The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow; The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear; Mountains above, Earth's, Ocean's plain below, Death in the front, Destruction in the rear! Such was the scene-what now remaineth here? What sacred trophy marks the hallow'd ground, Recording freedom's smile, and Asia's tear? The rifled urn, the violated mound,
Oh! ever loving, lovely, and beloved! How selfish Sorrow ponders on the past, And clings to thoughts now better far removed! But Time shall tear thy shadow from me last. [hast. All thou couldst have of mine, stern Death! thou The parent, friend, and now the more than friend; Ne'er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast, And grief with grief continuing still to blend,
The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger! spurns Hath snatch'd the little joy that life had yet to lend.
Within a window'd niche of that high hall Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain; he did hear That sound the first amidst the festival, And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear; And when they smiled because he deem'd it near, His heart more truly knew that peal too well Which stretch'd his father on a bloody bier, And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell:
Stop!-For thy tread is on an Empire's dust! An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below! Is the spot mark'd with no colossal bust? Nor column trophied for triumphal show? None; but the moral's truth tells simpler so, As the ground was before, thus let it be ;- How that red rain hath made the harvest grow! And is this all the world has gain'd by thee, Thou first and last of fields! king-making Victory? He rush'd into the field, and, foremost fighting fell,
Even as a broken mirror, which the glass In every fragment multiplies; and makes A thousand images of one that was,
The same, and still the more, the more it breaks; And thus the heart will do which not forsakes, Living in shatter'd guise, and still, and cold, And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches, Yet withers on till all without is old,
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold Showing no visible sign, for such things are untold.
There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men, Whose spirit antithetically mixt
One moment of the mightiest, and again On little objects with like firmness fixt, Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt, Thy throne had still been thine, or never been; For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'st Even now to reassume the imperial mien,
But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell, And there hath been thy bane; there is a fire And motion of the soul which will not dwell In its own narrow being, but aspire Beyond the fitting medium of desire; And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire Of aught but rest; a fever at the core,
And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore.
Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou! She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame, Who woo'd thee once, thy vassal, and became The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert A god unto thyself; nor less the same To the astounded kingdoms all inert,
This makes the madmen who have made men mad By their contagion; Conquerors and Kings, Founders of sects and systems, to whom add Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs, And are themselves the fools to those they fool; Envied, yet how unenviable! what stings Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school
Who deem'd thee for a time whate'er thou didst Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine or
Oh, more or less than man-in high or low, Battling with nations, flying from the field; Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield; An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild, But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor, However deeply in men's spirits skill'd, Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war, Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star.
Yet well thy soul hath brook'd the turning tide, With that untaught innate philosophy, Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride, Is gall and wormwood to an enemy.
When the whole host of hatred stood hard by, To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast With a sedate and all-enduring eye;- [smiled When Fortune fled her spoil'd and favorite child, He stood unbow'd beneath the ills upon him piled.
Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them Ambition steel'd thee on too far to show That just habitual scorn which could contemn Men and their thoughts; 'twas wise to feel, not so
To wear it ever on thy lip and brow, And spurn the instruments thou wert to use, Till they were turn'd unto thine overthrow:
"Tis but a worthless world to win or lose;
Their breath is agitation, and their life A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife, That should their days, surviving perils past, Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast With sorrow aud supineness, and so die; Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously. With its own flickering, or a sword laid by,
He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind, Must look down on the hate of those below. Though high above the sun of glory glow, And far beneath the earth and occan spread, Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow And thus reward the toils which to those summits Contending tempests on his naked head,
Away with these! true Wisdom's world will be Within its own creation, or in thine, Maternal Nature! for who teems like thee, Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine? There Harold gazes on a work divine,
A blending of all beauties; streams and dells, Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain,
And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells
So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly
For sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den!? And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow.
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