Thanks for that lesson-it will teach That led them to adore Those Pagod things of sabre sway, The triumph, and the vanity, All quell'd!-Dark Spirit! what must be The Desolator desolate ? The Victor overthrown! The Arbiter of others' fate A Suppliant for his own! Is it some yet imperial hope That with such change can calmly cope? To die a prince—or live a slave— He who of old would rend the oak, Thou in the sternness of thy strength The Roman, when his burning heart He dared depart in utter scorn His only glory was that hour The Spaniard, when the lust of sway Cast crowns for rosaries away, A strict accountant of his beads, Yet better had he neither known A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne. But thou-from thy reluctant hand The thunderbolt is wrung Too late thou leav'st the high command To which thy weakness clung; All Evil Spirit as thou art, It is enough to grieve the heart To see thine own unstrung; To think that God's fair world hath been The footstool of a thing so mean; And Earth hath spilt her blood for him, And Monarchs bow'd the trembling limb, Fair Freedom! we may hold thee dear, Thine evil deeds are writ in gore, If thou hadst died as honour dies, Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust To all that pass away: But yet methought the living great Some higher sparks should animate, To dazzle and dismay; Nor deem'd Contempt could thus make mirth Of these, the Conquerors of the earth. And she, proud Austria's mournful flower, Thy still imperial bride; How bears her breast the torturing hour? Must she too bend, must she too share Thy late repentance, long despair, Thou throneless Homicide? If still she loves thee, hoard that gem, 'Tis worth thy vanish'd diadem ! Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle, That element may meet thy smile— That Corinth's pedagogue hath now Thou Timour! in his captive's cage Life will not long confine That spirit pour'd so widely forth- Or, like the thief of fire from heaven, Foredoom'd by God-by man accurst, He in his fall preserved his pride, There was a day-there was an hour, While earth was Gaul's-Gaul thineWhen that immeasurable power Unsated to resign Had been an act of purer fame Through the long twilight of all time, But thou forsooth must be a king, Where may the wearied eye repose Yes-one-the first-the last-the best The Cincinnatus of the West, Whom envy dared not hate, Bequeath'd the name of Washington, To make man blush there was but one! |