Felicia Hemans in The Edinburgh Magazine And Literary Miscellany Volume 11 1822/The Tombs of Platæa
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 11, Pages 674-675
THE TOMBS OF PLATÆA.
From a Painting by Mr Williams.
And there they sleep!—the men who stood
In arms before th' exulting sun,
And bath'd their spears in Persian blood,
And taught the earth how Freedom might be won.
They sleep!–-th' Olympic wreaths are dead:
Th’ Athenian lyres are hush'd and gone;
The Dorian voice of song is fled—
Slumber, ye mighty! slumber deeply on!
They sleep!–-and seems not all around
As hallow'd unto Glory's tomb?
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
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 the laurel-groves;
Thou seest no pastoral hamlet sleep,
In shadowy quiet, midst its lines;
No temple gleaming on the steep,
Through the grey olives, or the mountain pines;
But o'er a dim and boundless waste,
Thy rays, e'en like a tomb-lamp's, brood,
When man's departed steps are traced,
But by his dust, amidst the solitude.
And be it thus!—What slave shall tread
O'er Freedom's ancient battle-plains?
Let desarts 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 flash'd high,
And where the Pæan strains were sung
By those who crown'd the Bowl of Liberty*[1];
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!
Rest in your silent homes, ye brave!
No vines festoon your lonely tree†[2],
No harvests o'er your war-field wave,
Till rushing winds proclaim the land is free!