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Lord Byron
My Soul is Dark || Sun Of the Sleepless || Maid of Athens, ere we part || She Walks in Beauty || The Isles of Greece || Last Words on Greece
My Soul is Dark
My soul is dark - Oh! quickly string
The harp I yet can brook to hear;
And let thy gentle fingers fling
Its melting murmurs o'er mine ear.
If in this heart a hope be dear,
That sound shall charm it forth again:
If in these eyes there lurk a tear,
'Twill flow, and cease to burn my brain.
But bid the strain be wild and deep,
Nor let thy notes of joy be first:
I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep,
Or else this heavy heart will burst;
For it hath been by sorrow nursed,
And ached in sleepless silence, long;
And now 'tis doomed to know the worst,
And break at once - or yield to song.
Sun Of the Sleepless
Sun of the Sleepless! melancholy star!
Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far,
That show'st the darkness thou canst not dispel,
How like art thou to Joy remembered well!
So gleams the past, the light of other days,
Which shines but warms not with its powerless rays:
A night-beam Sorrow watcheth to behold,
Distinct, but distant -clear - but, oh, how cold!
Maid of Athens, ere we part
Maid of Athens, ere we part,
Give, oh, give back my heart!
Or, since that has left my breast,
Keep it now, and take the rest!
Hear my vow before I go,
Ζωή μου σας αγαπώ
{Zoe mou sas agapo}.
By those tresses unconfined,
Wooed by each Aegean wind;
By those lids whose jetty fringe
Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge;
By those wild eyes like the roe,
Ζωή μου σας αγαπώ
{Zoe mou sas agapo}.
By that lip I long to taste;
By that zone-encircled waist;
By all the token-flowers that tell
What words can never speak so well;
By love's alternate joy and woe,
Ζωή μου σας αγαπώ
{Zoe mou sas agapo}.
Maid of Athens! I am gone:
Think of me, sweet! when alone.
Though I fly to Istambol,
Athens holds my heart and soul:
Can I cease to love thee? No!
Ζωή μου σας αγαπώ
{Zoe mou sas agapo}.
She Walks in Beauty
I
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
II
One shade the more, one ray the less
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in evey raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
III.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
The Isles of Greece
1
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.
2
The Scian and 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."
3
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.
4
A King sate 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?
5
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?
6
'T is 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.
7
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!
8
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.
9
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!
10
You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget
The noblier and manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave ---
Think ye he meant them for a slave?
11
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.
12
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.
13
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, such seed is sown,
The Heracleidan bl
ood might own.
14
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.
15
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.
16
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!
Last Words on Greece
What are to me those honours or renown
Past or to come, a new-born people's cry?
Albeit for such I could despise a crown
Of aught save laurel, or for such could die.
I am a fool of passion, and a frown
Of thine to me is an adder's eye
To the poor bird whose pinion fluttering down
Wafts unto death the breast it bore so high:
Such is this maddening fascination grown,
So strong thy magic or so weak am I.
