The Persian law
No more shall Asia's realm revere:
To their lord's hand,
At his command,
No more the exacted tribute bear.
Who now falls prostrate at the monarch's throne?
His regal greatness is no more.
Now no restraint the wanton tongue shall own,
Free from the golden curb of power;
For on the rocks, washed by the beating flood,
His awe-commanding nobles lie in blood.
--POTTER'S trans.

Among the modern poems on Xerxes and the battle of Salamis, is
one by the Scotch poet and translator, JOHN STUART BLACKIE, from
which we take the following extracts:

Seest thou where, sublimely seated on a silver-footed throne,
With a high tiara crested, belted with a jewelled zone,
Sits the king of kings, and, looking from the rocky mountain-side,
Scans, with masted armies studded far, the fair Saronic tide?
Looks he not with high hope beaming? looks he not with pride elate?
Seems he not a god? The words he speaks are big with instant fate.

He hath come from far Euphrates, and from Tigris' rushing tide,
To subdue the strength of Athens, to chastise the Spartan's pride;
He hath come with countless armies, gathered slowly from afar,
From the plain, and from the mountain, marshalled ranks of
motley war;
From the land and from the ocean, that the burdened billows groan,