George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron, 1788-1824. This gifted poet was the son
of a profligate father and of a fickle and passionate mother. He was
afflicted with lameness from his birth; and, although he succeeded to his
great-uncle's title at ten years of age, he inherited financial
embarrassment with it. These may be some of the reasons for the morbid and
wayward character of the youthful genius. It is certain that he was not
lacking in affection, nor in generosity. In his college days, at
Cambridge, he was willful and careless of his studies. "Hours of
Idleness," his first book, appeared in 1807. It was severely treated by
the "Edinburgh Review," which called forth his "English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers," in 1809. Soon after, he went abroad for two years; and, on his
return, published the first two cantos of "Childe Harold's Pligrimage," a
work that made him suddenly famous. He married in 1815, but separated from
his wife after one year. Soured and bitter, he now left England, purposing
never to return. He spent most of the next seven years in Italy, where
most of his poems were written. The last year of his life was spent in
Greece, aiding in her struggle for liberty against the Turks. He died at
Missolonghi. As a man, Byron was impetuous, morbid and passionate. He was
undoubtedly dissipated and immoral, but perhaps to a less degree than has
sometimes been asserted. As a poet, he possessed noble powers, and he has
written much that will last; in general, however, his poetry is not
wholesome, and his fame is less than it once was.
###
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 Persian's 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?
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 Thermopylae!
What! silent still and silent all?
Ah! no;--the voices of the dead
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 howl 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!
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, swanlike, let me sing and die:
A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine,--
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!
NOTES.--Sappho was a Greek poetess living on the island of Lesbos, about
600 B. C. Delos is one of the Grecian Archipelago, and is of volcanic
origin. The ancient Greeks believed that it rose from the sea at a stroke
from Neptune's trident, and was moored fast to the bottom by Jupiter. It
was the supposed birthplace of Phoebus, or Apollo. The island of Chios, or
Scios, is one of the places which claim to be the birthplace of Homer.
Teios, or Teos, a city in Ionia, is the birthplace of the Greek poet
Anacreon. The Islands of the Blest, mentioned in ancient poetry, were
imaginary islands in the west, where, it was believed, the favorites of
the gods were conveyed without dying.
At Marathon. (490 B. C.), on the east coast, of Greece, 11,000 Greeks,
under the generalship of Miltiades, routed 110,000 Persians. The island of
Salamis lies very near the Greek coast: in the narrow channel between, the
Greek fleet almost destroyed (480 B.C.) that of Xerxes, the Persian king,
who witnessed the contest from a throne on the mountain side. Thermopylae
is a narrow mountain pass in Greece, where Leonidas, with 300 Spartans and
about 1,100 other Greeks, held the entire Persian army in check until
every Spartan, except one, was slain. Samos is one of the Grecian
Archipelago, noted for its cultivation of the vine and olive.
A Bacchanal was a disciple of Bacchus, the god of wine. Pyrrhus was a
Greek, and one of the greatest generals of the world. The phalanx was an
almost invincible arrangement of troops, massed in close array, with their
shields overlapping one another, and their spears projecting; this form of
military tactics was peculiar to the Greeks.
Polycrates seized the island of Samos, and made himself tyrant: he was
entrapped and crucified in 522 B. C. Chersonese is the ancient name for a
peninsula. Sunium is the name of a promontory southeast of Athens.