Lays and Legends of Ancient Greece, with Other Poems ::

Pentelicus overhangs the south side of the plain of Marathon, separating it from the great Attic plain. Those who have seen the beautiful Bay of Brodick, in the Island of Arran, have seen Marathon on a small scale, except that Goat Fell, which represents Pentelicus, is on the north. On the south, or Athenian side, this famous mountain is sufficiently bare, but towards Marathon it is richly wooded; and the direct road from the village of Vrana to the valley of the Cephissus, over the north-west shoulder of the mountain, is one of the wildest and most picturesque passes in Greece.

A voice of warning came,
That shook the silent autumn night
With fear to Media's name.
Pan from his Marathonian cave

Pan played a somewhat prominent part in the great Persian war.—(Herodotus, vi. 105.) He had a famous cave near Marathon (Pausan., i. 32), which archæologists have idly endeavoured to identify.

Sent screams of midnight terror,
And darkling horror curled the wave
On the broad sea's moonlit mirror.
Woe, Persia, woe! thou liest low, low!
Let the golden palaces groan!
Ye mothers weep for sons that shall sleep
In gore on Marathon!

128

II

Where Indus and Hydaspes roll,
Where treeless deserts glow,
Where Scythians roam beneath the pole,
O'er fields of hardened snow,
The great Darius rules; and now,
Thou little Greece, to thee
He comes; thou thin-soiled Athens, how
Shalt thou dare to be free?
There is a God that wields the rod
Above: by Him alone
The Greek shall be free, when the Mede shall flee,
In shame from Marathon.

III

He comes; and o'er the bright Ægean,
Where his masted army came,
The subject isles uplift the pæan
Of glory to his name.
Strong Naxos, strong Eretria yield;
His captains near the shore

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Of Marathon's fair and fateful field,
Where a tyrant marched before.

Darius was led by Hippias, who was familiar with this approach to Attica, having come this way with his father Pisistratus, when that tyrant established himself in the sovereignty of Attica for the last time.

And a traitor guide, the sea beside,
Now marks the land for his own,
Where the marshes red shall soon be the bed
Of the Mede in Marathon.

IV

Who shall number the host of the Mede?
Their high-tiered galleys ride,
Like locust-bands with darkening speed,
Across the groaning tide.
Who shall tell the many-hoofed tramp,
That shakes the dusty plain?
Where the pride of his horse is the strength of his camp,
Shall the Mede forget to gain?
O fair is the pride of those turms as they ride,
To the eye of the morning shown!
But a god in the sky hath doomed them to lie
In dust, on Marathon.

V

Dauntless beside the sounding sea
The Athenian men reveal

130

Their steady strength. That they are free
They know; and inly feel
Their high election, on that day,
In foremost fight to stand,
And dash the enslaving yoke away,
From all the Grecian land.
Their praise shall sound the world around,
Who shook the Persian throne,
When the shout of the free travelled over the sea,
From famous Marathon.

VI

From dark Cithæron's sacred slope,
The small Platæan band
Bring hearts, that swell with patriot hope,
To wield a common brand
With Theseus' sons, at danger's gates;
While spell-bound Sparta stands,
And for the pale moon's changes waits
With stiff and stolid hands;
And hath no share in the glory rare,
That Athens shall make her own,

131

When the long-haired Mede with fearful speed
Falls back from Marathon.

VII

“On, sons of the Greeks!” the war-cry rolls,
“The land that gave you birth,
Your wives, and all the dearest souls
That circle round each hearth;
The shrines upon a thousand hills,
The memory of your sires,
Nerve now with brass your resolute wills,
And fan your valorous fires!”
And on like a wave came the rush of the brave—
“Ye sons of the Greeks, on, on!”
And the Mede stept back from the eager attack
Of the Greek, in Marathon.

VIII

Hear'st thou the rattling of spears on the right?
See'st thou the gleam in the sky?
The gods come to aid the Greeks in the fight,
And the favouring heroes are nigh.

132

The lion's hide I see in the sky,
And the knotted club so fell,
And kingly Theseus' conquering eye,
And Macaria, nymph of the well.

Hercules was the patron-saint, to use modern language, of Marathon; and, where the Athenians conquered, Theseus could not be absent. These two heroes, therefore, were represented in the picture of the battle of Marathon in the painted Stoa (Pausan., i, 15; Plutarch—Theseus, 35.) The fountain of Macaria, the daughter of Hercules and Deianeira, is mentioned by Pausanias (i. c. 32) as being on the field of Marathon; and sure enough there is a well on the road from Marathon to Rhamnus, near the north end of the plain, which Mr Finlay is willing to baptise with the name of the old classical nymph.

Purely, purely the fount did flow,
When the morn's first radiance shone;
But eve shall know the crimson flow
Of its wave, by Marathon.

IX

On, son of Cimon, bravely on!
And Aristides just!
Your names have made the field your own,
Your foes are in the dust!
The Lydian satrap spurs his steed,
The Persian's bow is broken;
His purple pales; the vanquished Mede
Beholds the angry token
Of thundering Jove who rules above;
And the bubbling marshes moan

There are two extensive marshes, mostly overgrown with great reeds, one at each end of the field. The Persians, of course, were driven back into the marsh at the north end. This was represented in the painting on the Stoa.

With the trampled dead that have found their bed
In gore, at Marathon.

133

X

The ships have sailed from Marathon,
On swift disaster's wings;
And an evil dream hath fetched a groan,
From the heart of the king of kings.
An eagle he saw, in the shades of night,
With a dove that bloodily strove;
And the weak hath vanquished the strong in fight.
The eagle hath fled from the dove.

The idea here is taken from Atossa's dream, in the Persians of Æschylus, v. 176, mentioned in the previous ballad.

Great Jove, that reigns in the starry plains,
To the heart of the king hath shown,
That the boastful parade of his pride was laid
In dust at Marathon.

XI

But through Pentelicus' winding vales
The hymn triumphal runs,
And high-shrined Athens proudly hails
Her free-returning sons.
And Pallas, from her ancient rock,
With her shield's refulgent round,

134

Blazes; her frequent worshippers flock,
And high the pæans sound,
How in deathless glory the famous story
Shall on the winds be blown,
That the long-haired Mede was driven with speed
By the Greeks, from Marathon.

XII

And Greece shall be a hallowed name,
While the sun shall climb the pole,
And Marathon fan strong freedom's flame
In many a pilgrim soul.
And o'er that mound where heroes sleep,

The famous mound in the middle of the battle-field, mentioned by Pausanias, and described by all modern travellers.

By the waste and reedy shore,
Full many a patriot eye shall weep,
Till Time shall be no more.
And the bard shall brim with a holier hymn,
When he stands by that mound alone,
And feel no shrine on earth more divine
Than the dust of Marathon.

University of Virginia Library

MARATHON.

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