548 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1813. 



FROM THE GIAOUR, BY LORD BYRON. 



Recollections of Greece. 



Clime of the unforgotten brave ! 

 Whose land from plain to mountain-cave 

 Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave- 

 Shrine of the mighty ! can it be, 

 That this is all remains of thee ? 

 Approach, thou craven crouching slave- 

 Say, is not this Thermopylae ? 

 These waters blue that round you lave 

 Oh servile offspring of the free — 

 Pronounce what sea, what shore is this ? 

 The gulf, the rock of Salamis \ 

 These scenes — their story not unknown- 

 Arise, and make again your own ; 

 Snatch from the ashes of your sires 

 The embers of their former fires. 

 And he who in the strife expires 

 Will add to their's a name of fear, 

 That Tyranny shall quake to hear. 

 And leave his sons a hope, a fame. 

 They too will rather die than shame ; 

 For Freedom's battle once begun. 

 Bequeathed by bleeding Sire to Son, 

 Though baffled oft, is ever won. 

 Bear witness, Greece, thy living page. 

 Attest it many a deathless age ! 

 While kings in dusky darkness hid. 

 Have left a nameless pyramid, 

 Thy heroes— though the general doom 

 Hath swept the column from their tomb, 

 A mightier monument command. 

 The mountains of their native land ! 

 There points thy Muse to stranger's ey«. 

 The graves of those that cannot die ! 

 'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace, 

 Each step from splendor to disgrace, 

 Enough — no foreign foe could quell 

 Thy soul, till from itself it fell, 

 And Self-abasement pav'd the way 

 To villain-bonds and despot-sway. 



What can he tell who treads thy shore ? 

 No legend of thine olden time, 



