MARCO BOZZARIS.

T midnight, in his guarded 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,

tent,
The Turk was dreaming of

the hour

When Greece, her knee in And heard, with voice as trumpet loud,
suppliance bent,
Bozzaris cheer his band:

Should tremble at his "Strike till the last armed foe expires!
power:
Strike for your altars and your fires!
In dreams through camp and Strike for the green graves of

court he bore

The trophies of a conqueror;

In dreams his song of
triumph heard;

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 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,

God and your native land!"

your sires,

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 first-born'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 shock, the ocean storm;
Come when the heart beats high and warm
With banquet-song and dance and wine,-

To arms they come! The Greek! the And thou art terrible: the tear,

Greek!"

The

groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,

A VISION OF VIRGINS.

HAD a vision of the night. And in their hands, like a blue star, they

Blocked in by black hills, Crowned for a feast. I could not see the

where a a half moon
dreamed

Of morn, and whitened.

Drifts of dry brown sand, This way and that, were heaped below; and flats Of water glaring shallows where strange bats

Came and went and moths flickered.

To the right,
A dusty road that crept along the waste
Like a white snake; and farther up I traced
The shadow of a great house far in sight-
A hundred casements all ablaze with light,
And forms that flit athwart them as in haste,
And a slow music such as sometimes kings
Command at mighty revels, softly sent
From viol and flute and tabor, and the strings
Of many a sweet and slumbrous instrument,
That wound into the mute heart of the night
Out of that distance.

Face;

The Form was not all human. As the flame
Streamed over it a presence took the place
With awe.

He, turning, took them by the hand And led them each up the white stairway, and

The door closed.

At that moment the moon dipped
Behind a rag of purple vapor, ripped
Off a great cloud some dead wind, ere it
spent

Its last breath, had blown open; and, so rent,
You saw behind blue pools of light, and

there

A wild star swimming in the lurid air.
The dream was darkened. And a sense of
loss

Fell like a nightmare on the land, because
The moon yet lingered in her cloud-eclipse.
Then, in the dark, swelled sullenly across
The waste a wail of women.

Then I could perceive
A glory pouring through an open door,
And in the light five women. I believe
They wore white vestments, all of them. The moon drew up out of the cloud.

They were

Her blue lips

Quite calm, and each still face unearthly fair, I had a vision on that midnight plain.
Unearthly quiet. So, like statues all,
Waiting they stood without that lighted

hall,

Again

Five women, and the beauty of despair
Upon their faces; locks of wild wet hair,