But Bernard turned upon his heel, and smiling passed away ; ong rued Alphonso and his realm the jesting of that day. J. G. LOCKHART. MARCO BOZZARIS. At midnight, in his guarded tent, The Turk was dreaming of the hour Should tremble at his power : In dreams his song of triumph heard, As Eden's garden bird. At midnight, in the forest shades, Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band, Heroes in heart and hand. On old Platæa's day; As quick, as far, as they. An hour pass'd 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 arm'd 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 conquer'd--but Bozzaris fell, Bleeding at every vein. And the red field was won; Like flowers at set of sun. Come to the bridal chamber, Death, Come to the mother's, when she feels, Come when the blessed seals Come in consumption's ghastly form, With banquet-song, and dance and wine; 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 Of sky and stars to prison’d men; To the world-seeking Genoese, 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. 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 birth-day bells, Of thee her babes' 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, Talk of thy doom without a sigh ; Futz-GREENE HALLECK. |