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,
Bleeding at every vein.
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's, when she feels,
For the first time, her firstborn's breath;
Come when the blesséd seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke;
Come in Consumption's ghastly form,
The earthquake 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 a 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,
A 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 her birthday 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,
And even she who gave thee birth,
Will, by their 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.
THINE is a strain to read among the hills,
The old and full of voices; by the source
Of some free stream, whose gladdening presence fills
The solitude with sound; for in its course
Even such is thy deep song, that seems a part
Of those high scenes, a fountain from their heart.
Or its calm spirit fitly may be taken
To the calm breast, in some sweet garden's bowers, Where vernal winds each tree's low tones awaken,
And bud and bell with changes mark the hours; There let thy thoughts be with me, while the day Sinks with a golden and serene decay.
Or by some hearth where happy faces meet,
When night hath hushed the woods, with all their birds,
There, from some gentle voice, that lay were sweet
As antique music, linked with household words; While in pleased murmurs woman's lip might move, And the raised eye in childhood shine in love!
Or where the shadows of dark solemn yews
Brood silently o'er some lone burial-ground,
Thy verse hath power that brightly might diffuse
A breath, a kindling, as of spring, around,
From its own glow of hope, and courage high,
And steadfast faith's victorious constancy.
True bard and holy!-Thou art even as one
Who by some secret gift of soul or eye
In every spot beneath the smiling sun,
Sees where the springs of living waters lie!
Thou mov'st through nature's realm, and touched by
Clear healthful waves flow forth, to each glad wanderer free.
ADDRESS TO THE EGYPTIAN MUMMY
AND thou hast walked about-how strange a story!-
In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago!
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And Time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous !
Speak, for thou long enough hast acted Dummy!
Thou hast a tongue-come-let us hear its tune!
Thou'rt standing on thy legs, above ground, Mummy!
Revisiting the glimpses of the Moon;
Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,
But with thy bones, and flesh, and limbs, and features.
Tell us for doubtless thou canst recollect,
To whom should we assign the Sphinx's fame?
Was Cheops, or Cephrénes architect
Of either Pyramid that bears his name?
Is Pompey's Pillar really a misnomer?
Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer?
Perhaps thou wert a Mason, and forbidden,
By oath, to tell the mysteries of thy trade ;Then say, what secret melody was hidden
In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise played? Perhaps thou wert a Priest-if so, my struggles Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles.
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