There be sure was Murat charging!
There he ne'er shall charge again!

IV.

O'er glories gone the invaders march,

Weeps Triumph o'er each levelled arch-
But let Freedom rejoice,

With her heart in her voice;

But, her hand on her sword,

Doubly shall she be adored;

France hath twice too well been taught

The "moral lesson" dearly bought-
Her safety sits not on a throne,

With Capet or Napoleon !

But in equal rights and laws,

Hearts and hands in one great cause—
Freedom, such as God hath given
Unto all beneath his heaven,

With their breath, and from their birth,
Though guilt would sweep it from the earth;
With a fierce and lavish hand

Scattering nations' wealth like sand;

Pouring nations' blood like water,

In imperial seas of slaughter!

V.

But the heart and the mind,

And the voice of mankind,

Shall arise in communion--

And who shall resist that proud union?
The time is past when swords subdued--
Man may die-the soul's renewed:

1.["Write, Britain, write the moral lesson down."

Scott's Field of Waterloo, Conclusion, stanza vi. line 3.]

Even in this low world of care

Freedom ne'er shall want an heir;
Millions breathe but to inherit
Her for ever bounding spirit-
When once more her hosts assemble,
Tyrants shall believe and tremble-
Smile they at this idle threat?
Crimson tears will follow yet.1

[First published, Morning Chronicle, March 15, 1816.]

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

I.

THERE be none of Beauty's daughters

With a magic like thee;

And like music on the waters

Is thy sweet voice to me:
When, as if its sound were causing
The charméd Ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,

And the lulled winds seem dreaming:

1. ["Talking of politics, as Caleb Quotem says, pray look at the conclusion of my 'Ode on Waterloo,' written in the year 1815, and comparing it with the Duke de Berri's catastrophe in 1820, tell me if I have not as good a right to the character of Vates,' in both senses of the word, as Fitzgerald and Coleridge ?—

'Crimson tears will follow yet;'

and have not they?"-Letter to Murray, April 24, 1820.

In the Preface to The Tyrant's Downfall, etc., 1814, W. L. Fitzgerald (see English Bards, etc., line 1, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 297, note 3) "begs leave to refer his reader to the dates of his Napoleonics to prove his legitimate title to the prophetical meaning of Vates" (Cent. Mag., July, 1814, vol. lxxxiv. p. 58). Coleridge claimed to have foretold the restoration of the Bourbons (see Biographia Literaria, cap. x.).]

2.

And the midnight Moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep;
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep :

So the spirit bows before thee,

To listen and adore thee;

With a full but soft emotion,

Like the swell of Summer's ocean.

March 28 [1816].

[First published, Poems, 1816.]

ON THE STAR OF "THE LEGION OF

HONOUR." 1

[FROM THE FRENCH.]

I.

STAR of the brave !-whose beam hath shed

Such glory o'er the quick and dead—

Thou radiant and adored deceit !

Which millions rushed in arms to greet,—

Wild meteor of immortal birth!

Why rise in Heaven to set on Earth?

2.

Souls of slain heroes formed thy rays;
Eternity flashed through thy blaze;
The music of thy martial sphere

Was fame on high and honour here;

1. ["The Friend who favoured us with the following lines, the poetical spirit of which wants no trumpet of ours, is aware that they imply more than an impartial observer of the late period might feel, and are written rather as by Frenchman than Englishman ;-but certainly, neither he nor any lover of liberty can help feeling and regretting that in the latter time, at any rate, the symbol he speaks of was once more comparatively identified with the cause of Freedom."-Examiner, April 7, 1816.]

ON THE STAR OF THE LEGION OF HONOUR." 437

And thy light broke on human eyes,
Like a Volcano of the skies.

3.

Like lava rolled thy stream of blood,
And swept down empires with its flood;
Earth rocked beneath thee to her base,
As thou didst lighten through all space;
And the shorn Sun grew dim in air,
And set while thou wert dwelling there.

4.

Before thee rose, and with thee grew,
A rainbow of the loveliest hue

Of three bright colours,1 each divine,
And fit for that celestial sign;

For Freedom's hand had blended them,
Like tints in an immortal gem.

5.

One tint was of the sunbeam's dyes;
One, the blue depth of Seraph's eyes;
One, the pure Spirit's veil of white
Had robed in radiance of its light:
The three so mingled did beseem
The texture of a heavenly dream.

6.

Star of the brave! thy ray is pale,
And darkness must again prevail !
But, oh thou Rainbow of the free!
Our tears and blood must flow for thee.
When thy bright promise fades away,
Our life is but a load of clay.

1. The tricolor.

7.

And Freedom hallows with her tread
The silent cities of the dead;
For beautiful in death are they
Who proudly fall in her array;
And soon, oh, Goddess! may we be
For evermore with them or thee!

[First published, Examiner, April 7, 1816.j

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

I.

THEY say that Hope is happiness;

But genuine Love must prize the past, And Memory wakes the thoughts that bless: They rose the first-they set the last;

II.

And all that Memory loves the most
Was once our only Hope to be,
And all that Hope adored and lost
Hath melted into Memory.

III.

Alas! it is delusion all:

The future cheats us from afar,

Nor can we be what we recall,

Nor dare we think on what we are.

[First published, Fugitive Pieces, 1829.]