[ 17 ]
Let him with joy behold the hills around
With olive forests, and with vineyards crown'd,
All grateful pouring on the hands that rear
Their fruit, the fruitage of the bounteous year.
Then let his mind to fair Ionia turn,—
Alas! how waste Ionia's landscapes mourn;
And thine, O beauteous Greece, amid the towers
Where dreadful still the Turkish banner lowers;
Beneath whose gloom, unconscious of the stain
That dims his soul, the peasant hugs his chain.
And whence these woes debasing human kind?
Eunuchs in heart, in polish'd sloth reclin'd,
Thy sons, degenerate Greece, ignobly bled,
And fair Byzantium bow'd th' imperial head;
While Tago's iron race, in dangers steel'd,
All ardour, dared the horrors of the field.
The towers of Venice trembled o'er her flood,
And Paris' gates aghast and open stood;
