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“Daughter of Jove! inBritain's injured name, A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim! Frown not on England-England owns him

not

Athene, no! the plunderer was a Scot! Ask'st thou the difference? From fair Phyle's

towers

Survey Baotia-Caledonia's ours;
And well I know within that bastard-land
Hath wisdom's goddess never held command:
A barren soil, where nature's germs,confined,
To stern sterility can stint the mind;
Whose thistle well betrays the niggard
earth,

Emblem of all to whom the land gives birth.
Each genial influence nurtured to resist,
A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist:
Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy
plain

Dilutes with drivel every drizzling brain, Till burst at length each watery head o'erflows,

Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows:
Ten thousand schemes of petulance and pride
Despatch her scheming children far and wide;
Some east, some west, some-every where
but north,

In quest of lawless gain they issue forth;
And thus, accursed be the day and year,
She sent a Pict to play the felon here.
Yet, Caledonia claims some native worth,
As dull Bœotia gave a Pindar birth—
So may her few, the letter'd and the brave,
Bound to no clime, and victors o'er the grave,
Shake off the sordid dust of such a land,
And shine like children of a happier strand:
As once of yore, in some obnoxious place,
Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched

race!"

"Mortal," the blue-eyed maid resumed,

"once more,

Bear back my mandate to thy native shore; Though fallen, alas! this vengeance still is mine,

To turn my counsels far from lands like thine.

Hear then in silence Pallas' stern behest;
Hear and believe, for time shall tell the rest.
First on the head of him who did the deed
My curse shall light,— on him and all his
seed:

Without one spark of intellectual fire,
Be all the sons as senseless as the sire:
If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,
Believe him bastard of a brighter race;
Still with his hireling artists let him prate,
And folly's praise repay for wisdom's hate!
Long of their patron's gusto let them tell,
Whose noblest native gusto-is to sell:
To sell, and make (may shame record the
day!)

The state receiver of his pilfer'd prey!
Meantime, the flattering feeble dotard, West,

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Europe's worst dauber and poorBritain's best, With palsied hand shall turn each model o'er, And own himself an infant of fourscore: Be all the bruisers call'd from all St. Giles, That art and nature may compare their styles;

While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare, And marvel at his lordship's stone-shop there. Round the throng'd gate shall sauntering coxcombs creep,

To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep: While many a languid maid, with longing sigh,

On giant-statues casts the curious eye; The room with transient glance appears to skim,

Yet marks the mighty back and length of limb;

Mourns o'er the difference of now and then; Exclaims, “these Greeks indeed were proper men;"

Draws slight comparisons of these with those,

And envies Laïs all her Attic beaux: When shall a modern maid have swains like these?

Alas! Sir Harry is no Hercules!
And last of all, amidst the gaping crew,
Some calm spectator, as he takes his view,
In silent indignation, mix'd with grief,
Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.
Loathed throughout life-scarce pardon'd
in the dust,

May hate pursue his sacrilegious lust! Link'd with the fool who fired th' Ephesian dome,

Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb;
Erostratus and Elgin e'er shall shine
In many a branding page and burning line!
Alike condemn'd for aye to stand accursed-
Perchance the second viler than the first:
So let him stand through ages yet unborn,
Fix'd statue on the pedestal of scorn!
Though not for him alone revenge shall
wait,

But fits thy country for her coming fate: Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son

To do what oft Britannia's self had done. Look to the Baltic blazing from afar— Your old ally yet mourns perfidious war: Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid, Or break the compact which herself had made;

Far from such councils, from the faithless field

She fled --- but left behind her Gorgon-shield; A fatal gift, that turn'd your friends to stone, And, left lost Albion hated and alone. Look to the east, where Ganges' swarthy race Shall shake your usurpation to its base; Lo! there rebellion rears her ghastly head, And glares the Nemesis of native dead, Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood, | And claims his long arrear of northern blood.

So may ye perish! Pallas, when she gave | Then in the senate of your sinking state, Your free-born rights, forbade ye to enslave. Show me the man whose counsels may have Look on your Spain, she clasps the hand weight. she hates,

But coldly clasps, and thrusts you from
her gates.
Bear witness bright Barrossa, thou canst tell
Whose were the sons that bravely fought
and fell.

While Lusitania, kind and dear ally,
Can spare a few to fight and sometimes fly.
Oh glorious field! by famine fiercely won;
The Gaul retires for once, and all is done!
But when did Pallas teach that one retreat
Retrieved three long olympiads of defeat?
Look last at home-ye love not to look there,
On the grim smile of comfortless despair,
Your city saddens, loud though revel howls,
Here famine faints, and yonder rapine
prowls:

Vain is each voice whose tones could once
command;

E'en factions cease to charm a factious land;
While jarring sects convulse a sister-isle,
And light with maddening hands the mu-
tual pile.

“"Tis done, 'tis past, since Pallas warns in vain,

The Furies seize her abdicated reign;
Wide o'er the realm they wave their kind-
ling brands,

And wring her vitals with their fiery hands.
But one convulsive struggle still remains,
And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her

chains.

The banner'd pomp of war, the glittering

files,

smiles;

See all alike of more or less bereft-
No misers tremble when there's nothing left.
"Blest paper credit” who shall dare to sing? | O'er whose gay trappings stern Bellona
It clogs like lead corruption's weary wing:
Yet Pallas pluck'd each Premier by the ear,
Who gods and men alike disdain'd to hear;
But one, repentant o'er a bankrupt state,
On Pallas calls, but calls, alas! too late;
Then raves for ***; to that Mentor bends,
Though he and Pallas never yet were
friends:

Him senates hear whom never yet they
heard,

Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd:
So once of yore each reasonable frog
Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign log;
Thus hail'd your rulers their patrician clod,
As Egypt chose an onion for a god.

"Now fare ye well, enjoy your little hour; Go, grasp the shadow of your vanish'd power;

Gloss o'er the failure of each fondest scheme,
Your strength a name, your bloated wealth
a dream.

Gone is that gold, the marvel of mankind,
And pirates barter all that's left behind,
No more the hirelings, purchased near
and far,

Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war;
The idle merchant on the useless quay
Droops o'er the bales no bark may bear
away,

Or, back returning, sees rejected stores
Rot piecemeal on his own encumber'd shores;
The starved mechanic breaks his rusting
loom,

And desperate mans him 'gainst the common
doom.

The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum,
That bid the foe defiance ere they come;
The hero, bounding at his country's call,
The glorious death that decorates his fall,
Swell the young heart with visionary
charms,

And bid it antedate the joys of arms.
But know, a lesson you may yet be taught—
With death alone are laurels cheaply bought:
Not in the conflict havoc seeks delight,
His day of mercy is the day of fight;
But when the field is fought, the battle won,
Though drench'd with gore, his woes are
but begun.

His deeper deeds ye yet know but by name,-
The slaughter'd peasant and the ravish'd
dame,

The rifled mansion and the foe-reap'd field, Ill suit with souls at home untaught to yield.

Say with what eye, along the distant down,
Would flying burghers mark the blazing
town?

How view the column of ascending flames
Shake his red shadow o'er the startled
Thames?

Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch was
thine

That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:
Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,
Go, ask thy bosom, who deserves them
most?

The law of heaven and earth is life for life;
And she who raised in vain regrets the
strife.

London, 1812.

THE AGE OF BRONZE;

OR,

CARMEN SECULARE ET ANNUS HAUD MIRABILIS.

"Impar Congressus Achilli."

TRB
HB "good old times"—all times, when | He "wept for worlds to conquer!" he
old, are good-

Are gone; the present might be, if they
would;
Great things have been, and are, and great-

er still
Want little of mere mortals but their will:
A wider space, a greener field is given
To those who play their "tricks before high
Heaven."

I know not if the angels weep, but men
Have wept enough-for what?-to weep
again.

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-

who ne'er Conceived the globe he panted not to spare! With even the busy Northern Isle unknown, Which holds his urn, and never knew his throne.

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?

unknown

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

cause,

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 ape;

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

mast:

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.

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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

Which proves how fools may have their fortune too,

And palace fuel to one common fire. To this the soldier lent his kindling match, To this the peasant gave his cottage-thatch, Won, half by blunder, half by treachery; To this the merchant flung his hoarded store, | Oh, dull Saint-Helen! with thy jailor nigh— The prince his hall-and, Moscow was no Hear! hear! Prometheus from his rock more! appeal

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 car!

The conqueror's yet unbroken heart! Again The horn of Roland sounds, and not in vain. 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 arch!

Oh, bloody and most bootless Waterloo,

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: While even the Spaniard's thirst of gold and war

Forgets Pizarro to shout Bolivar!
Alas! why must the same Atlantic wave
Which wafted freedom gird a tyrant's
grave-

The king of kings, anu 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 a 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

once more.

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