The Bride of the Greek Isle

“Fear! I’m a Greek, and how should I fear death?A slave, and wherefore should I dread my freedom?I will not live degraded.” Sardanapalus.

Come from the woods with the citron-flowers,Come with your lyres for the festal hours,Maids of bright Scio! They came, and the breezeBore their sweet songs o’er the Grecian seas;They came, and Eudora stood robed and crown’d,The bride of the morn, with her train around.Jewels flash’d out from her braided hair,Like starry dews midst the roses there;Pearls on her bosom quivering shone,Heaved by her heart through its golden zone.But a brow, as those gems of the ocean pale,Gleam’d from beneath her transparent veil;Changeful and faint was her fair cheek’s hue,Though clear as a flower which the light looks through;And the glance of her dark resplendent eye,For the aspect of woman at times too high,Lay floating in mists, which the troubled streamOf the soul sent up o’er its fervid beam.

She look’d on the vine at her father’s door,Like one that is leaving his native shore;She hung o’er the myrtle once call’d her own,As it greenly waved by the threshold stone;She turn’d--and her mother’s gaze brought backEach hue of her childhood’s faded track.Oh! hush the song, and let her tearsFlow to the dream of her early years!Holy and pure are the drops that fallWhen the young bride goes from her father’s hall;She goes unto love yet untried and new,She parts from love which hath still been true:Mute be the song and the choral strain,Till her heart’s deep well-spring is clear again!She wept on her mother’s faithful breast,Like a babe that sobs itself to rest;She wept--yet laid her hand awhileIn his that waited her dawning smile--Her soul’s affianced, nor cherish’d lessFor the gush of nature’s tenderness!She lifted her graceful head at last--The choking swell of her heart was past;And her lovely thoughts from their cells found wayIn the sudden flow of a plaintive lay.