They have their triumph now, to him denied. Proud day for them is this! Prince of the mighty Isle ! spear The olive garland iwines, by Victory won, VI. Prince of the mighty Isle! Thy counsels bless and thee. As if the tales of old Romance Princes and Potentates, ODE TO HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY ALEXANDER THE FIRST, EMPEROR OF ALL THE RUSSIAS. VII. Queen of the Scas, rejoice! Have such illustrious guests Honour'd thy silver shores. No such assemblage shone in Edward's hall, Nor brighter triumphis graced his glorious reign. Prince of the mighty Isle, Proud day for thee and for thy kingdoms this! Rightly mayst thou rejoice, When Britain round her spear T. CONQUEROR, Deliverer, Friend of human-kind, The free, the happy Island welcomes thee! Thee from thy wasted realms, So signally revenged; From Prussia's rescued plains; From Dresden's field of slaughter, where the ball Which struck Moreau's dear life, From Leipsic's dreadful day, From the proud Capital Of haughty France subducd, Thee to her honourd shores VIII. The thought of Him who sits How had his heart been fillid Had he belield this day! The anointed head, One precious bour, may know it all, And bless thee ere he die! IX. This harvest of thy hopes, Of a great spirit overthrown, But let thy grateful Land The tomb of Perceval. He stcer'd through stormy scas; And faithful History give II. years have past, Since to these friendly shores Thy famous ancestor, Mustrious PETER came. ways of men; That so to his dear country, which then rose Among the nations in uncultured strength, He might bear back the stores Of elder polity, Its sciences and arts. Little did then the industrious German think, The soft Italian, lapt in luxury,Helvetia's mountain sons, of freedom proud, The patient Hollander, Prosperous and warlike then,Little thouglit they that in that farthest North, From Peter's race should the Deliverer spring, Destined by Alcaven to save Art, Learning, Industry, All trampled in the dust. As lide did the French, Vaunting the power of their Great Monarch then, (His scheines of wide ambition yet uncheck d), As liule did they think, The subject Continent; X. That earthly meed shall his compeers enjoy, Britain's true counsellors, Who see with just success their counsels crown'd. Breaking the iron limbs and front of brass, Strew the rejoicing Nations with the wreck. Witness that dread retreat, The Tyrant in his pride, No wider ruin overtook Nor when united Greece Which Europe yet may bless, A fouler Tyrant cursed the groaping earth, A fearfuller destruction was dispensed. On every side he met On every side lie saw Invincible in arms. There where the soldiers' blood And nightly the cold moon Stiff, as their icy bed. III. mood Thou from the llames which laid And borne it in thy tent, Till ou Montmartre's height The guilty city lay, And sent them through her streets, Temples and palaces, In one wide flood of fire, IV. Yea, rather would not one exulting cry Have risen from Elbe to Nile, Moscow's re-rising walls Tyrol's rejoicing vales; How is the Oppressor fallen! To celebrate the deed; From every house and hut, From every town and tower; From all their mountain-holds, From all their ravaged fields, Had pour'd that pious strain, Righteous art thou, O Lord! Thou Zaragoza, from thy sepulchres Manresa, faithful still! Madrid, and Porto thine, Had rested then appcased. Orphans had clapt their hands, Have blest the avenging deed. VI. The brazen trophy build; Cannon on cannon piled, From France the Tyrant brought He left them in his flight A nobler monument Than e'er imperial Rome Thy noblest monument VII. Conqueror, Deliverer, Friend of human-kind, The free, the happy Island welcomes thee! Thee to lier honour'd shores ODE TO HIS MAJESTY, FREDERICK WILLIAM THE FOURTH, KING OF PRUSSIA. Y. But thou badst seen enough Of horrors,-amply badst avenged mankind. 1. Welcome to England, to the happy Isle, Brave Prince of gallant people! Welcome Thou, In adverse as in prosperous fortunes tried! A Frederick, the well-beloved ! Greatest and best of that illustrious name, Welcome to these free shores! In glory art thou come, Thy victory perfect, thy revenge complete. When for the public need their marriage rings, The Band of Vengeance join'd, Bade them return victorious from the field, Or with their country fall. II. hath thy realm endured, When thine indignant soul, But still, through that dark day And in the heart of man And wistfully, as one Looks eastward for the dawn, So Germany to thee VI. Twice o'er the field of death The trembling scales of Fate hung equipoised : For France, obsequious to her Tyrant still, Mighty for evil, put forth all her power; And still beneath his hateful banners driven, Against their father-land Unwilling Germans bore unnatural arms. What though the Boaster made his temples ring With vain thanksgivings for each doubtful day,What though with false prelence of peace His old insidious arts he tried, -- Into the inclining scale, Of Germany avenged. III. The wise, the virtuous land, The land of mighty minds, Should bend beneath the frothy Frenchman's yoke! Oh, grief of griefs, to think That she should groan in boods, There had the light of Reformation sen, The light of Knowledge there was burning clear. Oh, grief, that her unhappy sons To quench that sacred light, How often hath their blood In his accursed cause Their mangled bodies fed Amid the ashes of the watch-fire lay, VII. Ne'er till that awful time had Europe seen Such multitudes in arms; Nor ever had the rising Sun beheld Such mighty interests of mankind at stake; Nor o'er so wide a scene Of slaughter e'er had Night her curtain closed. There, on the battle-field, And raised their voice to Heaven; O Lord! thy hand was here!» So proud, so pure a joy! Lest all of life to come IV. Seven miserable years Till, when the arm of God Smote the blaspheming Tyrant in his pride, And Alexander with the voice of power Raised the glad cry, Deliverance for Mankind, First of the Germans, Prussia broke her chains. VIII. But thou hadst yet more toils, More duties and more triumplas yet in store. Elbe must not bound thine arms! Nor on the banks of Rhine Awakened Germany As overtook the impious Gaul of old, Laden with plunder, and from Delphi driven. V. Oh, what a spectacle IX. Her soil inviolate: Triumphant, as of yore, When sable Edward led his peerless host. Behold the Spaniard and the Portugal, TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE The following Poem is Dedicated AND MOST DEVOTED SERVANT, ROBERT SOUTHEY. PROEM. II. « For what hast thou to do with wealth or power, THERE was a time when all my youthful thought Thou whom rich Nature at thy happy birth Was of the Muse; and of the Poet's fame, Blest in her bounty with the largest dower How fair it flourisheth and fadeth not, That Heaven indulges to a child of Earth, Alone enduring, when the Monarch's name Then when the sacred Sisters for their own Is but an empty sound, the Conqueror's bust Baptized thee in the springs of Helicon! IV. « They promised for thee that thou shouldst eschew Was then my daily care, my dream by night; All low desires, all empty vanities; And early in adventurous essay That thou shouldst, still to Truth and Freedom true, My spirit imped her wings for stronger flight; The applause or censure of the herd despise; Fair regions Fancy opened to my view, And in obedience to their impulse given, « There lies thy path, she said ; do thou that path pursue! | Walk in the light of Nature and of Heaven. V. « Along the World's bigh-way let others crowd, Jostling and moiling on through dust and heat; Take thou content in solitude thy seat; XIII. Were but to typify his splendid reign, And chiefs in arms approved, a peerless train, VI. Thus taught me what to seek and what to shun; Appointing me my belier course to run XIV. Beheld the re-risen cause of evil yield I sung of Waterloo's unequalled field, VII. XV. For therefore have my days been days of joy, Such strains beseemed me well. But how shall 1 And all my paths are paths of pleasantness : To hymeneal numbers lune the string, And still my heart, as when I was a boy, Who to the trumpet's martial symphony, Doth never know an ebb of cheerfulness; And to the mountain gales am wont to sing? Time, which matures the intellectual part, How may these unaccustomed accents suit XVI. That calls for vengeance for mankind opprest; But most with long and self-approving pain, Filter the songs that youth may love to hear, Patient pursue the historian's task severe; Which warm and elevate the throbbing breast; Thus in the ages which are past I live, Filter for me with meed of solemn verse, And those which are lo come my sure reward will give. In reverence to adorn the hero's hearse. IX. XVII. Yea in this now, while Malice frets ber hour, But then my Master dear arose to mind, Is forctaste given me of that meed divine; He on whose song yet I was a boy, Here undisturbed in this sequestered bower, My spirit fed, attracted to its kind, The friendship of the good and wise is mine; And still insatiate of the growing joy;-And that green wreath which decks the Bard when dead, He on whose tomb these eyes were wont to dwell, That laureate garland crowns my living head. With inward yearnings which I may not tell; |