When all is still on Death's devoted soil,
The march-worn soldier mingles for the toil;
As rings his glittering tube, he lifts on high
The dauntless brow, and spirit-speaking eye,
Hails in his heart the triumph yet to come,
And hears thy stormy music in the drum.
And such thy strength-inspiring aid that bore
The hardy Byron to his native shore.-1
In horrid climes, where Chiloe's tempests sweep
Tumultuous murmurs o'er the troubled deep,
'Twas his to mourn misfortune's rudest shock,
Scourg'd by the winds, and cradled on the rock,
To wake each joyless morn, and search again
The famish'd haunts of solitary men,
Whose race, unyielding as their native storm,
Knows not a trace of Nature but the form;
Yet, at thy call, the hardy tar pursued,
Pale, but intrepid, sad, but unsubdued,
Piere'd the deep woods, and, hailing from afar
The moon's pale planet and the northern star;
Faus'd at each dreary ery, unheard before,
Hyenas in the wild, and mermaids on the shore;
Till, led by thee o'er many a cliff' sublime,
He found a warmer world, a milder clime,
A home to rest, a shelter to defend,
Peace and repose, a Briton and a friend! a
Congenial Hope! thy passion-kindling power,
How bright, how strong, in youth's untroubled hour!
On you proud height, with Genius hand in hand,
I see thee light, and wave thy golden wand.
* Go, Child of Heav'n! (thy winged words proclaim) "Tis thine to search the boundless fields of fame! Lo! Newton, priest of Nature, shines afar, Scans the wide world, and numbers ev'ry star! Wilt thou, with him, mysterious rites apply, And watch the shrine with wonder-beaming eye?
Perhaps your little hands presume to span
The march of Genius, and the pow'rs 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 band;-
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 liv'd-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
ach classic haunt, and well-remember'd shore, here Valour tun'd, amid her chosen throng, The Thracian trumpet and the Spartan song; Or, wand'ring 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?
Yes! in that generous cause for ever strong,
The patriot's virtue, and the poet's song,
Still, as the tide of ages rolls away,
Shall charm the world, unconscious of decay!
Yes! there are hearts, prophetic Hope may trust, 465 That slumber yet in uncreated dust,
Ordain'd to fire th' adoring sons of earth
With every charm of wisdom and of worth;
Ordain'd to light, with intellectual day,
The mazy wheels of Nature as they play,
Or, warm with Fancy's energy, to glow,
And rival all but Shakspeare's name below!
And I say, supernal Powers! who deeply scan
Heav'n's dark decrees, unfathom'd yet by man,
When shall the world call down, to cleanse her shame, That embryo spirit, yet without a name,
That friend of Nature, whose avenging hands
Shall burst the Lybian's adamantine bands?
Who, sternly marking on his native soil,
The blood, the tears, the anguish, and the toil,
Shall bid each righteous heart exult, to see
Peace to the slave, and vengeance on the free!
Yet, yet, degraded men! th' expected day
That breaks your bitter cup, is far away;
Trade, wealth, and fashion, ask you still to bleed,
And holy men give scripture for the deed;
Scourg'd and debas'd, no Briton stoops to save-
A wretch, a coward; yes, because a slave!
Eternal Nature! when thy giant hand
Had heav'd the floods, and fix'd the trembling land,
When life sprung startling at thy plastic call,
Endless her forms, and Man the lord of all!
Say, was that lordly form inspir'd by thee
To wear eternal chains, and bow the knee?
Was man ordain'd the slave of man to toil,
Yok'd with the brutes, and fetter'd to the soil;.
Weigh'd in a tyrant's balance with his gold?
No! Nature stamp'd us in a heav'nly mould!
She bade no wretch his thankless labour urge,
Nor, trembling, take the pittance and the scourge !
No homeless Lybian, on the stormy deep,
To call upon his country's name, and weep!
Lo! once in triumph on his boundless plain,
The quiver'd chief of Congo lov'd to reign;
With fires proportion'd to his native sky,
Strength in his arm, and lightning in his eye;
Scour'd with wild feet his sun-illumin'd zone,
The spear, the lion, and the woods his own;
Or led the combat, bold without a plan,
An artless savage, but a fearless man!
The plunderer came:-alas! no glory smiles
For Congo's chief on yonder Indian isles;
For ever fallen! no son of Nature now,
With Freedom chartered on his manly brow!
Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away,
And when the sea-wind wafts the dewless day,
Starts, with a bursting heart, for ever more
To curse the sun that lights their guilty shore.
The shrill horn blew; 10 at that alarum knell
His guardian angel took a last farewell!
That funeral dirge to darkness hath resign'd
The fiery grandeur of a generous mind!-
Poor fetter'd man! I hear thee whispering low
Unhallow'd vows to Guilt, the Child of Woe!
Friendless thy heart; and, canst thou harbour there 525
A wish but death-a passion but despair?
The widow'd Indian, when her lord expires, Mounts the dread pile, and braves the funeral fires!
So falls the heart at Tharldom's bitter sigh!
So Virtue dies, the spouse of Liberty!
But not to Lybia's barren climes alone,
To Chili, or the wild Siberian zone,
Belong the wretched heart and haggard eye,
Degraded worth, and poor misfortune's sigh!-
Ye orient realms, where Ganges' waters run!
Prolific fields! dominions of the sun!
How long your tribes have trembled, and obey'd!
How long was Timur's iron sceptre sway'd!11
Whose marshall'd hosts, the lions of the plain,
From Scythia's northern mountains to the main,
Rag'd o'er your plunder'd shrines and altars bare,
With blazing torch and gory seymitar,-
Stunn'd with the cries of death each gentle gale,
And bath'd in blood the verdure of the vale!
Yet could no pangs the immortal spirit tame,
When Brama's children perished for his name;
The martyr smil'd beneath avenging pow'r,
And brav'd the tyrant in his torturing hour!
When Europe sought your subject realms to gain,
And stretch'd her giant sceptre o'er the main,
Taught her proud barks their winding way to shape,
And brav'd the stormy spirit of the Cape;13
Children of Brama! then was Mercy nigh
To wash the stain of blood's eternal dye?
Did Peace descend, to triumph and to save,
When free-born Britons cross'd the Indian wave?
Ah, no-to more than Rome's ambition true,
The Nurse of Freedom gave it not to you!
She the bold route of Europe's guilt began,
And in the march of nations, led the van!
Rich in the gems of India's gaudy zone,
And plunder pil'd from kingdom's not their own,
Degenerate Trade! thy minions could despise
The heart-born anguish of a thousand cries;
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