A Song of Heroes

The poem selects a sequence of the most notable names in European and West Asian history during a period of more than three thousand years, and gives a sketch of their lives, as the bearers and exponents of the significant ages to which they belong. John Stuart Blackie (1809-1895) was the author of: Pronunciation of Greek (1852); Lays and Legends of Ancient Greece (1857); Three Discourses on Beauty (1858); Lyrical Poems (1860); Homer and the Iliad (1866); Democracy (1867); Musa Burschicosa (1869); War Songs of the Germans (1870); (1871); Lays of the Highlands and Islands (1872); Self-Culture (1873); Horææ Hellenicææ (1874); Songs (1876); The Natural History of Atheism (1877); Self-Culture (1877); Lay Sermons (1881); Altavona (1882); The Wisdom of Goethe (1883); Life of Robert Burns (1887); Scottish Song (1889); A Song of Heroes (1890); Essays on Subjects of Moral and Social Interest (1890); Christianity and the Ideal of Humanity in Old Times and New (1893).