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1. Narrator’s Skeptic Viewpoint
III
Son of the morning, rise! approach you here! Come -- but molest not yon defenceless urn: 20 Look on this spot -- a nation's sepulchre! Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn. Even gods must yield -- religions take their turn: 'Twas Jove's -- 'tis Mahomet's -- and other creeds Will rise with other years, till man shall learn Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds; Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on reeds.
IV
Bound to the earth, he lifts his eye to heaven -- Is't not enough, unhappy thing! to know Thou art? Is this a boon so kindly given, 30 That being, thou would'st be again, and go, Thou know'st not, reck'st not to what region, so On earth no more, but mingled with the skies? Still wilt thou dream on future joy and woe? Regard and weigh yon dust before it flies: That little urn saith more than thousand homilies.
2. On British Plundering of the Parthenon
XIII
What! shall it e'er be said by British tongue, Albion was happy in Athena's tears? 110 Though in thy name the slaves her bosom wrung, Tell not the deed to blushing Europe's ears; The ocean queen, the free Britannia, bears The last poor plunder from a bleeding land: Yes, she, whose gen'rous aid her name endears, Tore down those remnants with a harpy's hand, Which envious Eld forbore, and tyrants left to stand.
XIV
Where was thine Aegis, Pallas! that appall'd Stern Alaric and Havoc on their way? Where Peleus' son? whom Hell in vain enthrall'd, 120 His shade from Hades upon that dread day Bursting to light in terrible array! What! could not Pluto spare the chief once more, To scare a second robber from his prey? Idly he wander'd on the Stygian shore, Nor now preserved the walls he loved to shield before.
XV
Cold is the heart, fair Greece, that looks on thee, Nor feels as lovers o'er the dust they loved; Dull is the eye that will not weep to see Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed 130 By British hands, which it had best behov'd To guard those relics ne'er to be restored. Curst be the hour when their isle they roved, And once again thy hapless bosom gored, And snatch'd thy shrinking Gods to northern climes abhorr'd!
3. Ali Pacha
LXII
In marble-paved pavilion, where a spring 550 Of living water from the centre rose, Whose bubbling did a genial freshness fling, And soft voluptuous couches breathed repose, ALI reclined, a man of war and woes: Yet in his lineaments ye cannot trace, While Gentleness her milder radiance throws Along that aged venerable face, The deeds that lurk beneath, and stain him with disgrace.
LXIII
It is not that yon hoary lengthening beard Ill suits the passions which belong to youth; 560 Love conquers age -- so Hafiz hath averr'd, So sings the Teian, and he sings in sooth -- But crimes that scorn the tender voice of ruth, Beseeming all men ill, but most the man In years, have mark'd him with a tiger's tooth; Blood follows blood, and, through their mortal span, In bloodier acts conclude those who with blood began.
4. The Bravery of Albanian Soldiers
LXV
Fierce are Albania's children, yet they lack Not virtues, were those virtues more mature. Where is the foe that ever saw their back? Who can so well the toil of war endure? 580 Their native fastnesses not more secure Than they in doubtful time of troublous need: Their wrath how deadly! but their friendship sure, When Gratitude or Valour bids them bleed, Unshaken rushing on where'er their chief may lead. LXVI
Childe Harold saw them in their chieftain's tower Thronging to war in splendour and success; And after view'd them, when, within their power, Himself awhile the victim of distress; That saddening hour when bad men hotlier press: 590 But these did shelter him beneath their roof, When less barbarians would have cheer'd him less, And follow-countrymen have stood aloof -- In aught that tries the heart how few withstand the proof!
5. Greece: Past and Present
LXXIII
Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth! Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great! Who now shall lead they scatter'd children forth, And long accustom'd bondage uncreate? Not such thy sons who whilome did await, The hopeless warriors of a willing doom, In bleak Thermopylae's sepulchral strait -- Oh! who that gallant spirit shall resume, 700 Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb?
LXXIV
Spirit of freedom! when on Phyle's brow Thou satst with Thrasybulus and his train, Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour which now Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain? Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain, But every carle can lord it o'er thy land; Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain, Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmann'd. 710
6. For the revival of Greek’s past glory
LXXXIII
This must he feel, the true-born son of Greece, If Greece one true-born patriot still can boast: Not such as prate of war, but skulk in peace, The bondsman's peace, who sighs for all he lost, Yet with smooth smile his tyrant can accost, And wield the slavish sickle, not the sword: Ah! Greece! they love thee least who owe thee most: Their birth, their blood, and that sublime record 790 Of hero sires, who shame thy now degenerate horde!
LXXXXIV
When riseth Lacedemon's hardihood, When Thebes Epaminondas rears again, When Athens' children are with hearts endued, When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men, Then may'st thou be restored; but not till then. A thousand years scarce serve to form a state; An hour may lay it in the dust: and when Can man its shatter'd splendour renovate, Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate? 800
LXXXV
And yet how lovely in thine age of woe, Land of lost gods and godlike men! art thou! The vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow, Proclaim thee Nature's varied favourite now; Thy fanes, thy temples to thy surface bow, Commingling slowly with heroic earth, Broke by the share of every rustic plough: So perish monuments of mortal birth, So perish all in turn, save well-recorded Worth;
7. Narrator’s blessing on Greece
LXXXVII
Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild; Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, 820 Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled, And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields; There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds, The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain-air; Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare; Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.
LXXXVIII
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, 830 And all the Muse's tales seem truly told, 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 crush'd thy temples gone: Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon. 8. Narrator’s last plea for the ancient relics in Greece
XCIII
Let such approach this consecrated land, And pass in peace along the magic waste; But spare its relics -- let no busy hand Deface the scenes, already how defaced! Not for such purpose were these altars placed: Revere the remnants nations once revered: So may our country's name be undisgraced, So may'st thou prosper where thy youth was rear'd, 880 By every honest joy of love and life endear'd!
XCIV
For thee, who thus in too protracted song Hast soothed thine idlesse with inglorious lays, Soon shall thy voice be lost amid the throng Of louder minstrels in these later days: To such resign the strife for fading bays -- Ill may such contest now the spirit move Which heeds nor keen reproach nor partial praise, Since cold each kinder heart that might approve, And none are left to please when none are left to love. 890
 
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