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 ;
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 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;
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 her pilgrim-circled hearth,
Talk of thy doom without a sigh; For thou art freedom's now and fame'sOne of the few the immortal names That were not born to die.
God makes sech nights, all white an' still
Fur 'z you can look or listen,
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,
All silence an' all glisten.
Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown
An' peeked in thru' the winder, An' there sot Huldy all alone, 'Ith no one nigh to hender.
A fireplace filled the room's one side
With half a cord o' wood in
There warn't no stove (tell comfort died)
To bake ye to a puddin'
The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out
Towards the pootiest, bless her,
An' leetle flames danced all about
The chiny on the dresser.
Agin the chimbly crooknecks hung,
An' in amongst 'em rusted
The ole queen's arm that gran'ther Young
Fetched back from Concord busted.
The very room, coz she was in,
Seemed warm from floor to ceilin',
An' she looked full ez rosy agin
Ez the apples she was peelin'
'T was kin' o' kingdom-come to look
On sech a blessed creetur;
A dogrose blushing to a brook
Ain't modester nor sweeter.
He was six foot o' man, A 1,
Clean grit an' human natur';
None couldn't quicker pitch a ton
Nor dror a furrer straighter.
He'd sparked it with full twenty gals,
Had squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em,
First this one, an' then thet, by spells-
All his, he couldn't love 'em.
But long o' her his veins 'ould run
All crinkly like curled maple,
The side she breshed felt full o' sun,
Ez a south slope in Ap'il.
She thought no v'ice had sech a swing
Ez hisn in the choir;
My! when he made Ole Hundred ring
She knowed the Lord was nigher.
An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer,
When her new meetin'-bunnet
Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair
O' blue eyes sot upon it.
Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some:
She seemed to've got a new soul,
For she felt sartin-sure he'd come,
Down to her very shoe-sole.
She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu,
A-raspin' on the scraper,-
All ways to once her feelin's flew
Like sparks in burnt-up paper.
He kin' o' l'itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o' the sekle,
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,
But hern went pity Zekle.
An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk,
Ez though she wished him furder
An' on her apples kep' to work,
Parin' away like murder.
"You want to see my pa, I s'pose?
"To see my ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es Agin to-morrer's i’nin'.'
To say why gals acts so or so,
Or don't, 'ould be presumin'; Mebby to mean yes an' say no Comes nateral to women.
He stood a spell on one foot fust,
Then stood a spell on t'other,
An' on which one he felt the wust
He couldn't ha' told ye nuther.
Says he, "I'd better call agin";
Says she, "Think likely, Mister"; Thet last word pricked him like a pin An'-wal, he up an' kist her.
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