Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, STANZAS ON THE BATTLE OF NAVARINO, by THOMAS CAMPBELL


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STANZAS ON THE BATTLE OF NAVARINO, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hearts of oak that have bravely delivered the brave
Last Line: "shall be ""glory to codrington's name."
Subject(s): Codrington, Sir Edward (1770-1851); Freedom; Navarino, Battle Of (1827); Liberty


HEARTS of oak that have bravely delivered the brave,
And uplifted old Greece from the brink of the grave,
'Twas the helpless to help, and the hopeless to save,
That your thunderbolts swept o'er the brine:
And as long as yon sun shall look down on the wave
The light of your glory shall shine.

For the guerdon ye sought with your bloodshed and toil,
Was it slaves, or dominion, or rapine, or spoil?
No! your lofty emprise was to fetter and foil
The uprooter of Greece's domain!
When he tore the last remnant of food from her soil,
Till her famished sank pale as the slain!

Yet, Navarino's heroes! does Cristendom breed
The base hearts that will question the fame of your deed?
Are they men? -- let ineffable scorn be their meed,
And oblivion shadow their graves! --
Are they women? -- to Turkish serails let them speed;
And be mothers of Mussulman slaves.

Abettors of massacre! dare ye deplore
That the death-shriek is silenced on Hellas's shore?
That the mother aghast sees her offspring no more
By the hand of Infanticide grasped?
And that stretched on your billows distained by their gore
Missolonghi's assassins have gasped?

Prouder scene never hallowed war's pomp to the mind,
Than when Christendom's pennons woo'd social the wind,
And the flower of her brave for the combat combined,
Their watchword, humanity's vow:
Not a sea-boy that fought in that cause, but mankind
Owes a garland to honor his brow!

Nor grudge, by our side, that to conquer or fall,
Came the hardy rude Russ, and the high-mettled Gaul:
For whose was the genius, that planned at its call,
Where the whirlwind of battle should roll?
All were brave! but the star of success over all
Was the light of our Codrington's soul.

That star of thy day-spring, regenerate Greek!
Dimmed the Saracen's moon, and struck pallid his cheek:
In its fast-flushing morning thy Muses shall speak
When their lore and their lutes they reclaim:
And the first of their songs from Parnassus's peak
Shall be "Glory to Codrington's name."





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