"Faster!" she cries, "O, faster!" Eleven the churchbells chime:

66

O God," she cries, "help Bregenz, and bring me there in time!"

But louder than bells' ringing, or lowing of the kine, Grows nearer in the midnight the rushing of the Rhine.

Shall not the roaring waters their headlong gallop check?

The steed draws back in terror, she leans above his

neck

To watch the flowing darkness, the bank is high and

steep;

One pause, he staggers forward, and plunges in the

deep.

She strives to pierce the blackness, and looser throws

the rein;

Her steed must breast the waters that dash above his

mane;

How gallantly, how nobly, he struggles through the

foam,

And see, in the far distance shine out the lights of home!

Up the steep bank he bears her, and now they rush

again

Towards the heights of Bregenz, that tower above the

plain.

They reach the gate1 of Bregenz just as the midnight

rings,

And out come serf 2 and soldier to meet the news she

brings.

Bregenz is saved! Ere daylight her battlements are mann'd ;

Defiance greets the army that marches on the land:
And, if to deeds heroic should endless fame be paid,
Bregenz does well to honor the noble Tyrol maid.

Three hundred years are vanish'd, and yet upon the hill

An old stone gateway rises, to do her honor still. ·

And there, when Bregenz women sit spinning in the shade,

They see in quaint old carving the charger and the maid.

And when, to guard old Bregenz, by gateway, street, and tower,

The warder paces all night long, and calls each passing hour:

"Nine," "ten," "eleven," he cries aloud, and then (O crown of fame!)

When midnight pauses in the skies he calls the maiden's

name.

ADELAIDE A. PROCTER.

1 Gate: Bregenz was formerly a walled town.

2 Serf: a feudal dependent but one degree above a slave; a laborer bound to the soil and unable to leave it without his lord's consent.

MARCO BOZZARIS.1

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 press'd 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.

1 Bozzaris (Boz-zar'is): a Greek patriot who took a leading part in the war of independence begun in 1821, by which Greece threw off the yoke of the Turkish power. In 1823 Bozzaris attacked a Turkish force much larger than his own. The battle was begun in the night and was a complete surprise to the Turks. Bozzaris was mortally wounded, but the Greeks won a great and decisive victory. Six years later, the Turks, who had held Greece in subjection for nearly four centuries, were obliged to make peace. 2 Signet-ring: a ring containing a signet or private seal, especially the seal used by a monarch in stamping documents.

3 Su'liote: a name derived from the Suli Mountains and river in Northwestern Greece [the ancient Epirus]; Bozzaris was himself a Suliote.

1

There had the Persian's thousands stood,

There had the glad earth drunk their blood,
On old Platea's 2 day;

And now there breathed that haunted air,
The sons of sires who conquer'd there,
With arm to strike, and soul to dare,
As quick, as far, as they.

An hour pass'd 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 arm'd 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;

3

They piled that ground with Moslem 3 slain;

1 Bozzaris attacked the Turks in their camp not far from Missolonghi, near the entrance of the Gulf of Corinth. The scene of the battle can only be said to be near that of Platæa in the sense that both were on the shore of the gulf.

2 Platea (Pla-tē'a): in 479 B.C. the Greeks defeated an invading army of Persians at Platæa, a town northwest of Athens, and a short distance from the head of the Gulf of Corinth.

3 Moslem: Mohammedans or Turks.

They conquer'd;- but Bozzaris fell,
Bleeding at every vein.

His few surviving comrades saw

His smile when rang their loud 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 blessèd1 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,

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.

1 Blessed: pronounced here in two syllables, bles'sed.

2 Seals: apparently an allusion to the opening of the seals in Rev. vi., or to the pouring out of the vials of wrath, chapter xvi.