The Spartans' March

’Twas morn upon the Grecian hills,
Where peasants dress’d the vines;
Sunlight was on Cithæron’s rills,
Arcadia’s rocks and pines.

And brightly, through his reeds and flowers,
Eurotas wander’d by,
When a sound arose from Sparta’s towers
Of solemn harmony.

Was it the hunters’ choral strain
To the woodland-goddess pour’d?
Did virgin hands in Pallas’ fane
Strike the full-sounding chord?

But helms were glancing on the stream,
Spears ranged in close array,
And shields flung back a glorious beam
To the morn of a fearful day!

And the mountain-echoes of the land
Swell’d through the deep blue sky;
While to soft strains moved forth a band
Of men that moved to die.

They march’d not with the trumpet’s blast,
Nor bade the horn peal out;
And the laurel groves, as on they pass’d,
Rang with no battle-shout!

They ask’d no clarion’s voice to fire
Their souls with an impulse high;
But the Dorian reed and the Spartan lyre
For the sons of liberty!

And still sweet flutes their path around
Sent forth Æolian breath;
They needed not a sterner sound
To marshal them for death!

So moved they calmly to their field,
Thence never to return,
Save bearing back the Spartan shield,
Or on it proudly borne!