Fill'd with his soul, she could not dieHer conquest was posterity!

LINES WRITTEN AT SPITHEAD.

HARK to the knell !

It comes on the swell

Of the stormy ocean wave;

'Tis no earthly sound,

But a toll profound

From the mariner's deep sea grave.

When the billows dash,

And the signals flash,

And the thunder is on the gale;

And the ocean is white

In its own wild light,

Deadly, and dismal, and pale.

When the lightning's blaze

Smites the seaman's gaze,

And the sea rolls in fire and in foam;

And the surges' roar

Shakes the rocky shore,

We hear the sea-knell come.

There 'neath the billow,

The sand their pillow,

Ten thousand men lie low;

And still their dirge

Is sung by the surge,

When the stormy night-winds blow.

Sleep, warriors! sleep

On your pillow deep

In peace! for no mortal care, No art can deceive,

No anguish can heave

The heart that once slumbers there.

LEONIDAS.

SHOUT for the mighty men

Who died along this shore,—

Who died within this mountain glen !
For never nobler chieftain's head

Was laid on valour's crimson bed,

Nor ever prouder gore

Sprang forth, than theirs who won the day Upon thy strand, Thermopyla!

Shout for the mighty men,

Who on the Persian tents,

Like lions from their midnight den,
Bounding on the slumbering deer,
Rush'd-a storm of sword and spear-
Like the roused elements,

Let loose from an immortal hand,
To chasten or to crush a land!

But there are none to hear;

Greece is a hopeless slave.

LEONIDAS! no hand is near

To lift thy fiery falchion now:
No warrior makes the warrior's vow
Upon thy sea-wash'd grave.

The voice that should be raised by men,
Must now be given by wave and glen.

And it is given! the surge

The tree-the rock-the sandOn freedom's kneeling spirit urge, In sounds that speak but to the free, The memory of thine and thee! The vision of thy band

Still gleams within the glorious dell, Where their gore hallow'd, as it fell!

And is thy grandeur done?

Mother of men like these!

Has not thy outcry gone

Where Justice has an ear to hear?
Be holy! God shall guide thy spear;
Till in thy crimson'd seas

Are plunged the chain and scimitar,
GREECE shall be a new-born star!

THE DEATH OF LEONIDAS.

It was the wild midnight,
A storm was on the sky;
The lightning gave its light,
And the thunder echoed by.

The torrent swept the glen,

The ocean lash'd the shore;
Then rose the Spartan men,

To make their bed in gore!

Swift from the deluged ground
Three hundred took the shield;

Then, silent, gather'd round
The leader of the field.

He spoke no warrior-word,—
He bade no trumpet blow;
But the signal thunder roar'd,
And they rush'd upon the foe.

The fiery element

Show'd, with one mighty gleam, Rampart, and flag, and tent,

Like the spectres of a dream.

All up the mountain side,

All down the woody vale,

All by the rolling tide

Waved the Persian banners pale.

And King Leonidas,

Among the slumbering band, Sprang foremost from the pass, Like the lightning's living brand.

Then double darkness fell,

And the forest ceased its moan; But there came a clash of steel, And a distant, dying groan.

Anon, a trumpet blew,

And a fiery sheet burst high, That o'er the midnight threw A blood-red canopy.

A host glared on the hill,—
A host glared by the bay;
But the Greeks rush'd onwards still,
Like leopards in their play.

They took the rose-wreath'd lyres From eunuch and from slave;

And taught the languid wires The sounds that freedom gave.

But now the morning star

Crown'd Eta's twilight brow: And the Persian horn of war

From the hills began to blow.