Lyrical and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

The song of Freedom floats again,
Around these holy walls;
And swifter than the comet's train,
Its sacred influence falls.
The wild grass o'er each Patriot's grave,
Luxuriant blooms;—no common earth!
The glorious dews that bid it wave,
Should teem anew a hero's birth.
Their sons, the sons of Fame and Greece,
Thro' by the humbler arts of Peace,
And follow him, who calls:
Peace! tis the reign of rest—but here.
What rest awaits us, but—despair!
The base, low crouching of the slave,
Who would not, if he could, be brave,
Whom every breath appals.

Throw by the Harp—'tis mockery now,
Ye Patriot Bards! no longer sweep
The strings that in accordance flow,
And tell of wrongs ye only weep,
When every heart, and arm should spring,
Nor thus to feet that spurn them, cling:
Our fathers fought, our fathers bled,
For rights, our fathers could sustain,
And shall it then to Greeks be said,
Your fathers fought in vain?

Your knees they were not made to creep!
Around ye look—this shore once thine,
This calm blue sky—these bluer waves;
Think ye that they were made to shine
Above, around a land of slaves?
Rise! deal the liberating blow,
At once to slavery, and the foe;
Each moment spent in peace, is shame
To all who bear the Grecian name,
'Midst wrongs so foul and deep.

These sacred ruins that uprear
Their turrets thro' the storms of Time,
Were ne'er 'till now, thus doomed to bear
The cry of pain, the curse of crime!
Here, with the remnant of his host,
The haughty Persian turn'd and fled;
Oh! worse than he—for Xerxes lost
Not Glory—ye have lost your dead!
The sacred few, who freely gave,
Their blood, their lives—Oh! would that now,
We could recal them from the grave,
To teach their children to be brave,
And perish if they could not save,
Beneath their Tyrant's blow!
These graves! ye recreants, can there be,
A greater trophy for the free,
Than mingled blood of every clime?
A glorious gift to sacred right,

To freedom, life, to slaves a blight;
A proud and glorious trace to mark,
The fall of Tyrants deep and dark,
A Tumuli sublime!
Oh, bid the flame again arise,
That warm'd that consecrated band,
Who shed their blood 'neath freedom's skies,
To—more than hallow freedom's land.