Macmillan's Reading Books. Book V. Unknown

land from plain to mountain-cave

             Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave!

             Shrine of the mighty! can it be

             That this is all remains of thee?

             Approach, thou craven crouching slave:

                Say, is not this Thermopylae?

             These waters blue that round you lave,—

                Oh servile offspring of the free!—

             Pronounce what sea, what shore is this?

             The gulf, the rock of Salamis!

             These scenes, their story not unknown,

             Arise, and make again your own;

             Snatch from the ashes of your sires

             The embers of their former fires;

             And he who in the strife expires

             Will add to theirs a name of fear

             That Tyranny shall quake to hear,

             And leave his sons a hope, a fame,

             They too will rather die than shame:

             For Freedom's battle once begun,

             Bequeathed by bleeding Sire to Son,

             Though baffled oft is ever won.

             Bear witness, Greece, thy living page!

             Attest it many a deathless age!

             While kings, in dusty darkness hid,

             Have left a nameless pyramid,

             Thy heroes, though the general doom

             Hath swept the column from their tomb,

             A mightier monument command,

             The mountains of their native land!

             There points thy Muse to stranger's eye

             The graves of those that cannot die!

             'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace,

             Each step from splendour to disgrace,

             Enough—no foreign foe could quell

             Thy soul, till from itself it fell;

             Yes! Self-abasement paved the way

             To villain-bonds and despot sway.

BYRON.

      [Notes: Lord Byron, born 1788, died 1824. The most powerful English poet of the early part of this century.

      Thermapylae. The pass at which Leonidas and his Spartans resisted the approach of the Persians (B.C. 480).

      Salamis. Where the Athenians fought the great naval battle which destroyed the Persian fleet, and secured the liberties of Greece.]

* * * * *

      THE TEMPLE OF FAME

          The Temple shakes, the sounding gates unfold,

          Wide vaults appear, and roofs of fretted gold,

          Raised on a thousand pillars wreathed around

          With laurel-foliage and with eagles crowned;

          Of bright transparent beryl were the walls,

          The friezes gold, and gold the capitals:

          As heaven with stars, the roof with jewels glows,

          And ever-living lamps depend in rows.

          Full in the passage of each spacious gate

          The sage historians in white garments wait:

          Graved o'er their seats, the form of Time was found,

          His scythe reversed, and both his pinions bound.

          Within stood heroes, who through loud alarms

          In bloody fields pursued renown in arms.

          High on a throne, with trophies charged, I viewed

          The youth that all things but himself subdued;

          His feet on sceptres and tiaras trode,

          And his horned head belied the Libyan god.

          There Caesar, graced with both Minervas, shone;

          Caesar, the world's great master, and his own;

          Unmoved, superior still in every state,

          And scarce detested in his country's fate.

          But chief were those, who not for empire fought,

          But with their toils their people's safety bought:

          High o'er the rest Epaminondas stood:

          Timoleon, glorious in his brother's blood:

          Bold Scipio, saviour of the Roman state,

          Great in his triumphs, in retirement great;

          And wise Aurelius, in whose well-taught mind

          With boundless power unbounded virtue joined,

          His own strict judge, and patron of mankind.

              Much-suffering heroes next their honours claim,

          Those of less noisy and less guilty fame,

          Fair Virtue's silent train: supreme of these

          Here ever shines the godlike Socrates;

          He whom ungrateful Athens could expel,

          At all times just but when he signed the shell:

          Here his abode the martyred Phocion claims,

          With Agis, not the last of Spartan names:

          Unconquered Cato shows the wound he tore,

          And Brutus his ill Genius meets no more.

              But in the centre of the hallowed choir,

          Six pompous columns o'er the rest aspire;

          Around the shrine itself of Fame they stand,

          Hold the chief honours, and the Fane command.

          High on the first the mighty Homer shone;

          Eternal adamant composed his throne;

          Father of verse! in holy fillets drest,

          His silver beard waved gently o'er his breast:

          Though blind, a boldness in his looks appears;

          In years he seemed, but not impaired by years.

          The wars of Troy were round the pillar seen:

          Here fierce Tydides wounds the Cyprian Queen;

          Here Hector glorious from Patroclus' fall,

          Here dragged in triumph round the Trojan wall.

          Motion and life did every part inspire,

          Bold was the work, and proved the