Hark! as the smouldering piles with thunder fall,
A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call!
Earth shook-red meteors flashed along the sky,
And conscious Nature shuddered at the cry!
Oh! Righteous Heaven! ere Freedom found a grave, Why slept the sword, omnipotent to save?
Where was thine arm, O Vengeance! where thy rod,
That smote the foes of Zion and of God,
That crushed proud Ammon, when his iron car
Was yoked in wrath, and thundered from afar?
Where was the storm that slumbered till the host
Of blood-stained Pharaoh left their trembling coast,
Then bade the deep in wild commotion flow,
And heaved an ocean on their march below?
Departed spirits of the mighty dead!
Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled!
Friends of the world! restore your swords to man,
Fight in his sacred cause and lead the van!
Yet for Sarmatia's tears of blood atone,
And make her arm puissant as your own!—
Oh! once again to Freedom's cause return
The patriot TELL-the BRUCE OF BANNOCKBURN !
Yes! thy proud lords, unpitied land! shall see
That man hath yet a soul—and dare be free!
A little while, along thy saddening plains,
The starless night of Desolation reigns;
Truth shall restore the light by Nature given,
And like Prometheus, bring the fire of Heaven!
Prone to the dust Oppression shall be hurled,
Her name, her nature, withered from the world!
Ye that the rising morn invidious mark, And hate the light-because your deeds are dark; Ye that expanding Truth invidious view, And think, or wish the song of Hope untrue; Perhaps your little hands presume to span The march of Genius, and the powers of man; Perhaps ye watch, at Pride's unhallowed shrine, Her victims, newly slain, and thus divine :"Here shall thy triumph, Genius, cease, and here, Truth, Science, Virtue, close your short career.”
Tyrants! in vain ye trace the wizard ring; In vain ye limit Mind's unwearied spring: What! can ye lull the winged winds asleep, Arrest the rolling world, or chain the deep? No:-the wild wave contemns your sceptred hand;It rolled not back when Canute gave command!
Man! can thy doom no brighter soul allow ! Still must thou live a blot on Nature's brow!
Shall War's polluted banner ne'er be furled?
Shall crimes and tyrants cease but with the world? What! are thy triumphs, sacred Truth, belied? Why then hath Plato lived-or Sydney died?
Ye fond adorers of departed fame,
Who warm at Scipio's worth, or Tully's name!
Ye that, in fancied vision, can admire
The sword of Brutus, and the Theban lyre!
Wrapt in historic ardour who adore
Each classic haunt, and well-remembered shore,
Where Valour tuned, amid her chosen throng,
The Thracian trumpet and the Spartan song;
Or, wandering thence, behold the later charms
Of England's glory, and Helvetia's arms!
See Roman fire in Hampden's bosom swell,
And fate and freedom in the shaft of Tell!
Say, ye fond zealots to the worth of yore,
Hath Valour left the world-to live no more?
No more shall Brutus bid a tyrant die,
And sternly smile with vengeance in his eye?
Hampden no more, when suffering freedom calls,
Encounter fate, and triumph as he falls?
Nor Tell disclose, through peril and alarm,
The might that slumbers in a peasant's arm?
Yes! in that generous cause for ever strong,
The patriot's virtue, and the poet's song,
Still, as the tide of ages rolls away,
Shall charm the world, unconscious of decay!
Yes! there are hearts, prophetic Hope may trust, That slumber yet in uncreated dust,
Ordained to fire the adoring sons of carth
With every charm of wisdom and of worth;
Ordained to light, with intellectual day,
The mazy wheels of Nature as they play,
Or warm with Fancy's energy, to glow,
And rival all but Shakspeare's name below!
And say, supernal Powers! who deeply scan
Heaven's dark decrees, unfathomed yet by man,
When shall the world call down, to cleanse her shame,
That embryo spirit, yet without a name,—
That friend of Nature, whose avenging hands
Shall burst the Lybian's adamantine bands?
Who, sternly marking on his native soil,
The blood, the tears, the anguish, and the toil,
Shall bid each righteous heart exult; to see
Peace to the slave, and vengeance on the free!
Yet, yet, degraded men! the expected day
That breaks your bitter cup, is far away;
Trade, wealth, and fashion, ask you still to bleed,
And holy men give Scripture for the deed;
Scourged and debased, no Briton stoops to save
A wretch, a coward; yes, because a slave!
Eternal Nature! when thy giant hand
Had heaved the floods, and fixed the trembling land,
When life sprung startling at thy plastic call,
Endless her forms, and Man the lord of all!
Say, was that lordly form inspired by thee
To wear eternal chains, and bow the knee?
Was man ordained the slave of man to toil,
Yoked with the brutes, and fettered to the soil;
Weighed in a tyrant's balance with his gold?
No! Nature stamped us in a heavenly mould!
She bade no wretch his thankless labour urge,
Nor, trembling, take the pittance and the scourge !
No homeless Lybian, on the stormy deep,
To call upon his country's name, and weep!
Lo! once in triumph on his boundless plain,
The quivered chief of Congo loved to reign;
With fires proportioned to his native sky,
Strength in his arm, and lightning in his eye;
Scoured with wild feet his sun-illumined zone,
The spear, the lion, and the woods his own;
Or led the combat, bold without a plan,
An artless savage, but a fearless man!
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