Historical:

HELPS TO STUDY

The decline of Greece is the theme of this poem. Byron represents a Greek poet as contrasting ancient and modern Greece, showing that, in modern Greece, "all except their sun is set.''

MARCO BOZZARIS

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK

Ar 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,
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 Platæa'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 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 the 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.

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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.

HELPS TO STUDY

Biographical and Historical:

Fitz-Greene Halleck was born in Connecticut, July 8, 1790, and died November 19, 1867. Of his poems, "Marco Bozzaris" is probably the best known. Marco Bozzaris, leader of the Greek revolution, was killed August 20, 1823, in an attack upon the Turks near Missolonghi, a Greek town. His last words were: die for liberty is a pleasure, not a pain."

To

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THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE

CHARLES WOLFE

Nor a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

5 We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moonbeams' misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin inclosed his breast,

Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,

With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
15 But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

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We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
And we far away on the billow.

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him;
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on .
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

25 But half of our heavy task was done

When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing.