Ode to Sicily

No mortal hand hath struck the heroick string
Since Milton's lay in death across his breast.
But shall the lyre then rest
Along tired Cupid's wing
With vilest dust upon it? This of late
Hath been its fate.

But thou, O Sicily! art born again.
Far over chariots and Olympic steeds
I see the heads and the stout arms of men,
And will record (God give me power!) their deeds.

Hail to thee first, Palermo! hail to thee
Who callest with loud voice, ' ' Arise! he free;
Weak is the hand and rusty is the chain."
Thou callest; nor in vain.

Not only from the mountain rushes forth
The knighthood of the North,
In whom my soul elate
Owns now a race cognate,
But even the couch of Sloth 'mid painted walls
Swells up, and men start forth from it, where calls
The voice of Honour, long, too long, unheard.

Not that the wretch was fear'd
Who fear'd the meanest as he fear'd the best,
(A reed could break his rest)
But that around all kings
For ever springs
A wasting vapour that absorbs the fire
Of all that would rise higher.

Even free nations will not let there be
More nations free.
Witness (O shame!) our own . .
Of late years viler none.
The second Charles found many and made more
Base as himself: his reign is not yet o'er.

To gratify a brood
Swamp-fed amid the Suabian wood,
The sons of Lusitania were cajoled
And bound and sold,
And sent in chains where we unchain the slave
We die with thirst to save.

Ye too, Sicilians, ye too gave we up
To drain the bitter cup

VOL. vm.
Ye now dash from ye in the despot's face . .
O glorious race,

Which Hiero, Gelon, Pindar, sat among
And prais'd for weaker deeds in deathless song;
One is yet left to laud ye. Years have mar'd
My voice, my prelude for some better bard,
When such shall rise, and such your deeds create.

In the lone woods, and late,
Murmurs swell loud and louder, till at last
So strong the blast
That the whole forest, earth, and sea, and sky,
To the loud surge reply.