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On such an eve his palest beam he cast When, Athens! here thy wisest look'd his last. How watch'd thy better sons his farewell ray, That closed their murder'd sage's (1) latest day! Not yetnot yet Sol pauses on the hill, The precious hour of parting lingers still; But sad his light to agonising eyes, And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes; Gloom o'er the lovely land he seem'd to pour, The land where Phoebus never frown'd before; But ere he sunk below Citheron's head, The cup of woe was quaff'd the spirit fled; The soul of him that scorn'd to fear or fly, Who lived and died as none can live or die.

But, lo! from high Hymettus to the plain
The queen of night asserts her silent reign; (2)
No murky vapour, herald of the storm,

Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form.
With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play,
There the white column greets her grateful ray,
And bright around, with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret:
The groves of olive scatter'd dark and wide,
Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk, (3)

(1) Socrates drank the hemlock a short time before sunset (the hour of execution), notwithstanding the entreaties of his disciples to wait till the sun went down.

(2) The twilight in Greece is much shorter than in our own country; the days in winter are longer, but in summer of less duration.

(3) The kiosk is a Turkish summer-house; the palm is without the present walls of Athens, not far from the temple of Theseus, between which

And sad and sombre mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus' fane, yon solitary palm ;

All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye;
And dull were his that pass'd them heedless by. (1)

Again the Ægean, heard no more afar,
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war;
Again his waves in milder tints unfold
Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold,
Mix'd with the shades of many a distant isle,
That frown, where gentler ocean deigns to smile.

As thus, within the walls of Pallas' fane, I mark'd the beauties of the land and main, Alone, and friendless, on the magic shore, Whose arts and arms but live in poets' lore; Oft as the matchless dome I turn'd to scan, Sacred to gods, but not secure from man,

and the tree the wall intervenes. Cephisus' stream is indeed scanty, and Ilissus has no stream at all.

(1) [During our residence of ten weeks at Athens, there was not, I believe, a day of which we did not devote a part to the contemplation of the noble monuments of Grecian genius, that have outlived the ravages of time, and the outrage of barbarous and antiquarian despoilers. The Temple of Theseus, which was within five minutes' walk of our lodgings, is the most perfect ancient edifice in the world. In this fabric, the most enduring stability, and a simplicity of design peculiarly striking, are united with the highest elegance and accuracy of workmanship; the characteristic of the Doric style, whose chaste beauty is not, in the opinion of the first artists, to be equalled by the graces of any of the other orders. A gentleman of Athens, of great taste and skill, assured us that, after a continued contemplation of this temple, and the remains of the Parthenon, he could never again look with his accustomed satisfaction upon the Ionic and Corinthian ruins of Athens, much less upon the specimens of the more modern species of architecture to be seen in Italy. HOBHOUSE.]

The past return'd, the present seem'd to cease,
And Glory knew no clime beyond her Greece!

Hours roll'd along, and Dian's orb on high Had gain'd the centre of her softest sky; And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod O'er the vain shrine of many a vanish'd god : But chiefly, Pallas! thine; when Hecate's glare, Check'd by thy columns, fell more sadly fair O'er the chill marble, where the startling tread Thrills the lone heart like echoes from the dead. Long had I mused, and treasured every trace The wreck of Greece recorded of her race, When, lo! a giant form before me strode, And Pallas hail'd me in her own abode !

Yes, 'twas Minerva's self; but, ah! how changed Since o'er the Dardan field in arms she ranged! Not such as erst, by her divine command, Her form appear'd from Phidias' plastic hand: Gone were the terrors of her awful brow, Her idle ægis bore no Gorgon now; Her helm was dinted, and the broken lance Seem'd weak and shaftless e'en to mortal glance; The olive branch, which still she deign'd to clasp, Shrunk from her touch, and wither'd in her grasp; And, ah! though still the brightest of the sky, Celestial tears bedimm'd her large blue eye; Round the rent casque her owlet circled slow, And mourn'd his mistress with a shriek of woe!

“Mortal!”—'twas thus she spake "that blush

of shame

Proclaims thee Briton, once a noble name;
First of the mighty, foremost of the free,
Now honour'd less by all, and least by me:
Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found.
Seek'st thou the cause of loathing?-look around.
Lo! here, despite of war and wasting fire,
I saw successive tyrannies expire.

'Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth,(1) Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both. (2) Survey this vacant, violated fane;

Recount the relics torn that yet remain :

These Cecrops placed, this Pericles adorn'd, (3) That Adrian rear'd when drooping Science mourn'd. What more I owe let gratitude attest

Know, Alaric and Elgin did the rest.

(1) [On the plaster wall, on the west side of the chapel, these words have been very deeply cut:

QUOD NON FECERUNT GOTI,
HOC FECERUNT SCOTI.

The mortar wall, yet fresh when we saw it, supplying the place of the statue now in Lord Elgin's collection, serves as a comment on this text. This eulogy of the Goths alludes to an unfounded story of a Greek historian, who relates that Alaric, either terrified by two phantoms, one of Minerva herself, the other of Achilles, terrible as when he strode towards the walls of Troy to his friends, or struck with a reverential respect, had spared the treasures, ornaments, and people of the venerable city. - HOвHOUSE.] (2) [In the original MS. —

"Ah, Athens! scarce escaped from Turk and Goth,

Hell sends a paltry Scotchman worse than both.”—E]

(3) This is spoken of the city in general, and not of the Acropolis in particular. The temple of Jupiter Olympius, by some supposed the Pantheon, was finished by Hadrian; sixteen columns are standing, of the most beautiful marble and architecture.

That all may learn from whence the plunderer came,
The insulted wall sustains his hated name : (1)
For Elgin's fame thus grateful Pallas pleads,
Below, his name · above, behold his deeds! (2)
Be ever hail'd with equal honour here
The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer:
Arms gave
the first his right, the last had none,
But basely stole what less barbarians won.
So when the lion quits his fell repast,

Next prowls the wolf, the filthy jackal last :

Flesh, limbs, and blood the former make their own
The last poor brute securely gnaws the bone.
Yet still the gods are just, and crimes are cross'd:
See here what Elgin won, and what he lost!
Another name with his pollutes my shrine:
Behold where Dian's beams disdain to shine!
Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
When Venus half avenged Minerva's shame.”(3)

She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply, To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye: "Daughter of Jove! in Britain's injured name, A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim.

(1) [On the original MS. is written

"Aspice quos Pallas Scoto concedit honores

Infrà stat nomen—facta supràque vide.”—E.]

(2) [For Lord Byron's detailed remarks on Lord Elgin's dealing with the Parthenon, see note A to the second canto of Childe Harold, ante, Vol. VIII. p. 111. -E]

(3) His lordship's name, and that of one who no longer bears it, are carved conspicuously on the Parthenon; above, in a part not far distant, are the torn remnants of the basso relievos, destroyed in a vain attempt to remove them.