Hark! as the smouldering piles with thunder fall,

A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call!

Earth shook-red meteors flash'd along the sky,

And conscious Nature shudder'd at the cry!

Oh! righteous Heaven! ere Freedom found a grave, Why slept the sword, omnipotent to save ?

Where was thine arm, O Vengeance! where thy rod,

That smote the foes of Zion and of God;

That crush'd proud Ammon, when his iron car

Was yoked in wrath, and thunder'd from afar ? Where was 'the storm that slumber'd till the host

Of blood-stain'd Pharaoh left their trembling coast; Then bade the deep in wild commotion flow,

And heaved an ocean on their march below?

Departed spirits of the mighty dead!

Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled!

Friends of the world! restore your swords to man,

Fight in his sacred cause and lead the van!

Yet for Sarmatia's tears of blood atone,

And make her arm puissant as your own!

Oh! once again to Freedom's cause return

The patriot TELL-the BRUCE of BANNOCKBURN!

Yes! thy proud lords, unpitied land! shall see

That man hath yet a soul-and dare be free!

A little while, along thy saddening plains,

The starless night of desolation reigns;

Truth shall restore the light by Nature given,

And, like Prometheus, bring the fire of Heaven!

Prone to the dust Oppression shall be hurl'd,.......

Her name, her nature, wither'd from the world!

Ye that the rising morn invidious mark,

And hate the light-because your deeds are dark;

Ye that expanding truth invidious view,

And think, or wish, the song of HOPE untrue :
Perhaps your little hands presume to span

The march of Genius, and the powers of man;
Perhaps ye watch, at Pride's unhallow'd shrine,
Her victims, newly slain, and thus divine :-
"Here shall thy triumph, Genius, cease, and here
Truth, Science, Virtue, close your short career."

Tyrants! in vain ye trace the wizard ring;

In vain ye limit Mind's unwearied spring:

What! can ye lull the winged winds asleep,

Arrest the rolling world, or chain the deep?

No:-the wild wave contemns your scepter'd hand;— It roll'd not back when Canute gave command !

Man! can thy doom no brighter soul allow? Still must thou live a blot on Nature's brow? Shall War's polluted banner ne'er be furl'd ? · Shall crimes and tyrants cease but with the world ? What! are thy triumphs, sacred Truth, belied?

Why then hath Plato lived-or Sidney died?—

Ye fond adorers of departed fame,

Who warm at Scipio's worth, or Tully's name!

Ye that, in fancied vision, can admire

The sword of Brutus, and the Theban lyre!

Wrapt in historic ardour, who adore

Each classic haunt, and well-remember'd shore,

Where Valour tuned, amid her chosen throng,
The Thracian trumpet and the Spartan song ;
Or, wandering thence, behold the later charms
Of England's glory, and Helvetia's arms!
See Roman fire in Hampden's bosom swell,
And fate and freedom in the shaft of Tell!

Say, ye fond zealots to the worth of yore,

Hath Valour left the world—to live no more?

No more shall Brutus bid a tyrant die,

And sternly smile with vengeance in his eye?

Hampden no more, when suffering Freedom calls,
Encounter fate, and triumph as he falls?

Nor Tell disclose, through peril and alarm,
The might that slumbers in a peasant's arm?