Contemporary Poetry Inspired by the Greek Revolution

GREECE

J. M. D.

Greeks now struggling to be free
Greeks who fight for liberty,
Valiant as your fathers be,
Spurn your chains and slavery

Now's the day, the dawning hour,
See the haughty Turkish power,
On them like a torrent pour,
On for Greece, and liberty.

Who would wear a Turkish chain,
Who would bear a coward's name;
Who would live in servile shame?
Coward, let him basely die.

By your maids and matrons’ woe,
By your sons, and temples low,
Down the impious crescent throw,
Bear the cross for liberty.

Now Columbia feels a glow,
Freemen shall to freemen show,
Gallantly to aid the blow,
On for Greece and victory.

The New-York Mirror, and Ladies Gazette, I, January 17, 1824; Raizis-Papas, pp. 14-15.

GREECE

Laurence

Freedom! from thy tranquil home,
Fast by the Atlantic wave,
Haste, from their impending doom,
Greece’s hapless sons to save,
Happiness, thy loveliest daughter,
Dwelt of yore beneath their skies;
Now, the bloodstain'd fiend of slaughters
Rules where Scio ruin'd lies.

Shall the country of thy birth
Bow for aye to tyranny
Free'st once of all the earth,
Shall she ne'er again be free?
Shall the noble and the brave
Fight and bleed for thee, in vain?
Haste thy native land to save;
Break, oh! break, her galling chain!
............................
Hark! 'tis Freedom's voice I hear!
“Children of the west, to arms!"
Thousands at the cry appear;
Freedom every bosom warms.
Hark, again! “By ev'ry favour
That my hand to you has given,
Haste to Greece, from ruin save her”—
“Haste to Greece!” they shout to Heaven
............................
Widows, orphans, who had mourn'd
Husbands slaves, and parents slain;
Husbands, fathers, sons, return'd
To the arms of love again,
Twine to grace each hero's head,
Wreaths from glory's chosen tree,
While the band who for them bled,
Shout exulting, “Greece is free!”

The Minerva, I, December 7, 1822. This is one of the earliest poems on the Greek cause. Raizis-Papas, pp. 18-19.

GREECE

Ye generous spirits! whom the holy cause
Of charity, this night together draws;
Whose hearts the woes of others promptly feel,
To you the Drama makes her fond appeal.

'Tis for that land illustrious and revered,
To her above all other lands endeared,
The Drama's birth-place, long her only home,
Her darling boast through every age to come;
GREECE! sacred name, that elevates the mind
To musings proud, exalted and refind,
Thy wrongs and sorrows shall my speech unfold,
(Sad contrast now to what thou wert of old!)
Thy sons-oh! shall I tell how like their sires,
They feel the flame which freedom's cause inspires?
Tho' few and friendless, they their foes defy, -
Resolved to gain their liberty or die!

And oft have they upon th' ensanguined field,
Taught their oppressors' barbarous hosts to yield:
But hosts on hosts the barbarous tribes afford,
And fruitless valour wields the Grecian sword!

Yet ah! 'tis not the formidable host
Of vengeful armies, Grecians dread the most;

'Tis not the shedding of their dearest blood, —
That flows in welcome in a cause so good;
'Tis not the groans from Scio's ruined isle,
Nor the dead shrieks from Missolonghi’s pile,
That bid their cheeks the hue of sadness wear,
And fill their dauntless bosoms with despair!
'Tis FAMINE's iron grip that chills their fires,
'Tis starving children, mothers, wives, and sires
Whose cries for bread th' heroic soldier hears
In helpless anguish and o'erwhelming fears!
Yes, hearts whom all the Sultan's proud array
Of chiefs and warriors, never could dismay,
Despond and droop, by famine's power o'ercast,
Like withering leaves before th' autumnal blast!

And they are Christians! shoots of glorious stem,
Children of heroes —yes, and worthy them!
Say, must they starve, or sink beneath the yoke

Of the fierce Infidel, so lately broke,
While Christian nations spread their realms around,
With riches of o’erflowing harvests crow'd?
Shame! shame, to Christendom, if she can stand
With heart unmov'd and with unopened hand,
To view such scenes, nor promptly interfere
To check the desolating Turk's career!

But more than shame to us, so amply blest.
If in the lap of plenty we can rest
With selfish ease, and hear the affecting prayer
Of Greece for aid, nor snatch her from despair!
But heaven forbids to act so vile a part,
Heaven, and each virtuous feeling of the heart.
To Greece we hearken, and her tale of woe
Has bade our warmest sympathies to flow:
Soon to her shores our ships shall gladly bear
The wish'd relief, which we so well can spare. —
Then may her sons reviving vigor again,
To drive their tyrants from her classic plain,
Until the fierce but glorious struggle o’er,
Plenty and peace shall bless her realms once more:
And as from ashes of her parent springs
The beauteous Phoenix, on untarnished wings,
May Grecian genius yet her powers unfold,
And shine as pure and bright as e'er she shone of old.

Anonymous—From The Philadelphia Albumn, and Ladies Weekly Gazette, I, no. 35, January 31, 1827. The original editor's note indicates that: “The following animated lines were written by a gentleman of this city, advantageously known for its literary and poetical talents, and presented to the Committee in aid of the Greeks, as an Address intended for delivery at the Theatre on the night lately devoted by the managers to the benevolent purpose of assisting that persecuted and oppressed people." Raizis-Papas, pp. 34-35.

THE LAST SONG OF THE GREEK PATRIOT

James Gates Percival

............................
These have been glorious days:
Let come what will, our fame
Is like the sun's eternal blaze,
And when they tell of Marathon,
And all the fields our fathers won,
They too shall name
Bozzaris, and the few who died,
Victims of glory, by his side.

The world has told our doom -
'Tis liberty or death!
The tree we planted must not bloom,
For Turk and Christian—all unite,
And royal hands our sentence write,
And yet our breath,
When trampled by the ruffian herd,
Shall never breathe one recreant word.

If we must die, then die!
And let the foul disgrace
Cling to their names eternally,
Who, when they had the power to save,
Doomed to a dark and bloody grave
A high, devoted race.
Awhile the sweets of life to know,
O God, and then to perish so!

But freedom has one shore:
Would we could shelter there
The tender ones we value more
Than life or fame! O generous men!
Be with us, as ye long have been,
And we will share
All the poor fruit of toils and pains,—
Our hearts, our lives, perhaps our chains.

Come at this fatal hour,
Ye last of high-born souls;
Come, when the crushing weight of power
Has all but bent our necks to earth;
We will not shame our glorious birth.
.........................

James Gates Percival, The Poetical Works, Boston, 1859; Raizis-Papas, pp. 52-54.

THE GRECIAN AMAZON

William Cullen Bryant (1824)

I buckle on my slender side
The pistol and the scimetar,
And, in my maiden flower and pride,
Am come to share the tasks of war;
And yonder stands my fiery steed,
That paws the ground, and neighs to go;
My charger is the Arab breed-
I took him from the routed foe.

My mirror is the morning spring,
At which I dress my ruffled hair;
My dimm’d and dusty arms I bring
And wash away the blood-stain there.
Why should I guard from wind and sun
This cheek, whose virgin rose is fled:
It was for one-oh! only one
It kept its bloom—and he is dead!

But they who slew him-unaware
Of coward murderers lurking nigh-
And left him to the fowls of air,
And yet alive, and they must die.
They slew him—and my virgin years
Are vowed to Greece and vengeance now;
And many an Othman dame, in tears,
Shall rue the Grecian maiden's vow.

I touch'd the lute in better days—
I led in dance the joyous band:
Ah! they may move to mirthful lays
Whose hand can touch a lover's hand.
The march of hosts that haste to meet
Seems gayer than the dance to me:
The lute's sweet tones are not so sweet
As the fierce shout of victory!

Originally published as “Song of the Greek Amazon,” in the United States Literary Gazette (December 1, 1824); reprinted as “The Grecian Amazon” under the initials “L.G.” in the New York Mirror, and Ladies Literary Gazette, II, March 25, 1825, p. 280, probably on the occasion of the anniversary of the the Greek Revolution. Raizis-Papas, pp. 59-60.

SONS OF THE GREEKS

[GREEK TEXT] AEÛTE Taides TÔ 'Eldvwv! [GREEK TEXT]

George Washington Doane

“Sons of the Greeks, arise!"
And gird your armour on;
Your bleeding country's rights assert,
Avenge your father's wrong.
Sons of the helmed brave
Who held Thermopylae
Dare, as they dared, the turbaned slave,
And Greece shall yet be free.
............................

'Tis up—the glorious strife,
By field, and tower, and town;
And palace, mosque, and minaret,
And frowning fort, are down:
The Ottoman retreats,
The crescent veils its ray,
And holy hands, in Stamboul's streets
The Cross of Christ display.

“Sons of the Greeks arise!"
Rise in your fathers’ might,
With sword girt on, and spear in rest,
Wage Freedom's holy fight;
Swear—'twas the father's oath,
And well befits the son-
Swear, free to live, or firm to die,
“By those in Marathon!”

W. C. Doane, ed., The Poetical Writings of the Right Rev. Geo. Washington Doane (New York, 1860), pp. 28–30. Doane was Episcopal Archbishop of New Jersey. Raizis-Papas, pp. 71-73.

PROLOGUE

Edward C. Pinkney
(Delivered at the Greek Benefit in Baltimore —1823)

I
As one, who long upon his couch hath lain
Subdued by sickness to a slave of pain,
When time and sudden health his strength repair,
Springs jocund to his feet, and walks the air;
So Greece, through centuries a prostrate land,
At length starts upforever may she stand-

II
Since smiling Liberty, the sun thrice blest,
That had its rising in our happy west,
Extends its radiance eastward to that shore,
The place of Gods whom yet our hearts adore;
And, hailed by loud acclaim of thousands, hath
Been worshipped with a more than Magian faith,
.................................

Shall we, who almost placed it in the sky,
Fail to assist the magnanimity,';
With which, regardless of much pressing want,
They greet their fair and heavenly visitant?

Forbid it, Justice! we detest the state,
Which, knowing that mortality must rate
By mere comparison things dark or bright,-
Would make its fame as painters from a light,
By circumjacent blackness—we are free,
And so could wish the total earth to be.
Greece shall, Greece is, each old, heroic shade,
Draws, with her living sons his spectral blade,
And combats, proud of like his own,
Like Theseus' ghost at storied Marathon.

III
“The Last of Grecians," —is become a phrase,
Improper in these new triumphant days:
The swords well wielded against Turkish bands,
Are not unworthy of those mighty hands,
Which overthrew the haughty Persian, when
Pausanias and Leonidas were men.
............................

VI.
Tonight the useful and the pleasing claim,
Still more than commonly, to seem the same;
For pleasing you, we aid, “in our degree,”
A struggling nation's strife for liberty,-
The strife whose voice from this great world demands,
What mine of you beseeches—"clap your hands!"

“This address was written to be spoken before some theatrical entertainment for the benefit of the Greeks, then engaged in a war of independence from Turkish rule, during which American and English sentiments greatly favored the patriots.” See: The Life and Works of Edward Coote Pinkney, by Th. O. Mabbott and Frank L. Pleadwell (New York, 1926), pp. 122–124. As a young man Pinkney served on the Mediterranean Squadron and had fought pirates off the Barbary Coast. Raizis-Papas, pp. 82–83.

TO THE LADIES OF GREECE

T.

Ye beautiful daughters of Greece and her Isles,
Who weep o'er the land of your birth,
Where all that was glorious the spoiler defiles,
Like the fiend in the garden of earth;

Again on the mountain-again by the wave,
Assist at the rite and the prayer.
Which man, putting off the foul bonds of the slave,
Shall offer to liberty there.

Again light the brave with your glances divine
And the crown of green laurel prepare
For him who has fought for his land, and the shrine
Of the God who made you so fair.

From you shall the heart of the Patriot claim
The reward which the valiant most prize,
The best, dearest bliss—the clear light of his fame,
Reflected from chaste loving eyes.

Too long has that beauty which came from above
The home of the Hero to grace,
Been doom'd to the curse of the Infidel's love,
Who tramples the fame of her race.

Yet shall beauty again those high virtues insure,
Which flourish'd when Greece yet was young;
The noblest that Bards ever gave to the lyre,
Or glow'd upon History's tongue.

Then call forth the youth to their country's array,
Cheer them onward to Fame with your smiles,
Till the tyrant shall perish, or fee far away
From Greece and her beautiful Isles.

For Greece was the region where Woman first gave
To Virtue a magical sway,
And guided to Honor the Free and the Brave,
Like the Angel of Glory's bright way.

The Minerva, I, April 27, 1822; Raizis-Papas, pp. 92–93.

THE SULIOTE POLEMARQUE

S. L. Fairfield

'Tis sunset o'er Oraco's vale
And old Dodona's holy woods,
Where lingers many a glorious tale
Shrined in those holy solitudes;
And through Klissura's dim defile,
As pours Voioussa's mountain flood,
Its dark waves catch a sunlight smile
Along the lonely pass of blood;
And Pindus wears a robe of light
Through all this rugged mountain range,
Like spirits throned where change and blight
Come not, nor sin nor any change;
And on the Cassopean Height
the Kunghi—fortress of the brave,
Like dark clouds on a lurid night,
Hangs threatening o'er the Ionian wave.

'Tis midnight: and a Suliote band
Of faint and famished ones pass on
In silence exiles from that land
Where deathless deeds were vainly done,
And through a deep, wild wooded dell
The last hope of the Suliote name
Tread trembling where their fathers fell,
The eternal heirs of Grecian fame,
And often bank their dim eyes turn,
In love yet lingering mid despair,
Where beacon lights of glory burn
Amid proud Freedom's mountain air,

But few can now find free abode
On those wild cliffs where temples erst
Rose, crown'd with glory, to each god,
Whose presence from the starr'd skies burst!
...................

“'Tis Freedom-Glory—or the Grave!
So spake the high-souled caloyer,
The Polemarque of Suli's band:
The man whose trumpet voice could stir
The faintest heart in all the lkand:
...................

“Our birth place for our trophied tomb,
“Our death, our immortality!
“Brave Palikars! they come, they come!”
Each in his full heart's silence stood,
Thought of lost hope and ruined house,
And deep revenge in Othman blood.
“They come! they come! now stand apart
“With torches in your red right hands,
“And by the wrongs of every heart,
“Where this proud tower on Pindus stands,
“The Suliote's grave shall be and there
“The victims victors with their mountain foes
“Shall sleep mid their own mountain air
“Free till life's latest heart pulse close!”
..............................

Onward through mazy paths he trod
And thousands followed hurriedly,
When loudly—In the name of God!
“Death on the shrine of Liberty!"
The Caloyer's high voice went forth,
“Death to the tyrant and the slave!
“Death on the spot that gave us birth!
—“Revenge for home, hope, country gone!
“Revenge for bondage borne in vain!
“Revenge for each loved, honoured one!
“Revenge for all!” He fired the train!

Through all the vaulted magazine,
And dark as fiends the Moslems grew,
The Suliotes knelt and prayed serene.
Each for a moment-seas of fame
Burst through vast rocks that had withstood
The skill of many a vaulted name,
The earthquake and the boundless flood.
The mountain sprang asunder then;
And mid a storm of shattered rocks,
The arms and limbs of thousands men
Flew through the air in blackened flocks,
And, mid the glare and gloom—the roar,
The wreck, the ruin, upward rose,
............................

So Suli's cliffs and crags became
A lurid mass of fire and blood,
The home of havoc and of flame,
Where Freedom in her death hour stood,
Where tyrants ne'er shall dare to stand,
While Suli's sons on earth draw breath,
In that proud, holy, storied Land
Where Glory lights the realms of Death.

The Philadelphia Album, and Ladies' Literary Gazette, III, October 22, 1828, p. 168. Fairfield's Poetical Works was published in Philadelphia , 1842. Raizis--Papas, pp. 103-107.

MARCO BOZZARIS

Fitz-Greene Halleck (1824)

At midnight, in his guarded tent,
The Turk was dreaming of the hour
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power:
In dreams, through camp and court, he bore
The trophies of a conqueror;
In dreams his song of triumph heard;

Then wore his monarch's signet ring:
Then pressed that monarch's throne —a kind;
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,
As Eden's garden bird.

At midnight, in the forest shades,
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,
True as the steel of their tried blades,
Heroes in heart and hand.
..............................

An hour passed on — the Turk awoke;
That bright dream was his last;
He woke-to hear his sentries shriek,
“To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!”
He woke to die midst flame, and smoke,
And shout, and groan, and sabre stroke,
And death shots falling thick and fast
As lightnings from the mountain cloud;
And heard with voice as trumpet loud,
Bozzaris cheer his band;
“Strike till the last armed foe expires;
Strike for your altars and your fires;
Strike—for the green graves of your sires;
God-and your native land!”

They fought-like brave men, long and well;
They piled that ground with Moslem slain,
They conquered—but Bozzaris fell,
Bleeding at every vein.
His few surviving comrades saw
His smile when rang their proud hurrah,
And the red field was won;
Then saw in death his eyelids close
Calmly, as to a night's repose,
Like flowers at set of sun.
Come to the bridal chamber, Death!
Come to the mother's, when she feels,
For the first time, her first-born's breath;
Come when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke;
............................

But to the hero, when his sword
Has won the battle for the free,
Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word;
And in its hollow tones are heard
The thanks of millions yet to be.
..............................

Bozzaris! with the storied brave
Greece nurtured in her glory's time,
Rest thee—there is no prouder grave,
Even in her own proud clime.
She wore no funeral weeds for thee,
Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume,
Like torn branch from death's leafless tree
In sorrow's pomp and pageantry,
The heartless luxury of the tomb;
But she remembers thee as one
Long loved, and for a season gone;
For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed,
Her marble wrought, her music breathed;
For thee she rings the birthday bells;
..............................

Talk of thy doom without a sigh:
For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's;
One of the few, the immortal names,
That were not born to die.

The Poetical Works (New York, 1852), pp. 17–21. The best known, and perhaps the greatest poem in this collection, was received with enthusiastic praise by Helleck's contemporaries, poets and critics such as Bryant, Brooks, Poe, Dana, Parker et al. For a metrical translation in Greek, by M. Byron Raizi , see the March 1970 issue of Epeirotike Hestia. Alexander Rizos Rangaves had seen the ode, during his stay in the United States as Ambassador, and translated it in archaic, unrhyming lines. A French version is known to have been made. According to Halleck him self “Marco Bozaris” was reprinted, recited, and “puffed in a thousand (more or less) magazines and newspapers” in America, England, Scotland, Ireland, Greece etc. See, N.F. Adkins, Fitz- Greene Halleck: An Early Knickerbocker Wit and Poet (New Haven, 1930). Raizis-Papas, pp. 108-11.