From “Don Juan,” Canto III.
THE ISLES of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phœbus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet;
But all, except their sun, is set.
The Scian and the Teian muse,
The hero’s harp, the lover’s lute,
Have...
When Love with unconfinèd wings
Hovers within my gates,
And by divine Althea brings
To whisper at my grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair
And fettered with her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.
When flowing cups pass swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads...
From “The Timepiece”: “The Task,” Book II.
O FOR a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more! My ear is pained,
My soul is sick, with every day’s report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.
...
[After the English Revolution of 1688, all bishops were compelled to swear allegiance to William and Mary. Seven of them, adherents of James II., refused and were imprisoned for treason,—the “Non-Jurors.” Trelawney of Cornwall was one.]
A GOOD sword and a trusty hand,
A merry heart and true,
King James’s men shall understand
What Cornish lads can do....
The Harp that once through Tara’s halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls
As if that soul were fled.
So sleeps the pride of former days,
So glory’s thrill is o’er,
And hearts that once beat high for praise
Now feel that pulse no more!
No more to chiefs and ladies bright
The harp of Tara...
As by the shore, at break of day,
A vanquished chief expiring lay,
Upon the sands, with broken sword,
He traced his farewell to the free;
And there the last unfinished word
He dying wrote, was “Liberty!”
At night a sea-bird shrieked the knell
Of him who thus for freedom fell:
The words he wrote, ere evening came,
...
When freedom from her home was driven,
’Mid vine-clad vales of Switzerland,
She sought the glorious Alps of heaven,
And there, ’mid cliffs by lightnings riven,
Gathered her hero-band.
And still outrings her freedom-song,
Amid the glaciers sparkling there,
At Sabbath bell, as peasants throng
Their mountain fastnesses along...
From “William Tell”
ONCE Switzerland was free! With what a pride
I used to walk these hills,—look up to heaven,
And bless God that it was so! It was free
From end to end, from cliff to lake ’t was free!
Free as our torrents are, that leap our rocks,
And plough our valleys, without asking leave;
Or as our peaks, that wear their caps of...
[Battle of Sempach, fourteenth century]
“MAKE way for Liberty!”—he cried;
Made way for Liberty, and died!
In arms the Austrian phalanx stood,
A living wall, a human wood!
A wall, where every conscious stone
Seemed to its kindred thousands grown;
A rampart all assaults to bear,
Till time to dust their frames should wear;...
From “The Pleasures of Hope,” Part I.
O SACRED Truth! thy triumph ceased awhile,
And Hope, thy sister, ceased with thee to smile,
When leagued Oppression poured to Northern wars
Her whiskered pandours and her fierce hussars,
Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn,
Pealed her loud drum, and twanged her trumpet horn;
Tumultuous...
