Should Fate put far-far off that glorious scene,
And gulfs of havoc interpose between,
Imagine not, ye men of every clime,
Who act, or by your sufferance share the crime-
Your brother Abel's blood shall vainly plead
Against the " deep damnation" of the deed.
Germans, ye view its horror and disgrace
With cold phosphoric eyes and phlegm of face.
Is Allemagne profound in science, lore,
And minstrel art ?-her shame is but the more
To dose and dream by governments oppressed,
The spirit of a bookworm in each breast.
Well can ye mouth fair Freedom's classic line,
And talk of Constitutions o'er your wine:
But all your vows to break the tyrant's yoke
Expire in Bacchanalian song and smoke:
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 couched the lance,
France turns from her abandoned 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 laurelled-bosoms marked 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 robbed you more of Fame-the life of life-
Than twenty battles lost in glorious strife!
And what of England-Is she steeped so low
In poverty, crestfallen, and palsied so,
That we must sit much wroth, but timorous more,
With murder knocking at our neighbour's door?-
Not murder masked and cloaked 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 diademed 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 stopped the world's highway;
Were this some common strife of States embroiled-
Britannia on the spoiler and the spoiled
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 effront?-Hast thou not fleets enow
With Glory's streamer, lofty as the lark,
Gay fluttering e'er each thunder-bearing bark,
To warm th' Insulter's seas with barb'rous blood,
And interdict his flag from Ocean's flood?
E'en now far off the sea-cliff, where I sing,
I see, my Country, and my Patriot King!
Your ensign glad the deep.
Becalmed 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 lin k
All ills have bounds-plague, whirlwind, fire, and flood;
E'en 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 slaughtered 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
Become, and types her eagle-strength of mind:
Her praise upon my faltering lips expires;
Resume it, younger bards, and nobler lyres !
ON THE VIEW FROM ST. LEONARD'S.
AIL to thy face and odours, glorious Sea!
"Twere thanklessness in me to bless thee not, Great beauteous Being! in whose breath and smile My heart beats calmer, and my very mind Inhales salubrious thoughts. How welcomer Thy murmurs than the murmurs of the world! Though like the world thou fluctuatest, thy din To me is peace, thy restlessness repose. E'en gladly I exchange yon spring-green lanes With all the darling field-flowers in their prime, And gardens haunted by the nightingales' Long trills and gushing ecstacies of song,
For these wild headlands and the sea-mew's clang
With thee beneath my windows, pleasant Sea,
I long not to o'erlook earth's fairest glades
And green savannahs-Earth has not a plain
So boundless or so beautiful as thine;
The eagle's vision cannot take it in ;
The lightning's wing, too weak to sweep its space,
Sinks half-way o'er it like a wearied bird:
It is the mirror of the stars, where all
Their hosts within the concave firmament,
Gay marching to the music of the spheres,
Can see themselves at once.
Nor on the stage Of rural landscape are there lights and shades Of more harmonious dance and play than thine. How vividly this moment brightens forth, Between grey parallel and leaden breadths, A belt of hues that stripes thee many a league, Flushed like the rainbow, or the ringdove's neck, And giving to the glancing sea-bird's wing The semblance of a meteor.
Mighty sea!
Chameleon-like thou changest, but there's love
In all thy change, and constant sympathy
With yonder Sky-thy Mistress; from her brow
Thou tak'st thy moods and wear'st her colours on
Thy faithful bosom; morning's milky white,
Noon's sapphire, or the saffron glow of eve;
And all thy balmier hours, fair Element,
Have such divine complexion-crispèd smiles,
Luxuriant heavings, and sweet whisperings,
That little is the wonder Love's own Queen
From thee of old was fabled to have sprung-
Creation's common! which no human power
Can parcel or enclose; the lordliest floods
And cataracts that the tiny hands of man
Can tame, conduct, or bound, are drops of dew
To thee, that couldst subdue the Earth itself,
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