And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, 1615 Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth: - there let him lay. 1620 CLXXXI. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 1625 Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war- CLXXXII. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee— 1630 And many a tyrant since; their shores obey 1635 CLXXXIII. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,— 1640 Calm or convulsed, in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving-boundless, endless, and sublime, Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 1645 CLXXXIV. And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy 1650 1655 And laid my hand upon thy mane—as I do here. CLXXXV. My task is done, my song hath ceased, my theme The spell should break of this protracted dream. Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low. CLXXXVI. Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been— 1660 1665 Ye! who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene A thought which once was his, if on ye swell 1670 He wore his sandal shoon and scallop shell; Farewell! with him alone may rest the pain, If such there were-with you, the moral of his strain. SONG OF THE GREEK BARD. FROM THE THIRD CANTO OF "DON JUAN." I. THE isles of Greece, the isles of Greece! But all, except their sun, is set. 5 2. The Scian and the Teian 4 muse, Their place of birth alone is mute 10 1 A Greek poetess who was in the zenith of her fame about B.C. 600. "The glory of Lesbos (Mitylene) was that Sappho was its citizen, and its chief fame centers in the fact of her celebrity." The poet Swinburne calls Sappho "Love's priestess, mad with pain and joy of song, Song's priestess, mad with joy and pain of love." 2 An island fabled to have been raised from the sea by Neptune for Latona, mother of the twin children Apollo (Phoebus) and Diana, born on Delos. 3 Homer, born at Scio. 4 Anacreon, born on the isle of Teos. 3 4. A king sate on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis ;4 And ships, by thousands, lay below, And men in nations; —all were his! 5. 20 And where are they? and where art thou, 25 My country? On thy voiceless shore The heroic lay is tuneless now— The heroic bosom beats no more! 30 1 “The vñooɩ μakáρwv of the Greek poets were supposed to have been the Cape Verde Islands or the Canaries " (BYRON). 2 In Attica, -the scene of one of the world's decisive battles. Here, in B.C. 490, 11,000 Greeks under Miltiades defeated 100,000 Persians. On this and the other historic events mentioned in the poem, consult some good Greek history. 3 Xerxes, king of the Persians. 4 An island of ancient Greece, opposite Athens, -the scene of the famous victory over the Persians by the Greek fleet under Themistocles, B. C. 480. |