| |
| AND there they sleep!—the men who stood | |
| In arms before the exulting sun, | |
| And bathed their spears in Persian blood, | |
| And taught the earth how freedom might be won. | |
| |
| They sleep!—the Olympic wreaths are dead, | 5 |
| The Athenian lyres are hushed and gone; | |
| The Dorian voice of song is fled,— | |
| Slumber, ye mighty! slumber deeply on! | |
| |
| They sleep, and seems not all around | |
| As hallowed unto glory’s tomb? | 10 |
| Silence is on the battle-ground, | |
| The heavens are loaded with a breathless gloom. | |
| |
| And stars are watching on their height, | |
| But dimly seen through mist and cloud, | |
| And still and solemn is the light | 15 |
| Which folds the plain, as with a glimmering shroud. | |
| |
| And thou, pale night-queen! here thy beams | |
| Are not as those the shepherd loves, | |
| Nor look they down on shining streams, | |
| By Naiads haunted, in their laurel groves: | 20 |
| |
| Thou seest no pastoral hamlet sleep, | |
| In shadowy quiet, midst its vines; | |
| No temple gleaming from the steep, | |
| Midst the gray olives or the mountain-pines: | |
| |
| But o’er a dim and boundless waste | 25 |
| Thy rays, e’en like a tomb-lamp’s, brood, | |
| Where man’s departed steps are traced | |
| But by his dust, amid the solitude. | |
| |
| And be it thus! What slave shall tread | |
| O’er freedom’s ancient battle-plains? | 30 |
| Let deserts wrap the glorious dead, | |
| When their bright land sits weeping o’er her chains: | |
| |
| Here, where the Persian clarion rung, | |
| And where the Spartan sword flashed high, | |
| And where the Pæan strains were sung, | 35 |
| From year to year swelled on by liberty! | |
| |
| Here should no voice, no sound, be heard, | |
| Until the bonds of Greece be riven, | |
| Save of the leader’s charging word, | |
| Or the shrill trumpet, pealing up through heaven! | 40 |
| |
| Rest in your silent homes, ye brave! | |
| No vines festoon your lonely tree! | |
| No harvest o’er your war-fields wave, | |
| Till rushing winds proclaim,—the land is free! | |
| |
