In orange-groves and myrtle-bow'rs,
That breathe a gale of fragrance round,
I charm the fairy-footed hours
With my loved lute's romantic sound;
Or crowns of living laurel weave,
For those that win the race at eve.

The shepherd's horn at break of day,
The ballet danced in twilight glade,
The canzonet and roundelay
Sung in the silent green-wood shade;
These simple joys, that never fail,
Shall bind me to my native vale.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

25.

"I TRAVELLED AMONG UNKNOWN MEN."

I TRAVELLED among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;

Nor, England, did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.

'Tis past, that melancholy dream!
Nor will I quit thy shore

A second time; for still I seem
To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel
The joy of my desire;

And she I cherished turned her wheel

Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed

The bowers where Lucy played; And thine is too the last green field

That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

THE isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.

The Scian and the Teian muse,

The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse;
Their place of birth alone is mute

To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires' "Islands of the Blest."

The mountains look on Marathon

And Marathon looks on the sea;

And musing there an hour alone,

I dreamed that Greece might still be free; For standing on the Persians' grave,

I could not deem myself a slave.

A king sat on the rocky brow

Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis;

And ships by thousands lay below,

And men in nations;

all were his!

He counted them at break of day-
And when the sun set, where were they?

And where are they? and where art thou, My country? On thy voiceless shore

The heroic lay is tuneless now

The heroic bosom beats no more! And must thy lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine?

'Tis something, in the dearth of fame,
Though linked among a fettered race,
To feel at least a patriot's shame,
Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here?

For Greeks a blush for Greece a tear.

Must we but weep o'er days more blest? Must we but blush? Our fathers bled. Earth! render back from out thy breast

A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, To make a new Thermopylæ!

What, silent still? and silent all?
- the voices of the dead

Ah! no;
Sound like a distant torrent's fall,

And answer, "Let one living head, But one arise, we come, we come!" 'Tis but the living who are dumb.

In vain

in vain; strike other chords; Fill high the cup with Samian wine! Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,

And shed the blood of Scio's vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call,
How answers each bold Bacchanal!

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet -
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget

The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave —
Think ye he meant them for a slave?

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
We will not think of themes like these!

It made Anacreon's song divine:

He served but served Polycrates

A tyrant; but our masters then

Were still, at least, our countrymen.

The tyrant of the Chersonese

Was freedom's best and bravest friend;

That tyrant was Miltiades!

Oh! that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind!

Such chains as his were sure to bind.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore,
Exists the remnant of a line

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.

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.

Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,

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

- LORD BYRON.

NOTES.

No. 1. THE BATTLE OF AGINCOURT. The battle of Agincourt was fought on the 25th of October (St. Crispin's Day), 1415, between a small army of English, under Henry V., and a much larger French force, led by the Dauphin. The skill and prowess of the English bowmen won the day, and more than ten thousand French knights and soldiers were left dead on the field. The best account of the battle is that contained in Shakespeare's epic drama, Henry the Fifth; but there is a military and patriotic spirit in this martial lyric by Drayton which is seldom found in any of our later battle-songs. This poem was published in 1627. It is plainly imitated by Thomas Heywood in the following little song, included in his drama of King Edward IV., written very soon afterward: