- Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
- Along Morea’s hills the setting sun;
- Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
- But one unclouded blaze of living light;
- O’er the hush’d deep the yellow beam he throws,
- Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows;
- On old Aegina’s rock and Hydra’s isle
- The god of gladness shed his parting smile’
- O’er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
- Though there his altars are no more divine.
- Descending fast, the mountain-shadows kiss
- Thy glorious gulf, unconquer’d Salamis!
- Their azure arches through the long expanse
- More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance,
- And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
- Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven;
- Till darkly shaded from the land and deep,
- Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to sleep.
- On such an eve his palest beam he cast
- When, Athens! here thy wisest look’d his last,
- How watch’d thy better sons his farewell ray,
- That closed their murder’d sage’s latest day!
- Not yet—not yet—Sol pauses on the hill.
- The precious hour of parting lingers still;
- But sad his light to agonising eyes,
- And dark the mountain’s once delightful dyes;
- Gloom o’er the lovely land he seem’d to pour,
- The land where Phoebus never frown’d before;
- But ere he sunk below Citheron’s head,
- The cup of woe was quaff’d—the spirit fled;
- The soul of him that scorn’d to fear or fly,
- Who lived and died as none can live or die.
- But, lo! from high Hymettus to the plain
- The queen of night asserts her silent reign;
- No murky vapour, herald of the storm,
- Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form,
- With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play,
- There the white column greets her grateful ray,
- And bright around, with quivering beams beset,
- her emblem sparkles o’er the minaret:
- The groves of olive scatter’d dark and wide,
- Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide,
- the cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
- The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,
- And sad and sombre ’mid the holy calm,
- Near Theseus’ fane, yon solitary palm;
- All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye;
- and dull were his that pass’d them heedless by.
- Again the Aegean, heard no more afar,
- Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war;
- Again his waves in milder tints unfold
- Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold,
- Mix’d with the shades of many a distant isle
- That frown, where gentler oceans deigns to smile.
- As thus, within the walls of Pallas’ fane,
- I mark’d the beauties of the land and main,
- Alone, and friendless, on the magic shore,
- Whose arts revive, whose arms avenge no more; **
- 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!
- Hours roll’d along, and Dian’s orb on high
- Had gain’d the centre of her softest sky;
- And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod
- O’er the vain shrine of many a vanish’d god:
- But chiefly, Pallas! thine, when Hecate’s glare,
- Check’d by thy columns, fell more sadly fair
- O’er the chill marble, where the starling tread
- Thrills the lone heart like echoes from the dead.
- Long had I mused, and treasured every trace
- The wreck of Greece recorded of her race,
- When, lo! A giant form before me strode,
- And Pallas hailed me in her own abode!
- Yes, ’twas Minerva’s self; but ah! how changed,
- Since o’er the Darman field in arms she ranged!
- Not such as erst, by her divine command,
- Her form appeared from Phidias’ plastic hand:
- Gone were the terrors of her awful brow,
- Her idle aegis bore no Gorgon now;
- Her helm was dinted, and the broken lance
- Seem’d weak and shaftless e’en to mortal glance;
- The olive branch, which still she deign’d to clasp,
- Shrunk from her touch, and wither’d in her grasp;
- And, ah! though still the brightest of the sky,
- Celestial tears bedimm’d her large blue eye:
- Round the rent casque her owlet circled slow,
- And mourn’d his mistress with a shriek of woe!
- “Mortal!”—’twas thus she spake—“that blush of shame
- Proclaims thee Briton, once a noble name;
- First of the mighty, foremost of the free,
- Now honour’d less by all, and least by me;
- Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found.
- Seek’st thou the cause of loathing?—look around.
- Lo! here, despite of war and wasting fire,
- I saw successive tyrannies expire.
- ’Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth,
- Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both.
- Survey this vacant, violated fane;
- Recount the relics torn that yet remain:
- These Cecrops placed, this Pericles adorn’d,
- That Adrian rear’d when drooping Science mourn’d.
- What more I owe let gratitude attest—
- Know, Alaric and Elgin did the rest.
- That all may learn from whence the plunderer came,
- The insulted wall sustains his hated name:
- For Elgin’s fame thus grateful Pallas pleads,
- Below, his name—above, behold his deeds!
- Be ever hailed with equal honour here
- The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer:
- arms gave the first his right, the last had none,
- But basely stole what less barbarians won.
- So when the lion quits his fell repast,
- Next prowls the wolf, the filthy jackal last;
- Flesh, limbs, and blood the former make their own,
- The last poor brute securely gnaws the bone.
- Yet still the gods are just, and crimes are cross’d:
- See here what Elgin won, and what he lost!
- Another name with his pollutes my shrine:
- Behold where Dian’s beams disdain to shine!
- Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
- When Venus half avenged Minerva’s shame.”
- She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply,
- To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye:
- “Daughter of Jove! in Britain’s injured name,
- A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim.
- Frown not on England; England owns him not:
- Athena, no! thy plunderer was a Scot.
- Ask’st thou the difference? From fair Phyles’ towers
- Survey Bœotia;—Caledonia’s ours.
- And well I know within that bastard land
- Hath Wisdom’s goddess never held command;
- A barren soil, where Nature’s germs, confined
- To stern sterility, can stint the mind;
- Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth,
- Emblem of all to whom the land gives birth;
- Each genial influence nurtured to resist;
- A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist.
- Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain
- Dilutes with drivel every drizzly brain,
- Till, burst at length, each wat’ry head o’er-flows,
- Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows.
- Then thousand schemes of petulance and pride
- Despatch her scheming children far and wide:
- Some east, some west, some everywhere but north,
- In quest of lawless gain, they issue forth.
- And thus—accursed be the day and year!
- Yet Caledonia claims some native worth,
- As dull Bœotia gave a Pindar birth;
- So may her few, the letter’d and the brave,
- Bound to no clime, and victors of the grave,
- Shake off the sordid dust of such a land,
- And shine like children of a happier strand;
- As once, of yore, in some obnoxious place,
- Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched race.”
- “Mortal!” the blue-eyed maid resumed, “once more
- Bear back my mandate to thy native shore.
- Though fallen, alas! this vengeance yet is mine,
- to turn my counsels far from lands like thine.
- Hear then in silence Pallas’ stern behest;
- Hear and believe, for time will tell the rest.
- “First on the head of him who did this deed
- My curse shall light,—on him and all his seed:
- Without one spark of intellectual fire,
- Be all the sons as senseless as the sire:
- If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,
- Believe him bastard of a brighter race;
- Still with his hireling artists let him prate,
- and Folly’s praise repay for Wisdom’s hate;
- Long of their patron’s gusto let them tell,
- Whose noblest, native gusto is—to sell;
- To sell and make—may shame record the day!—
- The state receiver of his pilfer’d prey.
- Meantime, the flattering, feeble dotard, West,
- Europe’s worst dauber, and poor Britain’s best,
- With palsied hand shall turn each model o’er
- And own himself an infant of fourscore.
- Be all the bruisers cull’d from all St. Giles’,
- That art and nature may compare their styles;
- While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare,
- And marvel at his lordship’s stone shop there.
- Round the throng’d gate shall sauntering coxcombs creep,
- To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep;
- While many a languid maid, with longing sigh,
- On giant statues casts the curious eye;
- The room with transient glance appears to skim
- Yet marks the mighty back and length of limb;
- Mourns o’er the difference of now and then;
- Exclaims ’These Greeks indeed were proper men!’
- Draws slight comparisons of these with those,
- And envies Laïs all her Attic beaux.
- When shall a modern maid have swains like these!
- Alas! Sir Harry is no Hercules!
- And last of all, amidst the gaping crew,
- Some calm spectator, as he takes his view,
- In silent indignation mix’d with grief,
- Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.
- Oh, loath’d in life, nor pardon’d in the dust,
- May hate pursue his sacrilegious lust!
- Link’d with the fool that fired the Ephesian dome,
- Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb,
- And Eratostratus and Elgin shine
- In many a branding page and burning line;
- Alike reserved for aye to stand accursed,
- Perchance the second blacker than the first.
- “So let him stand, through, ages yet unborn,
- Fix’d statue on the pedestal of Scorn’
- Though not for him alone revenge shall wait,
- But fits thy country for her coming fate:
- Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son
- To do what oft Britannia’s self had done.
- Look to the Baltic—blazing from afar,
- Your old ally yet mourns perfidious war.
- Not to such deed did Pallas lend her aid,
- Or break the compact which herself had made;
- Far from such councils, from the faithless field
- She fled—but left behind her Gorgon shield;
- A fatal gift that turn’d your friends to stone,
- And left lost Albion hated and alone.
- “Look to the East, where Ganges’ swarthy race
- Shall shake your tyrant empire to its base;
- Lo! There Rebellion rears her ghastly head
- And glares the Nemesis of native dead;
- Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood
- And claims his long arrear of northern blood.
- So may ye perish! Pallas, when she gave
- Your free-born rights, forbade ye to enslave.
- “Look on your Spain!—she clasps the hand she hates,
- But boldly clasps, and thrusts you from her gates.
- But Lusitania, kind and dear ally,
- Can spare a few to fight, and sometimes fly,
- Oh glorious field! by Famine fiercely won,
- The Gaul retires for once, and all is done!
- But when did Pallas teach, that one retreat
- Retrieved three long olympiads of defeat?
- “Look last at home—ye love not to look there;
- On the grim smile of comfortless despair:
- Your city saddens: loud though Revel howls,
- Here Famine faints, and yonder Rapine prowls.
- See all alike of more or less bereft;
- No misers tremble when there’s nothing left.
- ‘Blest paper credit;’ who shall dare to sing?
- It clogs like lead Corruption’s weary wing.
- Yet Pallas pluck’d each premier by the ear,
- Who gods and men alike disdain’d to hear;
- But one, repentant o’er a bankrupt state,
- On Pallas calls,—but calls, alas! Too late:
- Then raves for...; to that Mentor bends,
- Though he and Pallas never yet were friends.
- Him senates hear, whom never yet they heard,
- Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd.
- So, once of yore, each reasonable frog
- Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign ‘log.’
- Thus hailed your rulers their patrician clod,
- As Egypt chose an onion for a god.
- “Now fare ye well! enjoy your little hour;
- Go, grasp the shadow of your vanish’d power;
- Gloss o’er the failure of each fondest scheme;
- Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a cream.
- Gone is that gold, the marvel of mankind,
- And pirates barter all that’s left behind.
- No more the hirelings, purchased near and far,
- Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war.
- The idle merchant on the useless quay
- Droops o’er the bales no bark may bear away;
- Or back returning, sees rejected stores
- Rot piecemeal on his own encumber’d shores:
- The starved mechanic breaks his rusting loom,
- And desperate mans him ’gainst the coming doom.
- Then in the senate of your sinking state
- Show me the man whose counsels may have weight.
- Vain is each voice where tones could once command;
- E’en factions cease to charm a factious land:
- Yet jarring sects convulse a sister isle,
- And light with maddening hands the mutual pile.
- “’Tis done, ’tis past, since Pallas warns in vain;
- The Furies seize her abdicated reign:
- Wide o’er the ream they wave their kindling brands,
- And wring her vitals with their fiery hands.
- But one convulsive struggle still remains,
- And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her chains.
- The banner’d pomp of war, the glittering files,
- O’er whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles;
- The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum,
- That bid the foe defiance ere they come;
- The hero bounding at his country’s call,
- The glorious death that consecrates his fall,
- Swell the young heart with visionary charms,
- And bid it antedate the joys of arms.
- But know, a lesson you may yet be taught,
- With death alone are laurels cheaply bought:
- Not in the conflict Havoc seeks delight,
- His day of mercy is the day of fight.
- But when the field is fought, the battle won,
- Though drench’d with gore, his woes are but begun:
- His deeper deeds as yet ye know by name;
- The slaughter’d peasant and the ravish’d dame,
- The rifled mansion and the foe-reap’d field,
- Ill suit with souls at home, untaught to yield.
- Say with what eye along the distant down
- Would flying burghers mark the blazing town?
- How view the column of ascending flames
- Shake his red shadow o’er the startled Thames?
- Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch was thine
- That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:
- Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,
- Go, ask they bosom who deserves them most.
- The law of heaven and earth is life for life,
- And she who raised, in vain regrets, the strife.”
* (Poem was a Satire about the "Elgin Marbles," the
antiquities taken from the Acropolis in Athens
and shipped to England during that time. Although Byron never intended to publish this poem,
a copy was stolen from him and printed without his approval)
** (line amended from original: Whose arts and arms but live in poets’ lore;
as Byron requested the following year, although it was not done.)
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