LP felt his soul become more light
Beneath the freshness of the night;
Cool was the silent sky though calm,
And bathed his brow with airy balm.
Behind, the camp; before him lay,
In many a winding creek and bay,
Lepanto's gulf; and, on the brow
Of Delphi's hill, unshaken snow,
High and eternal, such as shone,
Through thousand summers brightly gone,
Along the gulf, the mount, the clime:
It will not melt, like man, to time.
Tyrant and slave are swept away,
Less formed to wear before the ray;
But that white veil, the lightest, frailest,
Which on the mighty mount thou hailest,
While tower and tree are torn and rent,
Shines o'er its craggy battlement,
In form a peak, in height a cloud,
In texture like a hovering shroud,
Thus high by parting Freedom spread,
As from her fond abode she fled,
And lingered on the spot where long
Her prophet spirit spake in song.
T midnight, in his guarded tent,
The Turk was dreaming of the hour
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power.
In dreams, through camp and court, he bore
The trophies of a conqueror;
In dreams his song of triumph heard;
Then wore his monarch's signet-ring;
Then pressed that monarch's throne,-a king;
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing
As Eden's garden bird.
At midnight, in the forest shades,
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,
True as the steel of their tried blades,
Heroes in heart and hand.
There had the Persian's thousands stood,
There had the glad earth drunk their blood,
On old Platæa's day;
And now there breathed that haunted air
The sons of sires who conquered there,
With arm to strike, and soul to dare,
As quick, as far, as they.
An hour passed on-the Turk awoke ;
That bright dream was his last;
He woke to hear his sentries shriek,
"To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!"
He woke to die midst flame, and smoke,
And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke,
And death-shots falling thick and fast As lightnings from the mountain-cloud; And heard, with voice as trumpet loud,
Bozzaris cheer his band:
"Strike--till the last armed foe expires;
Strike for your altars and your fires;
Strike for the green graves of your sires;
God-and your native land!"
They fought--like brave men, long and well;
They piled that ground with Moslem slain;
They conquered—but Bozzaris fell,
His few surviving comrades saw
His smile, when rang their proud hurrah,
And the red field was won;
Then saw in death his eyelids close,
Calmly as to a night's repose,
Like flowers at set of sun.
Come to the bridal chamber, Death!
Come to the mother, when she feels,
For the first time, her first-born's breath!
Come when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke:
Come in consumption's ghastly form,
The earthquake's shock, the ocean-storm;
Come when the heart beats high and warm
With banquet-song, and dance, and wine;
And thou art terrible !-The tear,
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier;
And all we know, or dream, or fear
Of agony, are thine.
But to the hero, when his sword
Has won the battle for the free,
Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word;
And in its hollow tones are heard
The thanks of millions yet to be.
Come, when his task of fame is wrought-
Come, with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought-
Come in her crowning hour-and then
Thy sunken eye's unearthly light
To him is welcome as the sight
Of sky and stars to prisoned men:
Thy grasp is welcome as the hand
Of brother in a foreign land;
Thy summons welcome as the cry
That told the Indian isles were nigh
To the world-seeking Genoese,
When the land-wind from woods of palm,
And orange groves, and fields of balm,
Blew o'er the Haytian seas.
Bozzaris! with the storied brave
Greece nurtured in her glory's time, Rest thee--there is no prouder grave, Even in her own proud clime.
She wore no funeral weeds for thee,
Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume,
Like torn branch from death's leafless tree,
In sorrow's pomp and pageantry,
The heartless luxury of the tomb.
But she remembers thee as one
Long loved, and for a season gone.
For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed,
Her marble wrought, her music breathed;
For thee she rings the birthday bells;
Of thee her babe's first lisping tells;
For thine her evening prayer is said
At palace couch, and cottage bed;
Her soldier, closing with the foe,
Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow;
His plighted maiden, when she fears
For him, the joy of her young years,
Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears.
And she, the mother of thy boys,
Though in her eye and faded cheek
Is read the grief she will not speak,
The memory of her buried joys-
And even she who gave thee birth,
Will, by her pilgrim-circled hearth,
Talk of thy doom without a sigh;
For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's-
One of the few, the immortal names
That were not born to die.
HOU still unravished bride of quietness!
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time!
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme ! What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? what maidens loath? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on-
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone!
Fair youth beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal; yet do not grieve— She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss; Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And happy melodist, unwearied,
Forever piping songs forever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
Forever warm and still to be enjoyed,
Forever panting and forever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
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