Classic Poem

LINES ON THE PRESENT WAR .

Ar that dread season when th' indignant North
Poured to vain wars her tardy numbers forth,
When Frederic bent his ear to Europe's cry,
And fanned too late the flame of liberty;
By feverish hope oppressed, and anxious thought,
In Dresden's grove the dewy cool I sought
Through tangled boughs the broken moonshine played,
And Elbe slept soft beneath his linden shade: —
Yet slept not all; — I heard the ceaseless jar,
The rattling wagons, and the wheels of war;
The sounding lash, the march's mingled hum,
And, lost and heard by fits, the languid drum;
O'er the near bridge the thundering hoofs that trode,
And the far-distant fife that thrilled along the road.
Yes, sweet it seems across some watery dell
To catch the music of the pealing bell;
And sweet to list, as on the beach we stray,
The ship-boy's carol in the wealthy bay:
But sweet no less, when Justice points the spear,
Of martial wrath the glorious din to hear,
To catch the war-note on the quivering gale,
And bid the blood-red paths of conquest hail
Oh! song of hope, too long delusive strain!
And hear we now thy flattering voice again?
But late, alas! I left thee cold and still,
Stunned by the wrath of heaven, on Pratzen's hill,
Oh! on that hill may no kind month renew
The fertile rain, the sparkling summer dew!
Accursed of God, may those bleak summits tell
The field of anger where the mighty fell
There youthful Faith and high-born Courage rest,
And, red with slaughter, Freedom's humbled crest;
There Europe, soiled with blood her tresses gray,
And ancient Honour's shield — all vilely thrown away.
Thus mused my soul, as in succession drear
Rose each grim shape of Wrath and Doubt and Fear;
Defeat and shame in grizzly vision passed,
And Vengeance, bought with blood, and glorious Death the last,
Then as my gaze their waving eagles met,
And through the night each sparkling bayonet,
Still memory told how Austria's evil hour
Had felt on Praga's field a Frederic's power,
And Gallia's vaunting train, and Mosco's horde,
Had fleshed the maiden steel of Brunswic's sword,
Oh! yet, I deemed, that Fate, by justice led,
Might wreathe once more the veteran's silver head;
That Europe's ancient pride would yet disdain
The cumbrous sceptre of a single reign;
That conscious right would tenfold strength afford,
And Heaven assist the patriot's holy sword,
And look in mercy through the auspicious sky,
To bless the saviour host of Germany.
And are they dreams, these bodings, such as shed
Their lonely comfort o'er the hermit's bed?
And are they dreams? or can the Eternal Mind
Care for a sparrow, yet neglect mankind?
Why, if the dubious battle own his power,
And the red sabre, where he bids, devour,
Why then can one the curse of worlds deride,
And millions weep a tyrant's single pride?
Thus sadly musing, far my footsteps strayed,
Rapt in the visions of the Aonian maid
It was not she, whose lonely voice I hear
Fall in soft whispers on my love-lorn ear,
My daily guest, who wont my steps to guide
Through the green walks of scented even-tide,
Or stretched with me in noonday ease along,
To list the reaper's chaunt, or throstle's song:
But she of loftier port; whose grave control
Rules the fierce workings of the patriot's soul;
She, whose high presence, o'er the midnight oil,
With fame's bright promise cheers the student's toil;
That same was she, whose ancient lore refined
The sober hardihood of Sydney's mind.
Borne on her wing, no more I seemed to rove
By Dresden's glittering spires, and linden grove;
No more the giant Elbe, all silver bright,
Spread his broad bosom to the fair moonlight,
While the still margent of his ample flood
Bore the dark image of the Saxon wood —
(Woods happy once, that heard the carols free
Of rustic love, and cheerful industry;
Now dull and joyless lie their alleys green,
And silence marks the track where France has been.)
Far other scenes than these my fancy viewed:
Rocks robed in ice, a mountain solitude;
Where on Helvetian hills, in godlike state,
Alone and awful, Europe's Angel-sate:
Silent and stern he sate; then, bending low,
Listened the ascending plaints of human wo.
And waving as in grief his towery head,
" Not yet, not yet the day of rest, " he said;
" It may not be. Destruction's gory wing
Soars o'er the banners of the younger king,
Too rashly brave, who seeks with single sway
To stem the lava on its destined way,
Poor, glittering warriors, only wont to know
The bloodless pageant of a martial show;
Nurselings of peace; for fiercer fights prepare,
And dread the step-dame sway of unaccustomed war!
They fight, they bleed! — Oh! had that blood been shed
When Charles and Valour Austria's armies led;
Had these stood forth the righteous cause to shield,
When victory wavered on Moravia's field;
Then France had mourned her conquests made in vain,
Her backward beaten ranks, and countless slain;
Then had the strength of Europe's freedom stood,
And still the Rhine had rolled a German flood!
" Oh! nursed in many a wile, and practised long,
To spoil the poor, and cringe before the strong;
To swell the victor's state, and hovering near,
Like some base vulture in the battle's rear,
To watch the carnage of the field, and share
Each loathsome alms the prouder eagles spare:
A curse is on thee Brandenburgh! the sound
Of Poland's wailings drags thee to the ground;
And, drunk with guilt, thy harlot lips shall know
The bitter dregs of Austria's cup of wo.
" Enough of vengeance! O'er the ensanguined plain
I gaze and seek their numerous host in vain;
Gone like the locust band when whirlwinds bear
Their flimsy regions through the waste of air
Enough of vengeance! — By the glorious dead,
Who bravely fell where youthful Lewis led;
By Blucher's sword in fiercest danger tried,
And the true heart that burst when Brunswic died;
By her whose charms the coldest zeal might warm,
The manliest firmness in the fairest form —
Save, Europe, save the remnant! — Yet remains
One glorious path to free the world from chains.
Why, when your northern band in Eylau's wood
Retreating struck, and tracked their course with blood,
While one firm rock the floods of ruin stayed,
Why, generous Austria, were thy wheels delayed?
And Albion! " — Darker sorrow veiled his brow —
" Friend of the friendless — Albion! where art thou?
Child of the Sea, whose wing-like sails are spread,
The covering cherub of the ocean's bed!
The storm and tempest render peace to thee,
And the wild-roaring waves a stern security.
But hope not thou in Heaven's own strength to ride,
Freedom's loved ark, o'er broad oppression's tide;
If virtue leave thee, if thy careless eye
Glance in contempt on Europe's agony
Alas! where now the bands who wont to pour
Their strong deliverance on th' Egyptian shore?
Wing, wing your course, a prostrate world to save,
Triumphant squadrons of Trafalgar's wave;
" And thou, blest star of Europe's darkest hour,
Whose words were wisdom, and whose counsels power,
Whom earth applauded through her peopled shores!
(Alas! whom earth too early lost deplores; — )
Young without follies, without rashness bold,
And greatly poor amidst a nation's gold!
In every veering gale of faction true,
Untarnished Chatham's genuine child, adieu!
Unlike our common suns, whose gradual ray
Expands from twilight to intenser day,
Thy blaze broke forth at once in full meridian sway,
O, proved in danger! not the fiercest flame
Of Discord's rage thy constant soul could tame;
Not when, far-striding o'er thy palsied land,
Gigantic Treason took his bolder stand;
Not when wild Zeal, by murderous Faction led,
On Wicklow's hills, her grass-green banner spread;
Or those stern conquerors of the restless wave
Defied the native soil they won't to save —
Undaunted patriot! in that dreadful hour,
When pride and genius own a sterner power;
When the dimmed eyeball, and the struggling breath,
And pain, and terror, mark advancing death; —
Still in that breast thy country held her throne,
Thy toil, thy fear, thy prayer were hers alone,
Thy last faint effort hers, and hers thy parting groan
" Yes, from those lips while fainting nations drew
Hope ever strong, and courage ever new; —
Yet, yet, I deemed, by that supporting hand
Propped in her fall might Freedom's ruin stand;
And purged by fire, and stronger from the storm,
Degraded Justice rear her reverend form)
Now, hope, adieu! — adieu the generous care
To shield the weak, and tame the proud in war!
The golden chain of realms, when equal awe
Poised the strong balance of impartial law;
When rival states as federate sisters shone,
Alike, yet various, and though many, one;
And, bright and numerous as the spangled sky,
Beamed each fair star of Europe's galaxy —
All, all are gone, and after-time shall trace
One boundless rule, one undistinguished race;
Twilight of worth, where nought remains to move
The patriot's ardour, or the subject's love.
" Behold, e'en now, while every manly lore
And ev'ry muse forsakes my yielding shore;
Faint, vapid fruits of slavery's sickly clime,
Each tinsel art succeeds, and harlot rhyme!
To gild the vase, to bid the purple spread
In sightly foldings o'er the Grecian bed,
Their mimic guard where sculptured gryphons 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 mazy waltz, or pageant stage;
Each wayward wish of sickly taste to please,
The nightly revel and the noontide ease —
These, Europe, are thy toils, thy trophies these!
" So, when wide-wasting hail, or whelming rain,
Have strewed the bearded hope of golden grain,
From the wet furrow struggling to the skies,
The tall, rank weeds in barren splendour rise;
And strong, and towering o'er the mildewed ear,
Uncomely flowers and baneful herbs appear;
The swain's rich toils to useless poppies yield,
And Famine stalks along the purple field.
" And thou, the poet's theme, the patriot's 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 you ample dome,
The blood-bought treasures rest of Greece and Rome?
Scourge of the highest, bolt in vengeance hurled
By Heaven's dread justice on a shrinking world!
Go, vanquished victor, bend thy proud helm down
Before thy sullen tyrant's steely crown
For him in Afric's sands, and Poland's snows,
Reared by thy toil the shadowy laurel grows;
And rank in German fields the harvest springs
Of pageant councils and obsequious kings.
Such purple slaves, of glittering fetters vain,
Linked the wide circuit of the Latian chain;
And slaves like these shall every tyrant find,
To gild oppression, and debase mankind.
" Oh! 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 Austria bids her clarion sound;
And many an ancient rock, and fleecy plain,
And many a valiant heart returns the strain:
Heard by that shore, where Calpe's armed steep
Flings its long shadow o'er th' Herculean deep,
And Lucian glades, whose hoary poplars wave
In soft, sad murmurs over Inez' grave
They bless the call who dared the first withstand
The Moslem wasters of their bleeding land,
When firm in faith, and red with slaughtered foes,
Thy spear-encircled crown, Asturia rose,
Nor these alone; as loud the war-notes swell,
La Mancha's shepherd quits his cork built cell;
Alhama's strength is there, and those who till
(A hardy race!) Morena's scorched hill;
And in rude arms through wide Gallicia's reign,
The swarthy vintage pours her vigorous train
" 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 arm;
Theirs the dark cheek, with patriot ardour 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 labouring 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
Of him in Xere's 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
(Illustrious 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
Oh! 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;
Or when stern Austria stretched her lawless reign,
And spent in northern fights the flower of Spain;
Or war's hoarse furies yelled on Ysell's shore,
And Alva's ruffian sword was drunk with gore
Yet dared not then Tlascala's chiefs withstand
The lofty daring of Castilia's band;
And weeping. France her captive king deplored,
And cursed the deathful point of Ebro's sword.
Now, nerved with hope, their night of slavery past,
Each heart beats high in freedom's buxom blast;
Lo! Conquest calls, and beck'ning from afar,
Uplifts his laurel wreath, and waves them on to war.
— Wo to th' usurper then, who dares defy
The sturdy wrath of rustic loyalty!
Wo to the hireling bands, foredoomed to feel
How strong in labour's horny hand the steel!
Behold e'en now, beneath yon Baetic skies
Another Pavia bids her trophies rise; —
E'en now in base disguise and friendly night
Their robber-monarch speeds his secret flight;
And with new zeal the fiery Lusians rear,
(Roused by their neighbour's worth,) the long-neglected spear
" So when stern winter chills the April showers,
And iron frost forbids the timely flowers;
Oh! deem not thou the vigorous herb below
Is crushed and dead beneath the incumbent snow;
Such tardy suns shall wealthier harvests bring
Than all the early smiles of flattering spring "
Sweet as the martial trumpet's silver swell,
On my charmed sense th' unearthly accents fell;
Me wonder held, and joy chastised by fear,
As one who wished, yet hardly hoped to hear,
" Spirit, " I cried, " dread teacher, yet declare,
In that good fight, shall Albion's arm be there?
Can Albion, brave, and wise, and proud, refrain
To hail a kindred soul, and link her fate with Spain?
Too long her sons, estranged from war and toil,
Have loathed the safety of the sea-girt isle;
And chid the waves which pent their fire within
As the stalled war-horse woos the battle's din.
Oh, by this throbbing heart, this patriot glow,
Which, well I feel, each English breast shall know;
Say, shall my country, roused from deadly sleep,
Crowd with her hardy sons yon western steep;
And shall once more the star of France grow pale,
And dim its beams in Roncesvalles vale?
Or shall foul sloth and timid doubt conspire
To mar our zeal, and waste our manly fire? "
Still as I gazed, his lowering features spread,
High rose his form, and darkness veiled his head:
Fast from his eyes the ruddy lightning broke,
To heaven he reared his arm, and thus he spoke.
" Wo, trebly wo to their slow zeal who bore
Delusive comfort to Iberia's shore!
Who in mid conquest, vaunting, yet dismayed,
Now gave and now withdrew their laggard aid;
Who, when each bosom glowed, each heart bea high,
Chilled the pure stream of England's energy
And lost in courtly forms and blind delay
The loitered hours of glory's short-lived day
" O peerless island, generous, bold, and free,
Lost, ruined Albion, Europe mourns for thee!
Hadst thou but known the hour in mercy given
To stay thy doom, and ward the ire of Heaven;
Bared in the cause of man thy warrior breast,
And crushed on yonder hills th' approaching pest,
Then had not murder sacked thy smiling plain,
And wealth, and worth, and wisdom, all been vain
" Yet, yet awake! while fear and wonder wait.
On the poised balance, trembling still with fate!
If aught their worth can plead, in battle tried,
Who tinged with slaughter Tajo's curdling tide;
(What time base truce the wheels of war could stay,
And the weak victor flung his wreath away?) —
Or theirs, who, doled in scanty bands afar,
Waged without hope the disproportioned war,
And cheerly still, and patient of distress,
Led their forwasted files on numbers numberless!
" Yes, through the march of many a weary day,
As yon dark column toils its seaward way;
As bare, and shrinking from th' inclement sky,
The languid soldier bends him down to die;
As o'er those helpless limbs, by murder gored,
The base pursuer waves his weaker sword,
And, trod to earth, by trampling thousands pressed,
The horse-hoof glances from that mangled breast;
E'en in that hour his hope to England flies,
And fame and vengeance fire his closing eyes.
" Oh! if such hope can plead, or his, whose bier
Drew from his conquering host their latest tear;
Whose skill, whose matchless valour, gilded flight;
Entombed in foreign dust, a hasty soldier's rite; —
Oh! rouse thee yet to conquer and to save,
And Wisdom guide the sword which Justice gave!
" And yet the end is not! from yonder towers
While one Saguntum mocks the victor's powers;
While one brave heart defies a servile chain,
And one true soldier wields a lance for Spain;
Trust not, vain tyrant, though thy spoiler band
In tenfold myriads darken half the land;
(Vast as that power, against whose impious lord
Bethulia's matron shook the nightly sword;)
Though ruth and fear thy woundless soul defy,
And fatal genius fire thy martial eye;
Yet trust not here o'er yielding realms to roam,
Or cheaply bear a bloodless laurel home!
" No! by His viewless arm whose righteous care
Defends the orphan's tear, the poor man's prayer;
Who, Lord of nature, o'er this changeful ball
Decrees the rise of empires; and the fall;
Wondrous in all his ways, unseen, unknown,
Who treads the wine-press of the world alone;
And robed in darkness, and surrounding fears,
Speeds on their destined road the march of years!
No! — shall yon eagle, from the snare set free,
Stoop to thy wrist, or cower his wing for thee?
And shall it tame despair, thy strong control,
Or quench a nation's still reviving soul? —
Go, bid the force of countless bands conspire
To curb the wandering wind, or grasp the fire!
Cast thy vain fetters on the troublous sea! —
But Spain, the brave, the virtuous, shall be free. "