5.

O France! beneath this fierce Barbarian's sway Disgraced thou art to all succeding times; Rapine, and blood, and fire have mark'd thy way, All loathsome, all unutterable crimes. A curse is on thee, France! from far and wide It hath gone up to Heaven. All lands have cried For vengeance upon thy detested head! All nations curse thee, France! for wheresoe'er, In peace or war, thy banner hath been spread, All forms of human woe have follow'd there. The Living and the Dead

Cry out alike against thee! They who bear, Crouching beneath its weight, thine iron yoke Join in the bitterness of secret prayer The voice of that innumerable throng, Whose slaughter'd spirits day and night invoke The Everlasting Judge of right and wrong, How long, O Lord! Holy and Just, how long!

6.

A merciless oppressor hast thou been, Thyself remorselessly oppress'd meantime; Greedy of war, when all that thou couldst gain Was but to dye thy soul with deeper crime, And rivet faster round thyself the chain. Oh! blind to honor, and to interest blind, When thus in abject servitude resign'd

To this barbarian upstart, thou couldst brave God's justice, and the heart of human-kind! Madly thou thoughtest to enslave the world,

Thyself the while a miserable slave. Behold, the flag of vengeance is unfurl'd! The dreadful armies of the North advance; While England, Portugal, and Spain combined, Give their triumphant banners to the wind, And stand victorious in the fields of France.

7.

One man hath been for ten long, wretched years The cause of all this blood and all these tears; One man in this most awful point of time Draws on thy danger, as he caused thy crime. Wait not too long the event,

For now whole Europe comes against thee bent; His wiles and their own strength the nations know: Wise from past wrongs, on future peace intent, The People and the Princes, with one mind, From all parts move against the general foe; One act of justice, one atoning blow,

One execrable head laid low, Even yet, O France! averts thy punishment. Open thine eyes!- too long hast thou been blind; Take vengeance for thyself, and for mankind!

8.

France! if thou lovest thine ancient fame, Revenge thy sufferings and thy shame! By the bones which bleach on Jaffa's beach; By the blood which on Domingo's shore Hath clogg'd the carrion-birds with gore; By the flesh which gorged the wolves of Spain, Or stiffen'd on the snowy plain

of frozen Moscovy;

By the bodies, which lie all open to the sky,

Tracking from Elbe to Rhine the Tyrant's flight;
By the widow's and the orphan's cry;

By the childless parent's misery;
By the lives which he hath shed;
By the ruin he hath spread;

By the prayers which rise for curses on his head,—
Redeem, O France! thine ancient fame,

Revenge thy sufferings and thy shame, Open thine eyes!-too long hast thou been blind; Take vengeance for thyself, and for mankind!

9.

By those horrors which the night Witness'd when the torches' light To the assembled murderers show'd Where the blood of Condé flow'd; By thy murder'd Pichegru's fame; By murder'd Wright - an English name; By murder'd Palm's atrocious doom; By murder'd Hofer's martyrdom, — Oh! by the virtuous blood thus vilely spilt, The Villain's own peculiar, private guilt, Open thine eyes!-too long hast thou been blind; Take vengeance for thyself, and for mankind!

Keswick.

ODE,

WRITTEN DURING THE WAR WITH AMERICA, 1814. 1.

WHEN shall the Island Queen of Ocean lay
The thunderbolt aside,

And, twining olives with her laurel crown,
Rest in the Bower of Peace?

2.

Not long may this unnatural strife endure Beyond the Atlantic deep;

Not long may men, with vain ambition drunk,
And insolent in wrong,

Afflict with their misrule the indignant land
Where Washington hath left
His awful memory

A light for after-times!

Vile instruments of fallen Tyranny In their own annals, by their countrymen, For lasting shame shall they be written down. Soon may the better Genius there prevail ! Then will the Island Queen of Ocean lay The thunderbolt aside,

And, twining olives with her laurel crown, Rest in the Bower of Peace.

3.

But not in ignominious ease,
Within the Bower of Peace supine,
The Ocean Queen shall rest!
Her other toils await,

A holier warfare, - nobler victories;
And amaranthine wreaths,
Which, when the laurel crown grows sere,
Will live forever green.

4.

Hear me, O England! rightly may I claim Thy favorable audience, Queen of Isles, My Mother-land revered;

For in the perilous hour, When weaker spirits stood aghast, And reptile tongues, to thy dishonor bold, Spit their dull venom on the public ear, My voice was heard, - a voice of hope, Of confidence and joy,

Yea, of such prophecy

As wisdom to her sons doth aye vouchsafe,
When with pure heart and diligent desire
They seek the fountain springs,
And of the Ages past
Take counsel reverently.

5.

Nobly hast thou stood up

Against the foulest Tyranny that ere,
In elder or in later times,
Hath outraged human-kind.

O glorious England! thou hast borne thyself Religiously and bravely in that strife; And happier victory hath blest thine arms Than, in the days of yore,

Thine own Plantagenets achieved, Or Marlborough, wise in council as in field, Or Wolfe, heroic name.

Now gird thyself for other war; Look round thee, and behold what ills, Remediable and yet unremedied, Afflict man's wretched race! Put on the panoply of faith! Bestir thyself against thine inward foes, Ignorance and Want, with all their brood Of miseries and of crimes.

6.

Powerful thou art: imperial Rome,
When in the Augustan age she closed
The temple of the two-faced God,
Could boast no power like thine.

Less opulent was Spain,

When Mexico her sumless riches sent
To that proud monarchy;

And Hayti's ransack'd caverns gave their gold;
And from Potosi's recent veins
The unabating stream of treasure flow'd.
And blest art thou, above all nations blest,
For thou art Freedom's own beloved Isle !
The light of Science shines
Conspicuous like a beacon on thy shores;
Thy martyrs purchased at the stake
Faith uncorrupt for thine inheritance;
And by thine hearths Domestic Purity,
Safe from the infection of a tainted age,
Hath kept her sanctuaries.

Yet, O dear England! powerful as thou art,
And rich, and wise, and blest,
Yet would I see thee, O my Mother-land!
Mightier and wealthier, wiser, happier still!

7.

For still doth Ignorance Maintain large empire here,

11.

Train up thy children, England! in the ways Of righteousness, and feed them with the bread Of wholesome doctrine. Where hast thou thy

mines

But in their industry?

Thy bulwarks where, but in their breasts?
Thy might, but in their arms?

Shall not their numbers therefore be thy wealth,
Thy strength, thy power, thy safety, and thy pride?
O grief then, grief and shame,

If, in this flourishing land,

There should be dwellings where the new-born babe

Doth bring unto its parents' soul no joy!

Where squalid Poverty

Receives it at its birth,

And on her wither'd knees

Gives it the scanty food of discontent!

12.

Queen of the Seas! enlarge thyself;
Redundant as thou art of life and power,

Be thou the hive of nations,
And send thy swarms abroad!
Send them, like Greece of old,
With arts and science to enrich
The uncultivated earth;

But with more precious gifts than Greece, or Tyre,
Or elder Egypt, to the world bequeath'd —
Just laws, and rightful polity,

And, crowning all, the dearest boon of Heaven,
Its word and will reveal'd.
Queen of the Seas! enlarge

The place of thy pavilion. Let them stretch
The curtains of thine habitations forth;

Spare not; but lengthen thou
Thy cords, make strong thy stakes.

13.

Queen of the Seas! enlarge thyself;

Send thou thy swarms abroad!
For in the years to come,

Though centuries or millenniums intervene,
Where'er thy progeny,

Thy language, and thy spirit shall be found,If on Ontario's shores,

Or late-explored Missouri's pastures wide, Or in that Austral world long sought, The many-isled Pacific,-yea, where waves, Now breaking over coral reefs, affright The venturous mariner,

When islands shall have grown, and cities risen
In cocoa groves embower'd;-
Where'er thy language lives,

By whatsoever name the land be call'd,
That land is English still, and there
Thy influential spirit dwells and reigns.
Thrones fall, and Dynasties are changed;

Empires decay and sink
Beneath their own unwieldy weight;
Dominion passeth like a cloud away :
The imperishable mind
Survives all meaner things.

Rightly mayst thou rejoice,

For in a day of darkness and of storms,
An evil day, a day of woe,
To thee the sceptre feel.
The Continent was leagued,
Its numbers wielded by one will,

Against the mighty Isle ;

All shores were hostile to the Red Cross flag, All ports against it closed;

Save where, behind their ramparts driven,
The Spaniard, and the faithful Portugal,
Each on the utmost limits of his land,
Invincible of heart,

Stood firm, and put their trust
In their good cause and thee.

3.

Such perils menaced from abroad;
At home worse dangers compass'd thee,
Where shallow counsellors,

A weak but clamorous crew,
Pester'd the land, and with their withering breath
Poison'd the public ear.

Enjoy the rich reward, so rightly due, When rescued nations, with one heart and voice,

Thy counsels bless and thee.

Thou, on thine own Firm Island, seest the while,
As if the tales of old Romance
Were but to typify these splendid days,
Princes, and Potentates,

And Chiefs renown'd in arms,
From their great enterprise achieved,
In friendship and in joy collected here.

7.

Rejoice, thou mighty Isle !
Queen of the Seas! rejoice;

For ne'er in elder nor in later times
Have such illustrious guests
Honor'd thy silver shores.

No such assemblage shone in Edward's hall, Nor brighter triumphs graced his glorious reign. Prince of the mighty Isle,

Proud day for thee and for thy kingdoms this! Rightly mayst thou rejoice,

When Britain round her spear

The olive-garland twines, by Victory won.

8.

Yet in the pomp of these festivities
One mournful thought will rise within thy mind—
The thought of Him who sits

In mental as in visual darkness lost.
How had his heart been fill'd
With deepest gratitude to Heaven,

Had he beheld this day!

O King of kings, and Lord of lords,
Thou, who hast visited thus heavily
The anointed head,

Oh! for one little interval,

One precious hour,

Remove the blindness from his soul,

That he may know it all,
And bless thee ere he die.

9.

Thou also shouldst have seen
This harvest of thy hopes,
Thou, whom the guilty act
Of a proud spirit overthrown

Sent to thine early grave in evil hour!
Forget not him, my country, in thy joy;

But let thy grateful hand
With laurel garlands hang

The tomb of Perceval.
Virtuous, and firm, and wise
The Ark of Britain in her darkest day
He steer'd through stormy seas;

And long shall Britain hold his memory dear,
And faithful History give

His meed of lasting praise.

10.

That earthly meed shall his compeers enjoy,

Britain's true counsellors,

Who see with just success their counsels crown'd. They have their triumph now, to him denied;

Proud day for them is this!

Prince of the mighty Isle!

Proud day for them and thee, When Britain round her spear The olive-garland twines, by Victory won.

ODE

TO HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY, ALEXANDER THE FIRST, EMPEROR OF ALL THE RUSSIAS.

1.

CONQUEROR, Deliverer, Friend of human-kind!
The free, the happy Island welcomes thee;
Thee, from thy wasted realms,

So signally revenged;
From Prussia's rescued plains;

From Dresden's field of slaughter, where the ball,
Which struck Moreau's dear life,

Was turn'd from thy more precious head aside;
From Leipsic's dreadful day,
From Elbe, and Rhine, and Seine,
In thy career of conquest overpast;
From the proud Capital

Of haughty France subdued,

Then to her rightful line of Kings restored; Thee, Alexander! thee, the Great, the Good, The Glorious, the Beneficent, the Just, Thee to her honor'd shores

The mighty Island welcomes in her joy.

The soft Italian, lapp'd in luxury, -
Helvetia's mountain sons, of freedom proud, —
The patient Hollander,
Prosperous and warlike then,—
Little thought they that, in that farthest North,
From PETER's race should the Deliverer spring,

Destined by Heaven to save
Art, Learning, Industry,
Beneath the bestial hoof of godless Might
All trampled in the dust.
As little did the French,

Vaunting the power of their Great Monarch then, (His schemes of wide ambition yet uncheck'd,) As little did they think,

That from rude Moscovy the stone should come,
To smite their huge Colossus, which bestrode
The subject Continent;

And from its feet of clay,
Breaking the iron limbs and front of brass,
Strew the rejoicing Nations with the wreck.

3.

Roused as thou wert with insult and with wrong, Who should have blamed thee if, in high-wrought

mood

Of vengeance and the sense of injured power,
Thou from the flames which laid
The City of thy Fathers in the dust,
Hadst bid a spark be brought,
And borne it in thy tent,

Religiously by night and day preserved,
Till on Montmartre's height,
When open to thine arms,
Her last defence o'erthrown,
The guilty city lay,

Thou hadst call'd every Russian of thine host
To light his flambeau at the sacred flame,
And sent them through her streets,
And wrapt her roofs and towers,
Temples and palaces,

Her wealth and boasted spoils,

In one wide flood of fire,
Making the hated Nation feel herself
The miseries she had spread?

4.

Who should have blamed the Conqueror for that

deed?

Yea, rather would not one exulting cry

Have risen from Elbe to Nile,
How is the Oppressor fallen!

Moscow's re-rising walls
Had rung with glad acclaim;
Thanksgiving hymns had fill'd

Tyrol's rejoicing vales;
How is the Oppressor fallen!
The Germans in their grass-grown marts had met
To celebrate the deed;

Holland's still waters had been starr'd
With festive lights, reflected there

From every house and hut,
From every town and tower;

The Iberian and the Lusian's injured realms,
From all their mountain-holds,

From all their ravaged fields,

From cities sack'd, from violated fanes,
And from the sanctuary of every heart,
Had pour'd that pious strain
How is the Oppressor fallen!
Righteous art thou, O Lord!

Thou, Zaragoza, from thy sepulchres
Hadst join'd the hymn; and from thine ashes thou,
Manresa, faithful still!

The blood that calls for vengeance in thy streets, Madrid, and Porto thine,

And that which from the beach Of Tarragona sent its cry to Heaven, Had rested then appeased. Orphans had clapp'd their hands, And widows would have wept exulting tears, And childless parents, with a bitter joy, Have blest the avenging deed.

5.

But thou hadst seen enough

Of horrors, amply hadst avenged mankind.