A Godhead, like the universal PAN ; But more exalted, with a brighter train: And shall his bounty be dispensed in vain, Showered equally on city and on field, And neither hope nor steadfast promise yield In these usurping times of fear and pain? Such doom awaits us. Nay, forbid it Heaven! We know the arduous strife, the eternal laws To which the triumph of all good is given, High sacrifice, and labor without pause, Even to the death:- else wherefore should the eye Of man converse with immortality ?
ON THE FINAL SUBMISSION OF THE TYROLESE.
It was a moral end for which they fought; Else how, when mighty Thrones were put to shame, Could they, poor Shepherds, have preserved an aim, A resolution, or enlivening thought?
Nor hath that moral good been vainly sought; For in their magnanimity and fame
Powers have they left, an impulse, and a claim Which neither can be overturned nor bought. Sleep, Warriors, sleep! among your hills repose!. We know that ye, beneath the stern control Of awful prudence, keep the unvanquished soul: And when, impatient of her guilt and woes, Europe breaks forth; then, Shepherds! shall ye rise For perfect triumph o'er your Enemies.
HAIL, Zaragoza! If with unwet eye We can approach, thy sorrow to behold, Yet is the heart not pitiless nor cold;
Such spectacle demands not tear or sigh. These desolate remains are trophies high Of more than martial courage in the breast Of peaceful civic virtue: they attest
Thy matchless worth to all posterity.
Blood flowed before thy sight without remorse; Disease consumed thy vitals; War upheaved The ground beneath thee with volcanic force: Dread trials! yet encountered and sustained Till not a wreck of help or hope remained, And law was from necessity received.
Of justice which the human mind can frame, Intent each lurking frailty to disclaim, And guard the way of life from all offence Suffered or done. When lawless violence Invades a Realm, so pressed that in the scale Of perilous war her weightiest armies fail, Honor is hopeful elevation, - whence Glory and triumph. Yet with politic skill Endangered States may yield to terms unjust;
Stoop their proud heads, but not unto the dust, A Foe's most favorite purpose to fulfil: Happy occasions oft by self-mistrust Are forfeited; but infamy doth kill.
THE martial courage of a day is vain, An empty noise of death the battle's roar, If vital hope be wanting to restore,
Or fortitude be wanting to sustain,
Armies or kingdoms. We have heard a strain Of triumph, how the laboring Danube bore A weight of hostile corses: drenched with gore Were the wide fields, the hamlets heaped with slain. Yet see, (the mighty tumult overpast,) Austria a Daughter of her Throne hath sold! And her Tyrolean Champion we behold Murdered, like one ashore by shipwreck cast, Murdered without relief. Oh! blind as bold, To think that such assurance can stand fast!
BRAVE Schill! by death delivered, take thy flight
From Prussia's timid region. Go, and rest
With heroes, 'mid the islands of the Blest, Or in the fields of empyrean light.
A meteor wert thou crossing a dark night:
Yet shall thy name, conspicuous and sublime, Stand in the spacious firmament of time, Fixed as a star: such glory is thy right. Alas! it may not be for earthly fame Is Fortune's frail dependant; yet there lives A Judge, who, as man claims by merit, gives; To whose all-pondering mind a noble aim, Faithfully kept, is as a noble deed;
In whose pure sight all virtue doth succeed.
CALL not the royal Swede unfortunate, Who never did to Fortune bend the knee; Who slighted fear; rejected steadfastly Temptation; and whose kingly name and state Have "perished by his choice, and not his fate "! Hence lives he, to his inner self endeared; And hence, wherever virtue is revered,
He sits a more exalted Potentate,
Throned in the hearts of men. Should Heaven ordain
That this great servant of a righteous cause Must still have sad or vexing thoughts to endure, Yet may a sympathizing spirit pause,
Admonished by these truths, and quench all pain In thankful joy and gratulation pure.*
*See note to Sonnet VII., page 68. 7
Look now on that Adventurer who hath paid His vows to Fortune; who, in cruel slight Of virtuous hope, of liberty, and right, Hath followed wheresoe'er a way was made By the blind Goddess, ruthless, undismayed; And so hath gained at length a prosperous height, Round which the elements of worldly might Beneath his haughty feet, like clouds, are laid. O joyless power that stands by lawless force! Curses are his dire portion, scorn, and hate, Internal darkness and unquiet breath; And, if old judgments keep their sacred course, Him from that height shall Heaven precipitate By violent and ignominious death.
Is there a power that can sustain and cheer The captive chieftain, by a tyrant's doom, Forced to descend into his destined tomb, A dungeon dark! where he must waste the year, And lie cut off from all his heart holds dear, What time his injured country is a stage Whereon deliberate Valor and the rage Of righteous Vengeance side by side appear, Filling from morn to night the heroic scene
« ПредыдущаяПродолжить » |