[The lines of Lord Byron are printed, on account of the similarity of

some passages in the Greek.]

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.

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 Bless'd.'

THE ISLES OF GREECE.

[This Ode obtained the Gold Medal in the University of Cambridge.

A few alterations have been made in it since.]

The Mountains look on Marathon-

And Marathon looks on the sea;

And musing there an hour alone,

I dream'd that Greece might still be free;

For standing on the Persians' grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.

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?

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

And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?

'Tis something, in the dearth of fame,

Though link'd among a fetter'd 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.

Must we but weep o'er days more bless'd ?

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!

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!”

'Tis but the living who are dumb.