“If you would be so kind.”
“What will you sing?” said the poet, sitting down at the piano. “No love, no wine to-night. It is our last meeting in England, so sing some song of farewell.”
“Will I sing ‘The Call to Arms’?”
“Yes, that will be stirring enough.”
Whereupon Caliphronas sang that patriotic song, which was written by some modern Hellenic Tyrtæus during the War of Independence. Crispin afterwards translated it into the metre of Byron’s famous “Isles of Greece” for the benefit of Eunice, who was anxious to know the words which, clothed in their Greek garb, rang through the room like the inspiriting blare of a trumpet.
“Thermopylæ! Thermopylæ!
Give back your Spartan sons of yore,
To raise the flag of liberty,
And dye its folds in Turkish gore;
Then will the crimson banner wave