Like him of noble birth and noble mind ; By ladies, meek-eyed women without fear ; And wanderers of the street, to whom is dealt The bread which without industry they find.
O'ER the wide earth, on mountain and on plain, Dwells in the affections and the soul of man A Godhead, like the universal PAN;
But more exalted, with a brighter train : And shall his bounty be dispensed in vain, Showered equally on city and on field, And neither hope nor steadfast promise yield In these usurping times of fear and pain? Such doom awaits us. Nay, forbid it Heaven! We know the arduous strife, the eternal laws To which the triumph of all good is given, High sacrifice, and labour without pause,
Even to the death :-else wherefore should the eye Of man converse with immortality?
ON THE FINAL SUBMISSION OF THE TYROLESE.
It was a moral end for which they fought;
Else how, when mighty Thrones were put to shame,
but, on the second occasion, without success. When the French, on first approaching the Town, demanded, with laconic insolence, its capitulation, Palafox gave the answer now grown into a proverb-Guerra al cuchillo"War to the knife."
Could they, poor Shepherds, have preserved an aim, A resolution, or enlivening thought?
Nor hath that moral good been vainly sought; For in their magnanimity and fame
Powers have they left, an impulse, and a claim Which neither can be overturned nor bought. Sleep, Warriors, sleep! among your hills repose! We know that ye, beneath the stern control Of awful prudence, keep the unvanquished soul: And when, impatient of her guilt and woes, Europe breaks forth; then, Shepherds! shall ye rise For perfect triumph o'er your Enemies.
HAIL, Zaragoza! If with unwet eye We can approach, thy sorrow to behold, Yet is the heart not pitiless nor cold ; Such spectacle demands not tear or sigh. These desolate remains are trophies high Of more than martial courage in the breast Of peaceful civic virtue: they attest
Thy matchless worth to all posterity.
Blood flowed before thy sight without remorse; Disease consumed thy vitals; War upheaved The ground beneath thee with volcanic force : Dread trials! yet encountered and sustained Till not a wreck of help or hope remained, And law was from necessity received.
SAY, what is Honour ?—'Tis the finest sense Of justice which the human mind can frame, Intent each lurking frailty to disclaim,
And guard the way of life from all offence Suffered or done. When lawless violence Invades a Realm, so pressed that in the scale * Of perilous war her weightiest armies fail, Honour is hopeful elevation,-whence Glory, and triumph. Yet with politic skill Endangered States may yield to terms unjust; Stoop their proud heads, but not unto the dust— A Foe's most favourite purpose to fulfil : Happy occasions oft by self-mistrust Are forfeited; but infamy doth kill.
THE martial courage of a day is vain, An empty noise of death the battle's roar, If vital hope be wanting to restore,
Or fortitude be wanting to sustain,
Armies or kingdoms. We have heard a strain Of triumph, how the labouring Danube bore A weight of hostile corses: drenched with gore Were the wide fields, the hamlets heaped with slain.
* A kingdom doth assault, and in the scale.-Edit. 1815.
Yet see (the mighty tumult overpast) Austria a Daughter of her Throne hath sold! And her Tyrolean Champion we behold
Murdered, like one ashore by shipwreck cast, Murdered without relief. Oh! blind as bold, To think that such assurance can stand fast!
BRAVE Schill!* by death delivered, take thy flight From Prussia's timid region. Go, and rest With heroes, 'mid the islands of the Blest, Or in the fields of empyrean light.
A meteor wert thou crossing a dark night : Yet shall thy name, conspicuous and sublime, Stand in the spacious firmament of time, Fixed as a star: such glory is thy right. Alas! it may not be for earthly fame
Is Fortune's frail dependant; yet there lives A Judge, who, as man claims by merit, gives; To whose all-pondering mind a noble aim, Faithfully kept, is as a noble deed;
In whose pure sight all virtue doth succeed.
* Schill was a Prussian Major of Hussars, who made an attempt, even without the commands of his King, for the liberation of his country from the domination of the French. He threw himself into Stralsund, where
fighting he was slain in 1809.
CALL not the royal Swede unfortunate, Who never did to Fortune bend the knee; Who slighted fear; rejected steadfastly Temptation; and whose kingly name and state Have 'perished by his choice, and not his fate!' Hence lives He, to his inner self endeared; And hence, wherever virtue is revered,
He sits a more exalted Potentate,
Throned in the hearts of men.
That this great Servant of a righteous cause Must still have sad or vexing thoughts to endure, Yet may a sympathising spirit pause,
Admonished by these truths, and quench all pain In thankful joy and gratulation pure.
Look now on that Adventurer † who hath paid His vows to Fortune; who, in cruel slight Of virtuous hope, of liberty, and right, Hath followed wheresoe'er a way was made By the blind Goddess,-ruthless, undismayed; And so hath gained at length a prosperous height,
He favored the French Republic, but opposed the pretensions of Napoleon. He was deposed by his subjects in 1809. † Napoleon Buonaparte.
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