Are those, who pass through heaven's high gate,
To work their Father's will;
Therefore in calmness we await

This travail of incumbent fate,

Because we know that thou canst smite
His myriads into headlong flight.

Now, ye shouts of men, go round,
Now, ye quickening trumpets, sound,
Now, each fife and clarion
Fling the battle-music on,

Fling forward, as a gathering flood,
The ancient melody of blood :
Like a beacon, let it dart

From lip to lip, from heart to heart,

For great Athenè hears,

From rank to rank, from line to line,
She glides a spirit and a sign,

Up with the old Ionian spears:

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Hark! how her haughty footstep treads

Like living thunder o'er our heads,

Mark! where through aether's mystic veil
Burn glimpses of her gleaming mail;
The brazen shield is darkening o'er us,
The brazen lance is bright before us,
Ionian goddess! Maid divine,

We follow, where they move and shine.

SIR FRANCIS H. DOYLE.

126.

The Spartans' March

WAS morn upon the Grecian hills,
Where peasants dressed the vines ;
Sunlight was on Cithaeron's rills,

Arcadia's rocks and pines.

And brightly, through his reeds and flowers,
Eurotas wandered by,

When a sound arose from Sparta's towers
Of solemn harmony.

Was it the hunter's choral strain
To the woodland-goddess poured?
Did virgin hands in Pallas' fane
Strike the full-sounding chord?

But helms were glancing on the stream,
Spears ranged in close array,
And shields flung back a glorious beam
To the morn of a fearful day!

And the mountain-echoes of the land
Swelled through the deep blue sky;
While to soft strains moved forth a band
Of men who moved to die.

They marched not with the trumpet's blast,
Nor bade the horn peal out,

And the laurel groves, as on they passed,
Rung with no battle shout!

They asked no clarion's voice to fire

Their souls with an impulse high;

But the Dorian reed and the Spartan lyre
For the sons of liberty!

127.

And still sweet flutes, their path around,
Sent forth Aeolian breath;
They needed not a sterner sound
To marshal them for death!

So moved they calmly to their field,
Thence never to return,

Save bearing back the Spartan shield,
Or on it proudly borne !

F. D. HEMANS.

TH

Chorus from Hellas'

'HE world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,

The earth doth like a snake renew

Her winter weeds outworn:

Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam,

Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains

From waves serener far;

A new Peneus rolls his fountains
Against the morning star.

Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.

A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,

And loves, and weeps, and dies.
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore.

Oh, write no more the tale of Troy,
If earth Death's scroll must be !
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy
Which dawns upon the free:
Although a subtler Sphinx renew
Riddles of death Thebes never knew.

Another Athens shall arise,

And to remoter time

Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,
The splendour of its prime;

And leave, if nought so bright may live,
All earth can take or Heaven can give.

Saturn and Love their long repose

Shall burst, more bright and good
Than all who fell, than One who rose,
Than many unsubdued :

Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,
But votive tears and symbol flowers.

Oh, cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men kill and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy.

The world is weary of the past,
Oh, might it die or rest at last!

P. B. SHELLEY (Hellas).

BROWNE, WILLIAM, OF TAVISTOCK (1588-1643).

brave

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