"Think with what passionate delight
The tale was told in Christian halls,
How Sobieski turned to flight

The Muslim from Vienna's walls;
How, when his horse triumphant trod
The burgher's richest robes upon,
The ancient words rose loud-'From God
A man was sent whose name was John.'*

"Think not that time can ever give
Prescription to such doom as ours,
That Grecian hearts can ever live

Contented serfs of barbarous powers:
More than six hundred years had past,
Since Moorish hosts could Spain o'erwhelm,
Yet Boabdil was thrust at last,

Lamenting, from Grenada's realm.

"And if to his old Asian seat,

From this usurped unnatuʼral throne,
The Turk is driven, 'tis surely meet
That we again should hold our own:
Be but Byzantium's native sign

Of Cross on Crescent+ once unfurled,
And Greece shall guard by right divine
The portals of the Eastern world.

* Historical.

The Turks adopted the sign of the Crescent from Byzantium after the conquest: the Cross above the Crescent is found on many ruins of the Grecian city; among others, on the Genoese castle on the Bosphorus. The Virgin standing on the Crescent is another common sign.

M

"Before the small Athenian band
The Persian myriads stood at bay,
The spacious East lay down unmanned
Beneath the Macedonian's sway:
Alas! that Greek could turn on Greek-
Fountain of all our woes and shame-
Till men knew scarcely where to seek
The fragments of the Grecian name.

"Know ye the Romans of the North? The fearful race whose infant strength Stretches its arms of conquest forth,

To grasp the world in breadth and length? They cry 'That ye and we are old,

And worn with luxuries and cares,

And they alone are fresh and bold,

Time's latest and most honoured heirs!

"Alas for you! alas for us!

Alas for men that think and feel,

If once beside this Bosphorus

Shall stamp Sclavonia's frozen heel!

Oh! place us boldly in the van,

And ere we yield this narrow sea, The past shall hold within its span

At least one more Thermopyla."

OCCASIONAL POEMS.

A MONUMENT FOR SCUTARI.

"THE cypresses of Scutari

In stern magnificence look down On the bright lake and stream of sea And glittering theatre of town; Above the throng of rich kiosks, Above the towers in triple tire, Above the domes of loftiest mosques, Those pinnacles of death aspire."

Thus, years ago, in grave descant,
The trave'ller sang those ancient trees
That Eastern grace delights to plant
In reverence of man's obsequies;
But time has shed a golden haze

Of memory round the cypress glooms,

And gladly he reviews the days

He wandered 'mid those alien tombs.

Now other passion rules the soul;
And Scutari's familiar name
Arouses thoughts beyond controul,

A tangled web of pride and shame;

No more shall that fair word recall
The Moslem and his Asian rest,
But the dear brothers of us all

Rent from their mother's bleeding breast.

Calmly our warriors moulder there,

Uncoffined, in the sandy soil,
Once festered in the sultry glare,
Or wasted in the wintry toil.
No verdure on those graves is seen,
No shade obstructs the garish day;
The tender dews to keep them green
Are wept, alas! too far away;

Are wept in homes their smiles shall bless No more, beyond the welte'ring deep,

In cottages now fatherless

On English mead or Highland steep,

In palaces by common grief

Made level with the meanest room,

One agony, and one relief—

The conscience of a glorious doom!

For there, too, is Thermopylæ ;—
As on the dank Ægean shore,

By this bright portal of the sea
Stood the Devoted as of yore;
When Greece herself was merged in night,

The Spartan held his honour's meed

And shall no pharos shed the light

To future time of Britain's deed?

Masters of Form!-if such be now

On sense and powers of Art intent, To match this mount of sorrow's brow Devise your seemliest monument: One that will symbolize the cause

For which this might of manhood fell, Obedience to their country's laws,

And duty to God's truth as well.

Let, too, the old Miltonic Muse,
That trumpeted "the scattered bones
Of saints on Alpine mountains," use
Reveillé of forgotten tones;
Let some one, worthy to be priest
Of this high altar of renown,

Write in the tongues of West and East

Who bore this cross, who wore this crown.

Write that, as Britain's peaceful sons
Luxurious rich, well-tended poor,
Fronted the foeman's steel and guns,

As each would guard his household door;

So, in those ghastly halls of pain

Where thousand hero-sufferers lay, Some smiled in thought to fight again,

And most unmurmuʼring passed away.

Write that, when pride of human skill
Fell prostrate with the weight of care,

And men prayed out for some strong will,
Some reason 'mid the wild despair,