How few could feel for what he had to bear! He wants not this; but France shall feel Vain his complaint,—my Lord presents his bill, How must he smile, and turn to yon lone grave, The proudest sea-mark that o'ertops the wave! What though his jailor, duteous to the last, Scarce deem'd the coffin's lead could keep him fast, the want Of this last consolation, though so scant; To rear above a pyramid of thrones; Oh, Heaven! of which he was in power Oh, Earth! of which he was a noble creature; Ye Alps, which view'd him in his dawning Hover, the victor of an hundred fights! Alas! why pass'd he too the Rubicon? To re-manure the uncultivated land! Spain! which, a moment mindless of the Cid, Beheld his banner flouting thy Madrid! Austria! which saw thy twice-ta'en capital Twice spared, to be the traitress of his fall! Ye race of Frederic!-Frederics but in name And falsehood - heirs to all except his fame; Refusing one poor line along the lid Who, crush'd at Jena, crouch'd at Berlin, fell To date the birth and death of all it hid,|First, and but rose to follow; ye who dwell That name shall hallow the ignoble shore, A talisman to all save him who bore: The fleets that sweep before the eastern blast Shall hear their sea-boys hail it from the mast: When Victory's Gallic column shall but rise, Where Kosciusko dwelt, remembering yet debt! Poland! o'er which the avenging angel But left thee as he found thee, still a waste; To see in vain-he saw thee-how? with And palace fuel to one common fire. Sublimest of volcanoes! Etna's flame tame; Vesuvius shows his blaze, an usual sight For gaping tourists, from his hackney'd height: Thou standst alone unrivall'd till the fire To come, in which all empires shall expire. Thou other element! as strong and stern To teach a lesson conquerors will not learn, Whose icy wing flapp'd o'er the faltering foe, Till fell a hero with each flake of snow; How did thy numbing beak and silent fang Pierce, till hosts perish'd with a single pang! In vain shall Seine look up along his banks Or stagnant in their human ice remains Of all the trophies gather'd from the war, What shall return? The conqueror's broken car! The conqueror's yet unbroken heart! Again The horn of Roland sounds, and not in vain. Lutzen, where fell the Swede of victory, Beholds him conquer, but, alas! not die: Dresden surveys three despots fly once more Before their sovereign,-sovereign,as before; But there exhausted Fortune quits the field, And Leipsic's treason bids the unvanquish'd yield; The Saxon Jackal leaves the Lion's side To turn the Bear's, and Wolf's, and Fox's guide; And backward to the den of his despair The forest-monarch shrinks, but finds no lair! Oh ye! and each, and all! Oh, France! who found Thy long fair fields plough'd up as hostile ground, Disputed foot by foot, till treason, still His only victor, from Montmartre's hill Look'd down o'er trampled Paris; and thou, isle, Which seest Etruria from thy ramparts smile, Thou momentary shelter of his pride, Till woo'd by danger, his yet weeping bride; Oh, France! retaken by a single march, Whose path was through one long triumphal arch! Oh, bloody and most bootless Waterloo, Which proves how fools may have their fortune too, Won, half by blunder, half by treachery; To earth, air, ocean, all that felt or feel A single step into the wrong has given Calming the lightning which he thence hath riven, Or drawing from the no less kindled earth Freedom and peace to that which boasts his birth: While Washington's a watch-word, such Forgets Pizarro to shout Bolivar! The king of kings, and yet of slaves the slave, Who burst the chains of millions to renew The very fetters which his arm broke through, And crush'd the rights of Europe and his own To flit between a dungeon and a throne? But 'twill not be, the spark's awaken'd, lo! The swarthy Spaniard feels his former glow; The same high spirit which beat back the Moor Through eight long ages of alternate gore Revives-and where? in that avenging clime Where Spain was once synonymous with crime, Where Cortes' and Pizarro's banner flew; The infant-world redeems her name of "New." 'Tis the old aspiration breathed afresh, To kindle souls within degraded flesh, Such as repulsed the Persian from the shore Where Greece was- No! she still is Greece once more. One common cause makes myriads of one | Holds back the invader from her soil again. breast, Slaves of the East, or Helots of the West; The Athenian wears again Harmodius' The Chili-chief abjures his foreign lord ; Young Freedom plumes the crest of each roar; Through Calpe's strait the rolling tides Sweep slightly by the half-tamed land of Dash o'er the old Spaniard's cradle, and Unite Ausonia to the mighty main: The desolated lands, the ravaged isle, The false friend worse than the infuriate foe. Not the barbarian, with his mask of peace. But not alone within the hoariest clime, Of Incas darken to a dubious cloud, Not now the Roman tribe nor Punic horde But these are gone their faith, their swords, Yet left more anti-christian foes than they: The stern or feeble sovereign, one or both The long degenerate noble; the debased Save hers who earn'd it with the natives' The very language, which might vie with And once was known to nations like their And form the barrier which Napoleon The exterminating war; the desert plain; From climes of Washington and Bolivar; Henry, the forest-born Demosthenes, Whose thunder shook the Philip of the seas; And stoic Franklin's energetic shade, Robed in the lightnings which his hand allay'd; And Washington, the tyrant-tamer, wake, To bid us blush for these old chains, or break. But Who compose this Senate of the few Than we! for ours are animated logs, Thrice bless'd Verona! since the holy three With their imperial presence shine on thee; Honour'd by them, thy treacherous site forgets The vaunted tomb of "all the Capulets;" Thy Scaligers-for what was "Dog the Great," “Can' Grande” (which I venture to translate) To these sublimer pugs? Thy poet too, Catullus, whose old laurels yield to new; Thine amphitheatre, where Romans sate; And Dante's exile, shelter'd by thy gate; Thy good old man, whose world was all To tell Oppression that the world is tame! Clap thy permitted palms, kind Italy, For thus much still thy fetter'd hands are free! knows, By having Muscovites for friends or foes. Proceed, thou namesake of Great Philip's son! La Harpe, thine Aristotle, beckons on; And that which Scythia was to him of yore, Find with thy Scythians on Iberia's shore. Yet think upon, thou somewhat aged youth, Thy predecessor on the banks of Pruth; Thou hast to aid thee, should his lot be thine, Many an old woman, but no Catherine. Spain too hath rocks, and rivers, and defiles The bear may rush into the lion's toils. Fatal to Goths are Xeres' sunny fields; Thinkst thou to thee Napoleon's victor yields? Better reclaim thy deserts, turn thy swords To ploughshares, shave and wash thy Bash kir hordes, Redeem thy realms from slavery and the knout, Than follow headlong in the fatal route, To infest the clime, whose skies and laws | And love much rather to be scourged than are pure, school'd? With thy foul legions. Spain wants no Ah! thine was not the temper or the taste For thrones-the table sees thee better placed : manure; Her soil is fertile, but she feeds no foe; Her vultures, too, were gorged not long ago; And wouldst thou furnish them with fresher prey? Alas! thou wilt not conquer, but purvey. Ham Diogenes, though Russ and Hun Stand between mine and many a myriad's A mild Epicurean, form'd, at best, Shall noble Albion pass without a phrase From a bold Briton in her wonted praise? "Arts-arms-and George-and glory and the isles And happy, Britain-wealth and freedom's smiles White cliffs, that held invasion far aloofContented subjects, all alike tax-proof – Proud Wellington, with eagle-beak so curl'd, That nose, the hook where he suspends the world! And Waterloo—and trade-and--(hush! not yet A syllable of imposts or of debt)-- And pilots who have weather'd every To unleaven'd prose thine own poetic flame; Thy spirit less upholds them than it awes,— The hounds will gather to their huntsman's hollo, And, where he leads, the duteous pack will follow; But not for love mistake their yelling cry, Their yelp for game is not an eulogy; Less faithful far than the four-footed pack, A dubious scent would lure the bipeds back, Thy saddle-girths are not yet quite secure |