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[1821]
AGAIN to the battle, Achaians! | |
| Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance; | |
| Our land,—the first garden of Liberty’s-tree,— | |
| Has been, and shall yet be, the land of the free; | |
| For the cross of our faith is replanted, | 5 |
| The pale dying crescent is daunted, | |
| And we march that the footprints of Mahomet’s slaves | |
| May be washed out in blood from our forefathers’ graves. | |
| Their spirits are hovering o’er us, | |
| And the sword shall to glory restore us. | 10 |
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| Ah! what though no succor advances, | |
| Nor Christendom’s chivalrous lances | |
| Are stretched in our aid?—Be the combat our own! | |
| And we ’ll perish or conquer more proudly alone; | |
| For we ’ve sworn by our country’s assaulters, | 15 |
| By the virgins they ’ve dragged from our altars, | |
| By our massacred patriots, our children in chains, | |
| By our heroes of old, and their blood in our veins, | |
| That, living, we will be victorious, | |
| Or that, dying, our deaths shall be glorious. | 20 |
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| A breath of submission we breathe not: | |
| The sword that we ’ve drawn we will sheathe not: | |
| Its scabbard is left where our martyrs are laid, | |
| And the vengeance of ages has whetted its blade. | |
| Earth may hide, waves engulf, fire consume us; | 25 |
| But they shall not to slavery doom us: | |
| If they rule, it shall be o’er our ashes and graves:— | |
| But we ’ve smote them already with fire on the waves, | |
| And new triumphs on land are before us;— | |
| To the charge!—Heaven’s banner is o’er us. | 30 |
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| This day—shall ye blush for its story; | |
| Or brighten your lives with its glory?— | |
| Our women—oh, say, shall they shriek in despair, | |
| Or embrace us from conquest, with wreaths in their hair? | |
| Accursed may his memory blacken, | 35 |
| If a coward there be that would slacken | |
| Till we ’ve trampled the turban, and shown ourselves worth | |
| Being sprung from and named for, the godlike of earth. | |
| Strike home!—and the world shall revere us | |
| As heroes descended from heroes. | 40 |
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| Old Greece lightens up with emotion! | |
| Her inlands, her isles of the ocean, | |
| Fanes rebuilt, and fair towns, shall with jubilee ring, | |
| And the Nine shall new hallow their Helicon’s spring. | |
| Our hearts shall be kindled in gladness, | 45 |
| That were cold, and extinguished in sadness; | |
| Whilst our maidens shall dance with their white waving arms, | |
| Singing joy to the brave that delivered their charms,— | |
| When the blood of yon Mussulman cravens | |
| Shall have crimsoned the beaks of our ravens! | 50 |
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