Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore,

75 Exists the remnant of a line

80

Such as the Doric mothers bore;
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,
The Heracleidan blood might own.

Trust not for freedom to the Franks -
They have a king who buys and sells ;
In native swords, and native ranks,
The only hope of courage dwells :
But Turkish force, and Latin fraud,
Would break your shield, however broad.

85 Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
Our virgins dance beneath the shade
I see their glorious black eyes shine;
But gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves.

90

Place me on Sunium's marble steep,

Where nothing, save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
95 A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine-
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!

(7-12) Scian. Cf. "The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle." The Bride of Abydos. Teian. Vide (63) "Islands of the Blest." Cape de Verde, or the Canaries. (13-42) Marathon, Salamis, and Thermopylæ. Consult a history of Greece, from 490-480 B.C. (55-60) “Pyrrhic dance"; "Pyrrhic phalanx." Consult history of Greece and history of Rome for the years 281-275 B.C. (61-66) Polycrates, tyrant of Samos. (67-72) What stanza is recalled by the mention of Miltiades? (73-78) Suli; Parga;

in Epirus. (79-84) "a king." Louis XVIII. "Turkish force." This lyric should appeal to young people because of the late war between Greece and Turkey. It strongly recalls the year 1824, when, for the sake of liberty, Byron at Missolonghi said, “Give me now a little sleep," crowning a bad life with a fair death. (85-96) Sunium. The Greek sailors rounding this point could see the helmet of Pallas Athené sparkling in the sunlight miles away on the Acropolis. Thus they realised the glory of a nation which had chiseled the Parthenon.

"Alone, and friendless, on the magic shore,
Whose arts and arms but live in poets' lore;
Oft as the matchless dome I turn'd to scan,
Sacred to gods, but not secure from man,
The past return'd, the present seem'd to cease,
And Glory knew no clime beyond her Greece!"

The Curse of Minerva.

Compare the closing chorus in "Hellas," where Shelley dreamed that Greece might still be free and that its restoration would be effected by means of the golden years:

The world's great age begins anew,

The golden years return,

The earth doth like a snake renew

Her winter weeds outworn.

Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam

Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
From waves serener far;

A new Peneus rolls its fountains

Against the morning-star.

Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads, on a sunnier deep.

A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,

And loves, and weeps, and dies.
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore.

Oh, write no more the tale of Troy,

If earth's Death's scroll must be !
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy
Which dawns upon the free:
Although a subtler sphinx renew

Riddles of death Thebes never knew.

Another Athens shall arise,

And to remoter time

Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,

The splendour of its prime ;

And leave if naught so bright may live,
All earth can take or Heaven can give.

- Hellas.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC

There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away,

When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull

decay :

'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast,

But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.

5 Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of hap

piness,

Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of excess: The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain

The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never stretch

again.

Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself

comes down ;

IO It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own;

That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears,
And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice

appears.

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,

Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest;

15 'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreath, All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath.

Oh could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been, Or weep as I could once have wept o'er many a vanish'd scene;

As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be,

20 So, midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow

to me.

What did Byron write to Moore in regard to the composition of this poem? Cf. (12) to this couplet from "The Corsair":

"Full many a stoic eye and aspect stern

Mask hearts where grief hath little left to learn.

Are you sure that Byron is not parading or posing in this strain of an unwept tear?

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY
She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

5 Thus mellow'd to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

IO

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

15 The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

What circumstances caused this poem to be written?

STANZAS TO AUGUSTA

Though the day of my destiny's over,
And the star of my fate hath declined,
Thy soft heart refused to discover

The faults which so many could find;

5 Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted It shrunk not to share it with me,

ΙΟ

And the love which my spirit hath painted
It never hath found but in thee.

Then when nature around me is smiling,
The last smile which answers to mine,

I do not believe it beguiling,

Because it reminds me of thine ;

And when winds are at war with the ocean,

As the breasts I believed in with me,

15 If their billows excite an emotion, It is that they bear me from thee.