Page:Hemans in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine 11 1822.pdf/11

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!

1. * The Bowl of Liberty, an allusion to the ceremonies with which the anniversary of the Battle of Platæa was anciently celebrated.
2. † A single tree appears in Mr Williams' impressive picture.