On old Platæa's day; And now there breathed that haunted air An hour passed on-the Turk awoke ; 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, Or lightnings from the mountain cloud; "Strike-till the last armed foe expires, Strike-for your altars and your fires, God-and your native land!" sires, They fought, like brave men, long and well, 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. Come to the bridal chamber, Death! Come to the mother's, when she feels Which 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 prison'd men; To the world-seeking Genoese, 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 Long loved, and for a season gone. For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed, Her marble wrought, her music breathed; For thee she rings the birth-day bells; Of thee her babe's first lisping tells; For thine her evening prayer is said At palace couch, and cottage bed. Her soldier, closing with the foe, Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow; His plighted maiden, when she fears For him, the joy of her young years, Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears; And she, the mother of thy boys, Though in her eye and faded cheek Is read the grief she will not speak, The memory of her buried joys; And even she who gave thee birth, Will, by their pilgrim-circled hearth, Talk of 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. ON THE PRIME OBJECTS OF GOVERNMENT. IN endeavouring to conceive the rational foundation of government, different questions present themselves for consideration:-as, first, what is the object of government? secondly, what are its natural powers or means? thirdly, what are the limitations to which it is subject in seeking its object, from the nature and necessity of things? First, then, as to what is the proper object of government? To this question we feel ourselves at liberty to give but one answer,-that it is the welfare of the community. But this leads into a farther inquiry, What are the different points which this welfare requires to be considered? What are the constituents of the welfare of a community? The first, then, is its independence. A community subject to another has ceased to be. The first condition of its existence is, that it is individual and independent. This, then, is the first object of its government, to maintain the national integrity and independence,-its self-sovereignty. Without this, all question of government is superfluous and idle; for a subject nation has to receive its government and not to debate it.-Here, then, is one object prior in consideration even to internal liberty, and to every other question of internal welfare, that freedom as a nation which must be the foundation of internal liberty and welfare. And this may lead us to understand what it is that some nations have received from their government, who seem to have received from it nothing else. They have been preserved from external tyranny; they have remained a People. Nor let it be thought that this is little. There may be oppression, weakness, vice in a nation, as in every nation there is much of these; but, by their independence, they have love to their country,-by this they have a national spirit and character, they have high thoughts and hopes. Few are those to whom liberty has been given; but many are the nations that have lifted their proud front in opposition to others great and powerful as themselves. Do we imagine, because they have not the liberty we have tasted, that therefore their heart does not burn with their own glory? They feel perhaps a despotic strength compelling and even galling them; still it has risen up within themselves, and the power under which they are subjected is their own. But imagine that the hosts of some mightier nation are poured over their land,-that their armies are scattered in slaughter and defeat,— and their throne levelled with the dust. Are they not now laid under a heavier servitude? Are they not sunk in lower degradation? They are placed under a power now, to which they bow in fear, not in reverence; and every act of obedience is become for them an act of humiliation. When a people is invaded, we ask not, are they free? do they love their constitution? But are they men? do they love their country? Those who fight not for their laws, will fight for their hearths and their altars. At the same time, it is not to be |