VOICE WITHOUT: 
Victory!  Victory!  Austria, Russia, England,
And that tame serpent, that poor shadow, France,
Cry peace, and that means death when monarchs speak. 
Ho, there! bring torches, sharpen those red stakes, 970
These chains are light, fitter for slaves and poisoners
Than Greeks.  Kill! plunder! burn! let none remain.

SEMICHORUS 1: 
Alas! for Liberty! 
If numbers, wealth, or unfulfilling years,
Or fate, can quell the free! 975
Alas! for Virtue, when
Torments, or contumely, or the sneers
Of erring judging men
Can break the heart where it abides. 
Alas! if Love, whose smile makes this obscure world splendid, 980
Can change with its false times and tides,
Like hope and terror,—­
Alas for Love! 
And Truth, who wanderest lone and unbefriended,
If thou canst veil thy lie-consuming mirror 985
Before the dazzled eyes of Error,
Alas for thee!  Image of the Above.

SEMICHORUS 2: 
Repulse, with plumes from conquest torn,
Led the ten thousand from the limits of the morn
Through many an hostile Anarchy! 990
At length they wept aloud, and cried, ‘The Sea! the Sea!’
Through exile, persecution, and despair,
Rome was, and young Atlantis shall become
The wonder, or the terror, or the tomb
Of all whose step wakes Power lulled in her savage lair:  995
But Greece was as a hermit-child,
Whose fairest thoughts and limbs were built
To woman’s growth, by dreams so mild,
She knew not pain or guilt;
And now, O Victory, blush! and Empire, tremble 1000
When ye desert the free—­
If Greece must be
A wreck, yet shall its fragments reassemble,
And build themselves again impregnably
In a diviner clime, 1005
To Amphionic music on some Cape sublime,
Which frowns above the idle foam of Time.

SEMICHORUS 1: 
Let the tyrants rule the desert they have made;
Let the free possess the Paradise they claim;
Be the fortune of our fierce oppressors weighed 1010
With our ruin, our resistance, and our name!

SEMICHORUS 2: 
Our dead shall be the seed of their decay,
Our survivors be the shadow of their pride,
Our adversity a dream to pass away—­
Their dishonour a remembrance to abide! 1015

VOICE WITHOUT: 
Victory!  Victory!  The bought Briton sends
The keys of ocean to the Islamite.—­
Now shall the blazon of the cross be veiled,
And British skill directing Othman might,
Thunder-strike rebel victory.  Oh, keep holy 1020
This jubilee of unrevenged blood! 
Kill! crush! despoil!  Let not a Greek escape!