TYRANNY

WORKING OUT FREEDOM.

(FROM THE VESPERS OF PALERMO.)

Pro. I call upon thee now! The land's high soul Is roused, and moving onward, like a breeze Or a swift sunbeam, kindling nature's hues To deeper life before it. In his chains, The peasant dreams of freedom!— Ay, 't is thus Oppression fans th' imperishable flame

With most unconscious hands. —No praise be hers
For what she blindly works. When slavery's cup
O'erflows its bounds, the creeping poison, meant
To dull our senses, through each burning vein
Pours fever, lending a delirious strength

To burst man's fetters and they shall be burst!

I have hoped, when hope seemed frenzy; but a power
Abides in human will, when bent with strong

Unswerving energy on one great aim,
To make and rule its fortunes! I have been
A wanderer in the fulness of my years,
A restless pilgrim of the earth and seas,
Gathering the generous thoughts of other lands,
To aid our holy cause. And aid is near:
But we must give the signal.
Now, before

The majesty of yon pure heaven, whose eye

Is on our hearts-whose righteous arm befriends
The arm that strikes for freedom-speak! decree
The fate of our oppressors.

THE JOY OF BATTLE.

(FROM THE SAME.)

-Ay, now the soul of battle is abroad,
It burns upon the air! - The joyous winds
Are tossing warrior-plumes, the proud white foam
Of battle's roaring billows!-On my sight
The vision bursts-it maddens! 'tis the flash,
The lightning-shock of lances, and the cloud
Of rushing arrows, and the broad full blaze
Of helmets in the sun! -The very steed
With his majestic rider glorying shares

The hour's stern

joy, and waves his floating mane As a triumphant banner!-Such things are Even now and I am here!

TO THE FOUNTAIN OF BANDUSIA.

(TRANSLATION FROM HORACE.)

OH, worthy fragrant gifts of flowers and wine,
Bandusian fount, than crystal far more bright!
To-morrow shall a sportive kid be thine,

Whose forehead swells with horns of infant might:
Ev'n now of love and war he dreams in vain,
Doomed with his blood thy gelid wave to stain.

Let the red Dog-star burn!—his scorching beam,
Fierce in resplendence shall molest not thee!
Still sheltered from his rage, thy banks, fair stream,
To the wild flock around thee wandering free,
And the tired oxen from the furrowed field;
The genial freshness of their breath shall yield.

And thou, bright Fount! ennobled and renowned,
Shall by thy poet's votive song be made;
Thou and the oak with deathless verdure crowned,
Whose boughs, a pendent canopy, o'ershade
Those hollow rocks, whence, murmuring many a tale,
Thy chiming waters pour upon the vale.

THE SLEEPER OF

MARATHON.

I LAY upon the solemn plain,

And by the funeral mound,

Where those who died not there in vain
Their place of sleep had found.

"T was silent where the free blood gush'd
When Persia came array'd-

So many a voice had there been hush'd,
So many a foot-step stay'd.

I slumber'd on the lonely spot
So sanctified by death:

I slumber'd but my rest was not
As theirs who lay beneath.

For on my dreams, that shadowy hour,

They rose the chainless dead

All arm'd they sprang, in joy, in power,
Up from their grassy bed.

I saw their spears, on that red field,

Flash as in time gone by

Chased to the seas without his shield,

I saw the Persian fly.

THE SPARTANS' MARCH.

"The Spartans used not the trumpet in their march into battle," says Thucydides," because they wished not to excite the rage of their warriors. Their charging-step was made to the Dorian mood of flutes and soft recorders.' The valour of a Spartan was too highly tempered to require a stunning or a rousing impulse. His spirit was like a steed too proud for the spur."-CAMPBELL on the Elegiac Poetry of the Greeks.

'Twas morn upon the Grecian hills,
Where peasants dress'd the vines;
Sunlight was on Citharon's rills,

Arcadia's rocks and pines.

And brightly, through his reeds and flowers,
Eurotas wander'd by,

When a sound arose from Sparta's towers
Of solemn harmony.

Was it the hunters' choral strain
To the woodland-goddess pour'd?
Did virgin hands in Pallas' fane
Strike the full sounding chord?

But helms were glancing on the stream,
Spears ranged in close array,
And shields flung back a glorious beam
To the morn of a fearful day!

And the mountain-echoes of the land
Swell'd through the deep-blue sky;
While to soft strains moved forth a band
Of men that moved to die.

They march'd not with the trumpet's blast,
Nor bade the horn peal out,

And the laurel groves, as on they pass'd,
Rung with no battle shout!

They ask'd no clarion's voice to fire
Their souls with an impulse high;
But the Dorian reed and the Spartan lyre
For the sons of liberty!

And still sweet flutes, their path around
Sent forth Æolian breath;

They needed not a sterner sound
To marshal them for death!

So moved they calmly to their field,
Thence never to return,

Save bearing back the Spartan shield,
Or on it proudly borne!

THE URN AND THE SWORD.

THEY sought for treasures in the tomb,
Where gentler hands were wont to spread
Fresh boughs and flowers of purple bloom,
And sunny ringlets, for the dead.

They scatter'd far the greensward heap,
Where once those hands the bright wine pour'd;

What found they in the home of sleep?

A mouldering urn, a shiver'd sword!

An urn, which held the dust of one
Who died when hearts and shrines were free;
A sword, whose work was proudly done
Between our mountains and the sea.

And these are treasures! - undismay'd,
Still for the suffering land we trust,
Wherein the past its fame hath laid,
With freedom's sword, and valour's dust.