[Exeunt.]

SEMICHORUS 1: Would I were the winged cloud Of a tempest swift and loud! I would scorn The smile of morn And the wave where the moonrise is born! I would leave The spirits of eve A shroud for the corpse of the day to weave From other threads than mine! Bask in the deep blue noon divine. Who would? Not I.

NOTE: _657 the deep blue “Errata”, Wms. transcript; the blue edition 1822.

SEMICHORUS 2: Whither to fly?

SEMICHORUS 1: Where the rocks that gird th’ Aegean Echo to the battle paean Of the free— I would flee A tempestuous herald of victory! My golden rain For the Grecian slain Should mingle in tears with the bloody main, And my solemn thunder-knell Should ring to the world the passing-bell Of Tyranny!

SEMICHORUS 2: Ah king! wilt thou chain The rack and the rain? Wilt thou fetter the lightning and hurricane? The storms are free, But we—

CHORUS: O Slavery! thou frost of the world’s prime, Killing its flowers and leaving its thorns bare! Thy touch has stamped these limbs with crime, These brows thy branding garland bear, But the free heart, the impassive soul Scorn thy control!

SEMICHORUS 1: Let there be light! said Liberty, And like sunrise from the sea, Athens arose!—Around her born, Shone like mountains in the morn Glorious states;—and are they now Ashes, wrecks, oblivion?

SEMICHORUS 2: Go, Where Thermae and Asopus swallowed Persia, as the sand does foam: Deluge upon deluge followed, Discord, Macedon, and Rome: And lastly thou!

SEMICHORUS 1: Temples and towers, Citadels and marts, and they Who live and die there, have been ours, And may be thine, and must decay; But Greece and her foundations are Built below the tide of war, Based on the crystalline sea Of thought and its eternity; Her citizens, imperial spirits, Rule the present from the past, On all this world of men inherits Their seal is set.

SEMICHORUS 2: Hear ye the blast, Whose Orphic thunder thrilling calls From ruin her Titanian walls? Whose spirit shakes the sapless bones Of Slavery? Argos, Corinth, Crete Hear, and from their mountain thrones The daemons and the nymphs repeat The harmony.

SEMICHORUS 1: I hear! I hear!

SEMICHORUS 2: The world’s eyeless charioteer, Destiny, is hurrying by! What faith is crushed, what empire bleeds Beneath her earthquake-footed steeds? What eagle-winged victory sits At her right hand? what shadow flits Before? what splendour rolls behind? Ruin and renovation cry ‘Who but We?’

SEMICHORUS 1: I hear! I hear! The hiss as of a rushing wind, The roar as of an ocean foaming, The thunder as of earthquake coming. I hear! I hear! The crash as of an empire falling, The shrieks as of a people calling ‘Mercy! mercy!’—How they thrill! Then a shout of ‘kill! kill! kill!’ And then a small still voice, thus—

SEMICHORUS 2: For Revenge and Wrong bring forth their kind, The foul cubs like their parents are, Their den is in the guilty mind, And Conscience feeds them with despair.

NOTE: _728 For edition 1822, Wms. transcript; Fear cj. Fleay, Forman, Dowden. See Editor’s Note.

SEMICHORUS 1: In sacred Athens, near the fane Of Wisdom, Pity’s altar stood: Serve not the unknown God in vain. But pay that broken shrine again, Love for hate and tears for blood.