Page:The Poems of Oscar Wilde.pdf/22

 And noisome weeds have split the marble floor:

Here lurks the snake, and here the lizards run

By the stone lions blinking in the sun.

Byron dwelt here in love and revelry

For two long years—a second Anthony,

Who of the world another Actium made!

Yet suffered not his royal soul to fade,

Or lyre to break, or lance to grow less keen,

'Neath any wiles of an Egyptian queen.

For from the East there came a mighty cry,

And Greece stood up to fight for Liberty,

And called him from Ravenna: never knight

Rode forth more nobly to wild scenes of fight!

None fell more bravely on ensanguined field,

Borne like a Spartan back upon his shield!

O Hellas! Hellas! in thine hour of pride,

Thy day of might, remember him who died

To wrest from off thy limbs the trammelling chain:

O Salamis! O lone Platæan plain!

O tossing waves of wild Eubœan sea!

O wind-swept heights of lone Thermopylæ!

He loved you well—ay, not alone in word,

Who freely gave to thee his lyre and sword,

Like Æschylos at well-fought Marathon:

And England, too, shall glory in her son,

Her warrior-poet, first in song and fight. 8