The Poems of Felicia Hemans
What British Angelo may rise to fame,[54]
On the free isle what beams of art may rest?
Deem not, O England! that by climes confined,
Genius and taste diffuse a partial ray;[55]
Deem not the eternal energies of mind
Sway’d by that sun whose doom is but decay!
Shall thought be foster’d but by skies serene?
No! thou hast power to be what Athens e’er hath been.
C.
But thine are treasures oft unprized, unknown,
And cold neglect hath blighted many a mind,
O’er whose young ardours had thy smile but shone,
Their soaring flight had left a world behind!
And many a gifted hand, that might have wrought
To Grecian excellence the breathing stone,
Or each pure grace of Raphael’s pencil caught,
Leaving no record of its power, is gone!
While thou hast fondly sought, on distant coast,
Gems far less rich than those, thus precious, and thus lost
CI.
Yet rise, O Land, in all but art alone!
Bid the sole wreath that is not thine be won!
Fame dwells around thee--Genius is thine own;
Call his rich blooms to life--be thou their sun!
So, should dark ages o’er thy glory sweep,
Should thine e’er be as now are Grecian plains,
Nations unborn shall track thine own blue deep
To hail thy shore, to worship thy remains;
Thy mighty monuments with reverence trace,
And cry, “This ancient soil hath nursed a glorious race!”
[12] “The Pæstan rose, from its peculiar fragrance and the singularity
of blooming twice a-year, is often mentioned by the classic poets. The
wild rose, which now shoots up among the ruins, is of the small single
damask kind, with a very high perfume; as a farmer assured me on the
spot, it flowers both in spring and autumn.”--Swinburne’s _Travels in
the Two Sicilies_.
[13] In the naval engagements of the Greeks, “it was usual for the
soldiers before the fight to sing a pæan, or hymn, to Mars, and after
the fight another to Apollo.”--See Potter’s _Antiquities of Greece_,
vol. ii. p. 155.
[14] The emigration of the natives of the Morea to different parts of
Asia is thus mentioned by Châteaubriand in his _Itinéraire de Paris à
Jérusalem_--“Parvenu au dernier degré du malheur, le Moraïte s’arrache
de son pays, et va chercher en Asie un sort moins rigoureux. Vain
espoir! il retrouve des cadis et des pachas jusques dans les sables du
Jourdain et dans les déserts de Palmyre.”
[15] In the same work, Châteaubriand also relates his having met with
several Greek emigrants who had established themselves in the woods of
Florida.
[16] “La grâce est toujours unie à la magnificence dans les scènes
de la nature: et tandis que le courant du milieu entraine vers
la mer les cadavres des pins et des chênes, on voit sur les deux
courants latéraux, remonter, le long des rivages des îles flottantes
de Pistia et de Nénuphar, dont les roses jaunes s’élèvent comme de
petits papillons.”--_Description of the Banks of the Mississippi_,
Chateaubriand’s _Atala_.
[17] “Looking generally at the narrowness and abruptness of this
mountain-channel, (Tempe,) and contrasting it with the course of the
Peneus through the plains of Thessaly, the imagination instantly recurs
to the tradition that these plains were once covered with water,
for which some convulsion of nature had subsequently opened this
narrow passage. The term vale, in our language, is usually employed
to describe scenery in which the predominant features are breadth,
beauty, and repose. The reader has already perceived that the term is
wholly inapplicable to the scenery at this spot, and that the phrase,
_vale_ of Tempe, is one that depends on poetic fiction.... The real
character of Tempe, though it perhaps be less beautiful, yet possesses
more of magnificence than is implied in the epithet given to it....
To those who have visited St Vincent’s rocks, below Bristol, I cannot
convey a more sufficient idea of Tempe, than by saying that its scenery
resembles, though on a much larger scale, that of the former place. The
Peneus, indeed, as it flows through the valley, is not greatly wider
than the Avon; and the channel between the cliffs is equally contracted
in its dimensions: but these cliffs themselves are much loftier and
more precipitous, and project their vast masses of rock with still more
extraordinary abruptness over the hollow beneath.”--Holland’s _Travels
in Albania, &c._
[18] The modern name of the Peneus is Salympria.
[19] “Towards the lower part of Tempe, these cliffs are peaked in
a very singular manner, and form projecting angles on the vast
perpendicular faces of rock which they present towards the chasm; where
the surface renders it possible, the summits and ledges of the rocks
are for the most part covered with small wood, chiefly oak, with the
arbutus and other shrubs. On the banks of the river, wherever there is
a small interval between the water and the cliffs, it is covered by
the rich and widely spreading foliage of the plane, the oak, and other
forest trees, which in these situations have attained a remarkable
size, and in various places extend their shadow far over the channel
of the stream.... The rocks on each side of the vale of Tempe are
evidently the same; what may be called, I believe, a coarse bluish-gray
marble, with veins and portions of the rock in which the marble is of
finer quality.”--Holland’s _Travels in Albania, &c._
[20] The Amphictyonic Council was convened in spring and autumn at
Delphi or Thermopylæ, and presided at the Pythian games which were
celebrated at Delphi every fifth year.
[21] “This spot, (the field of Mantinea,) on which so many
brave men were laid to rest, is now covered with rosemary and
laurels.”--Pouqueville’s _Travels in the Morea_.
[22] For the accounts of the upas or poison tree of Java, now generally
believed to be fabulous, or greatly exaggerated, see the notes to
Darwin’s _Botanic Garden_.
[23] “The court most to be admired of the Alhambra is that called
the court of the Lions; it is ornamented with sixty elegant pillars
of an architecture which bears not the least resemblance to any of
the known orders, and might be called the Arabian order.... But its
principal ornament, and that from which it took its name, is an
alabaster cup, six feet in diameter, supported by twelve lions, which
is said to have been made in imitation of the Brazen Sea of Solomon’s
temple.”--Burgoanne’s _Travels in Spain_.
[24] “Sept des plus fameux parmi les anciens poëtes Arabiques sont
désignés par les écrivains orientaux sous le nom de _Pleïade Arabique_,
et leurs ouvrages étaient suspendus autour de la Caaba, ou Mosque de la
Mecque.”--Sismondi, _Littérature du Midi_.
[25] “The distress and fall of the last Constantine are more glorious
than the long prosperity of the Byzantine Cæsars.”--Gibbon’s _Decline
and Fall_, &c. vol. xii. p. 226.
[26] See the description of the night previous to the taking of
Constantinople by Mahomet II.--Gibbon’s _Decline and Fall_, &c. vol.
xii. p. 225.
[27] “This building (the Castle of the Seven Towers) is mentioned
as early as the sixth century of the Christian era, as a spot which
contributed to the defence of Constantinople; and it was the principal
bulwark of the town on the coast of the Propontis, in the last periods
of the empire.”--Pouqueville’s _Travels in the Morea_.
[28] See the account from Herodotus of the supernatural defence of
Delphi.--Mitford’s _Greece_, vol. i. p. 396-7.
[29] “In succeeding ages the Athenians honoured Theseus as a demigod,
induced to it as well by other reasons as because, when they were
fighting the Medes at Marathon, a considerable part of the army thought
they saw the apparition of Theseus completely armed, and bearing down
before them upon the barbarians.”--Langhorne’s _Plutarch, Life of
Theseus_.
[30] “From Thermopylæ to Sparta, the leader of the Goths (Alaric)
pursued his victorious march without encountering any mortal
antagonist; but one of the advocates of expiring paganism has
confidently asserted that the walls of Athens were guarded by the
goddess Minerva, with her formidable ægis, and by the angry phantom of
Achilles, and that the conqueror was dismayed by the presence of the
hostile deities of Greece.”--Gibbon’s _Decline and Fall_, &c. vol. v.
p. 183.
[31] “Even all the _chief ones of the earth_.”--Isaiah, xiv.
[32] “How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war
perished!”--Samuel, book ii. chap. i.
[33] For several interesting particulars relative to the Suliote
warfare with Ali Pasha, see Holland’s _Travels in Albania_.
[34] “It is related, as an authentic story, that a group of Suliote
women assembled on one of the precipices adjoining the modern seraglio,
and threw their infants into the chasm below, that they might not
become the slaves of the enemy.”--Holland’s _Travels_, &c.
[35] The ruins of Sparta, near the modern town of Mistra, are very
inconsiderable, and only sufficient to mark the site of the ancient
city. The scenery around them is described by travellers as very
striking.
[36] The inscription composed by Simonides for the Spartan monument in
the pass of Thermopylæ has been thus translated:--“Stranger, go tell
the Lacedemonians that we have obeyed their laws, and that we lie here.”
[37] “In the Eurotas I observed abundance of those famous reeds which
were known in the earliest ages; and all the rivers and marshes
of Greece are replete with rose-laurels, while the springs and
rivulets are covered with lilies, tuberoses, hyacinths, and narcissus
orientalis.”--Pouqueville’s _Travels in the Morea_.
[38] It was usual for suppliants to carry an olive branch bound with
wool.
[39] The olive, according to Pouqueville, is still regarded with
veneration by the people of the Morea.
[40] It was customary at Eleusis, on the fifth day of the festival,
for men and women to run about with torches in their hands, and also
to dedicate torches to Ceres, and to contend who should present the
largest. This was done in memory of the journey of Ceres in search of
Proserpine, during which she was lighted by a torch kindled in the
flames of Etna.--Porter’s _Antiquities of Greece_, vol. i. p. 392.
[41] The fountains of Oblivion and Memory, with the Hercynian fountain,
are still to be seen amongst the rocks near Livadia, though the
situation of the cave of Trophonius, in their vicinity, cannot be
exactly ascertained.--See Holland’s _Travels_.
[42] Elis was anciently a sacred territory, its inhabitants being
considered as consecrated to the service of Jupiter. All armies
marching through it delivered up their weapons, and received them again
when they had passed its boundary.
[43] “We are assured by Thucydides that Attica was the province of
Greece in which population first became settled, and where the earliest
progress was made toward civilisation.”--Mitford’s _Greece_, vol. i. p.
35.
[44] Fata Morgana. This remarkable aërial phenomenon, which is thought
by the lower order of Sicilians to be the work of a fairy, is thus
described by Father Angelucci, whose account is quoted by Swinburne:--
“On the 15th August 1643, I was surprised, as I stood at my window,
with a most wonderful spectacle: the sea that washes the Sicilian
shore swelled up, and became, for ten miles in length, like a chain of
dark mountains, while the waters near our Calabrian coast grew quite
smooth, and in an instant appeared like one clear polished mirror. On
this glass was depicted, in chiaro-scuro, a string of several thousands
of pilasters, all equal in height, distance, and degrees of light and
shade. In a moment they bent into arcades, like Roman aqueducts. A
long cornice was next formed at the top, and above it rose innumerable