STR. 4

Had I words of fire,

Whose words are weak as snow;

Were my heart a lyre

Whence all its love might flow

In the mighty modulations of desire,

In the notes wherewith man's passion worships woe;

Could my song release

The thought weak words confine,

And my grief, O Greece,

Prove how it worships thine;

It would move with pulse of war the limbs of peace,

Till she flushed and trembled and became divine.

( Once she held for true

This truth of sacred strain;

Though blood drip like dew

And life run down like rain,

It is better that war spare but one or two

Than that many live, and liberty be slain. )

Then with fierce increase

And bitter mother's mirth,

From the womb of peace,

A womb that yearns for birth,

As a man-child should deliverance come to Greece,

As a saviour should the child be born on earth.