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 Platea's day:

And now there breathed that haunted air,
The sons of sires who conquered there,

With arms 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 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;
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, when she feels
For the first time her firstborn'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.

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!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,-
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.

The Scian and the Teian muse,

The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse;
Their place of birth alone is mute

To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires' "Islands of the Blest."

The mountains look on Marathon,
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,

I dreamed that Greece might still be free;
For, standing on the Persian's grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.

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,
My country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now,—

The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?

Must we but weep o'er days more blest?
Must we but blush? Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred, grant but three,
To make a new Thermopyla!

What! silent still? and silent all?
Ah! no; -the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent's fall,

And answer, "Let one living head, But one, arise,-we come, we come!" 'Tis but the living who are dumb!

In vain in vain!-strike other chords;
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,
And shed the blood of Scio's vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call,
How answers each bold Bacchanal!

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet;
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget

The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave;
Think ye he meant them for a slave?

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
We will not think of themes like these!

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.