But Russia's limbs (so blinded statesmen say)
Are crude, and too colossal to cohere.
O, lamentable weakness! reckoning weak
The stripling Titan, strengthening year by year.
What implement lacks he for war's career,
That grows on earth, or in its floods and mines,
(Eighth sharer of the inhabitable sphere)
Whom Persia bows to, China ill confines,
And India's homage waits, when Albion's star declines?
But time will teach the Russ, ev'n conquering War Has handmaid arts: ay, ay, the Russ will woo
All sciences that speed Bellona's car,
All murder's tactic arts, and win them too;
But never holier Muses shall imbue
His breast, that's made of nature's basest clay :
The sabre, knout, and dungeon's vapour blue
His laws and ethics: far from him away
Are all the lovely Nine, that breathe but Freedom's day.
Say, ev'n his serfs, half-humanized, should learn
Their human rights,-will Mars put out his flame
In Russian bosoms? no, he'll bid them burn
A thousand years for nought but martial fame,
Like Romans :-yet forgive me, Roman name!
Rome could impart what Russia never can;
Proud civic rights to salve submission's shame.
Our strife is coming; but in freedom's van
The Polish eagle's fall is big with fate to man.
Proud bird of old! Mohammed's moon recoiled
Before thy swoop: had we been timely bold,
That swoop, still free, had stunned the Russ, and foiled
Earth's new oppressors, as it foiled her old.
Now thy majestic eyes are shut and cold:
And colder still Polonia's children find
The sympathetic hands, that we outhold.
But, Poles, when we are gone, the world will mind, Ye bore the brunt of fate, and bled for humankind.
So hallowedly have ye fulfilled your part,
My pride repudiates ev'n the sigh that blends
With Poland's name-name written on my heart.
My heroes, my grief-consecrated friends!
Your sorrow, in nobility, transcends
Your conqueror's joy: his cheek may blush; but shame
Can tinge not yours, though exile's tear descends;
Nor would ye change your conscience, cause, and name,
For his, with all his wealth, and all his felon fame.
Thee, Niemciewitz, whose song of stirring power
The Czar forbids to sound in Polish lands;
Thee, Czartoryski, in thy banished bower,
The patricide, who in thy palace stands,
May envy; proudly may Polonia's bands
Throw down their swords at Europe's feet in scorn,
Saying "Russia from the metal of these brands
Shall forge the fetters of your sons unborn;
Our setting star is your misfortunes' rising morn."
ON LEAVING A SCENE IN BAVARIA.
ADIEU the woods and water's side,
Imperial Danube's rich domain !
Adieu the grotto, wild and wide,
The rocks abrupt, and grassy plain!
For pallid Autumn once again
Hath swelled each torrent of the hill;
Her clouds collect, her shadows sail,
And watery winds that sweep the vale,
Grow loud and louder still.
But not the storm, dethroning fast
Yon monarch oak of massy pile;
Nor river roaring to the blast
Around its dark and desert isle;
Nor church-bell tolling to beguile
The cloud-born thunder passing by,
Can sound in discord to my soul:
Roll on, ye mighty waters, roll!
And rage, thou darkened sky!
Thy blossoms now no longer bright ;
Thy withered woods no longer green;
Yet, Eldurn shore, with dark delight
I visit thy unlovely scene!
For many a sunset hour serene
My steps have trod thy mellow dew;
When his green light the glow-worm gave,
When Cynthia from the distant wave Her twilight anchor drew,
And ploughed, as with a swelling sail,
The billowy clouds and starry sea;
Then while thy hermit nightingale
Sang on his fragrant apple-tree,-
Romantic, solitary, free,
The visitant of Eldurn's shore,
On such a moonlight mountain strayed,
As echoed to the music made
By Druid harps of yore.
Around thy savage hills of oak,
Around thy waters bright and blue,
No hunter's horn the silence broke,
No dying shriek thine echo knew;
But safe, sweet Eldurn woods, to you
The wounded wild deer ever ran,
Whose myrtle bound their grassy cave,
Whose very rocks a shelter gave
From blood-pursuing man.
Oh heart effusions, that arose
From nightly wanderings cherished here; To him who flies from many woes,
Even homeless deserts can be dear!
The last and solitary cheer
Of those that own no earthly home,
Say-is it not, ye banished race,
In such a loved and lonely place
Companionless to roam?
Yes! I have loved thy wild abode,
Unknown, unploughed, untrodden shore ; Where scarce the woodman finds a road, And scarce the fisher plies an oar; For man's neglect I love thee more; That art nor avarice intrude
To tame thy torrent's thunder-shock, Or prune thy vintage of the rock Magnificently rude.
Unheeded spreads thy blossomed bud
Its milky bosom to the bee;
Unheeded falls along the flood
'Thy desolate and aged tree.
Forsaken scene, how like to thee
The fate of unbefriended Worth!
Like thine her fruit dishonoured falls;
Like thee in solitude she calls
A thousand treasures forth.
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