THE GREEK BOY. GONE are the glorious Greeks of old, Their bones are mingled with the mould, The forms they hewed from living stone, And scattered with their ashes, show Yet fresh the myrtles there-the springs Gush brightly as of yore; Flowers blossom from the dust of kings, There nature moulds as nobly now, And copies still the martial form That braved Platea's battle storm. Boy! thy first looks were taught to seek Their Heaven in Hellas' skies; Her airs have tinged thy dusky cheek, Her sunshine lit thine eyes; THE GREEK BOY. Thine ears have drunk the woodland strains Swell with the blood of demigods, That slumber in thy country's sods. Now is thy nation free-though late— Broke, ere thy spirit felt its weight, And Greece, decayed, dethroned, doth see The nations silent in its shade. 175 "UPON THE MOUNTAIN'S DISTANT HEAD." UPON the mountain's distant head, With trackless snows forever white, But far below those icy rocks, The vales, in summer bloom arrayed, Are dim with mist and dark with shade. 'Tis thus, from warm and kindly hearts But lingers with the cold and stern. SONNET-WILLIAM TELL. CHAINS may subdue the feeble spirit, but thee, That creed is written on the untrampled snow, Thundered by torrents which no power can hold, Save that of God, when he sends forth his cold, And breathed by winds that through the free heaven blow. Thou, while thy prison walls were dark around Didst meditate the lesson Nature taught, And to thy brief captivity was brought A vision of thy Switzerland unbound. TO THE RIVER ARVE. SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN AT A HAMLET NEAR THE FOOT OF MONT BLANC NOT from the sands or cloven rocks, Thy dark unfathomed wells below. Born where the thunder and the blast, With heaven's own beam and image shine. Yet stay! for here are flowers and trees; Here linger till thy waves are clear. |