One of the few, the immortal names
That were not born to die.

These lines are from Fitz-Greene Halleck’s poem “Marco Bozzaris” (1825), an elegiac-heroic tribute to the Greek patriot who died fighting the Ottoman Turks during the Greek War of Independence. Halleck wrote at a moment when American and European “philhellenic” sentiment was strong, and the poem helped popularize Bozzaris as a romantic emblem of liberty and sacrifice. The quoted couplet occurs in the poem’s opening movement, where Halleck frames Bozzaris’s death not as an end but as an entry into lasting fame—placing him among a small company of figures whose reputations survive mortality.

Halleck’s lines contrast ordinary human mortality with the special kind of endurance achieved through lasting fame. “Immortal names” suggests that while people die, certain reputations—typically those of great artists, leaders, or heroes—continue to live in cultural memory. The phrasing implies rarity (“one of the few”) and elevates renown to something almost organic: a “name” can be “born,” yet some are “not born to die.” The couplet thus functions as a compact tribute, suitable for elegy or commemoration, and reflects a Romantic-era preoccupation with posterity and the power of poetry to confer it.