The Slavery Of Greece Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCC DDEE FFGGHHH IIJJKLMMIIJJ AACC NNOOBBPPQRSSTTJJSS AADDIIBBBBCCUU CCVVWWHH QXJJJJ CCAA CCWWYYTTUUUnrivall'd Greece thou ever honor'd name | A |
Thou nurse of heroes dear to deathless fame | A |
Though now to worth to honor all unknown | B |
Thy lustre faded and thy glories flown | B |
Yet still shall Memory with reverted eye | C |
Trace thy past worth and view thee with a sigh | C |
- | |
- | |
Thee Freedom cherish'd once with fostering hand | D |
And breath'd undaunted valour through the land | D |
Here the stern spirit of the Spartan soil | E |
The child of poverty inur'd to toil | E |
- | |
- | |
Here lov'd by Pallas and the sacred Nine | F |
Once did fair Athens' tow'ring glories shine | F |
To bend the bow or the bright faulchion wield | G |
To lift the bulwark of the brazen shield | G |
To toss the terror of the whizzing spear | H |
The conqu'ring standard's glitt'ring glories rear | H |
And join the mad'ning battle's loud career | H |
- | |
- | |
How skill'd the Greeks confess what Persians slain | I |
Were strew'd on Marathon's ensanguin'd plain | I |
When heaps on heaps the routed squadron fell | J |
And with their gaudy myriads peopled hell | J |
What millions bold Leonidas withstood | K |
And seal'd the Grecian freedom with his blood | L |
Witness Thermopyl how fierce he trod | M |
How spoke a hero and how mov'd a God | M |
The rush of nations could alone sustain | I |
While half the ravag'd globe was arm'd in vain | I |
Let Leuctra say let Mantinea tell | J |
How great Epaminondas fought and fell | J |
- | |
- | |
Nor war's vast art alone adorn'd thy fame | A |
But mild philosophy endear'd thy name | A |
Who knows not sees not with admiring eye | C |
How Plato thought how Socrates could die | C |
- | |
- | |
To bend the arch to bid the column rise | N |
And the tall pile aspiring pierce the skies | N |
The awful scene magnificently great | O |
With pictur'd pomp to grace and sculptur'd state | O |
This science taught on Greece each science shone | B |
Here the bold statue started from the stone | B |
Here warm with life the swelling canvass glow'd | P |
Here big with life the poet's raptures flow'd | P |
Here Homer's lip was touch'd with sacred fire | Q |
And wanton Sappho tun'd her am'rous lyre | R |
Here bold Tyrt us rous'd th' enervate throng | S |
Awak'd to glory by th' inspiring song | S |
Here Pindar soar'd a nobler loftier way | T |
And brave Alc us scorn'd a tyrant's sway | T |
Here gorgeous Tragedy with great controul | J |
Touch'd every feeling of th' impassion'd soul | J |
While in soft measure tripping to the song | S |
Her comic sister lightly danc'd along | S |
- | |
- | |
This was thy state But oh how chang'd thy fame | A |
And all thy glories fading into shame | A |
What that thy bold thy freedom breathing land | D |
Should crouch beneath a tyrant's stern command | D |
That servitude should bind in galling chain | I |
Whom Asia's millions once oppos'd in vain | I |
Who could have thought Who sees without a groan | B |
Thy cities mould'ring and thy walls o'erthrown | B |
That where once tower'd the stately solemn fane | B |
Now moss grown ruins strew the ravag'd plain | B |
And unobserv'd but by the traveller's eye | C |
Proud vaulted domes in fretted fragments lie | C |
And thy fall'n column on the dusty ground | U |
Pale ivy throws its sluggish arms around | U |
- | |
- | |
Thy sons sad change in abject bondage sigh | C |
Unpitied toil and unlamented die | C |
Groan at the labours of the galling oar | V |
Or the dark caverns of the mine explore | V |
The glitt'ring tyranny of Othman's sons | W |
The pomp of horror which surrounds their thrones | W |
Has aw'd their servile spirits into fear | H |
Spurn'd by the foot they tremble and revere | H |
- | |
- | |
The day of labour night's sad sleepless hour | Q |
Th' inflictive scourge of arbitrary pow'r | X |
The bloody terror of the pointed steel | J |
The murd'rous stake the agonizing wheel | J |
And dreadful choice the bow string or the bowl | J |
Damps their faint vigour and unmans the soul | J |
- | |
- | |
Disastrous fate still tears will fill the eye | C |
Still recollection prompt the mournful sigh | C |
When to thy mind recurs thy former fame | A |
And all the horrors of thy present shame | A |
- | |
- | |
So some tall rock whose bare broad bosom high | C |
Tow'rs from th' earth and braves th' inclement sky | C |
On whose vast top the blackening deluge pours | W |
At whose wide base the thund'ring ocean roars | W |
In conscious pride its huge gigantic form | Y |
Surveys imperious and defies the storm | Y |
Till worn by age and mould'ring to decay | T |
Th' insidious waters wash its base away | T |
It falls and falling cleaves the trembling ground | U |
And spreads a tempest of destruction round | U |
George Canning
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about The Slavery Of Greece poem by George Canning
Best Poems of George Canning