That, sprung from robbers, they are robbers too:
Cry out, "Abstain! or forfeit crown and life!"
There is a nation high above the rest
In virtue and in valour we have wrong'd,
We Englishmen have wrong'd her, we her sons.
We owe her more than riches can repay
Or penitence or sympathy atone.
Let us at least the arms we seized restore
And drive the coward invader from her coast.
Arndt thou art stronger than the strongest arm
That wields in Germany a patriot sword;
How much then stronger than whichever wields
One temper'd not by justice! "Tis to thee
Alone, the greatest of God's great, I call,
I, who alone can now be heard so far,
For (let me whisper) we have ribbon'd lute
And rural fiddle; trumpet we have none.
He who had bled for Wallace, at his side,
Lies with due honours; due, but long deferr'd;
He too, the great magician, multiform,
Who sang the fate of Marmion, and convoked
From every country all who shone most high
In arms or beauty, drain'd the bowl of grief
And sleeps! Another, his compatriot bard,
Whose thunder shook the Baltic and the Nile,
And stay'd the Danaw swol'n with ice and blood,
Lies... dead as Nelson . . . nor more dead than he.
Our richest fruits grew under northern skies;
We have no grafts; we have but twigs and leaves.
Up thou! burst boldly through the palace-gate,
Announce thy errand, bid a king be just,
So mayest thou, good Arndt, as heretofore
When first I claspt that guiding hand at Bonn,
Return with other laurels, and enjoy
Thy ripening orchard and domestic peace.
FROM FRANCE TO THE POPE.
Made our God again, Pope Pius!
Worthy to be worshipt by us!
Come to Paris, and put on
Thy true son Napoleon
(Blest afresh) that glorious crown
Crushing crippled Europe down,
Leaving not a house but shed
Tears for some one maim'd or dead,
None but where some father sate,
Or some mother, desolate,
Or some maiden tore her hair,
Or some widow shriekt despair,
Or the wolf, when all were gone,
Claim'd the ruin for his own,
Drowsy, and his only fear
When the viper crept too near.
Men three millions, French the most,
Each a soldier, now a ghost,
Watch his tomb. We venerate
(Name he chose) the Man of fate.
Come, our God again, Pope Pius!
Worthy to be worshipt by us!
Not for him thy help we call
Who built up an icy wall
Of men's bodies, all the way
From where Moscow's cinders lay
To the Danube's fetter'd flood,
Where side-looking Franz then stood,
Salesman of his flesh and blood . .
But for one who far outwits
Keenest-witted Jesuits,
And without a blush outlies
Thee and all thy perjuries.
THE HEROINES OF ENGLAND.
Hereditary honours who confers?
God; God alone. Not Marlboro's heir enjoys
A Marlboro's glory. Ye may paste on walls,
Thro' city after city, rubric bills,
Large-letter'd, but ere long they all peel off,
And others take their places. 'Tis not thus
Where genius stands; no monarch here bestows,
No monarch takes away; above his reach
Are these dotations, yea, above his sight.
Despise I then the great? no; witness Heaven!
None better knows or venerates them higher,
Or lives among them more familiarly.
Am I a sycophant, and boaster too?
A little of a boaster, I confess,
No sycophant. Now let me teach my lore.
Those are the great who purify the hearts, Raise lofty aspirations from the breasts, And shower down wisdom on the heads of men. Children can give, exchange, and break their toys, But giants can not wrench away the gifts The wise, however humble, may impart.
I have seen princes, but among them all None I would own my equal; I have seen Laborious men, and patient, Virtue's sons, Men beyond Want, yet not beyond the call Of strict frugality from ember'd hearth, And inly cried, O, were I one of these!" How many verses, verses not inept,
But stampt for lawful weight and sterling ore,'
Are worth one struggle to exalt our kind!
Here let me back my coursers, and turn round. Hereditary honours! few indeed
Are those they fall to. Norton! Dufferin !
Rich was your grandsire in the mines of wit,
Strong in the fields of eloquence, but poor
And feeble was he when compared with you.
O glorious England! never shone the hour
With half so many lights; and most of these
In female hands are holden. Gone is she
Who shrouded Casa-Bianca,* she who cast
The iron mould of Iran, yet whose song
Was soft and varied as the nightingale's,
And heard above all others. Few are they
Who well weigh gems: instead of them we see
Flat noses, cheek by jowl, not over-nice,
Nuzzle weak wash in one long shallow trough:
Let me away from them! fresh air for me!
I must to higher ground.
What glorious forms
Advance! No man so lofty, so august.
In troops descend bright-belted Amazons.
But where is Theseus in the field to-day?
TO THE AUTHOR OF "MARY BARTON."
A few have borne me honour in my day,
Whether for thinking as themselves have thought
Or for what else I know not nor inquire.
Among them some there are whose name will live
Not in the memories but the hearts of men,
Because those hearts they comforted and cheer'd,
And, where they saw God's images cast down,
Lifted them up again, and blew the dust
From the worn feature and disfigured limb.
Such thou art, pure and mighty! such art thou,
Paraclete of the Bartons! Verse is mute
Or husky in this wintry eve of time,
And they who fain would sing can only cough:
And yet we praise them. Some more strong have left
The narrow field of well-trim'd poetry
For fresher air and wider exercise;
And they do wisely: I might do the same
If strength could gird and youth could garland me.
Imagination flaps her purple wing
Above the ancient laurels, and beyond;
Aye, there are harps that never rang aloft
Olympic deeds or Isthmian; there are hands
Strong even as those that rein'd the fiery steeds
Of proud Achilles on the Dardan plain;
There are clear eyes, eyes clear as those that pierced
Thro' Paradise and Hell and all between.
The human heart holds more within its cell
Than universal Nature holds without.
This thou hast shown me, standing up erect
While I sat gazing, deep in reverent awe,
Where Avon's Genius and where Arno's meet;
And thou hast taught me at the fount of Truth,
That none confer God's blessing but the poor,
None but the heavy-laden reach His throne.
HELLAS TO AUBREY DE VERE ON HIS DEPARTURE.
Traveller thou from afar that explorest the caverns of Delphi,
Led by the Muses, whose voice thou rememberest, heard over ocean,
Tell the benighted at home that the spirit hath never departed
Hence, from these cliffs and these streams: that Apollo is still
King Apollo,
And that no other should rule where Olympus, Parnassus, and
Pindus
Are what they were, ages past; that, if barbarous bands have invaded
Temple and shrine heretofore, it is time the reproach be abolisht,
Time that the wrong be redrest, and the stranger no more be the ruler.
Whether be heard or unheard the complaint of our vallies and mountains,
From the snow-piles overhead to the furthermost island of Pelops, Peace be to thee and to thine! And, if Deities hear under water, Blandly may Panopè clasp and with fervour the knee of Poseidon! Blandly may Cymodameia prevail over Glaucos, dividing
With both her hands his white beard and kissing it just in the middle,
So that the seas be serene which shall carry thee back to thy country
Where the sun sinks to repose. But ever be mindful of Hellas!
TO LAYARD, DISCOVERER OF NINEVEH.
No harps, no choral voices, may enforce
The words I utter. Thebes and Elis heard
Those harps, those voices, whence high men rose higher
And nations crown'd the singer who crown'd them.
His days are over. Better men than his
Live among us and must they live unsung
Because deaf ears flap round them? or because
Gold lies along the shallows of the world,
And vile hands gather it? My song shall rise,
Altho' none heed or hear it: rise it shall,
And swell along the wastes of Nineveh
And Babylon, until it reach to thee,
Layard! who raisest cities from the dust,
Who driest Lethe up amid her shades,
And pourest a fresh stream on arid sands,
And rescuest thrones and nations, fanes and gods
From conquering Time; he sees thee and turns back.
The weak and slow Power pushes past the wise,
And lifts them up in triumph to her car:
They, to keep firm the seat, sit with flat palms
Upon the cushion, nor look once beyond
To cheer thee on thy road. In vain are won
The spoils; another carries them away;
The stranger seeks them in another land,
Torn piecemeal from thee. But no stealthy step
Can intercept thy glory.
His head on ruins: he of Macedon
Crumbled them, with their dreamer, into dust:
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