Page:Hellas, a Lyrical Drama - Shelley (1822).djvu/54

Chorus.
O Slavery! thou frost of the world's prime,
Killing its flowers and leaving its thorns bare!
Thy touch has stamped these limbs with crime,
These brows thy branding garland bear,
But the free heart, the impassive soul
Scorn thy control!

Semichorus 1st.
Let there be light! said Liberty,
And like sunrise from the sea,
Athens arose!—Around her born,
Shone like mountains in the morn
Glorious states;—and are they now
Ashes, wrecks, oblivion?

Semichorus 2d.
Go,
Where Thermæ and Asopus swallow'd
Persia, as the sand does foam.
Deluge upon deluge follow'd,
Discord, Macedon, and Rome:
And lastly thou!

Semichorus 1st.
Temples and towers,
Citadels and marts, and they
Who live and die there, have been ours,
And may be thine, and must decay;