"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!"
3. 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.
4. Come to the bridal chamber, Death!
Come to the mother, when she feels
For the first time her first-born's breath ;-
Come when the blessed seals
Which 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.
5. 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 Fredom's now, and Fame's-
One of the few, the immortal names,
That were not born to die
LESSON CLXXVIII.
Dream of Clarence.-SHAKSPEAre.
1. O, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days:
So full of dismal terror was the time.
2. Methought that I had broken from the tower,
And was embarked to cross to Burgundy,
And in my company my brother Gloucester,*
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches. Thence we looked toward England,
And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster,
That had befallen us. As we passed along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought that Gloucester stumbled, and in falling
Struck me (that sought to stay him) overboard,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.
3. O, then methought, what pain it was to drown
What dreadful noise of waters in my ears!
What sights of ugly death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men that fishes gnawed upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels;
All scattered in the bottom of the sea.
Some lay in dead men's sculls; and in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.
4.
-Often did I strive
To yield the ghost; but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To find the empty, vast, and wandering air;
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.
5. My dream was lengthened after life;
O, then began the tempest of my soul;
* Richard III. king of England, in 1483.
I passed, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my stranger-soul,
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick,
Who cried aloud" What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?"
And so he vanished.
Then came wandering by A shadow like an angel, with bright hair Dabbled in blood, and he shrieked out aloud"Clarence is come, false, fleeting, perjured Clarence, That stabbed me in the field by Tewkesbury; Seize on him, furies! take him to your torments!" With that, methought a legion of foul fiends Environed me, and howled into mine ears Such hideous cries, that with the very noise I trembling waked; and for a season after Could not believe but that I was in hell; Such terrible impression made my dream.
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