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 their laurel groves:
Thou seest no pastoral hamlet sleep,
In shadowy quiet, midst its vines;
No temple gleaming from the steep,
Midst 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,
Where 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 deserts 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,
From year to year swell'd on by liberty!
