On Leaving Greece, 1820

Poems by Joanna Baillie

HELLAS ! farewell!--with anxious gaze I view,
Lovely in tears, and injur'd as thou art,
Thy summits melting in the distant blue,
Fade from my eyes, but linger in my heart.
Submissive, silent victim! dost thou feel
The chains which gall thee? or has lengthen'd grief
Numb'd hate and shame alike with hope and zeal,
And brought insensibility's relief?
Awake! adjur'd by ev'ry chief and sage
Thou once could'st boast in many a meaner cause,
And let the tame submission of an age,
Like Nature's hush'd and scarcely rustling pause,
Ere winds burst forth, foretell the approaching storm,
When thou shalt grasp the spear, and raise thy prostrate form.

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