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, There had the Persian's thousands stood, And now there breathed that haunted air, With arms to strike, and soul to dare, An hour passed on-the Turk awoke; He woke to hear his sentries shriek, "To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!" He woke to die mid flame and smoke, And shout, and groan, and saber 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; 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, Then saw in death his eyelids close Come to the bridal chamber, Death! That close the pestilence are broke, The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier, Of agony, are thine. But to the hero, when his sword Has won the battle for the free, 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. We tell 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. NOTES.-Marco Bozzaris (b. about 1790, d. 1823) was a famous Greek patriot. His family were Suliotes, a people inhabiting the Suli Mountains, and bitter enemies of the Turks. Bozzaris was engaged in war against the latter nearly all his life, and finally fell in a night attack upon their camp near Carpenisi. This poem, a fitting tribute to his memory, has been translated into modern Greek. Plataa was the scene of a great victory of the Greeks over the Persians in the year 479 B. C. Moslem.-The followers of Mohammed are called Moslems. LI. SONG OF THE GREEK BARD. George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron, 1788-1824. This gifted poet was the son of a profligate father and of a fickle and passionate mother. He was afflicted with lameness from his birth; and, although he succeeded to his great-uncle's title at ten years of age, he inherited financial embarrassment with it. These may be some of the reasons for the morbid and wayward character of the youthful genius. It is certain that he was not lacking in affection, nor in generosity. In his college days, at Cambridge, he was willful and careless of his studies. "Hours of Idleness," his first book, appeared in 1807. It was severely treated by the "Edinburgh Review," which called forth his “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," in 1809. Soon after, he went abroad for two years; and, on his return, published the first two cantos of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," a work that made him suddenly famous. He married in 1815, but separated from his wife after one year. Soured and bitter, he now left England, purposing never to return. He spent most of the next seven years in Italy, where most of his poems were written. The last year of his life was spent in Greece, aiding in her struggle for liberty against the Turks. He died at Missolonghi. As a man, Byron was impetuous, morbid and passionate. He was undoubtedly dissipated and immoral, but perhaps to a less degree than has sometimes been asserted. As a poet, he possessed noble powers, and he has written much that will last; in general, however, his poetry is not wholesome, and his fame is less than it once was. THE isles of Greece! the isles of Greece! The Scian and the Teian muse, The hero's harp, the lover's lute, To sounds which echo further west The mountains look on Marathon, I dreamed that Greece might still be free; A king sat on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below, And men in nations,-all were his! He counted them at break of day,— And when the sun set, where were they? And where are they? And where art thou, The heroic bosom beats no more! Must we but weep o'er days more blest? What! silent still? and silent all? And answer, 66 In vain-in vain!-strike other chords; You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet; The nobler and the manlier one? Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! It made Anacreon's song divine: He served, but served Polycrates, A tyrant; but our masters then Were still, at least, our countrymen. The tyrant of the Chersonese Was freedom's best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades! Oh that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind! Such chains as his were sure to bind. |