Goaded to desperation, rather than disheartened by their reverses and the remorseless cruelties of the Turks, the Greeks struggled bravely on, and during the year 1823 the results of the contest were generally in their favor. They often proved themselves worthy sons of those who fell
"In bleak Thermopylæ's strait,"
or on the plains of Marathon. Their patriotic determination to be free, or die in the attempt, is happily reflected in the following lines by the poet CAMPBELL, whose heart beat in sympathy with their efforts for liberty.
Song of the Greeks.
Again to the battle, Achaians!
Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance!
Our land—the first garden of Liberty's tree—
It hath been, and shall yet be, the land of the free;
For the Cross of our faith is replanted,
The pale, dying crescent is daunted,
And we march that the footprints of Mahomet's slaves
May be washed out in blood from our forefathers' graves.
Their spirits are hovering o'er us,
And the sword shall to glory restore us.
Ah! what though no succor advances,
Nor Christendom's chivalrous lances
Are stretched in our aid? Be the combat our own!
And we'll perish or conquer more proudly alone!
For we've sworn by our country's assaulters,
By the virgins they've dragged from our altars,
By our massacred patriots, our children in chains,
By our heroes of old, and their blood in our veins,
That, living, we shall be victorious,
Or that, dying, our deaths shall be glorious!
A breath of submission we breathe not:
The sword that we've drawn we will sheathe not;
Its scabbard is left where our martyrs are laid,
And the vengeance of ages has whetted its blade.
Earth may hide, waves ingulf, fire consume us;
But they shall not to slavery doom us.
If they rule, it shall be o'er our ashes and graves:
But we've smote them already with fire on the waves,
And new triumphs on land are before us—
To the charge!—Heaven's banner is o'er us.
This day shall ye blush for its story,
Or brighten your lives with its glory.
Our women—oh say, shall they shriek in despair,
Or embrace us from conquest, with wreaths in their hair?
Accursed may his memory blacken,
If a coward there be who would slacken
Till we've trampled the turban, and shown ourselves worth
Being sprung from, and named for, the godlike of earth.
Strike home! and the world shall revere us
As heroes descended from heroes.
Old Greece lightens up with emotion!
Her inlands, her isles of the ocean,
Fanes rebuilt, and fair towns, shall with jubilee ring,
And the Nine shall new hallow their Helicon's spring.
Our hearths shall be kindled in gladness,
That were cold and extinguished in sadness;
While our maidens shall dance, with their white waving arms,
Singing joy to the brave that delivered their charms,
When the blood of yon Mussulman cravens
Shall have crimsoned the beaks of our ravens!