  [Power’s Greek Slave was on exhibition in Lexington, Ky., where I lived when these lines were published in the Lexington Observer and Reporter.] Soft as the silver songs which breathed Over the Lesbian Sappho’s shell, When the white-handed Paphians wreathed Garlands for her who sang so well, Is the low murmur of the waves Which swell along Zacynthus’ caves And in melodious echoes fall Within the mermaids’ ocean hall. There many a grove salutes the sea With song-birds’ ceaseless harmony Innumerable blossoms fling Rich odors on the dewy wing Of every breeze which wanders free Over the blue Ægean Sea; In golden splendor of the day Reflected from the burnished bay, Or spangled with the countless lights Which gem those skies on cloudless nights, And land and sea and sky above Breathe only peace and joy and love. A maiden in her grape-vine bower Sat sorrowful at twilight’s hour, And as her fingers sweep the strings Of her guitar she softly sings, “O, for the Greeks of olden time Worthy our blest and sunny clime; Men who would rather die than brook That Turkish chain or Persian yoke Should strangle like a serpent’s coil One neck on freedom’s native soil. Never, O never, ye Spartan dead, Till you arise from your gory bed, Will the Sultan cease to bear away The flower of Greece for his harem’s prey. Shoots brightly o’er the swelling bay, And richly mottled shells which strew The beach with many a dazzling hue. With tapered masts in sunshine gleaming And pennons in the breezes streaming And snowy sails yon shallop glides Gracefully over the heaving tides. And see a captive maiden stands Upon its deck with fettered hands. Her song is changed to a wail of pain For plundered home and parents slain. Harsh is the clanging of the chains Which bind her lithe and shapely limbs Keen are their deep and cankering pains But not for this her dark eye swims In agonizing tears, whose flow Betokens bitter shame and woe. Sorer are tears for freedom fled Than those affection gives the dead. The sorest pangs that fate can send Like arrows to the captive’s heart Are not from outward griefs; these end, Theirs is a transitory smart; But musing on her island home, The home of purity and bliss, And then the thought of days to come— The hopeless harem, it is this Which fills her soul with deeper anguish Than makes the dying martyr languish. But Power’s hand shall carve the tale Of sorrow in that Grecian vale. His cunning chisel shall relate The sorrow of a fallen State, And the incomparable Slave, Repeat o’er many a distant wave The legend of the hapless maid To Turkish lust and shame betrayed. |
|
