OF THE UNIVERSITY CALIFORNIA MARCO BOZZARIS.1 T midnight, in his guarded tent, The Turk was dreaming of the hour When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent, Should tremble at his power: In dreams, through camp and 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 As Eden's garden bird. of wing, 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 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; He woke to hear his sentries shriek, "To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!” "Strike-till the last armed foe expires; They fought-like brave men, long and well; Bleeding at every vein. His few surviving comrades saw His smile when rang their proud hurrah, And the red field was won; MARCO BOZZARIS. Then saw in death his eyelids close Like flowers at set of sun. Come to the bridal-chamber, Death! Come to the mother's, when she feels, That close the pestilence are broke, And thou art terrible-the tear, The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier; And all we know, or dream, or fear But to the hero, when his sword Has won the battle for the free, Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word; The thanks of millions yet to be. Come in her crowning hour-and then Thy sunken eye's unearthly light 15 Of sky and stars to prisoned men: Thy summons welcome as the cry To the world-seeking Genoese. 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 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 loved and for a season gone; For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed, Her marble wrought, her music breathed; For thee she rings the 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; MARCO BOZZARIS. His plighted maiden, when she fears Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears: Talk of thy doom without a sigh: That were not born to die. // 17 |