And vacant on the rippling waves doth look,
That peaceful still 'twixt bitterest foeman flow;
For proud each peasant as the noblest duke;
Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know
"Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low.

The above extract is from the first canto,

what follows is from the second.

Fair Greece sad relic of departed worth! Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great! Who now shall lead thy scatter'd children forth, And long-accustomed bondage uncreate? Not such thy sons who whilome did await, The hopeless warriors of a willing doom, In bleak Thermopyla's sepulchral straitOh! who that gallant spirit shall resume, Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb?

Spirit of Freedom! when on Phyle's brow

Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train,
Could'st thou forbode the dismal hour which now

Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain!

Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain,
But every carle can lord it o'er thy land;

Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain,

Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish band, From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmann'd.

In all save form alone, how chang'd! and who
That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye,
Who but would deem their bosoms burn'd anew
With thy unquenched beam, lost liberty!
And many dream withal the hour is nigh
That gives them back their fathers' heritage;
For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh,
Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage,

Or tear their name defil'd from Slavery's mournful page.

Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not

Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?

By their right arms the conquest must be wrought.
Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye? no!

True, they may lay your proud despoilers low,
But not for you will Freedom's altars flame.
Shades of the Helots! triumph o'er your foe!

Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same; Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thine years of shame.

When riseth Lacedemon's hardihood,

When Thebes Epaminondas rears again,—
When Athen's children are with arts endued,-
When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men,
Then may'st thou be restored; but not till then.
A thousand years scarce serve to form a state!
An hour may lay it in the dust; and when
Can man its shattered splendor renovate,
Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate!

And yet how lovely in thine age of wo,
Land of lost gods and godlike men! art thou!
Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow
Proclaim thee Nature's varied favorite now.
Thy fanes, thy temples to thy surface bow,
Commingling slowly with heroic earth,
Broke with the share of every rustic plough;
So perish monuments of mortal birth,

So perish all in turn, save well recorded Worth.

These are long extracts. They have been given in the hope of their being read in connexion with the subsequent remarks. At no very distant time, verses such as

these were regarded by many, as among the most admirable productions of the age. But, if we are not altogether mistaken, the principal difference between them, and prose too dull to find a reader, consists in the circumstance of their being written in stanzas. Some passages in these cantos rise above, and others fall below what we have quoted; for what is quoted is merely tame and prosaic, while the wit attempted, and the moral feeling discovered, are offensive. Passing over the lamentable parade of vulgar vice and common place infidelity, it may be asked whether sentiments such as the following, from the Albanian song, introduced into the second canto, are adapted to produce any feeling but disgust; or what is the urpose of putting such thoughts into rhyme?

I ask not the pleasures which riches supply,

My sabre shall win what the feeble must buy;

Shall win the young bride with her long flowing hair, And many a maid from her mother shall tear.

I love the fair face of the maid in her youth,
Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall soothe;
Let her bring from the chambers her many toned lyre,
And sing us a song on the fall of her sire.

But in these first two cantos, there is sometimes an energy of conception and expression, which their author afterwards, displayed more fully. They were accompanied, likewise, with a number of minor poems, some of which are among the most powerful and interesting of his productions. Such are the verses beginning

O lady when I left the shore,

The distant shore which gave me birth,

I hardly thought to grieve once more,
To quit another spot on earth.