EUTHANASIA.

IN darkest hour of God-forgetting peace, In bitterest woe, Rose the free spirit of awakened Greece, To strike one blow For sacred Freedom ; in the tyrants' face Blazed fierce once more The wrath that erewhile swept the Persians' trace From the Attic shore.

Mid those most sacred hills and vales,—where erst, Ere men ruled men, In arms of Gods the high Gods themselves were nursed,— Were born again The godlike soul and godlike deed ; even we, Earth's latest brood, Unworthiest offspring of the brave and free,

The wise and good,—

We cannot choose but praise in words too weak, Too cold, too low, Those true men, whom Death needed not to seek As friend or foe ; Who nobly scorned the dead life of the slave, Who rose alone Strong in the might of Right, to avenge and save ; On the altar-stone Of Freedom to lay down in sacrifice For others' weal

Man's noblest offering, Death's most worthy prize—

Souls tried as steel.

We praise them ;—but our dissonant praise must mar The holy theme :

Their glory casts on our dark lives from far

One radiant gleam.

Through dark and weary years, through Freedom's Night,

When Hellas bowed

Under the Crescent's flame, when iron Might

In triumph loud Wasted the hallowed spots, once consecrate With freemen's blood ; When the Turk victor at the Golden Gate Blood-sprinkled stood : Among the glens of Ida, the green glades, Where Zeus was reared, Where the stern King whose sentence awes the shades Living was feared, Burned, fierce and fearless, Freedom's sacred flame, Unquenched and strong, Glowed with diviner fire Crete's ancient fame That slept so long.

When Greece aroused her from her fettered slumber, And dared be free,— A shout of welcome from a voice of number Pealed o'er the sea.

Now once again in Europe's rearising, When earth is shaken, When the crushed Titan the piled mount despising, Rises to waken ; When fair and fallen Italy, uplifted By God's own hand, Stands, one and free ; when chains and thrones are rifted In every land ; Think ye that those who fought for Greece, their mother, For Christ on Cross, Vanquished and tortured can their soul's love smother, Forget their loss?

They fought unaided, suffered unsubdued, By Kings betrayed ; Base tongues belied them, slander subtle and lewd Its foul plots laid.

But worsted thus, even thus their true hearts quail not, Their hope sublime Patient and watchful, waits the hour that fails not, God's chosen time ! E. D. J. W.