The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-07-04 00:00:00

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We feel that in time past we have frequently led the
readers of the STANDARD too exclusively through the
the turmoil of political controversy. The necessity of
our position is the only apology which we shall offer.
Cooped up within the space of a single sheet, and our
time well nigh occupied with the labours incident to a
double publication, we had little opportunity for afford-
ng ourselves, or our readers, the relaxation of an ex-
cursion into the fairy-land of song or of romance. or for
the more severe, yet not less delightful, pursuits of
criticism and philosophy. We are now, however, by
the new arrangement of our time and space, happily
emancipated from the thraldom, in which thus far we
have been held. Our prison doors are open. " Fresh
fields and pastures new"—grateful to the sense as the
first breath of heaven to the cheek of the fever-worn
convalescent—are spread before us ; and we shall, from
time to time, and with no sparing hand, endeavour to
gather their flowers, and present them here fresh and
verdant, to those readers who will bestow a favouring
eye upon our humble labours.
To those of the correspondents, and especially of thefair
correspondentB of the STANDARD, who have honoured
us with occasional communications—to which, for the
reasons given above, we have sometimes been compelled
to accord less than the consideration due to them—we
are enabled now to offer a more ample measure of
justice than has hitherto been within our power ; and
whilst we shall, on every occasion, prize originality, we
shall not close these columns against extracts from any
new publications which may be forwarded us for notice.
We propose, in fact, making this portion of our paper a
kind of miscellany—a collection of poetry and prose,
criticism, and philosophy—designed to amuse and in-
struct those readers, whose attention is not altogether
absorbed by the dry details of political or economica
controversy.

PHILHELLENIC DRINKING SONG.

BY B. SIMMONS

(From Blackwood's Magazine for July.)

Come let us drink their memory,
Th 'se glorious Greeks cf old—
On shore and sea the Famed, the Free,
'I he Beautifif —the Bold !
The mind or mirth that lights e Bch plge,
Or bowl by which we sit,
Is sunfire i Weed from their age—
Gems s_linter'd from their wit.
Then drink we to their memory,
Those glorious Greeks of yore;
Cf great or true, we can but do
W h t they have done before!

We've had with THE GREAT KING to core—
What if the s, ene he saw—
The modern Xerxe —from the slope •
Of rimson Quatre.bras,
Was but the fruit we early won
From tales of Grecian fields
Such as the swords of Marathon
Carved on the Median shields.
Oh, honour to those chainless Greeks,
We drink them one and all,
Who block'd that day Oppression's way
As with a brazen wall!

Theirs was the marble land where, wood
By love-born Taste, the Gods
Themselves the 1 fe of stone endued
In more d vine abodes
Than blest their own Olympus bright ;
Then in supreme re,ose,
Afar, star-glittering, high and white
Athena's shrine arose.
'4.0 to the days of Pericles
The votive goblet fi'l—
In fane or mart we but d stort
. H s grand achievements still!

Fill to their Matron's memory—
The Fair who knew no fear—
But gave the hero's shield to be
His bulwark or his bier.*
We boast their dauntless blood—it fills
That lion-woman's vein-.
Whose praise shall perish when thy hills,
JELLALABAD, are plains I
That LADY'S health I who doubts she heard
Of Greece, and loved to hear ?
The wheat, two thousand years interr'd,
Will still its harvest beant

The lore of Greece—the book still bright
With Plato's precious thought—
The Theban's har, —the judging-right
Stagyra's sophist taught—
Bard, Critic, Moralist to-day
Can but their spirit speak,
The selfsame thoughts transfused. Away,
We are not Gael but Greek.
Then drink, and dream the red grape weeps
Those dead but deathless lords,
Whose influence in our bosom sleeps,
Like music in the chords.

Yet 'tis not in the chiming hour
Of goblets, after all,
That thoughts of old Hellenic rower
Upon the heart shoulo fall.
Go home—and ponder o'er the hoard
When night makes silent earth
The gods the Romans most adored.
He worshipp'd at the hearth.
Then, chink and swear by eece, that there
Though Rhenish Huns may hive,
In Britain we the liberty
She loved will keep alive.

CHORUS.
And thus we drink therr memory
Those glorious Greeks of of
On shore and sea the Famed and Free—
The Beautiful—the Bold!

*".Return with me or upon it!" was the well-known in.
junction of a Greek mother, as she handed her son his shield
previous to the fight.
t The mummy-wheat