If vital hope be wanting to restore,
Or fortitude be wanting to sustain,
Armies or kingdoms. We have heard a strain
Of trinmph, how the labouring Danube bore
A weight of hostile corses: drench'd with gore
Were the wide fields, the hamlets heap'd with slain.
Yet sec, (the mighty tumult overpast,)
Austria a Daughter of her Throne hath sold!
And her Tyrolean Champion we behold
Murder'd, like one ashore by shipwreck cast,
Murder'd without relief.* O, blind as bold,
To think that such assurance can stand fast!

Brave Schill! by death deliver'd, 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,

Fix'd 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.

Look now on that Adventurer who hath paid
His vows to Fortune ; who, in cruel slight
Of virtuous hope, of liberty, and right,
Hath follow'd wheresoe'er a way was made
By the blind Goddess, — rnthless, undismay'd ;
And so hath gain'd at length a prosperous height,
Round which the elements of worldly might
Beneath his haughty feet, like clonds, are laid.
O, joyless power that stands by lawless force!

6 The gentle anil heroic Hoffer was at last betrayed, captured, and brought to a court-martial; and Napoleon, on learning that the court would not convict him.eenta peremptoiy order for him to be pnt to death within twenty-four hours. A most mean and execrable murder I

6 Schill waa a Prussian colonel, and something of a poet withal, whose patriotic songs did much to rekindle the old national spirit in his countrymen. While Napoleon was holding Prussia under his feet year alter year, and was fleecing, skinning. and plucking her t.. the very bone, lie gathered a band of patriots abont him, and in l80!l prematurely headed an insurrection against the oppressors. A French army being sent against him, he took refuge in Straslund. There he was besieged, and the result was yet doubtful, when he was killed, and his heroic band, left withont a leader, soon dispersed.

Curses arc his dire portion, scorn, and hate,
Internal darkness and unquiet breath ;
And, if old judgments keep their saered course,
Him from that height shall Heaven precipitate
By violent and ignominious death.

1810.

Ah! where is Palafox? Nor tongue nor pen
Reports of him, his dwelling or his grave!
Does yet th' unheard-of vessel ride the wave?
Or is she swallow'd up, remote from ken
Of pitying human-nature ? Once again
Methinks that we shall hail thee, Champion bravo,
Redcem'd to baffle that imperial Slave,
And through all Europe cheer desponding men
With new-born hope. Unbounded is the might
Of martyrdom, and fortitude, and right.
Hark, how thy Country triumphs! — Smilingly
Th' Eternal looks upon her sword that gleams,
Like His own lightning, over mountains high,
On rampart, and the banks of all her streams.1

INDIGNATION OF A HIGH-MINDED SPANIARD. 1810.

We can endure that He should waste our lands,

Despoil our temples, and by sword and flame

Return us to the dust from which we came;

Such food a Tyrant's appetite demands:

And we can brook the thought that by his hands

Spain may be overpower'd, and he possess,

For his delight, a solemn wilderness

Where all the brave lie dead. But, when of bands

Which he will break for us he dares to speak,

Of benefits, and of a future day

When our cnlighten'd minds shall bless his sway;9

Then, the strain'd heart of fortitude proves weak ;

Our groans, our blushes, our pale cheeks declare

That he has power to inflict what we lack strength to bear.

1 Don Joseph Palafox was a Spanish nobleman, and one of the few men in his class who were then a eredit to it^ He held the chief command in Saragossa during the siege of that place; at the time of the surrender he was sick almost unto death; and as soon as he was able to travel he was conducted a close prisoner into France, and there lost sight of. Jones, in his Sieges of the J'eninsula, says that, "while heroin selt-devotion, unshaken loyalty, and exalted patriotism are held in estimation among mankind, the name of Palafox, blended with that of Saragossa, will be immortal"

8 While Napoleon was holding Spain by the throat, and harrowing her people with all the calamities of a war treacherously begun and madly prosecuted, he etill fcried to conciliate them with promises of freedom and enlightenment, ami a good ". generally.

AVaunt all specious pliancy of mind

In men of low degree, all smooth pretence!

I better like a blunt indifference,

And self-respecting slowness, disinclined

To win me at first sight: and be there join'd

Patience and temperance with this high reserve,

Honour that knows the path and will not swerve;

Affections, which, if put to proof, are kind ;

And piety towards God. Such men of old

Were England's native growth; and, throughout Spain,

(Thanks to high God!) forests of such remain:

Then for that Country let our hopes be bold;

For mateh'd with these shall policy prove vain,

Her arts, her strength, her iron, and her gold.

1810.

O'erweening Statesmen have full long relied

On fleets and armies, and external wealth:

But from within proceeds a Nation's health;

Which shall not fail, though poor men cleave with pride

To the paternal floor; or turn aside,

In the throng'd city, from the walks of gain,

As being all unworthy to detain

A Soul by contemplation sanctified.

There are who cannot languish in this strife,—

Spaniards of every rank, by whom the good

Of such high course was felt and understood;

Who to their Country's canse have bound a life

Erewhile, by solemn conseeration, given

To labour and to prayer, to Nature and to Heaven.

1811.

The power of Armies is a visible thing,
Formal, and circumseribed in time and space;
But who the limits of that power shall trace
Which a brave People into light can bring
Or hide, at will, — for freedom combating
By just revenge inflamed ? No foot may chase,
No eye can follow, to a fatal place
That power, that spirit, whether on the wing
Like the strong wind, or sleeping like the wmd
Within its awful caves.— From year to year
Springs this indigenous produce far and near;
No eraft this subtle element can bind,
Rising like water from the soil, to find
In every nook a lip that it may cheer.

1811.

Here pause: the poet claims at least this praise,

That virtuous Liberty hath been the scope

Of his pure song, which did not shrink from hope

In the worst moment of these evil days;

From hope, the paramount duty that Heaven lays,

For its own honour, on man's suffering heart.

Never may from our souls one truth depart, —

That an accursed thing it is to gaze

On prosperous tyrants with a dazzled eye;

Nor—touch'd with due abhorrence of their guilt

For whose dire ends tears flow, and blood is spilt,

And justice labours in extremity —

Forget thy weakness, upon which is built,

O wretched man, the throne of tyranny!

TEE FRENCH ABMY IN RUSSIA. 1812-13.

Humanity, delighting to behold
A fond reflection of her own decay,
Hath painted Winter like a traveller old,
Propp'd on a staff, and, through the sullen day,
In hooded mantle, limping o'er the plain,
As though his weakness were disturb'd by pain:
Or, if a juster fancy should allow
An undisputed symbol of command,
The chosen sceptre is a wither'd bough,
Infirmly grasp'd within a palsied hand.
These emblems suit the helpless and forlorn;
But mighty Winter the device shall scorn.

For he it was — dread Winter! — who beset,

Flinging round van and rear his ghastly net,

That host, when from the regions of the Pole

They shrunk, insane ambition's barren goal,—

That host, as huge and strong as e'er defied

Their God, and placed their trust in human pride I

As fathers persecute rebellious sons,

He smote the blossoms of their warrior youth;

He call'd on Frost's inexorable tooth

Life to consume in Manhood's firmest hold;

Nor spared the reverend blood that feebly runs;

For why,—unless for liberty cnroll'd

And saered home, — ah! why should hoary Age be bold f

Flnet the Tartar's reinless steed,
But neeter far the pinions of the Wind,
Which from Siberian caves the Monarch freed,
And sent him forth, with squadrons of his kind,
And bade the Snow their ample backs bestride,

And to the battle ride.
No pitying voice commands a halt,
No courage can repel the dire assault:
Distracted, spiritless, benumb'd. and blind,
Whole legions sink, and in one instant find
Burial and death: look for them, — and descry,
When morn returns, beneath the clear blue sky,
A soundless waste, a trackless vacancy!

Ye Storms, resound the praises of your King!

And ye mild Seasons, — in a sunny clime,

Midway on some high hill, while father Time

Looks on delighted, — meet in festal ring,

And loud and long of Winter's triumph sing!

Sing ye, with blossoms erown'd, and fruits, and flowers,

Of Winter's breath surcharged with sloety showers,

And the dire flapping of his hoary wing!

Knit the blithe dance upon the soft green grass;

With feet, hands, eyes, looks, lips, report your gain;

Whisper it to the billows of the main,

And to th' aerial zephyrs as they pass,

That old deerepit Winter — He hath slain

That Host which render'd all your bounties vain!

By Moscow self-devoted to a blaze

Of dreadful saerifice; by Russiau blood

Lavish'd in fight with desperate hardihood;

Th' unfeeling Elements no claim shall raise

To rob our Human-nature of just praise

For what she did and suffer'd. Pledges sure

Of a deliverance absolute and pure

She gave, if Faith might tread the beaten ways

Of Providence. But now did the Most High

Exalt His still small voice; — to quell that Host,

Gather'd His power, a manifest ally ;

He, whose heap'd waves confounded the proud boast

Of Pharaoh, said to Famine, Snow, and Frost,

" Finish the strife by deadliest victory!"

OCCASIONED BY THE BATTLE OF 'WATERLOO. FEBRUARY, 181tf

The Bard whose soul is meek as dawning day,
Yet train'd to judgments righteously severe,