In dreams, through camp, and court, he bore | The trophies of a con'queror; |
In dreams his song of triumph, heard ; | Then wore his monarch's sig.net-ring; | Then press'd 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, |
'Bozza'ris rang'd his Suliote band
True as the steel of their tried blades', |
Heroes in heart, and hand. |
There had the Persian's thou'sands stood; |
There had the glad earth, drunk their blood, |
On old Platæ'a's day― |
And now there breath'd that haunted air,
The sons of sires who con'quer'd there, |
With arm to strike, and soul to dare,
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
ff To arms! they come ![the Greek! the ƒfƒGreek`!”| He woke to die, midst flame, and smoke', | And shout, and groan, and sa'bre-stroke, |
And death-shots falling thick, and fast, |
As lightnings from the moun'tain-cloud; |
And heard, with voice as trumpet-loud, |
Bozzaris cheer his band: |
fff" Strike, till the last arm'd foe, expires; |
Strike, for your al'tars, and your fires; |
Strike for the green graves of your sires.
God, and your native land!” |
ancient Platæa, August 20, 1823, and expired in the moment of victory. His last words were -- "To die for liberty is a pleasure, and not a pain."
Triumph heard; not tri-um'furd. b Mon'nårks.
d Pass'd on; not pass-ton'.
They fought like brave men- long, and well; }
They pil'd that ground with Moslem slain ; |
They con'quer'd 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 first-born's breath Come, when the blessed seals That close the pes'tilence, are broke, | And crowded cities, wail its stroke, Come in consumption's ghastly form, | The earthquake shock, the ocean-storm 2Come 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. I
'But to the hero, | when his sword, I
Has won the battle for the free, |
"Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word;
2And 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 crown'ing hour- and then,
"Thy sunken eye's unearthly light, I
To him is welcome as the sight, |
Of sky, and stars to prison'd men: |
Kům rådź, saw; not cum'rades-saw. b Bri'dal; not bri'dle.
"Thy grasp is welcome as the hand, I
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. I
"Bozzaris! with the stori'd brave, |
Greece nurtur'd in her glo'ry'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 lov'd, and for a season gone; |
For thee her poet's lyre is wreath'd; |
Her marble wrought, her music breath'd; |
1
For thee she rings the birth-day bells; |
Of thee her babes' first lisping tells; |
For thine her evening prayer is said, I
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, I
Is read the grief she will not speak', |
The mem'ry of her buried joys, |
And even she who gave thee birth, |
Will, by their pilgrim-circled hearth, |
Talk of thy doom without a sigh: |
mf For thou art Free'dom's now', [ and Fame's'; | One of the few, the immortal names, | That were not born to die,. |
LOCHIEL'S WARNING.
(CAMPBELL.)
Wizard and Lochiel.
Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day' |
When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array! |
For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight', |
And the clans of Culloden are scatter'd in fight.:|
They rally, they bleed, | for their kingdom and crown'; |
Wo, wo to the riders that trample them down! |
Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain', |
And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain. |
But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of war', |
What steed to the desert flies frantic and far? |
"T is thine, Oh Glenullin! | whose bride shall await', |
Like a love-lighted watch'-fire, all night at the gate. I
A steed comes at morning- | no ri'der is there; |
But its bridle is red with the sign of despair. |
Weep, Albin! | to death, and captiv'ity led!|
O weep! but thy tears cannot number the dead: |
For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave', |
Culloden that reeks with the blood of the brave. I
Go, preach to the cow'ard, thou death-telling seer! |
Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear, |
Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight, |
This man'tle, to cover the phantoms of fright. |
Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn'? | Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn!!
Say, rush'd the bold eagle, exultingly forth', |
From his home in the dark-rolling clouds of the north? |
Lo! the death-shot of foemen out-speeding, he rode, I
Companionless, | bearing destruction abroad;
But down let him stoop from his havoc on high! |
Ah! home let him speed, | for the spoiler is nigh. |
Why flames the far sum mit? Why shoot to the blast, |
Those em bers, | like stars from the firmament, cast? |
"T is the fire-shower of ru'in, | all dreadfully driven ̧ |
1
From his eyry, that beacons the darkness of heavn. |
O crested Lochiel! | the peerless in might, |
Whose banners arise on the battlements' height, |
Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn ; |
Return to thy dwelling: all lonely return! |
For the blackness of ashes, shall mark where it stood,
And a wild mother, scream o'er her famishing brood!|
False Wizard, avaunt'! I have marshall'd my clan: |
Their swords are a thou'sand; | their bosoms are one:
They are true to the last of their blood, and their breath', |
And like reap'ers, descend to the harvest of death. |
Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock! |
Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock!
But wo to his kindred, and wo to his cause', |
When Albin her claymore indignantly draws; |
When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd, |
Clanronald the dauntless, and Moray the proud ; |
All plaided, and plum'd in their tartan array
Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day! |
For, dark, and despairing, my sight I may seal, Į
Yet man cannot cover what God would reveal: |
'Tis the sunset of life, gives me mystical lore, |
And coming events, cast their shadows before.
I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ring |
With the bloodhounds that bark for thy fugitive king'.
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