A Birthday In Scio

I landed there on the day of my birth,--
The day that the city was swept from the earth;
Though thirteen years had floated away
On the stream of time since that bloody day.


There had been a strong southeaster blowing,
The night before and afternoon;
And the clouds, as night came on, were throwing
So much of mystery round the moon,
That,--what above, and what below,--
Things looked so squally, all on board
Concurred in thinking Captain Ford
Spoke wisely; when he said, "No, no;
I shall put in, and try to keep
Where the ladies, who 're aboard, may sleep."


So I 'd slept on board, the night before,
In the snug little port; while, round the isle,
The breakers thundered on the shore,
Like a line of sea-dogs, chafed and hoar,
Bounding and barking for many a mile.
Yet, though, "outside," those dogs might prowl,
We lay where the wave was "calm as a clock";
And, though afar off we could hear the dogs howl,
And sometimes their nearer and hoarser growl,
I could sleep, and I did sleep, "like a rock."


But morning came!--an April morn;
And, though the winds were felt no more,
The waters still were landward borne,
And still the waves came combing o'er,
And fringed with foam the eastern shore;
And there rolled along so heavy a swell,
Between the Island and Tshesmé,
That the captain thought he might as well
Not venture round Phanæ Point, that day.


O, how I blessed the restless deep,
That it sunk not with the winds to sleep!
For it gave me a day on Scio's isle,--
A day that I shall not soon forget;
For the earth's sweet face, and the blue heaven's smile,
And the sea that glittered all round, the while,
As I then beheld them, haunt me yet.


Well, we 're ashore! Here hath Oppression's rod
Wrought its worst work, where the good hand of God
Seems to have wrought its fairest and its best.
That guardian mountain, towering in the west,--
His fertile flanks,--the plains that stretch away,
East and southeast,--all basking in the ray
Of such a sun! How could there ever be
A lovelier island lifted from the sea!
Yet here hath Ruin driven her ploughshare deep!
Few here survive, the many slain to weep,
And few now wander, lonely, on this shore,
Their captive sons and daughters to deplore.


These magazines,--once glutted with the stores
Of what the Euxine down the Bosphorus pours,--
Of Brusa's silks,--of stuffs from Angora's looms,
Of all the colors of the peacock's plumes,--
Of cotton goods from Europe's Island Queen,--
Of Samian wine,--of oil from Mitylene,--
Of corn, that from the coast of Barbary comes,--
Of dates from Egypt, and Arabian gums,--
All empty now, lie open to the sky:
Nothing to sell here, and no one to buy!


"Paithiske, (damsel,) canst thou tell me where
The College stood?" She answers, with the air
Of one who feels unequal to the task,
"Ohe," (I cannot,) "but I 'll run and ask."
And back she comes with knowledge in her eye,
And leads me round, through places wet and dry,--
O'er heaps of brick, one clambers up with pain,
Round open cellars partly filled with rain,--
Until, at last, "Ethó!" ('T was here!) she cries;
And joy and wonder sparkle in her eyes,
As, with the true Greek appetite for gains,
She pockets a piastre for her pains.


And is this formless mass of prostrate walls
All that remains of Scio's college halls?
Those halls to which the children of the isles,
For Panayéa's and Minerva's smiles,
Thronged, till their spreading light, like kindling morn,
Flashed on the waters of the Golden Horn,
And broke the slumbers of Mahmoud's Divan?
Yes, this is all! and the wayfaring man
Who, after thirteen years, would see the spot,
Finds, it was never known, or is forgot;
While every peasant, who is not a fool.
Will lead me, if I wish, to Homer's school.


I mount a mule, and to the country ride.
High walls confine the road on either side;
Mile after mile presents the same sad scene,
Of princely seats, with orange groves between;
Mansions of merchant princes, that once vied
With those of Venice, both in grace and pride;
But now those mansions speak of Moslem ire.
Roofless and windowless, they show that fire
Here had its perfect work. The walls yet stand,
And seem to whisper, "Lend us, friend, a hand!"
Ay, had a Yankee,--had even I,--this "place,"
How soon I 'd make it wear another face!
New floored, new roofed, and thoroughly new glazed,
The battered court-yard gate and fences raised,
The garden dressed, all trimmed the mastic trees,
I, in my palace hall, might sit at ease,
And see a paradise around me bloom;
And, as the fragrant night-breeze filled my room,
Flowing through open casements; and the moon
Silvered the scene around me; or, at noon,
As in an hour like this, in blooming spring,
I heard my marble fountain murmuring,
And saw my noble orange groves unfold
Their snowy blossoms and their fruit of gold,--
Say, "For this palace must I thank thee, War!"
Well,--I may have it for the asking for!
But, would I take it? When I turn my eye
Where yon Mount Opus swells into the sky,
Those cliffs that look down on the plains below,
Ring with the answer,--"Wouldst thou take it?--No!
For 'come up hither!'--we can tell
A tale to freeze a Western freeman's blood;--
When, from our height, we saw the swell,
And heard the rush, of war's infernal flood
Through all that city's bleeding lanes,
O'er all the villas of those blooming plains;
We opened, then, our dens and caves
To the poor peasants. Behold, here, their graves!
The fleet of foot to these, our caverns, sped;
To these our heights and cavern-depths, alike,
The hell-hounds followed where the blood-hounds led,--
The brutes to mangle, and the fiends to strike!
We trembled then, at the deep death-note
Pealed from the panting bull-dog's throat,--
The flash,--the echo and the smoke,--
The yell,--the stab,--the sabre stroke,--
The musket shot,--the frenzied shriek,--
The death-groan of the hunted Greek,--
Till our white feet with streams of gore were dyed,
And mangled limbs were strown on every side,--
With many a skull by Turkish sabre cleft;
Our vultures finished what their blood-hounds left!
The arm that, thirteen years ago,
Bathed, elbow-deep, in Sciote blood,
Still sways, o'er us and all below,
The iron sceptre of Mahmoud!
And would'st thou, stranger,--were all free,--
Take any villa thou canst see,
To dwell therein? Beware! Beware!
The sword hangs o'er thee by a hair!"


Fair Scio! as I pass along thy shore,
Through waters that the brave Kanaris bore,
Where, at one blow, thou wast avenged so well,
And where the Butcher of thy children fell;
Ere yet I lose thee in the deepening blue,
So lone, so lovely, art thou to my view,--
(For nothing lonelier lies beneath the sun,
And nothing lovelier doth he look upon!)
I pray thee, listen to a parting strain,
From one who ne'er shall look on thee again:


Farewell to thee, Scio! it is but a day
That I've seen thee, and yet I shall love thee for ever.
Thy children are slain, and thy crown torn away,
And thy jewels and gold shall return to thee never.


Thou sittest, no longer, a queen in thy bower,
But a widow,--of sons and of daughters bereft;
Yet despair not, thou desolate one! for thy dower,
Lovely Scio,--thy lands and thy beauty,--is left.


And though Syra, thy proud "little sister," awhile
Thy pearls round her bold little forehead may twine,
Yet, envy her not, for she hath not a smile,
Nor hath she a face, or a bosom, like thine.


And, as soon as the sceptre of Islam is broken,
Or Mahmoud, the red-handed Padischa, dead,
The word shalt thou hear, that thy Maker hath spoken;
"Thou shalt put on thy garments, and lift up thy head."


And vine-leaves and roses thy temples shall deck,
And some of thy children shall cling to thy breast,
While some pluck the clusters that hang round thy neck,
And--thy lap-full of oranges feed all the rest!