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't is 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 volcanos! Etna's flame
Pales before thine, and quenchless Hecla 's tame;
Vesuvius shews his blaze, an usual sight
For gaping tourists, from his hacknied height:
Thou stand'st 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 recall 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!
Which proves how fools may
Won half by blunder, half by treachery:
Oh dull Saint Helen! with thy jailer nigh—
Hear! hear Prometheus from his rock appeal 2
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 betray'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 demigod;
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, 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 a dungeon and a throne!
But't will 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. One common cause makes myriads of one breast,
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;
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, and 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 shew
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
Holds back the invader from her soil again.
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