And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye And, if in flattering strains I do not predat? 5 With all the Lakers, in and out of place? A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye Like "four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye; icate, 'Tis that I still retain my "buff and blue"; My politics as yet are all to educate: To keep one creed's a task grown quite Is it not so, my Tory, Ultra-Julian? From CANTO III THE ISLES OF GREECE The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece! 135 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. In vain-in vain: strike other chords: Fill high the cup with Samian wine! Leave battles to the Turkish hordes, And shed the blood of Scio's vine! Hark! rising to the ignoble callHow answers each bold Bacchanal! You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet: Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons, why forget The nobler and the manlier one? You have the letters Cadmus gaveThink ye he meant them for a slave? 730 735 740 745 That tyrant was Miltiades! And feeling, in a poet, is the source Of others' feeling; but they are such liars, And take all colors, like the hands of dyers. But words are things, and a small drop of ink Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think; 795 'Tis strange, the shortest letter which man uses Oh! that the present hour would lend Instead of speech, may form a lasting link Another despot of the kind! Such chains as his were sure to bind. 760 Of ages; to what straits old Time re duces |