. The armaments which thunder-strike the walls The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war, These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou! Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. Thou glorious mirror, where th' Almighty's form Calm or convulsed -in breeze, or gale, or storm, Dark-heaving;-boundless, endless, and sublime— The image of eternity- the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. And I have loved thee, ocean! and my joy * Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear, - as I do here. LESSON XXIII. EXERCISES IN ARTICULATION. d:-bed, dead, did, made, grazed, hedged, judged, saved, writhed, charmed, paved, heard, ebbed, rigged, would, could, should, damaged, modest, deadly. Marco Bozzaris.* F. G. HALLECK. AT midnight, in his guarded tent, The Turk was dreaming of the hour In dreams, through camp and court he bore In dreams, his song of triumph heard; Then pressed that monarch's throne, a king; At midnight in the forest-shades, Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band * Marco Bozzaris, the Epaminondas of modern Greece. He fell in a night attack upon the Turkish camp at Laspi, the site of the ancient Platea, August 20, 1823, and expired in the moment of victory. His last words were, "To die for liberty is a pleasure, and not a pain." True as the steel of their tried blades, There had the Persian's thousands stood, And now there breathed that haunted air, An hour passed on - the Turk awoke- "To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!" And death-shots, falling thick and fast "Strike till the last armed foe expires; 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! That close the pestilence are broke, The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier, But to the hero, when his sword The thanks of millions yet to be. Of sky and stars to prisoned men! Thy grasp is welcome as the hand When the land-wind, from woods of palm, 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 Talk of thy doom without a sigh; |