The tyrant of the Chersonese

Was freedom's best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades!

Oh! that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind!

Such chains as his were sure to bind.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore,
Exists the remnant of a line

Such as the Doric mothers bore;
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,
The Heracleidan blood might own.

Trust not for freedom to the FranksThey have a king who buys and sells; In native swords, and native ranks,

The only hope of courage dwells; But Turkish force, and Latin fraud, Would break your shield, however broad.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
Our virgins dance beneath the shade-

I see their glorious black eyes shine;
But gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves.

Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,

Where nothing, save the waves and I, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There, swan-like, let me sing and die: A land of slaves shall ne'er be mineDash down yon cup of Samian wine!

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

1792-1822

HELLAS

THE world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,

The earth doth like a snake renew

Her winter weeds outworn:

Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam. Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains

From waves serener far;

A new Peneus rolls his fountains

Against the morning star.

Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.

A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,

And loves, and weeps, and dies.
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore.

O write no more the tale of Troy,
If earth Death's scroll must be!
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy
Which dawns upon the free:
Although a subtler Sphinx renew
Riddles of death Thebes never knew.

Another Athens shall arise,

And to remoter time

Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,

The splendour of its prime;

And leave, if nought so bright may live,
All earth can take or Heaven can give.

O cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men kill and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy.

The world is weary of the past,
O might it die or rest at last!

WILD WITH WEEPING

My head is wild with weeping for a grief
Which is the shadow of a gentle mind.
I walk into the air (but no relief

To seek,-or haply, if I sought, to find;
It came unsought); to wonder that a chief
Among men's spirits should be cold and blind.

TO THE NIGHT

SWIFTLY walk over the western wave,
Spirit of Night!

Out of the misty eastern cave

Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear
Which make thee terrible and dear,-
Swift be thy flight!

Wrap thy form in a mantle grey
Star-inwrought;

Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day,
Kiss her until she be wearied out:

Then wander o'er city and sea and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand—
Come, long-sought!

When I arose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee;

When light rode high, and the dew was gone
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree
And the weary Day turned to his rest
Lingering like an unloved guest,
I sighed for thee.

Thy brother Death came, and cried
Wouldst thou me?

Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmured like a noon-tide bee,
Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me?—And I replied
No, not thee!

Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon-

Sleep will come when thou art fled;
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night—
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon, soon!

TO A SKYLARK

HAIL to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert!
That from heaven, or near it,

Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire,

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun

O'er which clouds are brightening,

Thou dost float and run

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight:

Like a star of heaven

In the broad daylight

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight;

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,

Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.