Heavens! can no ray of foresight pierce the leads
And mystic metaphysics of your heads,
To show the self-same grave Oppression delves
For Poland's rights is yawning for yourselves?
See, whilst the Pole, the vanguard aid of France,
Has vaulted on his barb, and couch'd the lance,
France turns from her abandon'd friends afresh,
And soothes the Bear that prowls for patriot flesh;
Buys, ignominious purchase! short repose,
With dying curses, and the groans of those
That served, and loved, and put in her their trust.
Frenchmen! the dead accuse you from the dust—
Brows laurell'd-bosoms mark'd with many a scar
For France that wore her Legion's noblest star,
Cast dumb reproaches from the field of Death
On Gallic honour and this broken faith
Has robb'd you more of Fame-the life of life-
Than twenty battles lost in glorious strife!
And what of England-is she steep'd so low
In poverty, crest-fall'n, and palsied so,
That we must sit much wroth, but timorous more,
With Murder knocking at our neighbour's door!--
Not Murder mask'd and cloak'd, with hidden knife,
Whose owner owes the gallows life for life;
But Public Murder!—that with pomp and gaud,
And royal scorn of Justice, walks abroad
To wring more tears and blood than e'er were wrung
By all the culprits Justice ever hung!
We read the diadem'd Assassin's vaunt,
And wince, and wish we had not hearts to pant
With useless indignation-sigh, and frown,
But have not hearts to throw the gauntlet down.
If but a doubt hung o'er the grounds of fray,
Or trivial rapine stopp'd the world's highway;
Were this some common strife of States embroil'd ;-
Britannia on the spoiler and the spoil'd
Might calmly look, and, asking time to breathe,
Still honourably wear her olive wreath.
But this is Darkness combating with Light:
Earth's adverse Principles for empire fight:
Oppression, that has belted half the globe,
Far as his knout could reach or dagger probe,
Holds reeking o'er our brother-freemen slain
That dagger-shakes it at us in disdain ;
Talks big to Freedom's states of Poland's thrall,
And, trampling one, contemns them one and all.
My country! colours not thy once proud brow
At this affront?-Hast thou not fleets enow
With Glory's streamer, lofty as the lark,
Gay fluttering o'er each thunder-bearing bark,
To warm the insulter's seas with barbarous blood,
And interdict his flag from Ocean's flood?
Ev'n now far off the sea-cliff, where I sing,
I see, my Country, and my Patriot King!
Your ensign glad the deep. Becalm'd and slow
A war-ship rides; while Heaven's prismatic bow
Uprisen behind her on th' horizon's base,
Shines flushing through the tackle, shrouds, and stays,
And wraps her giant form in one majestic blaze.
My soul accepts the omen; Fancy's eye
Has sometimes a veracious augury:
The Rainbow types Heaven's promise to my sight;
The Ship, Britannia's interposing Might!
But if there should be none to aid you, Poles,
Ye'll but to prouder pitch wind up your souls,
Above example, pity, praise, or blame,
To sow and reap a boundless field of Fame.
Ask aid no more from Nations that forget
Your championship-old Europe's mighty debt.
Though Poland, Lazarus-like, has burst the gloom,
She rises not a beggar from the tomb:
In Fortune's frown, on Danger's giddiest brink,
Despair and Poland's name must never link.
All ills have bounds-plague, whirlwind, fire, and flood:
Ev'n Power can spill but bounded sums of blood.
States caring not what Freedom's price may be,
May late or soon, but must at last be free;
For body-killing tyrants cannot kill
The public soul-the hereditary will
That downward, as from sire to son it goes,
By shifting bosoms more intensely glows:
Its heir-loom is the heart, and slaughter'd men
Fight fiercer in their orphans o'er again.
Poland recasts though rich in heroes old-
Her men in more and more heroic mould:
Her eagle ensign best among mankind
Becomes, and types her eagle-strength of mind:
Her praise upon my faltering lips expires:
Resume it, younger bards, and nobler lyres !
MARGARET's beauteous-Grecian arts
Ne'er drew form completer,
Yet why, in my heart of hearts,
Hold I Dora's sweeter?
Dora's eyes of heavenly blue
Pass all painting's reach,
Ringdoves' notes are discord to
The music of her speech.
Artists! Margaret's smile receive,
And on canvas show it ;
But for perfect worship leave
Dora to her poet.
A THOUGHT SUGGESTED BY THE NEW
THE more we live, more brief
Our life's succeeding stages:
A day to childhood seems a year,
And years like passing ages.
The gladsome current of our youth,
Ere passion yet disorders,
Steals, lingering like a river smooth
Along its grassy borders.
But, as the care-worn cheek
And sorrow's shafts fly thicker, Ye stars, that measure life to man,
Why seem your courses quicker?
When joys have lost their bloom and breath,
And life itself is vapid,
Why, as we reach the Falls of death,
Feel we its tide more rapid?
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