5. O France! beneath this fierce Barbarian's sway Disgraced thou art to all succeding times; Rapine, and blood, and fire have mark'd thy way, All loathsome, all unutterable crimes. A curse is on thee, France! from far and wide It hath gone up to Heaven. All lands have cried For vengeance upon thy detested head! All nations curse thee, France! for wheresoe'er, In peace or war, thy banner hath been spread, All forms of human woe have follow'd there. The Living and the Dead Cry out alike against thee! They who bear, Crouching beneath its weight, thine iron yoke Join in the bitterness of secret prayer The voice of that innumerable throng, Whose slaughter'd spirits day and night invoke The Everlasting Judge of right and wrong, How long, O Lord! Holy and Just, how long! 6. A merciless oppressor hast thou been, Thyself remorselessly oppress'd meantime; Greedy of war, when all that thou couldst gain Was but to dye thy soul with deeper crime, And rivet faster round thyself the chain. Oh! blind to honor, and to interest blind, When thus in abject servitude resign'd To this barbarian upstart, thou couldst brave God's justice, and the heart of human-kind! Madly thou thoughtest to enslave the world, Thyself the while a miserable slave. Behold, the flag of vengeance is unfurl'd! The dreadful armies of the North advance; While England, Portugal, and Spain combined, Give their triumphant banners to the wind, And stand victorious in the fields of France. 7. One man hath been for ten long, wretched years The cause of all this blood and all these tears; One man in this most awful point of time Draws on thy danger, as he caused thy crime. Wait not too long the event, For now whole Europe comes against thee bent; His wiles and their own strength the nations know: Wise from past wrongs, on future peace intent, The People and the Princes, with one mind, From all parts move against the general foe; One act of justice, one atoning blow, One execrable head laid low, Even yet, O France! averts thy punishment. Open thine eyes!- too long hast thou been blind; Take vengeance for thyself, and for mankind! 8. France! if thou lovest thine ancient fame, Revenge thy sufferings and thy shame! By the bones which bleach on Jaffa's beach; By the blood which on Domingo's shore Hath clogg'd the carrion-birds with gore; By the flesh which gorged the wolves of Spain, Or stiffen'd on the snowy plain of frozen Moscovy; By the bodies, which lie all open to the sky, Tracking from Elbe to Rhine the Tyrant's flight; By the childless parent's misery; By the prayers which rise for curses on his head,— Revenge thy sufferings and thy shame, Open thine eyes!-too long hast thou been blind; Take vengeance for thyself, and for mankind! 9. By those horrors which the night Witness'd when the torches' light To the assembled murderers show'd Where the blood of Condé flow'd; By thy murder'd Pichegru's fame; By murder'd Wright - an English name; By murder'd Palm's atrocious doom; By murder'd Hofer's martyrdom, — Oh! by the virtuous blood thus vilely spilt, The Villain's own peculiar, private guilt, Open thine eyes!-too long hast thou been blind; Take vengeance for thyself, and for mankind! Keswick. ODE, WRITTEN DURING THE WAR WITH AMERICA, 1814. 1. WHEN shall the Island Queen of Ocean lay And, twining olives with her laurel crown, 2. Not long may this unnatural strife endure Beyond the Atlantic deep; Not long may men, with vain ambition drunk, Afflict with their misrule the indignant land A light for after-times! Vile instruments of fallen Tyranny In their own annals, by their countrymen, For lasting shame shall they be written down. Soon may the better Genius there prevail ! Then will the Island Queen of Ocean lay The thunderbolt aside, And, twining olives with her laurel crown, Rest in the Bower of Peace. 3. But not in ignominious ease, A holier warfare, - nobler victories; 4. Hear me, O England! rightly may I claim Thy favorable audience, Queen of Isles, My Mother-land revered; For in the perilous hour, When weaker spirits stood aghast, And reptile tongues, to thy dishonor bold, Spit their dull venom on the public ear, My voice was heard, - a voice of hope, Of confidence and joy, Yea, of such prophecy As wisdom to her sons doth aye vouchsafe, 5. Nobly hast thou stood up Against the foulest Tyranny that ere, O glorious England! thou hast borne thyself Religiously and bravely in that strife; And happier victory hath blest thine arms Than, in the days of yore, Thine own Plantagenets achieved, Or Marlborough, wise in council as in field, Or Wolfe, heroic name. Now gird thyself for other war; Look round thee, and behold what ills, Remediable and yet unremedied, Afflict man's wretched race! Put on the panoply of faith! Bestir thyself against thine inward foes, Ignorance and Want, with all their brood Of miseries and of crimes. 6. Powerful thou art: imperial Rome, Less opulent was Spain, When Mexico her sumless riches sent And Hayti's ransack'd caverns gave their gold; Yet, O dear England! powerful as thou art, 7. For still doth Ignorance Maintain large empire here, 11. Train up thy children, England! in the ways Of righteousness, and feed them with the bread Of wholesome doctrine. Where hast thou thy mines But in their industry? Thy bulwarks where, but in their breasts? Shall not their numbers therefore be thy wealth, If, in this flourishing land, There should be dwellings where the new-born babe Doth bring unto its parents' soul no joy! Where squalid Poverty Receives it at its birth, And on her wither'd knees Gives it the scanty food of discontent! 12. Queen of the Seas! enlarge thyself; Be thou the hive of nations, But with more precious gifts than Greece, or Tyre, And, crowning all, the dearest boon of Heaven, The place of thy pavilion. Let them stretch Spare not; but lengthen thou 13. Queen of the Seas! enlarge thyself; Send thou thy swarms abroad! Though centuries or millenniums intervene, Thy language, and thy spirit shall be found,If on Ontario's shores, Or late-explored Missouri's pastures wide, Or in that Austral world long sought, The many-isled Pacific,-yea, where waves, Now breaking over coral reefs, affright The venturous mariner, When islands shall have grown, and cities risen By whatsoever name the land be call'd, Empires decay and sink Rightly mayst thou rejoice, For in a day of darkness and of storms, Against the mighty Isle ; All shores were hostile to the Red Cross flag, All ports against it closed; Save where, behind their ramparts driven, Stood firm, and put their trust 3. Such perils menaced from abroad; A weak but clamorous crew, Enjoy the rich reward, so rightly due, When rescued nations, with one heart and voice, Thy counsels bless and thee. Thou, on thine own Firm Island, seest the while, And Chiefs renown'd in arms, 7. Rejoice, thou mighty Isle ! For ne'er in elder nor in later times No such assemblage shone in Edward's hall, Nor brighter triumphs 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 The olive-garland twines, by Victory won. 8. Yet in the pomp of these festivities In mental as in visual darkness lost. Had he beheld this day! O King of kings, and Lord of lords, Oh! for one little interval, One precious hour, Remove the blindness from his soul, That he may know it all, 9. Thou also shouldst have seen Sent to thine early grave in evil hour! But let thy grateful hand The tomb of Perceval. And long shall Britain hold his memory dear, His meed of lasting praise. 10. That earthly meed shall his compeers enjoy, Britain's true counsellors, Who see with just success their counsels crown'd. They have their triumph now, to him denied; Proud day for them is this! Prince of the mighty Isle! Proud day for them and thee, When Britain round her spear The olive-garland twines, by Victory won. ODE TO HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY, ALEXANDER THE FIRST, EMPEROR OF ALL THE RUSSIAS. 1. CONQUEROR, Deliverer, Friend of human-kind! So signally revenged; From Dresden's field of slaughter, where the ball, Was turn'd from thy more precious head aside; Of haughty France subdued, Then to her rightful line of Kings restored; Thee, Alexander! thee, the Great, the Good, The Glorious, the Beneficent, the Just, Thee to her honor'd shores The mighty Island welcomes in her joy. The soft Italian, lapp'd in luxury, - Destined by Heaven to save Vaunting the power of their Great Monarch then, (His schemes of wide ambition yet uncheck'd,) As little did they think, That from rude Moscovy the stone should come, And from its feet of clay, 3. Roused as thou wert with insult and with wrong, Who should have blamed thee if, in high-wrought mood Of vengeance and the sense of injured power, Religiously by night and day preserved, Thou hadst call'd every Russian of thine host Her wealth and boasted spoils, In one wide flood of fire, 4. Who should have blamed the Conqueror for that deed? Yea, rather would not one exulting cry Have risen from Elbe to Nile, Moscow's re-rising walls Tyrol's rejoicing vales; Holland's still waters had been starr'd From every house and hut, The Iberian and the Lusian's injured realms, From all their ravaged fields, From cities sack'd, from violated fanes, Thou, Zaragoza, from thy sepulchres The blood that calls for vengeance in thy streets, Madrid, and Porto thine, And that which from the beach Of Tarragona sent its cry to Heaven, Had rested then appeased. Orphans had clapp'd their hands, And widows would have wept exulting tears, And childless parents, with a bitter joy, Have blest the avenging deed. 5. But thou hadst seen enough Of horrors, amply hadst avenged mankind. |