CARMEN SECULARE ET ANNUS, HAUD MIRABILIS.
"Impar Congressus Achill."
THE "good old times"—all times, when He "wept for worlds to conquer!" he
All is exploded—be it good or bad. Reader! remember when thou wert a lad, Then Pitt was all; or, if not all, so much, His very rival almost deem'd him such. We, we have seen the intellectual race Of giants stand, like Titans, face to face- Athos and Ida, with a dashing sea Of eloquence between, which flow'd all free, As the deep billows of the Egean roar Betwixt the Hellenic and thePhrygian shore. But where are they-the rivals? —a few feet Of sullen earth divide each winding-sheet. How peaceful and how powerful is the grave Which hushes all! a calm, unstormy wave Which oversweeps the world. The theme is old
Of "dust to dust;" but half its tale untold. Time tempers not its terrors-still the worm Winds its cold folds, the tomb preserves its form-
But where is he, the modern, mightier far, Who, born no king, made monarchs draw his car;
The new Sesostris, whose unharness'd kings, Free'd from the bit, believe themselves with wings,
And spurn the dust o'er which they crawl'd of late, Chain'd to the chariot of the chieftain's state?
Yes! where is he, the Champion and the Child
Of all that's great or little, wise or wild? Whose game was empires and whose stakes were thrones? Whose table, earth_whose dice were human bones?
Behold the grand result in yon lone isle, And, as thy nature urges, weep or smile. Sigh to behold the eagle's lofty rage Reduced to nibble at his narrow cage; Smile to survey the Queller of the Nations Now daily squabbling o'er disputed rations; Weep to perceive him mourning, as he dines, O'er curtail'd dishes and o'er stinted wines; O'er petty quarrels upon petty things- Is this the man who scourged or feasted kings?
Behold the scales in which his fortune hangs,
A surgeon's statement and an earl's harangues!
Varied above, but still alike below; The urn may shine, the ashes will not glow. Though Cleopatra's mummy cross the sea, O'er which from empire she lured Anthony; Though Alexander's urn a show be grown On shores he wept to conquer, though A bust delay'd, a book refused, can shake The sleep of him who kept the world awake. Is this indeed the Tamer of the Great, Now slave of all could teaze or irritate- The paltry jailor and the prying spy, The staring stranger with his note-book nigh?
How vain, how worse than vain at length appear
The madman's wish, the Macedonian's tear! He wept for worlds to conquer-half the earth Knows not his name, or but his death and birth
And desolation; while his native Greece Hath all of desolation, save its peace.
Plunged in a dungeon, he had still been great; How low, how little was this middle state, Between a prison and a palace, where
How few could feel for what he had to bear! Vain his complaint,-my Lord presents his bill,
His food and wine were doled out duly still: Vain was his sickness,-never was a clime So free from homicide to doubt's a crime; And the stiff Surgeon, who maintain'd his
Hath lost his place, and gain'd the world's applause.
But smile-though all the pangs of brain and heart
Disdain, defy, the tardy aid of art; Though, save the few fond friends, and imaged face
Of that fair boy his sire shall ne'er embrace, None stand by his low bed-though even the mind
Be wavering, which long awed and awes mankind ;
Smile-for the fetter'd Eagle breaks his chain,
And higher worlds than this are his again.
How, if that soaring Spirit still retain A conscious twilight of his blazing reign, Now must he smile, on looking down, to see The little that he was and sought to be! What though his name a wider empire found Than his ambition, though with scarce a bound;
Though first in glory, deepest in reverse, He tasted empire's blessings and its curse; Though kings, rejoicing in their late escape From chains, would gladly be their tyrant's
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,
Refusing one poor line along the lid
To date the birth and death of all it hid, 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
When Victory's Gallic column shall but rise, Like Pompey's pillar, in a desert's skies, The rocky isle that holds or held his dust Shall crown the Atlantic like the hero's bust, And mighty Nature o'er his obsequies Do more than niggard Envy still denies. But what are these to him? Can glory's lust Touch the free'd spirit or the fetter'd dust? Small care hath he of what his tomb consists, Nought if he sleeps-nor more if he exists: Alike the better-seeing Shade will smile On the rude cavern of the rocky isle, As if his ashes found their latest home In Rome's Pantheon, or Gaul's mimic dome.
He wants not this; but France shall feel the want
Of this last consolation, though so scant; Her honour, fame, and faith, demand his bones,
To rear above a pyramid of thrones ; Or, carried onward, in the battle's van To form, like Guesclin's dust, her talisman. But be it as it is, the time may come His name shall beat the alarm like Ziska's drum.
Oh, Heaven! of which he was in power a feature;
Oh, Earth! of which he was a noble creature; Thou Isle! to be remember'd long and well, That sawst the unfledged eaglet chip his shell!
Ye Alps, which view'd him in his dawning flights
Hover, the victor of an hundred fights! Thou Rome, who sawst thy Cæsar's deeds outdone!
Alas! why pass'd he too the Rubicon? The Rubicon of man's awaken'd rights, | To herd with vulgar kings and parasites? Egypt! from whose all dateless tombs arose Forgotten Pharaohs from their long repose, And shook within their pyramids to hear A new Cambyses thundering in their ear; While the dark shades of forty ages stood Like startled giants by Nile's famous flood; Or from the pyramid's tall pinnacle Beheld the desert peopled, as from hell, With clashing hosts, who strew'd the barren sand
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; Who, crush'd at Jena, crouch'd at Berlin, fell First, and but rose to follow; ye who dwell Where Kosciusko dwelt, remembering yet The unpaid amount of Catherine's bloody debt!
Poland! o'er which the avenging angel pass'd,
But left thee as he found thee, still a waste; Forgetting all thy still enduring claim, Thy lotted people and extinguish'd name; Thy sigh for freedom, thy long-flowing tear, That sound that crashes in the tyrant's ear; Kosciusko! on – on-on-the thirst of war Gasps for the gore of serfs and of their Czar; The half-barbaric Moscow's minarets Gleam in the sun, but 'tis a sun that sets! Moscow! thou limit of his long career, For which rude Charles had wept his frozen tear
To see in vain-he saw thee-how? with spire
And palace fuel to one common fire. To this the soldier lent his kindling match, To this the peasant gave his cottage-thatch, To this the merchant flung his hoarded store, The prince his hall-and, Moscow was no more!
Sublimest of volcanoes! Etna's flame Pales before thine, and quenchless Hecla's 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 For the gay thousands of his dashing ranks; In vain shall France recal beneath her vines Her youth-their blood flows faster than her wines,
Or stagnant in their human ice remains In frozen mummies on the Polar plains. In vain will Italy's broad sun awaken Her offspring chill'd; its beams are now forsaken.
Of all the trophies gather'd from the war, What shall return? The conqueror's broken
Which proves how fools may have their fortune too, Won, half by blunder, half by treachery; Oh, dull Saint-Helen! with thy jailor nigh- Hear! hear! Prometheus from his rock appeal
To earth, air, ocean, all that felt or feel His power and glory, all who yet shall hear A name eternal as the rolling year; He teaches them the lesson taught so long, So oft, so vainly-learn to do no wrong! A single step into the right had made This man the Washington of worlds be tray'd;
A single step into the wrong has given His name a doubt to all the winds of Heaven; The reed of Fortune and of thrones the rod, Of Fame the Moloch or the demi-god ; His country's Cæsar, Europe's Hannibal, Without their decent dignity of fall. Yet Vanity herself had better taught A surer path even to the fame he sought, By pointing out on history's fruitless page Ten thousand conquerors for a single sage. While Franklin's quiet memory climbs to heaven.
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 as ne'er Shall sink while there's an echo left to air: The conqueror's yet unbroken heart! Again | While even the Spaniard's thirst of gold The horn of Roland sounds, and not in vain. and war 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
Oh, bloody and most bootless Waterloo,
Forgets Pizarro to shout Bolivar! Alas! why must the same Atlantic wave Which wafted freedom gird a tyrant's grave-
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 à 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
One common cause makes myriads of one | Holds back the invader from her soil again.
Slaves of the East, or Helots of the West; On Andes' and on Athos' peaks unfurl'd, The self-same standard streams o'er either world;
The Athenian wears again Harmodius' sword;
The Chili-chief abjures his foreign lord; 1 The Spartan knows himself once more a Greek;
Young Freedom plumes the crest of each Cacique; Debating despots, hemm'd on either shore, Shrink vainly from the roused Atlantic's roar;
Through Calpe's strait the rolling tides advance,
Sweep slightly by the half-tamed land of France,
Dash o'er the old Spaniard's cradle, would fain
Unite Ausonia to the mighty main: But driven from thence awhile, yet not for aye, Break o'er th' Ægean, mindful of the day Of Salamis-there, there, the waves arise, Not to be lull'd by tyrant-victories. Lone, lost, abandon'd in their utmost need By Christians unto whom they gave their creed,
The desolated lands, the ravaged isle, The foster'd feud encouraged to beguile, The aid evaded, and the cold delay, Prolong'd but in the hope to make a prey;- These, these shall tell the tale, and Greece can show
The false friend worse than the infuriate foe. But this is well: Greeks only should free Greece,
Not the barbarian, with his mask of peace. How should the Autocrat of Bondage be The king of serfs, and set the nations free? Better still serve the haughty Mussulman, Than swell the Cossaque's prowling caravan; Better still toil for masters, than await, The slave of slaves, before a Russian gate, Number'd by hordes, a human capital, A live estate, existing but for thrall, Lotted by thousands, as a meet reward For the first courtier in the Czar's regard; While their immediate owner never tastes His sleep, sans dreaming of Siberia's wastes; Better succumb even to their own despair, And drive the camel than purvey the bear.
But not alone within the hoariest clime, Where Freedom dates her birth with that
of Time; And not alone where, plunged in night, a crowd
Of Incas darken to a dubious cloud, The dawn revives: renown'd, romantic Spain
Not now the Roman tribe nor Punic horde Demand her fields as lists to prove the sword; Not now the Vandal or the Visigoth Pollute the plains alike abhorring both; Nor old Pelayo on his mountain rears The warlike fathers of a thousand years. That seed is sown and reap`d, as oft the Moor Sighs to remember on his dusky shore. Long in the peasant's song or poet's page Has dwelt the memory of Abencerage, The Zegri, and the captive victors, flung Back to the barbarous realm from whence they sprung.
But these are gone—their faith, their swords, their sway,
Yet left more anti-christian foes than they: The bigot monarch and the butcher priest, The Inquisition, with her burning feast, The Faith's red “auto," fed with human fuel, While sat the Catholic Moloch,calmly cruel, Enjoying, with inexorable eye, That fiery festival of agony! The stern or feeble sovereign, one or both By turns; the haughtiness whose pride was sloth;
The long degenerate noble; the debased Hidalgo, and the peasant less disgraced But more degraded; the unpeopled realm; The once proud navy which forgot the helm; The once impervious phalanx disarray'd; The idle forge that form'd Toledo's blade; The foreign wealth that flow'd on every shore,
Save hers who earn'd it with the natives' gore;
The very language, which might vie with Rome's,
And once was known to nations like their home's,
Neglected or forgotten :- such was Spain; But such she is not, nor shall be again. These worst, these home invaders, felt and feel The new Numantine soul of old Castile. Up! up again! undaunted Tauridor! The bull of Phalaris renews his roar; Mount, chivalrous Hidalgo! not in vain Revive the cry-"Iago! and close Spain!" Yes, close her with your armed bosoms round,
And form the barrier which Napoleon found, ---
The exterminating war; the desert plain; The streets without a tenant, save the slain; The wild Sierra, with its wilder troop Of vulture-plumed Guerillas, on the stoop For their incessant prey; the desperate wall Of Saragossa, mightiest in her fall; The man nerved to a spirit, and the maid Waving her more than Amazonian blade; The knife of Arragon, Toledo's steel; The famous lance of chivalrous Castile; The unerring rifle of the Catalan ; The Andalusian courser in the van; The torch to make a Moscow of Madrid ;
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 That should redeem the many? Who renew This consecrated name, till now assign'd To councils held to benefit mankind? Who now assemble at the holy call?— The bless'dAlliance, which says three are all! An earthly Trinity, which wears the shape Of Heaven's, as man is mimick'd by the ape. A pious unity! in purpose one- To melt three fools to a Napoleon. Why, Egypt's gods were rational to these; Their dogs and oxen knew their own degrees, And, quiet in their kennel or their shed, Cared little, so that they were duly fed; But these, more hungry, must have some- thing more - The power to bark and bite, to toss and gore. Ah, how much happier were good Æsop's frogs
Than we! for ours are animated logs, With ponderous malice swaying to and fro, And crushing nations with a stupid blow, All dully anxious to leave little work Unto the revolutionary stork.
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 within
Thy wall, nor knew the country held him In: Would that the royal guests it girds about Were so far like, as never to get out! Ay, shout! inscribe! rear monuments of shame, To tell Oppression that the world is tame! Crowd to the theatre with loyal rage- The comedy is not upon the stage; The show is rich in ribbonry and stars- Then gaze upon it through thy dungeon- bars;
Clap thy permitted palms, kind Italy, For thus much still thy fetter'd hands are free!
Resplendent sight! behold the coxcomb Czar,
The autocrat of waltzes and of war! As eager for a plaudit as a realm, And just as fit for flirting as the helm; A Calmuck beauty with a Cossack wit, And generous spirit, when 'tis not frost-bit; Now half dissolving to a liberal thaw, But harden'd back whenever the morning's
With no objection to true liberty, Except that it would make the nations free, How well the Imperial Dandy prates of
How fain, if Greeks would be his slaves, free Greece!
How nobly gave he back the Poles their Diet,
Then told pugnacious Poland to be quiet! How kindly would he send the mild Ukraine, With all her pleasant pulks, to lecture Spain; How royally show off in proud Madrid His goodly person, from the South long hid,
A blessing cheaply purchased, the world 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 Bashkir hordes,
Redeem thy realms from slavery and the knout, Than follow headlong in the fatal route,
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