There flowery-hill Hymettus, with the sound
Of bees' industrious murmur, oft invites

To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls

His whispering stream: within the walls, then view
The schools of ancient sages; his who bred
Great Alexander to subdue the world,
Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next;

There shalt thou hear and learn the secret power
Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit

By voice or hand; and various-measured verse,
Eolian charms and Dorian lyric odes,

And his, who gave them breath, but higher sung,
Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer called,
Whose poem Phoebus challenged for his own:
Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught
In chorus or iambic, teachers best

Of moral prudence, with delight received
In brief sententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate, and chance, and change in human life,
High actions and high passions best describing:
Thence to the famous orators repair,

Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,
Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece,
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne :

To sage Philosophy next lend thine ear,
From heaven descended to the low-roofed house
Of Socrates;-see there his tenement,
Whom well inspired the oracle pronounced
Wisest of men from whose mouth issued forth
Mellifluous streams, that watered all the schools
Of Academics, old and new, with those
Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect
Epicurean, and the Stoic severe.

These here revolve, or, as thou lik'st, at home,
Till time mature thee for a kingdom's weight;
These rules will render thee a king complete
Within thyself, much more with empire joined.

Where'er we tread, 'tis haunted, holy ground!
No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould,
But one vast realm of wonder spreads around,
And all the Muse's tales seem truly told,

Milton.

*The battle of Marathon, in which Miltiades, the Athenian, defeated the hosts of invading Persians, under Datis and Artaphernes, was fought B.C. 490.

Till the sense aches with gazing to behold

The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon.
Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold,
Defies the power which crushed thy temples gone :
Age shakes Athena's towers, but spares grey Marathon.

The sun, the soil, but not the slave, the same-
Unchanged in all, except its foreign lord;

Preserves alike its bounds and boundless fame :
The battle-field-where Persia's victim-horde
First bowed beneath the brunt of Hella's sword,
As on the morn to distant glory dear,
When Marathon became a magic word,
Which uttered, to the hearer's eye appear

The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's career!
The flying Mede-his shaftless, broken bow!
The fiery Greek-his red pursuing spear!
Mountains above-earth's, ocean's plains below!
Death in the front-destruction in the rear !
Such was the scene. What now remaineth here ?
What sacred trophy marks the hallowed ground,
Recording Freedom's smile and Asia's tear?
The rifled urn, the violated mound,

The dust thy courser's hoofs, rude stranger, spurns
around!

Yet to the remnants of thy splendour past
Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied, throng;
Long shall the voyager, with the Ionian blast,
Hail the bright clime of battle and of song:
Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue
Fill with thy fame the youths of many a shore ;
Boast of the aged! lesson of the young!
Which sages venerate and bards adore,

As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore.

The parted bosom clings to wonted home,

If aught that's kindred cheer the welcome hearth;
He that is lonely, hither let him roam,
And gaze complacent on congenial earth.
Greece is no lightsome land of social mirth!
But he whom sadness sootheth may abide,
And scarce regret the region of his birth,
When wandering slow by Delphi's sacred side,

Or gazing o'er the plains where Greek and Persian died.

Byron.

Ex. 97.

The Death of Leonidas.

It was the wild midnight—a storm was on the sky;
The lightning gave its light, and the thunder echoed by;
The torrent swept the glen, the ocean lashed the shore;
Then rose the Spartan men, to make their bed in gore!
Swift from the deluged ground three hundred took the
shield;

Then, in silence, gathered round the leader of the field!
All up the mountain's side, all down the woody vale,
All by the rolling tide, waved the Persian banners pale.
And foremost from the pass, among the slumbering band,
Sprang king Leonidas, like the lightning's living brand.
Then double darkness fell, and the forest ceased its moan;
But there came a clash of steel, and a distant dying groan.
Anon, a trumpet blew, and a fiery sheet burst high,
That o'er the midnight threw a blood-red canopy.
A host glared on the hill; a host glared by the bay ;
But the Greeks rushed onward still, like leopards in their
play.

The air was all a yell, and the earth was all a flame,

Where the Spartan's bloody steel on the silken turbans came.
And still the Greek rushed on, where the fiery torrent rolled,
Till like a rising sun, shone Xerxes' tent of gold.

They found a royal feast, his midnight banquet there;
And the treasures of the East lay beneath the Doric spear.
There sat to the repast the bravest of the brave!
That feast must be their last, that spot must be their grave.
Up rose the glorious rank, to Greece one cup poured high,
Then hand in hand they drank 'To immortality.'
Fear on king Xerxes fell, when, like spirits from the tomb,
With shout and trumpet knell, he saw the warriors come.
But down swept all his power, with chariot and with charge;
Down poured the arrows' shower, till sank the Spartan targe.
Thus fought the Greek of old! thus will he fight again!
Shall not the self-same mould bring forth the self-same men?
Croly.

Ex. 98.

Flight of Xerxes.

I saw him on the battle-eve,

When like a king he bore him;

Proud hosts in glittering helm and greave,
And prouder chiefs before him:

Ex. 99.

The warrior and the warrior's deeds,
The morrow and the morrow's meeds,

No daunting thoughts came o'er him.
He looked around him, and his eye
Defiance flashed to earth and sky!
He looked on ocean--its broad breast
Was covered with his fleet;

On earth-and saw from east to west
His bannered millions meet;

While rock, and glen, and cave and coast,
Shook with the war-cry of that host,
The thunder of their feet!

He heard the imperial echoes ring-
He heard, and felt himself a king!
I saw him next alone; nor camp
Nor chief his step attended;
Nor banner's blaze, nor courser's tramp
With war-cries proudly blended.
He stood alone, whom Fortune high
So lately seemed to deify;

He who with Heaven contended
Fled, like a fugitive and slave-
Behind the foe, before the wave!
He stood-fleet, army, treasure gone,
Alone, and in despair;

While wave and wind swept ruthless on,
For they were monarchs there ;
And Xerxes in a single bark,

Where late his thousand ships were dark,

Must all thy fury dare ;

Thy glorious revenge was this,

Thy trophy, deathless Salamis !

Alexander and Philip.

Miss Jewsbury.

He stood by the river's side,
A conqueror and a king,
None matched his step of pride,

Amid the armèd ring;

And a heavy echo rose from the ground,
As a thousand warriors gathered round.
And the morning march had been long,
And the noontide sun was high,
And weariness bowed down the strong,
And heat closed every eye;

And the victor stood by the river's brim,
Whose coolness seemed but made for him.
The cypress spread their gloom,

Like a cloak from the noontide beam,
He flung back his dusty plume,

And plunged in the silver stream;

He plunged like the young steed fierce and wild, He was borne away like the feeble child.

They took the king to his tent

From the river's fatal banks,

A cry of terror went

Like a storm through the Grecian ranks ;
Was this the fruit of their glories won ?
Was this the death for Ammon's son ?
Many a leech heard the call,

But each one shrank away,

For heavy upon all

Was the weight of fear that day ;
When a thought of treason, a word of death,
Was in each eye and on each breath.

But one with the royal youth

Had been from his earliest hour,

And he knew that his heart was truth,
And he knew that his hand was power;
He gave what hope his skill might give,
And bade him trust to his faith, and live.

Alexander took the

cup,

And from beneath his head a scroll, He drank the liquor up,

And bade Philip read the roll;

And Philip looked on the page, where shame, Treason, and poison were named with his name. An angry flush rose on his brow,

And anger darkened his eye,

'What I have done I would do again now
If you trust my fidelity!'

The king watched his face-he felt he might dare
Trust the faith that was written there.

Next day the conqueror rose

From a greater conqueror free;

And again he stood amid those

Who had died his death to see :

He stood there proud of the lesson he gave,
That faith and trust were made for the brave.

McLean,