1.

TAMBOURGI! Tambourgi! thy 'larum afar
Gives hope to the valiant, and promise of war;
All the sons of the mountains arise at the note,
Chimariot, Illyrian, and dark Suliote! 2

2.

Oh! who is more brave than a dark Suliote,
In his snowy camese and his shaggy capote ?
To the wolf and the vulture he leaves his wild flock,
And descends to the plain like the stream from the rock.

3.

Shall the sons of Chimari, who never forgive
The fault of a friend, bid an enemy live?
Let those guns so unerring such vengeance forego?
What mark is so fair as the breast of a foe?

4.

Macedonia sends forth her invincible race;
For a time they abandon the cave and the chase:
But those scarfs of blood-red shall be redder, before
The sabre is sheathed and the battle is o'er.

5.

Then the pirates of Parga that dwell by the waves,
And teach the pale Franks what it is to be slaves,
Shall leave on the beach the long galley and oar,
And track to his covert the captive on shore.

6.

I ask not the pleasures that riches supply,
My sabre shall win what the feeble must buy;
Shall win the young bride with her long flowing hair,
And many a maid from her mother shall tear.

7.

I love the fair face of the maid in her youth,
Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall sooth;
Let her bring from the chamber her many-toned lyre,

And sing us a song on the fall of her sire.

8.

Remember the moment when Previsa fell, 1

The shrieks of the conquer'd, the conquerors' yell;
The roofs that we fired, and the plunder we shared,
The wealthy we slaughter'd, the lovely we spared.

9.

I talk not of mercy, I talk not of fear;

He neither must know who would serve the Vizier: Since the days of our prophet the Crescent ne'er saw A chief ever glorious like Ali Pashaw.

10.

Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is sped, [dread; Let the yellow-hair'd2 Giaours view his horsetail 4 with When his Delhis 5 come dashing in blood o'er the banks, How few shall escape from the Muscovite ranks!

11.

Selictar! 6 unsheathe then our chief's scimitar:
Tambourgi! thy 'larum gives promise of war.
Ye mountains, that see us descend to the shore,
Shall view us as victors, or view us no more!

1 It was taken by storm from the French.
2 Yellow is the epithet given to the Russians.
3 Infidel.

4 The insignia of a Pacha.

5 Horsemen, answering to our forlorn hope.

LXXIII.

Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth! 1 Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great! Who now shall lead thy scatter'd children forth, And long accustom'd bondage uncreate ? Not such thy sons who whilome did await, The hopeless warriors of a willing doom, In bleak Thermopylæ's sepulchral strait Oh! who that gallant spirit shall resume, Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb?

LXXIV.

Spirit of freedom! when on Phyle's brow 2
Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train,
Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour which now
Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain?
Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain,
But every carle can lord it o'er thy land;
Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain,

Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand ; From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmann'd.

LXXV.

In all save form alone, how changed! and who
That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye,
Who but would deem their bosoms burn'd anew
With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty!
And many dream withal the hour is nigh
That gives them back their fathers' heritage:
For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh,
Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage,

Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful page.

1 Some Thoughts on the present State of Greece and Turkey will be found in the Appendix, Notes [D] and [E].

2 Phyle, which commands a beautiful view of Athens, has still considerable remains: it was seized by Thrasybulus, previous to the expulsion of the Thirty.

LXXVI.

Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow ?

By their right arms the conquest must be wrought?
Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye? no!
True, they may lay your proud despoilers low,
But not for you will Freedom's altars flame.
Shades of the Helots! triumph o'er your foe !
Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same ;
Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thine years of shame.

LXXVII.

The city won for Allah from the Giaour,
The Giaour from Othman's race again may wrest;
And the Serai's impenetrable tower

Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest; 1
Or Wahab's rebel brood who dared divest
The prophet's tomb of all its pious spoil,
May wind their path of blood along the West;
But ne'er will freedom seek this fated soil,

But slave succeed to slave through years of endless toil.

LXXVIII.

Yet mark their mirth-ere lenten days begin
That penance which their holy rites prepare
To shrive from man his weight of mortal sin,
By daily abstinence and nightly prayer;
But ere his sackcloth garb Repentance wear,
Some days of joyaunce are decreed to all,
To take of pleasaunce each his secret share,
In motley robe to dance at masking ball,
And join the mimic train of merry Carnival.

1 When taken by the Latins, and retained for several years. Mecca and Medina were taken some time ago by the Waha. bees, a sect yearly increasing.

LXXIX.

And whose more rife with merriment than thine, Oh Stamboul!! once the empress of their reign? Though turbans now pollute Sophia's shrine, And Greece her very altars eyes in vain : (Alas! her woes will still pervade my strain!) Gay were her minstrels once, for free her throng, All felt the common joy they now must feign, Nor oft I've seen such sight, nor heard such song, As woo'd the eye, and thrill'd the Bosphorus along. 2

1 [Of Constantinople Lord Byron says, "I have seen the ruins of Athens, of Ephesus, and Delphi; I have traversed great part of Turkey, and many other parts of Europe, and some of Asia; but I never beheld a work of nature or art which yielded an impression like the prospect on each side, from the Seven Towers to the end of the Golden Horn."]

2 [ The view of Constantinople," says Mr. Rose, "which appeared intersected by groves of cypress (for such is the effect of its great burial-grounds planted with these trees), its gilded domes and minarets reflecting the first rays of the sun; the deep blue sea 'in which it glassed itself,' and that sea covered with beautiful boats and barges darting in every direction in perfect silence, amid sea-fowl, who sat at rest upon the waters, altogether conveyed such an impression as I had never received, and probably never shall again receive, from the view of any other place." The following sonnet, by the same author, has been so often quoted, that, but for its exquisite beauty, we should not have ventured to reprint it here:

"A glorious form thy shining city wore,

'Mid cypress thickets of perennial green,
With minaret and golden dome between,
While thy sea softly kiss'd its grassy shore:
Darting across whose blue expanse was seen

Of sculptured barques and galleys many a score;
Whence noise was none save that of plashing oar;
Nor word was spoke, to break the calm serene.
Unheard is whisker'd boatman's hail or joke;

Who, mute as Sinbad's man of copper, rows,
And only intermits the sturdy stroke,
When fearless gull too nigh his pinnace goes.
I, hardly conscious if I dreamed or woke,
Mark'd that strange piece of action and repose."]