yes, she whose generous aid her name endears, Tore down those remnants with a harpy's hand, Which envious Eld forbore, and tyrants left to stand. XIV. Where was thine Egis, Pallas! that appalled Stern Alaric and Havoc on their way ? Where Peleus' son? whom Hell in vain enthralled, His shade from Hades upon that dread day, What! could not Pluto spare the chief once more, To scare a second robber from his prey? Idly he wandered on the Stygian shore, Nor now preserved the walls he loved to shield before. XV. Cold is the heart, fair Greece! that looks on thee, Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed By British hands, which it had best behoved To guard those relics ne'er to be restored. Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved, And once again thy hapless bosom gored, And snatched thy shrinking Gods to northern climes abhorred ! XVI. But where is Harold? shall I then forget To urge the gloomy wanderer o'er the wave? No loved-one now in feigned lament could rave; No friend the parting hand extended gave, Ere the cold stranger passed to other climes : And left without a sigh the land of war and crimes. XVII. He that has sailed upon the dark blue sea, The white sail set, the gallant frigate tight; The convoy spread like wild swans in their flight, So gaily curl the waves before each dashing prow. XVIII. And oh, the little warlike world within! The well-reeved guns, the netted canopy, XIX. White is the glassy deck, without a stain, Conquest and Fame: but Britons rarely swerve From Law, however stern, which tends their strength to nerve. XX. Blow! swiftly blow, thou keel-compelling gale! Then must the pennant-bearer slacken sail, |