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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

GREEK SONG: 4. THE SPARTAN'S MARCH by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS

Poet Analysis

First Line: TWAS MORN UPON THE GRECIAN HILLS, / WHERE PEASANTS DRESSED THE VINES
Last Line: OR ON IT PROUDLY BORNE!
Subject(s): SPARTA, GREECE;
'TWAS morn upon the Grecian hills,
Where peasants dressed the vines;
Sunlight was on Cithaeron's rills,
Arcadia's rocks and pines.

And brightly, through his reeds and flowers,
Eurotas wandered by,
When a sound arose from Sparta's towers
Of solemn harmony.

Was it the hunters' choral strain
To the woodland-goddess poured?
Did virgin hands in Pallas' fane
Strike the full-sounding chord?

But helms were glancing on the stream,
Spears ranged in close array,
And shields flung back a glorious beam
To the morn of a fearful day!

And the mountain-echoes of the land
Swelled through the deep blue sky;
While to soft strains moved forth a band
Of men that moved to die.

They marched not with the trumpet's blast,
Nor bade the horn peal out,
And the laurel groves, as on they passed,
Rung with no battle shout!

They asked no clarion's voice to fire
Their souls with an impulse high;
But the Dorian reed and the Spartan lyre
For the sons of liberty!

And still sweet flutes, their path around,
Sent forth AEolian breath;
They needed not a sterner sound
To marshal them for death!

So moved they calmly to their field,
Thence never to return,
Save bearing back the Spartan shield,
Or on it proudly borne!



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