Author: jdonald

Listen to Graham Donald reading “The Isles of Greece” here

Lord Byron wrote “The Isles of Greece” in 1819 as a call for Greek independence.

Greece at that time was part of the Ottoman Empire and Byron both championed, financed and participated with the Greeks in their war against the Turks. 

He died in Messolongi in 1824 while still actively promoting the revolution

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THE isles of Greece! the isles of Greece
    Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
    Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.

The Scian and the Teian muse,
    The hero’s harp, the lover’s lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse:
    Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires’ ‘Islands of the Blest’.

The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians’ grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.

A king sat on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
He counted them at break of day—
And when the sun set, where were they?

And where are they? and where art thou,
    My country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now—
    The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?

’Tis something in the dearth of fame,
    Though link’d among a fetter’d race,
To feel at least a patriot’s shame,
    Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here?
For Greeks a blush—for Greece a tear.

Must we but weep o’er days more blest?
    Must we but blush?—Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
    A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylae!

What, silent still? and silent all?
    Ah! no;—the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent’s fall,
    And answer, ‘Let one living head,
But one, arise,—we come, we come!’
’Tis but the living who are dumb.

In vain—in vain: strike other chords;
    Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,
    And shed the blood of Scio’s vine:
Hark! rising to the ignoble call—
How answers each bold Bacchanal!

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet;
    Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget
    The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave—
Think ye he meant them for a slave?

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
    We will not think of themes like these!
It made Anacreon’s song divine:
    He served—but served Polycrates—
A tyrant; but our masters then
Were still, at least, our countrymen.

The tyrant of the Chersonese
    Was freedom’s best and bravest friend;
That tyrant was Miltiades!
    O that the present hour would lend
Another despot of the kind!
Such chains as his were sure to bind.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
    On Suli’s rock, and Parga’s shore,
Exists the remnant of a line
    Such as the Doric mothers bore;
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,
The Heracleidan blood might own.

Trust not for freedom to the Franks—
    They have a king who buys and sells;
In native swords and native ranks
    The only hope of courage dwells:
But Turkish force and Latin fraud
Would break your shield, however broad.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
    Our virgins dance beneath the shade—
I see their glorious black eyes shine;
    But gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves.

Place me on Sunion’s marbled steep,
    Where nothing, save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
    There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine—
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!

The poem “The Jazz of this Hotel” by Vatchel Lindsay read by Graham Donald. You can listen here

The poem contrasts the loud, “hard and cold” artificiality of city jazz with the “slower,” natural rhythms of the sea, thunder, wind, and rural life, lamenting the loss of simpler, authentic experiences for the mechanical energy of modern urban life, with lines emphasizing nature’s deep tones (tom-toms, violin, cello) against the hotel’s jarring, unrooted sound. 

The poet illuminates the  conflict between the organic, timeless rhythms of nature and the frantic, artificial energy of urban life. In the  concluding paradox, the jazz sounds “hot” but feels emotionally empty, harsh, and isolating compared to the warmth of nature and simple life.

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Why do I curse the jazz of this hotel?

I like the slower tom-toms of the sea;

I like the slower tom-toms of the thunder;

I like the more deliberate dancing knee

Of outdoor love, of outdoor talk and wonder.

I like the slower, deeper violin

Of the wind across the fields of Indian corn;

I like the far more ancient violoncello

Of whittling loafers telling stories mellow

Down at the village grocery in the sun;

I like the slower bells that ring for church

Across the Indiana landscape old. 

Therefore I curse the jazz of this hotel

That seems so hot, but is so hard and cold.