Thermopylae! Thermopylea!
How my heart aches to hear thy name.
How I wish I could share thy fame.
Such heroics I have never heard before,
of how Spartan warriors fought the Persians along this shore.
With Leonidas, their king, they came to claim eternal fame,
and in doing so, Great Xerxes name, they made to rhyme with shame.
Bred from birth to fight,
even out numbered they fought with all their might.
Never to bend,
to fight to the end,
was all that they did know.
This to Xerxes’s army they did show.
To dine with Hades, Leonidas chanted, they would go.
To Xerxes the Persian king, they swore they’d never bow.
Though betrayed and their hopes did fade, they still made a final stand.
The 300 Spartans were defiant to the very end.
For here lies the bones of the 300 Spartans,
forever loyal, to their warrior king.
Such words did Herodotus write for others to praise and sing.
J M Lysun
J M Lysun 