ODE TO LIBERTY.
The ancient states of Greece, perhaps the only ones in which a perfect model of liberty ever existed, are naturally brought to view in the opening of the poem:
| “Who shall awake the Spartan fife, And call in solemn sounds to life, The youths, whose locks divinely spreading, Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue.” |
There is something extremely bold in this imagery of the locks of the Spartan youths, and greatly superior to that description Jocasta gives us of the hair of Polynices:
| Βοστρυχων τε κυανοχρωτα χαιτας Πλοκαμον–––– |
| “What new Alcæus, fancy-blest, Shall sing the sword, in myrtles drest,” &c. |
This alludes to a fragment of Alcæus still remaining, in which the poet celebrates Harmodius and Aristogiton, who slew the tyrant Hipparchus, and thereby restored the liberty of Athens.
The fall of Rome is here most nervously described in one line
| “With heaviest sound, a giant statue, fell.” |