limb ;

"Daughter of Jove! in Britain's injured name, | Europe's worst dauber and poorBritain's best, A true-born Briton may the deed disclaiın! With palsied hand shall turn each model o'er, Frown not on England England owns him And own himself an infant of fourscore:

not

Be all the braisers call'd from all St. Giles, Athene, no ! the plunderer was a Scot! That art and nature may compare their Ask'st thou the difference? From fair Phyle's

styles; towers

While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare, Survey Bæotia- Caledonia 's ours; And marvel at his lordship’s stone-shop there. And well I know within that bastard-land Round the throng'd gate shall sauntering Hath wisdom's goddess never held command:

coxcombs creep, A barren soil, where nature's germs,confined, To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep: To stern sterility can stint the mind; While many a languid maid, with longing Whose thistle well betrays the niggard

sigh, earth,

On giant-statues casts the curious eye ; Emblem of all to whom the land gives birth. The room with transient glance appears Each genial influence nurtured to resist,

to skim, A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist: Yet marks the mighty back and length of Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy

plain

Mourns o'er the difference of now and then; Dilutes with drivel every drizzling brain, Exclaims, "these Greeks indeed were proTill barst at length each watery head o'er

per men;" flows,

Draws slight comparisons of these with Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows:

those, Ten thousand schemes of petulance and pride and envies Lais all her Attic beaux: Despatch her scheming children far and wide; When shall a modern maid have gwaing Some east, some west, some-every where

like these? but north, Alas! Sir Harry is no Hercules! In quest of lawless gain they issue forth; And last of all, amidst the gaping crew, And thus, accursed be the day and year, Some calm spectator, as he takes his view, She sent a Pict to play the felon here. In silent indignation, mix'd with grief, Yet, Caledonia claims some native worth, Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief. As dull Bæotia gave a Pindar birth- Loathed throughout life-scarce pardon'd So may her few, the letter'd and the brave,

in the dust, Bound to no clime, and victors o'er the grave, May hate pursue his sacrilegious lust! Shake off the sordid dust of such a land, Link'd with the fool who fired th’Ephesian And shine like children of a happier strand:

dome, As once of yore, in some obnoxious place, Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb; Ten naines (if found) had saved a wretched Erostratus and Elgin e'er shall shine

race!”

In many a branding page and burning line!
Alike condemn’d for aye to stand accursed -

Perchance the second viler than the first : “Mortal,” the blue-eyed maid resumed, So let him stand through ages yet unborn,

once more,

Fix'd statue on the pedestal of scorn! Bear back my mandate to thy native shore; Though not for him alone revenge shall Though fallen, alas! this vengeance still

wait, is mine,

But fits thy country for her coming fate: To turn my counsels far from lands like Hers were the deeds that taught her lawthine.

less son Hear then in silence Pallas' stern behest; To do what oft Britannia's self had done. Hear and believe, for time shall tell the rest. Look to the Baltic blazing from afarFirst on the head of him who did the deed Your old ally yet mourns perfidious war: My curse shall light,- on him and all his Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid,

seed :

Or break the compact which herself had Without one spark of intellectual fire,

made; Be all the sons as senseless as the sire: Far from such councils, from the faithless If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,

field Believe him bastard of a brighter race; She fled - but left behind her Gorgon-shield; Still with his hireling artists let him prate, A fatal gift, that turn'd your friends to stone, And folly's praise repay for wisdom's hate! And left lost Albion hated and alone. Long of their patron's gusto let them tell, Look to the east, where Ganges' swarthy race Whose noblest native gusto—is to sell : Shall shake your usurpation to its base; To sell, and make (may shame record the LO! there rebellion rears her ghastly head,

day!)

And glares the Nemesis of native dead, The state receiver of his pilfer'd prey ! Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood, Meantime, the flattering fooble dotard, West, | And claims his long arrear of northern blood.

So may ye perish! Pallas, when she gave Then in the senate of your sinking state, Your free-born rights, forbade ye to enslave. Show me the man whose counsels may have Look on your Spain, she clasps the hand

weight. she hates,

Vain is each voice whose tones could once But coldly clasps, and thrusts you from

command; her gates.

E'en factions cease to charm a factious land; Bear witness bright Barrossa, thou canst tell While jarring sects convulse a sister-isle, Whose were the sons that bravely fought And light with maddening hands the muand fell.

tual pile. While Lusitania, kind and dear ally, Can spare a few to fight and sometimes fly. Oh glorious field ! by famine fiercely won; “ 'Tis done, 'tis past, since Pallas warna The Gaul retires for once, and all is done!

in vain, But when did Pallas teach that one retreat The Furies seize her abdicated reign; Retrieved three long olympiads of defeat ? Wide o'er the realm they wave their kindLook last at home-ye love not to look there,

ling brands, On the grim smile of comfortless despair, And wring her vitals with their fiery hands. Your city saddens, loud though revel howls, But one convulsive struggle still remains, Here famine faints, and yonder rapine And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her prowls :

chains. See all alike of more or less bereft- The banner'd pomp of war, the glittering No misers tremble when there's nothing left.

files, “Blest

paper credit” who shall dare to sing? O'er whose gay trappings stern Bellona It clogs like lead corruption's weary wing:

smiles ; Yet Pallas pluck'd each Premier by the ear, The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum, Who gods and men alike disdain'd to hear; That bid the foe defiance ere they come; Bat one, repentant o'er a bankrapt state, The hero, bounding at his country's call, On Pallas calls, but calls, alas! too late; The glorious death that decorates his fall, Then raves for ***; to that Mentor bends, Swell the young heart with visionary Though he and Pallas never yet were

charms, friends:

And bid it antedate the joys of arms. Him senates hear whom never yet they But know, a lesson you may yet be taught

heard,

With death alone are laurels cheaply bought: Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd: Not in the conflict havoc seeks delight, So once of yore each reasonable frog His day of mercy is the day of fight; Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign log; But when the field is fought, the battle won, Thus haild your rulers their patrician clod, Though drench'd with gore, his woes are As Egypt chose an onion for a god.

but begun. His deeper deeds ye yet know but by name,

The slaughter'd peasant and the ravish'd “Now fare ye well, enjoy your little hour;

dame, Go, grasp the shadow of your vanish'd The rifled mansion and the foe-reap'd field,

power;

Ill suit with souls at home untaught to Gloss o'er the failure of each fondest scheme,

yield. Your strength a name, your bloated wealth Say with what eye, along the distant down,

a dream.

Would flying burghers mark the blazing Gone is that gold, the marvel of mankind,

town? And pirates barter all that's left behind, How view the column of ascending flames No more the hirelings, purchased near Shake his red shadow. o'er the startled and far,

Thames ? Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war; Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch was The idle merchant on the useless quay

thine Droops o'er the bales no bark may bear That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:

away,

Now should they burst on thy devoted coast, Or, back returning, sees rejected stores Go, ask thy bosom, who deserves them Rot piocemeal on his own encumber'd shores;

most? The starved mechanic breaks his rusting The law of heaven and earth is life for life;

loom,

And she who raised in vain regrets the And desperate mans him 'gainst the common

strife. doom.

London, 1812.

THE AGE OF

BRONZE;

OR,

CARMEN SECULARE ET ANNUS HAUD MIRABILIS.

"Impar Congressus Achi10."

his car;

TAR “good old times”-all times, when | He “wept for worlds to conquer !” he old, are good

who ne'er Are gone; the present might be, if they Conceived the globe he panted not to spare!

would ;

With even the busy Northern Isle unknown, Great things have been, and are, and great- Which holds his urn, and never knew his er still

throne, Want little of mere mortals but their will: A wider space, a greener field is given To those who play their “tricks before high But where is he, the modern, mightier far,

Heaven."

Who, born no king, made monarchs draw
I know not if the angels weep, but men
Have wept enough-for what?-to weep The new Sesostris, whose unharness'd kings,

again.
Free'd from the bit, believe themselves

with wings,

And spurn the dust o'er which they crawld All is cxploded - be it good or bad.

of late, Reader! remember when thou wert a lad, Chain'd to the chariot of the chieftain's Then .Pitt was all; or, if not all, so much,

state ? His very rival almost deem'd him such. Yes! where is he, the Champion and the We, we have seen the intellectual race

Child Of giants stand, like Titans, face to face – Of all that's great or little, wise or wild? Athos and Ida, with a dashing sea Whose game was empires and whose stakes Of eloquence between, which flow'd all free,

were thrones ? As the deep billows of the Ægean roar Whose table, earth_whose dice were human Betwixt the Hellenic and thePhrygian shore.

bones? But where are they—the rivals? —a few feet Behold the grand result in yon lone isle, Of sullen earth divide each winding-sheet. And, as thy nature urges, weep or smile. How peaceful and how powerful is the grave Sigh to behold the eagle's lofty rage Which hushes all! a calm, unstormy wave Reduced to nibble at his narrow cage; Which oversweeps the world. The theme Smile to survey the Queller of the Nations

is old

Now daily squabbling o'er disputed rations; Of “dust to dust;" but half its tale untold. Weep to perceive him mourning, as he dines, Time tempers not its terrors - still the worm O'er curtail'd dishes and o'er stinted wines; Winds its cold folds, the tomb preserves O'er petty quarrels upon petty things

its form

Is this the man who scourged or feasted Varied above, but still alike below;

kings? The urn may shine, the ashes will not glow. Behold the scales in which his fortune Though Cleopatra's mummy cross the sea,

hangs, O'er which from empire she lured Anthony; A surgeon's statement and an earl's haThough Alexander's urn a show be grown

rangues ! On shores he wept to conquer, though A bust delay'd, a book refused, can shake

unknown

The sleep of him who kept the world awake. How vain, how worse than vain at length Is this indeed the Tamer of the Great,

appear

Now slave of all could teaze or irritateThe madman's wish, the Macedonian's tear! The paltry jailor and the prying spy, He wept for worlds to conquer-half the The staring stranger with his note-book carth

nigh? Knows not his name, or but his death and Plunged in a dungeon, he had still been birth

great; And desolation ; while his native Greece How low, how little was this middle state, Hath all of desolation, save its peace. Between a prison and a palace, where

cause,

How few could feel for what he had to bear! He wants not this; but France shall feel Vain his complaint,-my Lord presents his

the want bill,

of this last consolation, though so scant ; His food and wine were doled out duly still: Her honour, fame, and faith, demand his Vain was his sickness,-never was a clime

bones, So free from homicide-to doubt's a crime; To rear above a pyramid of thrones ; And the stiff Surgeon, who maintain's his Or, carried onward, in the battle's van

To form, like Guesclin's dust, her talisman. Hath lost his place, and gain'd the world's But be it as it is, the time may come

applause.

His name shall beat the alarm like Ziska's But smile though all the pangs of brain

drum. and heart Disdain, defy, the tardy aid of art; Though, save the few fond friends, and Oh, Heaven! of which he was in power imaged face

a feature ; Of that fair boy his sire shall ne'er embrace, Oh, Earth! of which he was a noble creature; None stand by his low bed—though even Thou Isle! to be remember'd long and well,

the mind

That sawst the unfledged eaglet chip bis Be wavering, which long awed and awes

shell ! mankind;- Ye Alps, which view'd him in his dawning Smile-for the fetter'd Eagle breaks his

flights chain,

Hover, the victor of an hundred fights! And higher worlds than this are his again. Thou Rome, who sawst thy Cæsar's deeds

outdone!

Alas ! why pass'd he too the Rubicon 3 How, if that soaring Spirit still retain The Rubicon of man's awaken'd rights, A conscious twilight of his blazing reign, To herd with vulgar kings and parasites ? Now must he smile, on looking down, to see Egypt! from whose all dateless tombs arose The little that he was and sought to be! Forgotten Pharaohs from their long repose, What though his name a wider empire found And shook within their pyramids to hear Than his ambition, though with scarce a A new Cambyses thundering in their ear;

bound;

While the dark shades of forty ages stood Though first in glory, deepest in reverse, Like startled giants by Nile's famous flood; He tasted empire's blessings and its curse; Or from the pyramid's tall pinnacle Though kings, rejoicing in their late escape Beheld the desert peopled, as from hell, From chains, would gladly be their tyrant's With clashing hosts, who strew'd the ape;

barren sand How must he smile, and turn to yon lone To re-manure the uncultivated land!

grave,

Spain! which, a moment mindless of the Cid, The proudest sea-mark that o'ertops the Beheld his banner flouting thy Madrid !

wave!

Austria! which saw thy twice-ta'en capital What though his jailor, duteous to the last, Twice spared, to be the traitress of his fall! Scarce deem'd the coffin's lead could keep Ye race of Frederic!- Frederics but in name

him fast,

And falsehood - heirs to all except his fame; Refusing one poor line along the lid Who, crush'd at Jena, crouch'd at Berlin, fell To date the birth and death of all it hid, First, and but rose to follow; ye who dwell That name shall hallow the ignoble shore, Where Kosciusko dwelt, remembering yet A talisman to all save him who bore : The unpaid amount of Catherine's bloody The flects that sweep before the eastern blast

debt! Shall hear their sea-boys hail it from the Poland! o'er which the avenging angel mast:

passid, When Victory's Gallic column shall but rise, But left thee as he found thee, still a waste; Like Pompey's pillar, in a desert's skies, Forgetting all thy still enduring claim, The rocky isle that holds or held his dust Thy lotted people and extinguish'd name; Shall crown the Atlantic like the hero's bust, Thy sigh for freedom, thy long-flowing tear, And mighty Nature o'er his obsequies That sound that crashes in the tyrant's ear; Do more than niggard Envy still denies. Kosciusko! on-on-on-the thirst of war But what are these to him Can glory's lust Gasps for the gore of serfs and of their Czar; Touch the free'd spirit or the fetter'd dust? The half-barbaric Moscow's minarets Small care hath he of what his tomb consists, Gleam in the sun, but 'tis a sun that sets! Nought if he sleeps--nor more if he exists: Moscow! thou limit of his long career, Alike the better-seeing Shade will smile For which rude Charles had wept his froOn the rude cavern of the rocky isle,

zen tear As if his ashes found their latest home To see in vain--he saw thee-how? with In Rome's Pantheon, or Gaul's mimic dome.

spire

pang!

And palace fnel to one common fire. Which proves how fools may have their To this the soldier lent his kindling match,

fortune too, To this the peasant gave his cottage-thatch, Won, half by blunder, half by treachery; To this the merchant flung his hoarded store, Oh, dull Saint-Helen! with thy jailor nighThe prince his hall-and, Moscow was no Hear! hear! Prometheus from his rock more!

appeal Sublimest of volcanoes! Etna's flame To earth, air, ocean, all that felt or feel Pales before thine, and quenchless Hecla's His power and glory, all who yet shall hear

tame;

A name eternal as the rolling year; Vesuvius shows his blaze, an usual sight He teaches them the lesson taught so long, For gaping tourists, from his hackney'd So oft, so vainly-learn to do no wrong!

height:

A single step into the right had made Thou standst alone unrivallid till the fire This man the Washington of worlds beTo come, in which all empires shall expire.

tray'd; Thou other element! as strong and stern A single step into the wrong has given To teach a lesson conquerors will not learn, His name a doubt to all the winds of Heaven; Whose icy wing flapp'd o'er the faltering foe, The reed of Fortune and of thrones the rod, Till fell a hero with each flake of snow; Of Fame the Moloch or the demi-god; How did thy numbing beak and silent fang His country's Cæsar, Europe's Hannibal, Pierce, till hosts perish'd with a single Without their decent dignity of fall.

Yet Vanity herself had better tanght In vain shall Seine look up along his banks A surer path even to the fame he sought, For the gay thousands of his dashing ranks; By pointing out on history's fruitless page In vain shall France recal beneath her vines Ten thousand conquerors for a single sage. Her youth-their blood flows faster than While Franklin's quiet memory climbs to her wines,

heaven, Or stagnant in their human ice remains Calming the lightning which he thence In frozen mummies on the Polar plains.

hath riven, In vain will Italy's broad sun awaken Or drawing from the no less kindled earth Her offspring chilld; its beams are now Freedom and peace to that which boasts his forsaken.

birth : Of all the trophies gather'd from the war, While Washington's a watch-word, such What shall return? The conqueror's broken

as ne'er car!

Shall sink while there's an echo left to air: The conqueror's yet unbroken heart! Again While even the Spaniard's thirst of gold The horn of Roland sounds, and not in vain.

and war Lutzen, where fell the Swede of victory, Forgets Pizarro to shout Bolivar! Beholds him conquer, but, alas! not die: Alas! why must the same Atlantic wave Dresden surveys three despots fly once more which wafted freedom gird a tyrant's Before their sovereign,-sovereign,as before;

graveBut there exhausted Fortune quits the field, The king of kings, anu yet of slaves the And Leipsic's treason bids the unvanquish'd

slave, yield;

Who burst the chains of millions to renew The Saxon Jackal leaves the Lion's side The very fetters which his arm broke To turn the Bear's, and Wolf's, and Fox's

through, guide;

And crush'd the rights of Europe and his own And backward to the den of his despair To flit between a dungeon and a throne? The forest-monarch shrinks, but finds no lair! Oh ye! and each, and all! Oh, France !

who found

But 'twill not be, the spark's awaken'd, lo! Thy long fair fields plough'd up as hostile The swarthy Spaniard feels his former glow;

ground,

The same high spirit which beat back the Disputed foot by foot, till treason, still

Moor His only victor, from Montmartre's hill Through eight long ages of alternate gore Look'd down o'er trampled Paris; and thou, Revives—and where? in that avenging clime

isle,

Where Spain was once synonymous with Which seest Etruria from thy ramparts

crime, smile,

Where Cortes' and Pizarro's banner flew; Thou momentary shelter of his pride, The infant-world redeems her name of Till woo'd by danger, his yet weeping

“New." bride;

'Tis the old aspiration breathed afresh, Oh, France! retaken by a single march, To kindle souls within degraded flesh, Whose path was through one long triumphal Such as repulsed the Persian from the shore

Where Greece was-No! she still is Greece Oh, bloody and most bootless Waterloo,