Propped in her fall might Freedom's ruin stand; • Behold, e'en now, while every manly lore keep, And Memphian idols watch o'er beauty's sleep To rouse the slumbering sparks of faint desire With the base tinkling of the Teian lyre, While youth's enervate glance and gloating age Hang o'er the inazy waltz, or pageant stage, “So, when wide-wasting hail, or whelming rain prayer : Where, France, thy hopes, thy gilded promise where; When o’er Montpelier's vines, and Jura's snows, All goodly bright, young Freedom's planet rose ? What boots it now, (to our destruction brave,) How strong thine arm in war? a valiant slave. What boots it now that wide thine eagles sail, Fanned by the flattering breath of conquest's gale, What, that, high-piled within yon ample dome, The blood-bought treasures rest of Greece and Rome? Scourge of the highest, bolt in vangeance hurled By Heaven's dread justice on a shrinking world, Go, vanquished victor, bend thy proud helm down 0, live there yet whose hardy souls and high Peace bought with shame, and tranquil bonds defy ? Who, driven from every shore, and lords in vain of the wide prison of the lonely main, Cling to their country's rights with freeborn zeal, More strong from every stroke, and patient of the steel? Guiltless of chains, to them has Heaven consigned Th’ entrusted cause of Europe and mankind : Or hope we yet in Sweden's martial snows That Freedom's weary foot may find repose ? No-from yon hermit shade, yon cypress dell, Where faintly peals the distant matin-bell; Where bigot kings and tyrant priests had shed Their sleepy venom o'er his dreadful head; He wakes, th' avenger-hark! the hills around, Untamed Asturia bids her clarion sound; Saw ye those tribes? not theirs the plumed boast, The sightly trappings of a marshalled host; No weeping nations curse their deadly skill, Expert in danger, and inured to kill :But theirs the kindling eye, the strenuous arın; Theirs the dark cheek, with patriot ardor warm, Unblanched by sluggard ease, or slavish fear, And proud and pure the blood that mantles there. Theirs from the birth is toil;-o’er granite steep, And heathy wild, to guard the wandering sheep, To urge the laboring mule, or bend the spear'Gainst the night-prowling wolf, or felon bear; The bull's hoarse rage in dreadful sport to mock, And meet with single sword his bellowing shock. Each martial chant they know,each manly rhyme, Rude, ancient lays of Spain's heroic time. or him in Xeres' carnage fearless found, (His glittering brows with hostile spear-heads bound ;) Of that chaste king whose hardy mountain train O’erthrew the knightly race of Charlemagne ; And chiefest him who reared his banner tall (Ilustrious exile,) o'er Valencia's wall; Ungraced by kings, whose Moorish title rose The toil-earned homage of his wondering foes. Yes; every mould’ring tower and haunted flood, And the wild murmurs of the waving wood; Each sandy waste, and orange scented dell, And red Buraba's field, and Lugo, tell, How their brave fathers fought, how thick the invaders fell. ·0, virtue long forgot, or vainly tried, To glut a bigot’s zeal, or tyrant's pride ; Condemned in distant climes to bleed and die 'Mid the dank poisons of Tlascala's sky; |