Gushing from Freedom's fountains-when the crowd,
Madden'd with centuries of drought, are loud,
And trample on each other to obtain

The cup which brings oblivion of a chain

-·

Heavy and sore,-in which long yoked they plough'd
The sand,- —or if there sprung the yellow grain,
"Twas not for them, their necks were too much bow'd,
And their dead palates chew'd the cud of pain:-
Yes! the few spirits-who, despite of deeds
Which they abhor, confound not with the cause
Those momentary starts from Nature's laws,
Which, like the pestilence and earthquake, smite
But for a term, then pass, and leave the earth
With all her seasons to repair the blight
With a few summers, and again put forth
Cities and generations-fair, when free-
For, Tyranny, there blooms no bud for thee!

III.

Glory and Empire! once upon these towers
With Freedom-godlike Triad! how ye sate!
The league of mightiest nations, in those hours
When Venice was an envy, might abate,
But did not quench, her spirit-in her fate
All were enwrapp'd: the feasted monarchs knew
And loved their hostess, nor could learn to hate,
Although they humbled with the kingly few
The many felt, for from all days and climes
She was the voyager's worship ;-

-even her crimes

Were of the softer order-born of Love,

She drank no blood, nor fatten'd on the dead,

But gladden'd where her harmless conquests spread;

ODE.

For these restored the Cross, that from above
Hallow'd her sheltering banners, which incessant
Flew between earth and the unholy Crescent,
Which, if it waned and dwindled, Earth may thank
The city it has clothed in chains, which clank
Now, creaking in the ears of those who owe
The name of Freedom to her glorious struggles;
Yet she but shares with them a common woe,
And call'd the "kingdom" of a conquering foe,-
But knows what all-and, most of all, we know—
With what set gilded terms a tyrant juggles!

IV.

The name of Commonwealth is past and gone
O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe;
Venice is crush'd, and Holland deigns to own
A sceptre, and endures the purple robe ;
If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone
His chainless mountains, 'tis but for a time,
For tyranny of late is cunning grown,
And in its own good season tramples down
The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime,
Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean
Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion
Of Freedom, which their fathers fought for, and
Bequeath'd a heritage of heart and hand,
And proud distinction from each other land,
Whose sons must bow them at a monarch's motion,
As if his senseless sceptre were a wand

Full of the magic of exploded science-
Still one great clime, in full and free defiance,
Yet rears her crest, unconquer'd and sublime,
Above the far Atlantic!-She has taught
Her Esau-brethren that the haughty flag,
The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag,

VOL. III.

Ꮓ

253

May strike to those whose red right hands have bought
Rights cheaply earn'd with blood. Still, still, for ever
Better, though each man's life-blood were a river,
That it should flow, and overflow, than creep
Through thousand lazy channels in our veins,
Damm'd like the dull canal with locks and chains,
And moving, as a sick man in his sleep,
Three paces, and then faltering :-better be
Where the extinguish'd Spartans still are free,
In their proud charnel of Thermopylæ,
Than stagnate in our marsh,— —or o'er the deep
Fly, and one current to the ocean add,
One spirit to the souls our fathers had,
One freeman more, America, to thee!

NOTES.

Note 1, page 129.

Written after swimming from Sestos to Abydos.

ON the 3d of May, 1810, while the Salsette (Captain Bathurst) was lying in the Dardanelles, Lieutenant Ekenhead of that frigate and the writer of these rhymes swam from the European shore to the Asiatic-by-the-by, from Abydos to Sestos would have been more correct. The whole distance from the place whence we started to our landing on the other side, including the length we were carried by the current, was computed by those on board the frigate at upwards of four English miles; though the actual breadth is barely one. The rapidity of the current is such that no boat can row directly across, and it may in some measure be estimated from the circumstance of the whole distance being accomplished by one of the parties in an hour and five, and by the other in an hour and ten, minutes. The water was extremely cold from the melting of the mountain-snows. About three weeks before, in April, we had made an attempt, but having ridden all the way from the Troad the same morning, and the water being of an icy chillness, we found it necessary to postpone the completion till the frigate anchored below the castles, when we swam the straits, as just stated; entering a considerable way above the European, and landing below the Asiatic, fort. Chevalier says that a young Jew swam the same distance for his mistress; and Oliver mentions its having been done by a Neapolitan; but our consul, Tarragona, remembered neither of these circumstances, and tried to dissuade us from the

attempt. A number of the Salsette's crew were known to have accomplished a greater distance; and the only thing that surprised me was, that, as doubts had been entertained of the truth of Leander's story, no traveller had ever endeavoured to ascertain its practicability.

Note 2, page 131.

Ζώη μου, σάς ἀγαπῶ.

Zoë mou, sas agapo, or Zán μov, rás άyuñã, a Romaic expression of tenderness: if I translate it, I shall affront the gentlemen, as it may seem that I supposed they could not; and if I do not, I may affront the ladies. For fear of any misconstruction on the part of the latter I shall do so, begging pardon of the learned. It means, "My life, I love you!" which sounds very prettily in all languages, and is as much in fashion in Greece at this day as, Juvenal tells us, the two first words were amongst the Roman ladies, whose exotic expressions were all Hellenized.

Note 3, page 131, line 15.

By all the token-flowers that tell.

In the East (where ladies are not taught to write, lest they should scribble assignations) flowers, cinders, pebbles, &c. convey the sentiments of the parties by that universal deputy of Mercury-an old woman. A cinder says, "I burn for thee;" a bunch of flowers tied with hair, " Take me and fly;" but a pebble declares-what nothing else can. Note 4, page 132, line 3. Though I fly to Istambol.

Note 6, page 203, line last.

Turning rivers into blood.

See Rev. chap. viii. verse 7, &c. "The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood," &c.