I harken unto deathless voices rolled
From the great deep, and silent lyres of old;
And with the sound thereof my lips grow bold.
Man's is another world
Wherein the spirit flies;
Truth at his heart impearled,
A thousand deaths he dies.
O wake again, Tyrtæan lyre
That flung the world's first tyrants low!
Heap up thy urn with holy fire
That now doth in all peoples glow!
Once more the dreadful trumpet sound
Of freedom, Macedonian mound!
Thou, gray Thermopylæ, arise!
Who lifted first on human eyes
Victorious shields of sacrifice,—
And old Simonides thy glory crowned,
Leading the poets' bright, immortal choir.
Still rolls aloft the heroic hymn
Of men, when light and life grow dim.
O sacred bands, dear to the lyre's blest breath
That, ever resonant with noble death,
Sweeps eagle-borne round glory's cloudy wreath,
A thousand dawns we sang you to the fight,
