Space for the ocean, in its giant might,
To swell and rave-
Space for the river, tinged with rosy light,
Where green banks wave.
Space for the sun to tread his path in might
And golden pride—
Space for the glow-worm, calling, by her light,
Love to her side.
Then, pure and gentle ones, within your ark
Securely rest!
Blue be the skies above, and your still bark
By kind winds blest!
[Born in 1795, died in 1868. His maternal descent was from John Eliot, the Apostle of the Indians."
ness, acting for several years as agent to the great capitalist Astor].
MARCO BOZZARIS.
AT 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 of wing,
At midnight, in the forest shades,
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,
In the case of Halleck, and of other American poets who figure also in our selection of Humorous Poems, the notice here given of the writer is repeated from that volume without alteration -save in the case of Whitman.
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,
"To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!" 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;
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'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;
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.
Come, when his task of Fame is wrought-
Come, with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought-
Come in her crowning hour-and then
Thy sunken eye's unearthly light
To him is welcome as the sight
Of sky and stars to prisoned men:
Thy grasp is welcome as the hand
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.
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 wrings 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;
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
Is read the grief she will not speak,
The memory of her buried joys,
And even she who gave thee birth,
Will, by their pilgrim-circled hearth,
Talk of 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.
FOR THE ALBUM OF MISS, AT THE REQUEST OE HER FATHER.
"A LADY asks the Minstrel's rhyme."
A Lady asks? There was a time
When, musical as play-bell's chime
That sound would summon dreams sublime
Of pride and joy.
But now the spell hath lost its sway;
Life's first-born fancies first decay,
Gone are the plumes and pennons gay
Of young Romance;
There linger but her ruins grey,
And broken lance.
'Tis a new world—no more to maid,
Warrior, or bard, is homage paid;
The bay-tree's, laurel's, myrtle's shade,
Men's thoughts resign;
Heaven placed us here to vote and trade,
Twin tasks divine!
"Tis youth, 'tis beauty asks; the green
And growing leaves of seventeen
Are round her; and, half hid, half seen.
A violet flower,
Nursed by the virtues she hath been
From childhood's hour."
Blind passion's picture-yet for this.
We woo the life-long bridal kiss,
And blend our every hope of bliss
With hers we love;
Unmindful of the serpent's hiss
In Eden's grove.
Beauty- the fading rainbow's pride,
Youth-'twas the charm of her who died
At dawn, and by her coffin's side
A grandsire stands,
Age-strengthened, like the oak storm-tried
Of mountain lands.
Youth's coffin-hush the tale it tells!
Be silent, memory's funeral bells!
Lone in one heart, her home, it dwells
Untold till death,
And where the grave-mound greenly swells
O'er buried faith.
"But what if hers are rank and power,
Armies her train, a throne her bower,
A kingdom's gold her marriage dower,
Broad seas and lands?
What if from bannered hall and tower
A queen commands ?”
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