| |
| BY Sunium’s rock I took my way | |
| Along the blue Ægean sea, | |
| That bright in golden sunset lay | |
| Round the fair islands of the free: | |
| A form of more than mortal mould | 5 |
| On the high rock sublimely rose; | |
| The bosses of her buckler rolled | |
| Like eyes of lightning on her foes: | |
| I looked,—the blue-eyed goddess there | |
| Stood glorious in the evening air. | 10 |
| |
| She stood and raised her brazen lance, | |
| That glittered like a meteor’s beam; | |
| Its light below in quivering dance | |
| Flashed gayly on the ocean stream: | |
| Round her tall casque her plumy crest | 15 |
| Shook with a terrible sign of power, | |
| And the grim Ægis on her breast | |
| Told to the Turk his destined hour; | |
| She spake,—and like the rush of flame | |
| Her voice in awful murmurs came. | 20 |
| |
| “Sons, worthy of your warrior sires! | |
| Yours is the cause of earth and heaven. | |
| Shame to the heart that faints or tires, | |
| Till the last sacrifice is given! | |
| Go fearlessly along your path,— | 25 |
| It mounts to liberty and fame; | |
| Go, with an unrelenting wrath, | |
| And conquer till the Turk is tame; | |
| When the red fires of battle glare, | |
| Remember,—I am with ye there. | 30 |
| |
| “These rocks that rise so rudely round | |
| Were consecrate to me of old; | |
| Here the Athenian sternly bound, | |
| For rapid fight, his mantle’s fold: | |
| He saw the Persian tents below; | 35 |
| They filled and blackened all the plain; | |
| He rushed,—and like a torrent’s flow, | |
| Swept them, and hurled them to the main: | |
| This was the wrath that made him free, | |
| The fearless wrath of liberty. | 40 |
| |
| “What if a cold and coward world | |
| Leave ye to work your way alone, | |
| Be the new banner never furled | |
| Till liberty is all our own. | |
| Tell them we ask no other aid | 45 |
| Than our own hearts in such a cause; | |
| No, none but Freemen’s hands were made | |
| To fight and win for equal laws. | |
| Go, with a firm, confiding breast,— | |
| Go, fight, and win the conqueror’s rest.” | 50 |
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