O'er glories gone the invaders march,
Weeps triumph o'er each levell'd arch-
But let Freedom rejoice,
With her heart in her voice;.
Put her and on her sword,
Doubly shall she be adored;
France hath twice too well been taught
The "moral lesson" dearly bought-
Her safety sits not on a throne,
With CAPET or NAPOLEON!
But in equal rights and laws,
Hearts and hands in one great cause-
Freedom, such as God hath given
Unto all beneath his heaven,
With their breath, and from their birth,
Though guilt would sweep it from the earth;
With a fierce and lavish hand
Scattering nations' wealth like sand;
Pouring nations' blood like water,
In imperial seas of slaughter!
But the heart and the mind,
And the voice of mankind,
Shall arise in communion
And who shall resist that proud union?
The time is past when swords subdued-
Man may die-the soul 's renew'd:
Even in this low world of care,
Freedom ne'er shall want an heir;
Millions breathe but to inherit
Her for-ever bounding spirit-
When once more her hosts assemble,
Tyrants shall believe and tremble-
Smile they at this idle threat?
Crimson tears will follow yct.
AH wept, but particularly Savary, and a Polish officer who had been exalted from the ranks by Buonaparte. He clung to his master's knees; wrote a letter to Lord Keith, entreating permission to accompany him, even in the most menial capacity, which could not be admitted."
Must thou go, my glorious chief,
Sever'd from thy faithful few?
Who can tell thy warrior's grief,
Maddening o'er that long adicu?
Woman's love and friendship's zeal-
Dear as both have been to me-
What are they to all I feel,
With a soldier's faith, for thee?
Idol of the soldier's soul!
First in fight, but mightiest now:
Many could a world control:
Thee alone no doom can bow.
By thy side for years I dared
Death, and envied those who fell,
When their dying shout was heard
Blessing him they served so well.1
Would that I were cold with those,
Since this hour I live to see;
When the doubts of coward foes
Scarce dare trust a man with thee,
Dreading each should set thee free.
Oh! although in dungeons pent,
All their chains were light to me,
Gazing on thy soul unbent.
Would the sycophants of him
Now so deaf to duty's prayer,
Were his borrow'd glories dim,
In his native darkness share?
Were that world this hour his own,
All thou calmly dost resign,
Could be purchase with that throne
Hearts like those which still are thine?
My chief, my king, my friend, adieu!
Never did I droop before;
Never to my sovereign sue,
As his foes I now implore,
All I ask is to divide
Every peril he must brave,
Sharing by the hero's side
His fall, his exile, and his grave.
ON THE STAR OF "THE LEGION OF HONOUR
[FROM THE FRENCH.]
STAR of the brave!-whose beam hath shed
Such glory o'er the quick and dead-
Thou radiant and adored deceit!
Which millions rush'd in arms to greet,-
Wild meteor of immortal birth!
Why rise in heaven to set on earth?
Souls of slain heroes form'd thy rays;
Eternity flash'd through thy blaze!
The music of thy martial sphere
Was fame on high and honour here;
And thy light broke on human eyes
Like a volcano of the skies.
Like lava roll'd thy stream of blood,
And swept down empires with its flood;
Earth rock'd beneath thee to her base,
As thou didst lighten through all space;
And the shorn sun grew dim in air,
And set while thou wert dwelling there.
Before thee rose, and with thee grew,
A rainbow of the loveliest huc,
Of three bright colours, each divine,
And fit for that celestial sign;
For freedom's hand had blended them
Like tints in an immortal gem.
One tint was of the sunbeam's dyes;
One, the blue depth of seraphs' eyes;
One, the pure spirit's veil of white
Had robed in radiance of its light;
The three so mingled did beseem
The texture of a heavenly dream.
WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF "THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY."
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NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL.
[FROM THE FRENCH.]
FAL EWELL to the land where the gloom of my glory
Ar and o'ershadow'd the earth with her name-
She abandons me now, but the page of her story,
The brightest or blackest, is fill'd with my fame.
I have warr'd with a world which vanquish'd me only
When the meteor of conquest allured me too far;
I have coped with the nations which dread me thus
lonely,
The last single captive to millions in war!
Farewell to thee, France! when thy diadem crown'd me,
I made thee the gem and the wonder of earth,-
But thy weakness decrees I should leave as I found thee,
Decay'd in thy glory and sunk in thy worth.
Oh! for the veteran hearts that were wasted
In strife with the storm, when their battles were won-
Then the eagle, whose gaze in that moment was blasted,
Had still soar'd with eyes fix'd on Victory's sun!
Farewell to thee, France!-but when liberty rallies
Once more in thy regions, remember me then
The violet still grows in the depth of thy valleys;
Though wither'd, thy tears will unfold it again:
Yet, yet I may baffle the hosts that surround us,
And yet may thy heart leap awake to my voice-
There are links which must break in the chain that has
Then turn thee, and call on the chief of thy choice!
ROUSSEAU-Voltaire-our Gibbon-and de Stael-
Leman!1 these names are worthy of thy shore,
Thy shore of names like these; wert thou no more,
Their memory thy remembrance would recall:
To them thy banks were lovely as to all;
But they have made them lovelier, for the lore
Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core
Of human hearts the ruin of a wall
Where dwelt the wise and wond'rous; but by thee How much more, Lake of Beauty! do we feel, In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea, The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal, Which of the heirs of immortality
Is proud, and makes the breath of glory real!
1. Geneva, Ferney, Coppet, Lausanne.
ABSENT or present, still to thee,
My friend, what magic spells belong!
As all can tell, who share, like me,
In turn, thy converse and thy song.
But when the dreaded hour shall come,
By friendship ever deem'd too nigh,
And "MEMORY" o'er her Druid's tomb
Shall weep that aught of thee can die,
How fondly will she then repay
Thy homage offer'd at her shrine,
And blend, while ages roll away,
Her name immortally with thine!
April 19, 1812.
STANZAS TO ***
THOUGH the day of my destiny's over,
And the star of my fate hath declined,
Thy soft heart refused to discover
The faults which so many could find;
Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,
It shrunk not to share it with me,
And the love which my spirit hath painted
It never hath found but in thee.
Then when nature around me is smiling
The last smile which arswers to mine,
I do not believe it beguiling,
Because it reminds me of thine;
And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,
If their billows excite an emotion,
It is that they bear me from thee.
Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd
To pain-it shall not be its slave.
There is many a pang to pursue me:
They may crush, but they shall not contemn-
They may torture, but shall not subdue me-
'"T is of thee that I think-not of them.
Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,
Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake,-
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, 't was not to defame me,
Nor mute, that the world might belie.
Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
Nor the war of the many with one-
If my soul was not fitted to prize it,
'T was folly not sooner to shun.
And if dearly that error hath cost me,
And more than I once could foresee,
I have found that, whatever it lost me,
It could not deprive me of thee.
From the wreck of the past, which hath perishd
Thus much I at least may recall,
It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd
Deserved to be dearest of all:
In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee.
I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came, and went and came, and brought no day.
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Ot this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watch-fires-and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings-the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face:
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire-but hour by hour
They fell and faded and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash-and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each others' aspects-saw, and shriek'd, and died-
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless-
A lump of death-a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean, all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd,
They slept on the abyss without a surge-
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon their mistress had expired before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; darkness had no need
Of aid from them-she was the universe.
CHURCHILL'S GRAVE.
A FACT LITERALLY RENDERED.
I STOOD beside the grave of him who blazed
The comet of a season, and I saw
The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed
With not the less of sorrow than of awe
On that neglected turf and quiet stone,
With name no clearer than the names unknown,
Which say unread around it; and I ask'd
The gardener of that ground, why it might be
That for this plant strangers his memory task'd
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds Through the thick deaths of half a century;
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Caine tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless-they were slain for food:
And war, which for a moment was no more.
Did glut himself again-a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart,
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was bat one thought-and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails-men
Diea, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse and kept
The birds and beasts and famısh'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Wnich answer'd not with a caress he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And thev were enemies; they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place,
And thus he answer'd-"Well, I do not know
Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so;
He died before my day of sextonship,
And I had not the digging of this grave."
And is this all? I thought, and do we rip
'The veil of immortality, and crave
I know not what of honour and of light
Through unborn ages, to endure this blight?
So soon and so successless? As I said,
The architect of all on which we tread,
For earth is but a tombstone, did essay
To extricate remembrance from the clay,
Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thouget
Were it not that all life must end in one,
Of which we are but dreamers; -as he caught
As 't were the twilight of a former sun,
Thus spoke he,-"I believe the man of whom
You wot, who lies in this selected tomb,
Was a most famous writer in his day,
And therefore travellers step from out their way
To pay him honour, and myself whate'er
Your honour pleases"-then most pleased I shook
From out my pocket's avaricious nook
Some certain coins of silver, which as 't were
Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare
So much but inconveniently;-ye smile,
I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while,
Because my homely phrase the truth would tell.
You are the fools, not I-for I did dwell
With a deep thought, and with a soften'd eye,
On that old sexton's natural homily,
In which there was obscurity and fame,
The glory and the nothing of a name.
And a firm will, and a deep sense, Which even in torture can descry Its own concentred recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making death a victory.
PROMETHEUS.
TITAN! to whose immortal eyes
The sufferings of mortality,
Seen in their sad reality,
Were not as things that gods despise;
What was thy pity's recompense?
A silent suffering, and intense;
The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
All that the proud can feel of pain,
The agony they do not show,
The suffocating sense of woe,
Which speaks but in its loneliness,
And then is jealous lest the sky
Should have a listener, nor will sigh
Until its voice is echoless.
Titan! to thee the strife was given
Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kill;
And the inexorable heaven,
And the deaf tyranny of fate,
The ruling principle of hate,
Which for its pleasure doth create
The things it may annihilate,
Refused thee even the boon to die.
The wretched gift eternity
Was thine-and thou hast borne it well.
All that the Thunderer wrung from thee
Was but the menace which flung back
On him the torments of thy rack;
The fate thou didst so well foresee,
But would not to appease him tell:
And in thy silence was his sentence,
And in his soul a vain repentance,
And evil dread so ill dissembled
That in his hand the lightnings trembled.
Thy godlike crime was to be kind,
To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen man with his own mind;
But baffled as thou wert from high,
Still in thy patient energy,
In the endurance, and repulse
Of thine impenetrable spirit,
Which earth and heaven could not convulse,
A mighty lesson we inherit:
Thou art a symbol and a sign
To mortals of their tate and force;
Like thee, man is a part divine,
A troubled stream from a pure source;
And man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;
His wrcichedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence:
To which his spirit may oppose
Itself-an equal to all woes,
On shame to thee, land of the Gaui! Oh shame to thy children and thee! Unwise in thy glory, and base in thy fall, How wretched thy portion shall be! Derision snall strike thee forlorn, A mockery that never shall die; The curses of hate, and the hisses of scorn, Shall burden the winds of thy sky; And proud o'er thy ruin for ever be hurl'd The laughter of triumph, the jeers of the world!
Oh, where is thy spirit of yore,
The spirit that breathed in thy dead, When gallantry's star was the beacon before, And honour the passion that led? Thy storms have awaken'd their sleep, They groan from the place of their rest, And wrathfully murmur, and sullenly weep, To see the foul stain on thy breast; For where is the glory they left thee in trust ? 'Tis scatter'd in darkness, 't is trampled in dust!
Go, look to the kingdoms of earth, From Indus all round to the pole, And something of goodness, of honour, and worth, Shall brighten the sins of the soul.
But thou art alone in thy shame,
The world cannot liken thee there; Abhorrence and vice have disfigured thy name Beyond the low reach of compare; Stupendous in guilt, thou shalt lend us through time A proverb, a by-word, for treachery and crime!
While conquest illumined his sword,
While yet in his prowess he stood,
Thy praises still follow'd the steps of thy lord.
And welcomed the torrent of blood:
Though tyranny sat on his crown,
And wither'd the nations afar,
Yet bright in thy view was that despot's renown,
Till fortune deserted his car;
Then back from the chieftain thou slunkest away, The foremost to insult, the first to betray!
Forgot were the feats he had done,
The toils he had borne in thy cause.
Thou turned'st to worship a new rising sun,
And waft other songs of applause.
But the storm was beginning to lour,
Adversity clouded his beam;
And honour and faith were the brag of an hour,
And loyalty's self but a dream :-
To him thou hadst banish'd thy vows were restored, And the first that had scoff'd were the first that adored.
What tumult thus burthens the air?
What throng thus encircles his throne ?
I is the shout of delight, 't is the millions that swear Next-for some gracious service unexyrest,
His sceptre shall ru'e them alone.
Reverses shall brighten their zeal,
Misfortune shall hallow his name,
And the world that pursues him shall mournfully feel
How quenchless the spirit and flame
That Frenchmen will breathe, when their hearts
are on fire,
For the hero they love, and the chief they admire!
Their hero has rush'd to the field;
His laurels are cover'd with shade
But where is the spirit that never should yield,
The loyalty never to fade?
In a moment desertion and guile
Abandon'd him up to the foe;
The dastards that flourish'd and grew in his smile
Forsook and renounced him in woe;
And the millions that swore they would perish to save,
Behead h.m a fugitive, captive, and slave!
The savage, all wild in his glen,
Is nobler and better than thou;
Thou standest a wonder, a marvel to men,
Such perfidy blackens thy brow!
If thou wert the place of my birth,
At once from thy arms would I sever;
I'd fly to the uttermost parts of the earth,
And quit thee for ever and ever;
And thinking of thee in my long after-years,
Should but kindle my blushes and waken my tears.
Oh, shame to thee, land of the Gaul!
Oh, shame to thy children and thee!
Unwise in thy glory, and base in thy fall,
How wretched thy portion shall be!
Derision shall strike thee forlorn,
And mockery that never shall die;
The curses of hate, and the hisses of scorn,
Shall burthen the winds of thy sky;
And proud o'er thy ruin for ever be hurl'd
The laughter of triumph, the jeers of the world!
Lines composed on the occasion of H. R. H. the Pe
R-g-t being seen standing betwixt the coffins of Henry
VIII. and Charles 1. in the royal vault at Windsor.
FAMED for contemptuous breach of sacred ties,
By headless Charles, see heartless Henry lies;
Between them stands another sceptred thing-
It moves, it reigns-in all but name, a king:
Charles to his people, Henry to his wife-
In him the double tyrant starts to life:
Justice and death have mix'd their dust in vain,
Each royal vampyre wakes to life again:
Ah! what can tombs avail-since these disgorge
The blood and dust of both to mould a G...ge.
A SKETCH FROM PRIVATE LIFE.
Honest-honest lago!
If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee!
SHAKSPEARE.
BORN in the garret, in the kitchen bred,
Promoted thence to deck her mistress' head;
And from its wages only to be guess'-
Raised from the toilet to the table, where
Her wondering betters wait behind her chair :
With eye unmoved, and forehead unabash'd,
She dines from off the plate she lately wash 1.
Quick with the tale, and ready with the ne,
The genial confidante and general spy;
Who could, ye gods! her next employment,mess?
An only infant's earliest governess!
She taught the child to read, and taught so well,
That she herself, by teaching, learn'd to spei
An adept next in penmanship she grows,
As many a nameless slander deftly showe:
What she had made the pupil of her art,
None know-but that high soul secured the heart,
And panted for the truth it could not hear,
With longing breast and undeluded ear.
Foil'd was perversion by that youthful mind,
Which flattery fool'd not, baseness could not blind,
Deceit infect not, near contagion soil,
Indulgence weaken, nor example spoil,
Nor master'd science tempt her to look down
On humbler talents with a pitying frown,
Nor genius swell, nor beauty render vain,
Nor envy ruffle to retaliate pain,
Nor fortune change, pride raise, nor passion bow,
Nor virtue teach austerity-till now.
Serenely purest of her sex that live,
But wanting one sweet weakness-to forgive;
Too shock'd at faults her soul can never know,
She deems that all could be like her below:
Foe to all vice, yet hardly virtue's friend-
For virtue pardons those she would amend.
But to the theme-now laid aside too long,
The baleful burthen of this honest song-
Though all her former functions are no more,
She rules the circle which she served before.
If mothers-none know why-before her quake,
If daughters dread her for the mother's sake;
If early habits-those false links which bind,
At times, the loftiest to the meanest mind-
Have given her power too deeply to instil
The angry essence of her deadly will;
If like a snake she steal within your walls,
Till the black slime betray her as she crawls;
If like a viper to the heart she wind,
And leave the verom there she did not find;
What marvel that this hag of hatred works
Eternal evil latent as she lurks,
To make a Pandemonium where she dwells,
And reign the Hecate of domestic hells!
Skill'd by a touch to deepen scandal's tints,
With all the kind mendacity of hints,
While mingling truth with falsehood, sneers with smiles,
A thread of candour with a web of wiles;
A plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming,
To hide her bloodless heart's soul-harden'd scheming;
A lip of lies, a face form'd to conceal,
And, without feeling, mock at all who feel;
With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown,
A cheek of parchment, and an eye of stone.
Mark how the channels of her yellow blood
Ooze to her skin, and stagnate there to mud
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