Expression's last receding ray,

A gilded halo hovering round decay,

The farewell beam of feeling past away!

100

15

Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly

I am where I would ever be;

With the blue above, and the blue below,

And silence wheresoe'er I go;

What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

If a storm should come and awake the deep,

I love (oh! how I love) to ride

On the fierce foaming bursting tide,

When every mad wave drowns the moon,

Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the south-west blasts do blow.

I never was on the dull tame shore,
But I lov'd the great Sea more and more,
And backwards flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest;
And a mother she was, and is to me;
For I was born on the open Sea!

The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outery wild
As welcomed to life the Ocean-child!

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birth,

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Oh servile offspring of the freePronounce 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!

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.

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Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art, For there thy habitation is the heartThe heart which love of thee alone can bind; And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd

5

To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom,

Their country conquers with their martyrdom,

And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.

Chillon! thy prison is a holy place,

And thy sad floor an altar-for 'twas trod, 10 Until his very steps have left a trace Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod,

By Bonnivard! May none those marks efface!

For they appeal from tyranny to God.

1 Bonnivard was the "Prisoner of Chillon," the chief figure in Byron's poem of that title. A man of republican views and of high character, he was imprisoned in the castle of Chillon about 1530, and remained there for six years.

And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell:

He rush'd into the field, and, foremost fighting fell.

A term in falconry, applied to certain hawks that soar to a place high in the air, and from thence swoop upon their prey. V. Macb. II. iv.

This stanza refers to a ball given by the Duchess of Richmond, at Brussels, on the night before the battle of Waterloo. The boom of cannon rang through the city, and the festivity was broken up by a rush to arms.

Duke Frederick William of Brunswick, who lost his life fighting at Quatre Bras, 1815.