EXHORTATION TO BATTLE
by: Callinus
 OW long
will ye slumber? when will ye take heart
- And fear the reproach of your neighbors at hand?
- Fie! comrades, to think ye have peace for your part,
- Whilst the sword and the arrow are wasting our land!
- Shame! grasp the shield close! cover well the bold breast!
- Aloft raise the spear as ye march on your foe!
- With no thought of retreat, with no terror confessed,
- Hurl your last dart in dying, or strike your last blow.
- Oh, 't is noble and glorious to fight for our all,--
- For our country, our children, the wife of our love!
- Death comes not the sooner; no soldier shall fall,
- Ere his thread is spun out by the sisters above.
- Once to die is man's doom; rush, rush to the fight!
- He cannot escape, though his blood were Jove's own.
- For a while let him cheat the shrill arrow by flight;
- Fate will catch him at last in his chamber alone.
- Unlamented he dies; -- unregretted. Not so,
- When, the tower of his country, in death falls the brave;
- Thrice hallowed his name amongst all, high or low,
- As with blessings alive, so with tears in the grave.
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This English translation by Henry
Nelson Coleridge of 'Exhortation to Battle' is reprinted from
Greek Poets in English Verse. Ed. William Hyde Appleton.
Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1893. |
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