The Bowl of Liberty. [247]
Before the fiery sun—
The sun that looks on Greece with cloudless eye,
In the free air, and on the war-field won—
Our fathers crown’d the Bowl of Liberty.
Amidst the tombs they stood,
The tombs of heroes! with the solemn skies,
And the wide plain around, where patriot-blood
Had steep’d the soil in hues of sacrifice.
They call’d the glorious dead,
In the strong faith which brings the viewless nigh,
And pour’d rich odours o’er their battle-bed,
And bade them to their rite of Liberty.
They call’d them from the shades—
The golden-fruited shades, where minstrels tell
How softer light th’ immortal clime pervades,
And music floats o’er meads of asphodel.
Then fast the bright-red wine
Flow’d to their names who taught the world to die,
And made the land’s green turf a living shrine,
Meet for the wreath and Bowl of Liberty.[248]
So the rejoicing earth
Took from her vines again the blood she gave,
And richer flowers to deck the tomb drew birth
From the free soil, thus hallow’d to the brave.
We have the battle-fields,
The tombs, the names, the blue majestic sky,
We have the founts the purple vintage yields;
—When shall we crown the Bowl of Liberty?
[247] This and the following piece appeared originally in the New Monthly Magazine.
[248] For an account of this ceremony, anciently performed in commemoration of the battle of Platæa, see Potter’s Antiquities of Greece, vol. i. p. 389.