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 theirs 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, Bequeath'd 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 dusty 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 eye The graves of those that cannot die! "Twere long to tell, and sad to trace, Each step from splendour to disgrace; Enough-no foreign foe could quell Thy soul, till from itself it fell; Yes! Self-abasement paved the way To villain-bonds and despot sway.

What can he tell who treads thy shore?
No legend of thine olden time,
No theme on which the Muse might soar
High as thine own in days of yore,

When man was worthy of thy clime.
The hearts within thy valleys bred,
The fiery souls that might have led

Thy sons to deeds sublime,

Now crawl from cradle to the grave,
Slaves-nay, the bondsmen of a slave,"
And callous, save to crime;

Stain'd with each evil that pollutes
Mankind, where least above the brutes;
Without even savage virtue blest,
Without one free or valiant breast,
Still to the neighbouring ports they waft
Proverbial wiles, and ancient craft;
In this the subtle Greek is found,
For this, and this alone, renown'd.
In vain might Liberty invoke
The spirit to its bondage broke,
Or raise the neck that courts the yoke:
No more her sorrows I bewail,
Yet this will be a mournful tale,
And they who listen may believe,

Who heard it first had cause to grieve.

Far, dark, along the blue sea glancing,

The shadows of the rocks advancing
Start on the fisher's eye like boat
Of island-pirate or Mainote;
And fearful for his light caïque,
He shuns the near but doubtful creek:
Though worn and weary with his toil,
And cumber'd with his scaly spoil,
Slowly, yet strongly, plies the oar,
Till Port Leone's safer shore
Receives him by the lovely light
That best becomes an Eastern night.

3 Athens is the property of the Kislar Aga (the slave of the seraglio and guardian of the women), who appoints the Waywode. A pander and eunuch-these are not polite, yet true appellations-now governs the governor of Athens !

Who thundering comes on blackest steed,"
With slacken'd bit and hoof of speed?
Beneath the clattering iron's sound
The cavern'd echoes wake around
In lash for lash, and bound for bound;
The foam that streaks the courser's side
Seems gather'd from the ocean-tide:
Though weary waves are sunk to rest,
There's none within his rider's breast;
And though to-morrow's tempest lower,
"Tis calmer than thy heart, young Giaour!"
I know thee not, I loathe thy race,
But in thy lineaments I trace
What time shall strengthen, not efface:
Though young and pale, that sallow front
Is scathed by fiery passion's brunt;
Though bent on earth thine evil eye,
As meteor-like thou glidest by,
Right well I view and deem thee one
Whom Othman's sons should slay or shun.

On-on he hasten'd, and he drew
My gaze of wonder as he flew :
Though like a demon of the night
He pass'd, and vanish'd from my sight,
His aspect and his air impress'd
A troubled memory on my breast,
And long upon my startled ear
Rung his dark courser's hoofs of fear.
He spurs his steed; he nears the steep,
That, jutting, shadows o'er the deep;
He winds around; he hurries by;

The rock relieves him from mine eye;

4 [The reciter of the tale is a Turkish fisherman, who has been employed during the day in the gulf of Ægina, and in the evening, apprehensive of the Mainote pirates who infest the coast of Attica, lands with his boat on the harbour of Port Leone, the ancient Piræus. He becomes the eye-witness of nearly all the incidents in the story, and in one of them is a principal agent. It is to his feelings, and particularly to his religious prejudices, that we are indebted for some of the most forcible and splendid parts of the poem.-GEORGE ELLIS.]

5 [In Dr. Clarke's Travels, this word, which means Infidel, is always written according to its English pronunciation, Djour. Lord Byron adopted the Italian spelling usual among the Franks of the Levant.]

For well I ween unwelcome he
Whose glance is fix'd on those that flee;
And not a star but shines too bright
On him who takes such timeless flight.
He wound along; but ere he pass'd
One glance he snatch'd, as if his last,
A moment check'd his wheeling steed,
A moment breathed him from his speed,
A moment on his stirrup stood-
Why looks he o'er the olive wood?
The crescent glimmers on the hill,

The Mosque's high lamps are quivering still
Though too remote for sound to wake
In echoes of the far tophaike,

6

The flashes of each joyous peal
Are seen to prove the Moslem's zeal.
To-night, set Rhamazani's sun;
To-night, the Bairam feast's begun;
To-night-but who and what art thou
Of foreign garb and fearful brow?
And what are these to thine or thee,
That thou shouldst either pause or flee?

He stood-some dread was on his face,
Soon Hatred settled in its place:
It rose not with the reddening flush
Of transient Anger's hasty blush,
But pale as marble o'er the tomb,
Whose ghastly whiteness aids its gloom.
His brow was bent, his eye was glazed;
He raised his arm, and fiercely raised,
And sternly shook his hand on high,
As doubting to return or fly;

Impatient of his flight delay'd,

Here loud his raven charger neigh'd

Down glanced that hand, and grasp'd his blade ;'

6"Tophaike," musket. The Bairam is announced by the cannon at sunset the illumination of the mosques, and the firing of all kinds of small arms, loaded with ball, proclaim it during the night.

7

["Then turn'd it swiftly to his blade,

As loud his raven charger neigh'd."-MS.]

That sound had burst his waking dream,
As Slumber starts at owlet's scream.
The spur hath lanced his courser's sides;
Away, away, for life he rides :

Swift as the hurl'd on high jerreed'

8

Springs to the touch his startled steed;
The rock is doubled, and the shore
Shakes with the clattering tramp no more;
The crag is won, no more is seen
His Christian crest and haughty mien.
"Twas but an instant he restrain'd

9

That fiery barb so sternly rein'd;
'Twas but a moment that he stood,
Then sped as if by death pursued;
But in that instant o'er his soul
Winters of Memory seem'd to roll,
And gather in that drop of time
A life of pain, an age of crime.
O'er him who loves, or hates, or fears,
Such moment pours the grief of years:
What felt he then, at once opprest
By all that most distracts the breast?
That pause, which ponder'd o'er his fate,
Oh, who its dreary length shall date!
Though in Time's record nearly nought,
It was Eternity to Thought!

For infinite as boundless space

The thought that Conscience must embrace,

Which in itself can comprehend

Woe without name, or hope, or end.

The hour is past, the Giaour is gone;

And did he fly or fall alone?

1

3 Jerreed, or Djerrid, a blunted Turkish javelin, which is darted from horseback with great force and precision. It is a favourite exercise of the Mussulmans; but I know not if it can be called a manly one, since the most expert in the art are the Black Eunuchs of Constantinople. I think, next to these, a Mamlouk at Smyrna was the most skilful that came within my observation.

9

1

["Twas but an instant, though so long
When thus dilated in my song."-MS.]

["But neither fled nor fell alone."-MS.]