Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Greece and Turkey in Europe: Vol. XIX. 1876–79. | | | Turkey in Europe, and the Principalities
Dardanelles (Hellespont) | | Xerxes at the Hellespont | | Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–1886) |
| | | “CALM is now that stormy water,—it has learned to fear my wrath: | |
| Lashed and fettered, now it yields me for my hosts an easy path!” | |
| Seven long days did Persia’s monarch on the Hellespontine shore, | |
| Throned in state, behold his armies without pause defiling o’er; | |
| Only on the eighth the rearward to the other side were past,— | 5 |
| Then one haughty glance of triumph far as eye could reach he cast; | |
| Far as eye could reach he saw them, multitudes equipped for war,— | |
| Medians with their bows and quivers, linkéd armor and tiar: | |
| From beneath the sun of Afric, from the snowy hills of Thrace, | |
| And from India’s utmost borders, nations gathered in one place: | 10 |
| At a single mortal’s bidding all this pomp of war unfurled,— | |
| All in league against the freedom and the one hope of the world! | |
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| “What though once some petty trophies from my captains thou hast won, | |
| Think not, Greece, to see another such a day as Marathon: | |
| Wilt thou dare await the conflict, or in battle hope to stand, | 15 |
| When the lord of sixty nations takes himself his cause in hand? | |
| Lo! they come, and mighty rivers, which they drink of once, are dried; | |
| And the wealthiest cities beggared, that for them one meal provide. | |
| Powers of number by their numbers infinite are overborne, | |
| So I measure men by measure, as a husbandman his corn. | 20 |
| Mine are all,—this sceptre sways them,—mine is all in every part!” | |
| And he named himself most happy, and he blessed himself in heart,— | |
| Blessed himself, but on that blessing tears abundant followed straight, | |
| For that moment thoughts came o’er him of man’s painful brief estate: | |
| Ere a hundred years were finished, where would all those myriads be? | 25 |
| Hellespont would still be rolling his blue waters to the sea; | |
| But of all those countless numbers, not one living would be found,— | |
| A dead host with their dead monarch, silent in the silent ground. | | | | |
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