Exeunt

SEMICHORUS 1:
Would I were the winged cloud
Of a tempest swift and loud!
I would scorn _650
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 _655
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 _660
Echo to the battle paean
Of the free—
I would flee
A tempestuous herald of victory!
My golden rain
For the Grecian slain _665
Should mingle in tears with the bloody main,
And my solemn thunder-knell
Should ring to the world the passing-bell
Of Tyranny! _670

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— _675

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 _680
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 _685
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, _690
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; _695
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, _700
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? _705
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! _710

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 _715
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, _720
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 _725
‘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, _730
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. _735
But pay that broken shrine again,
Love for hate and tears for blood.