A prowling wolf, whose shaggy skin(So strict the watch of dogs had been)Hid little but his bones,Once met a mastiff dog astray.A prouder, fatter, sleeker TrayNo human mortal owns.Sir Wolf, in famished plight,Would fain have made a rationUpon his fat relation:But then he first must fight;And well the dog seemed ableTo save from wolfish tableHis carcass snug and tight.So then in civil conversationThe wolf expressed his admirationOf Tray's fine case. Said Tray politely,"Yourself, good sir, may be as sightly;Quit but the woods, advised by me:For all your fellows here, I see,Are shabby wretches, lean and gaunt,Belike to die of haggard want.With such a pack, of course it follows,One fights for every bit he swallows.Come then with me, and shareOn equal terms our princely fare.""But what with youHas one to do?"Inquires the wolf. "Light work indeed,"Replies the dog: "you only needTo bark a little now and then,To chase off duns and beggar-men,To fawn on friends that come or go forth,Your master please, and so forth;For which you have to eatAll sorts of well-cooked meat—Cold pullets, pigeons, savory messes—Besides unnumbered fond caresses."The wolf, by force of appetite,Accepts the terms outright,Tears glistened in his eyes;But faring on, he spiesA galled spot on the mastiff's neck."What's that?" he cries. "Oh, nothing but a speck.""A speck?"—"Ay, ay: 'tis not enough to pain me:Perhaps the collar's mark by which they chain me.""Chain! chain you! What! run you not, then,Just where you please and when?""Not always, sir; but what of that?""Enough for me, to spoil your fat!It ought to be a precious priceWhich could to servile chains entice;For me, I'll shun them while I've wit."So ran Sir Wolf, and runneth yet.
From the French of JEAN DE LA FONTAINE.
Translation of ELIZUR WRIGHT.
* * * * *
Friends!I come not here to talk. Ye know too wellThe story of our thraldom. We are slaves!The bright sun rises to his course, and lightsA race of slaves! he sets, and his last beamFalls on a slave! Not such as, swept alongBy the full tide of power, the conqueror leadsTo crimson glory and undying fame,But base, ignoble slaves!—slaves to a hordeOf petty tyrants, feudal despots; lordsRich in some dozen paltry villages,Strong in some hundred spearmen, only greatIn that strange spell,—a name! Each hour, dark fraud,Or open rapine, or protected murder,Cries out against them. But this very dayAn honest man, my neighbor (pointing toPAOLO),—there he stands,—Was struck—struck like a dog—by one who woreThe badge of Ursini! because, forsooth,He tossed not high his ready cap in air,Nor lifted up his voice in servile shouts,At sight of that great ruffian! Be we men,And suffer such dishonor? men, and wash notThe stain away in blood? Such shames are common.I have known deeper wrongs. I, that speak to ye,I had a brother once, a gracious boy,Full of all gentleness, of calmest hope,Of sweet and quiet joy; there was the lookOf Heaven upon his face which limners giveTo the beloved disciple. How I lovedThat gracious boy! younger by fifteen years,Brother at once and son! He left my side;A summer bloom on his fair cheeks, a smileParting his innocent lips. In one short hourThe pretty, harmless boy was slain! I sawThe corse, the mangled corse, and then I criedFor vengeance! Rouse ye, Romans! Rouse ye, slaves!Have ye brave sons?—Look in the next fierce brawlTo see them die! Have ye fair daughters?—LookTo see them live, torn from your arms, distained.Dishonored; and, if ye dare call for justice,Be answered by the lash! Yet this is Rome,That sat on her seven hills, and from her throneOf beauty ruled the world! Yet we are Romans!Why, in that elder day, to be a RomanWas greater than a king! And once again—Hear me, ye walls, that echoed to the treadOf either Brutus!—once again, I swear,The eternal city shall be free; her sons shall walk with princes.
* * * * *
Clime of the unforgotten brave!Whose land, from plain to mountain-cave,Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave!Shrine of the mighty! can it beThat this is all remains of thee?Approach, thou craven, crouching slave;Say, is not this Thermopylae?These waters blue that round you lave,O servile offspring of the free,—Pronounce what sea, what shore is this?The gulf, the rock of Salamis!These scenes, their story not unknown,Arise, and make again your own;Snatch from the ashes of your siresThe embers of their former fires;And he who in the strife expiresWill add to theirs a name of fearThat Tyranny shall quake to hear,And leave his sons a hope, a fame,They too will rather die than shame;For Freedom's battle once begun,Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,Though baffled oft is ever won.Hear witness, Greece, thy living page;Attest it, many a deathless age:While kings, in dusty darkness hid,Have left a nameless pyramid,Thy heroes, though the general doomHath swept the column from their tomb,A mightier monument command,The mountains of their native land!There points thy Muse to stranger's eyeThe graves of those that cannot die!'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace,Each step from splendor to disgrace:Enough,—no foreign foe could quellThy soul, till from itself it fell;Yes! self-abasement paved the wayTo villain-bonds and despot sway.
What can he tell who treads thy shore?No legend of thine olden time,No theme on which the Muse might soar,High as thine own in days of yore,When man was worthy of thy clime.The hearts within thy valleys bred,The fiery souls that might have ledThy sons to deeds sublime,Now crawl from cradle to the grave,Slaves—nay, the bondsmen of a slave,And callous save to crime.
* * * * *
Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth!Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great!Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth,And long-accustomed bondage uncreate?Not such thy sons who whilom did await,The hopeless warriors of a willing doom,In bleak Thermopylæ's sepulchral strait,—O, who that gallant spirit shall resume,Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb?
Spirit of Freedom! when on Phyle's browThou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train,Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour which nowDims the green beauties of thine Attic plain?Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain,But every earle can lord it o'er thy land;Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain,Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand,From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmanned.
In all save form alone, how changed! and whoThat marks the fire still sparkling in each eye,Who but would deem their bosoms burned anewWith thy unquenched beam, lost liberty!And many dream withal the hour is nighThat gives them back their fathers' heritage;For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh,Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage,Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful page.
Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not,Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?By their right arms the conquest must be wrought?Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye? No!True, they may lay your proud despoilers low,But not for you will Freedom's altars flame.Shades of the Helots! triumph o'er your foe!Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same;Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thy years of shame!
And yet how lovely in thine age of woe,Land of lost gods and godlike men, art thou!Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow,Proclaim thee Nature's varied favorite now.Thy fanes, thy temples to thy surface bow,Commingling slowly with heroic earth.Broke by the share of every rustic plough:So perish monuments of mortal birth.So perish all in turn, save well-recorded worth;
Save where some solitary column mournsAbove its prostrate brethren of the cave;Save where Tritonia's airy shrine adornsColonna's cliff, and gleams along the wave;Save o'er some warrior's half-forgotten grave,Where the gray stones and long-neglected grassAges, but not oblivion, feebly brave,While strangers only not regardless pass,Lingering like me, perchance, to gaze, and sigh"Alas!"
Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild,Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields,Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled,And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields;There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds,The free-born wanderer of thy mountain air;Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds,Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare:Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.
Where'er we tread, 'tis haunted, holy ground;No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould,But one vast realm of wonder spreads around,And all the Muse's tales seem truly told,Till the sense aches with gazing to beholdThe scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon:Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold,Defies the power which crushed thy temples gone:Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon.
* * * * *
The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!Where burning Sappho loved and sung,Where grew the arts of war and peace,Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!Eternal summer gilds them yet;But all, except their sun, is set.
The Scian and the Teian muse,The hero's harp, the lover's lute,Have found the fame your shores refuse;Their place of birth alone is muteTo sounds which echo further westThan your sires' Islands of the Blest.
The mountains look on Marathon,And Marathon looks on the sea:And musing there an hour alone,I dreamed that Greece might still be free;For, standing on the Persians' grave,I could not deem myself a slave.
A king sat on the rocky browWhich looks o'er sea-born Salamis;And ships, by thousands, lay below,And men in nations—all were his!He counted them at break of day—And when the sun set, where were they?
And where are they? and where art thou,My country? On thy voiceless shoreThe heroic lay is tuneless now,The heroic bosom beats no more!And must thy lyre, so long divine,Degenerate into hands like mine?
'Tis something in the dearth of fame,Though linked among a fettered race,To feel at least a patriot's shame,Even as I sing, suffuse my face;For what is left the poet here?For Greeks a blush—for Greece a tear.
Must we but weep o'er days more blest?Must we but blush? Our fathers bled.Earth! render back from out thy breastA remnant of our Spartan dead!Of the three hundred grant but three,To make a new Thermopylae!
What! silent still? and silent all?Ah no!—the voices of the deadSound like a distant torrent's fall,And answer, "Let one living head,But one, arise—we come, we come!"'Tis but the living who are dumb.
In vain,—in vain; strike other chords;Fill high the cup with Samian wine!Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,And shed the blood of Scio's vine!Hark! rising to the ignoble call,How answers each bold Bacchanal!
You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,—Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?Of two such lessons, why forgetThe nobler and the manlier one?You have the letters Cadmus gave,—Think ye he meant them for a slave?
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!We will not think of themes like these!It made Anacreon's song divine:He served, but served Polycrates,—A tyrant; but our masters thenWere still, at least, our countrymen.
The tyrant of the ChersoneseWas freedom's best and bravest friend;That tyrant was Miltiades!O that the present hour would lendAnother despot of the kind!Such chains as his were sure to bind.
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!On Suli's rock and Parga's shoreExists the remnant of a lineSuch as the Doric mothers bore;And there perhaps some seed is sownThe Heracleidan blood might own.
Trust not for freedom to the Franks,—They have a king who buys and sells:In native swords, and native ranks,The only hope of courage dwells;But Turkish force, and Latin fraud,Would break your shield, however broad.
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!Our virgins dance beneath the shade,—see their glorious black eyes shine;But, gazing on each glowing maid,My own the burning tear-drop laves,To think such breasts must suckle slaves.
Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,Where nothing, save the waves and I,May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;There, swan-like, let me sing and die.A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine,—Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!
* * * * *
When Love with unconfinèd wingsHovers within my gates,And by divine Althea bringsTo whisper at my grates;When I lie tangled in her hairAnd fettered with her eye,The birds that wanton in the airKnow no such liberty.
When flowing cups pass swiftly roundWith no allaying Thames,Our careless heads with roses crowned,Our hearts with loyal flames;When thirsty grief in wine we steep,When healths and draughts go free,Fishes that tipple in the deepKnow no such liberty.
When, like committed linnets, IWith shriller throat shall singThe mercy, sweetness, majestyAnd glories of my King;When I shall voice aloud, how goodHe is, how great should be,Enlargèd winds that curl the floodKnow no such liberty.
Stone walls do not a prison make,Nor iron bars a cage;Minds innocent and quiet takeThat for an hermitage:If I have freedom in my love,And in my soul am free,Angels alone, that soar above,Enjoy such liberty.
* * * * *
O for a lodge in some vast wilderness,Some boundless contiguity of shade,Where rumor of oppression and deceit,Of unsuccessful or successful war,Might never reach me more! My ear is pained,My soul is sick, with every day's reportOf wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.There is no flush in man's obdurate heart;It does not feel for man; the natural bondOf brotherhood is served as the flax,That falls asunder at the touch of fire.He finds his fellow guilty of a skinNot colored like his own, and, having powerTo enforce the wrong, for such a worthy causeDooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.Lands intersected by a narrow frithAbhor each other. Mountains interposedMake enemies of nations, who had elseLike kindred drops been mingled into one.Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys;And, worse than all, and most to be deploredAs human nature's broadest, foulest blot,Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweatWith stripes, that Mercy, with a bleeding heart,Weeps, when she sees inflicted on a beast.Then what is man? And what man, seeing this,And having human feelings, does not blush,And hang his head, to think himself a man?I would not have a slave to till my ground,To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,And tremble when I wake, for all the wealthThat sinews bought and sold have ever earned.No; dear as freedom is, and in my heart'sJust estimation prized above all price,I had much rather be myself the slave,And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.We have no slaves at home.—Then why abroad?And they themselves, once ferried o'er the waveThat parts us, are emancipate and loosed.Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungsReceive our air, that moment they are free;They touch our country, and their shackles fall.That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proudAnd jealous of the blessing. Spread it then,And let it circulate through every veinOf all your empire; that, where Britain's powerIs felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.
* * * * *
[After the English Revolution of 1688, all bishops were compelled toswear allegiance to William and Mary. Seven of them, adherents ofJames II., refused and were imprisoned for treason,—the "Non-Jurors."Trelawney of Cornwall was one.]
A good sword and a trusty hand,A merry heart and true,King James's men shall understandWhat Cornish lads can do.And have they fixed the where and when,And shall Trelawney die?Then twenty thousand Cornish menWill know the reason why.What! will they scorn Tre, Pol, and Pen?And shall Trelawney die?Then twenty thousand under groundWill know the reason why.
Out spake the captain brave and bold,A merry wight was he:"Though London's Tower were Michael's hold,We'll set Trelawney free.We'll cross the Tarnar hand to hand,The Exe shall be no stay;We'll side by side from strand to strand,And who shall bid us nay?What! will they scorn Tre, Pol, and Pen?And shall Trelawney die?Then twenty thousand Cornish menWill know the reason why.
"And when we come to London wallWe'll shout with it in view,'Come forth, come forth, ye cowards all!We're better men than you!Trelawney, he's in keep and hold,Trelawney, he may die;But here's twenty thousand Cornish boldWill know the reason why!'What! will they scorn Tre, Pol, and Pen?And shall Trelawney die?Then twenty thousand under groundWill know the reason why."
* * * * *
The harp that once through Tara's hallsThe soul of music shed,Now hangs as mute on Tara's wallsAs if that soul were fled.So sleeps the pride of former days,So glory's thrill is o'er,And hearts that once beat high for praiseNow feel that pulse no more!
No more to chiefs and ladies brightThe harp of Tara swells;The chord alone that breaks at nightIts tale of ruin tells.Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,The only throb she givesIs when some heart indignant breaks,To show that still she lives.
* * * * *
As by the shore, at break of day,A vanquished chief expiring lay,Upon the sands, with broken sword,He traced his farewell to the free;And there the last unfinished wordHe dying wrote, was "Liberty!"
At night a sea-bird shrieked the knellOf him who thus for freedom fell:The words he wrote, ere evening came,Were covered by the sounding sea;—So pass away the cause and nameOf him who dies for liberty!
* * * * *
When freedom from her home was driven,'Mid vine-clad vales of Switzerland,She sought the glorious Alps of heaven,And there, 'mid cliffs by lightnings riven,Gathered her hero-band.
And still outrings her freedom-song,Amid the glaciers sparkling there,At Sabbath bell, as peasants throngTheir mountain fastnesses along,Happy, and free as air.
The hills were made for freedom; theyBreak at a breath the tyrant's rod;Chains clank in valleys; there the preyWrithes 'neath Oppression's heel alway:Hills bow to none but God!
* * * * *
Once Switzerland was free! With what a prideI used to walk these hills,—look up to heaven,And bless God that it was so! It was freeFrom end to end, from cliff to lake 'twas free!Free as our torrents are, that leap our rocks,And plough our valleys, without asking leave;Or as our peaks, that wear their caps of snowIn very presence of the regal sun!How happy was I in it then! I lovedIts very storms. Ay, often have I satIn my boat at night, when, midway o'er the lake,The stars went out, and down the mountain gorgeThe wind came roaring,—I have sat and eyedThe thunder breaking from his cloud, and smiledTo see him shake his lightnings o'er my head,And think—I had no master save his own!
* * * * *
[Battle of Sempach, fourteenth century.]
"Make way for Liberty!"—he cried;Made way for Liberty, and died!In arms the Austrian phalanx stood,A living wall, a human wood!A wall, where every conscious stoneSeemed to its kindred thousands grown;A rampart all assaults to bear,Till time to dust their frames should wear;A wood like that enchanted groveIn which with fiends Rinaldo strove,Where every silent tree possessedA spirit prisoned in its breast,Which the first stroke of coming strifeWould startle into hideous life:So dense, so still, the Austrians stood,A living wall, a human wood!Impregnable their front appears,All horrent with projected spears,Whose polished points before them shine,From flank to flank, one brilliant line,Bright as the breakers' splendors runAlong the billows to the sun.
Opposed to these, a hovering bandContended for their native land:Peasants, whose new-found strength had brokeFrom manly necks the ignoble yoke,And forged their fetters into swords,On equal terms to fight their lords,And what insurgent rage had gainedIn many a mortal fray maintained:Marshalled once more at Freedom's call,They came to conquer or to fall,Where he who conquered, he who fell,Was deemed a dead, or living, Tell!Such virtues had that patriot breathed,So to the soil his soul bequeathed,That wheresoe'er his arrows flewHeroes in his own likeness grew,And warriors sprang from every sodWhich his awakening footstep trod.
And now the work of life and deathHung on the passing of a breath;The fire of conflict burned within,The battle trembled to begin:Yet, while the Austrians held their ground,Point for attack was nowhere found;Where'er the impatient Switzers gazed,The unbroken line of lances blazed:That line 'twere suicide to meet,And perish at their tyrants' feet,—How could they rest within their graves,And leave their homes the homes of slaves?Would they not feel their children treadWith clanging chains above their head?
It must not be: this day, this hour,Annihilates the oppressor's power;All Switzerland is in the field,She will not fly, she cannot yield,—She must not fall; her better fateHere gives her an immortal date.Few were the numbers she could boast;But every freeman was a host,And felt as though himself were heOn whose sole arm hung victory.
It did depend ononeindeed;Behold him,—Arnold Winkelried!There sounds not to the trump of fameThe echo of a nobler name.
Unmarked he stood amid the throng,In rumination deep and long,Till you might see, with sudden grace,The very thought come o'er his face,And by the motion of his formAnticipate the bursting storm,And by the uplifting of his browTell where the bolt would strike, and how.
But ' twas no sooner thought than done,The field was in a moment won:—
"Make way for Liberty!" he cried,Then ran, with arms extended wide,As if his dearest friend to clasp;Ten spears he swept within his grasp.
"Make way for Liberty!" he cried;Their keen points met from side to side;He bowed amongst them like a tree,And thus made way for Liberty.
Swift to the breach his comrades fly;"Make way for Liberty!" they cry,And through the Austrian phalanx dart,As rushed the spears through Arnold's heart;While, instantaneous as his fall,Rout, ruin, panic, scattered all:An earthquake could not overthrowA city with a surer blow.
Thus Switzerland again was free;Thus Death made way for Liberty!
* * * * *
O sacred Truth! thy triumph ceased awhile,And Hope, thy sister, ceased with thee to smile,When leagued Oppression poured to Northern warsHer whiskered pandours and her fierce hussars,Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn,Pealed her loud drum, and twanged her trumpet horn;Tumultuous horror brooded o'er her van,Presaging wrath to Poland—and to man!Warsaw's last champion from her height surveyed,Wide o'er the fields, a waste of ruin laid;"O Heaven!" he cried, "my bleeding country save!—Is there no hand on high to shield the brave?Yet, though destruction sweep these lovely plains,Rise, fellow-men! our country yet remains!By that dread name, we wave the sword on high,And swear for her to live—with her to die!"He said, and on the rampart-heights arrayedHis trusty warriors, few, but undismayed;Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form,Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm;Low murmuring sounds along their banners fly,Revenge, or death,—the watchword and reply;Then pealed the notes, omnipotent to charm,And the loud tocsin tolled their last alarm!—In vain, alas! in vain, ye gallant few!From rank to rank your volleyed thunder flew:—O, bloodiest picture in the book of Time!Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime;Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe,Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe!Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear,Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career;Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell,And Freedom shrieked—as Kosciusko fell!
* * * * *
Ye sons of freedom, wake to glory!Hark! hark! what myriads bid you rise!Your children, wives, and grandsires hoary,Behold their tears and hear their cries!Shall hateful tyrants, mischiefs breeding,With hireling hosts, a ruffian band,Affright and desolate the land,While peace and liberty lie bleeding?To arms! to arms! ye brave!The avenging sword unsheathe;March on! march on! all hearts resolvedOn victory or death.
Now, now the dangerous storm is rolling,Which treacherous kings confederate raise;The dogs of war, let loose, are howling,And lo! our fields and cities blaze;And shall we basely view the ruin,While lawless force, with guilty stride,Spreads desolation far and wide,With crimes and blood his hands imbruing?To arms! to arms! ye brave, etc.
O Liberty! can man resign thee,Once having felt thy generous flame?Can dungeons, bolts, or bars confine thee?Or whips thy noble spirit tame?Too long the world has wept, bewailingThat falsehood's dagger tyrants wield,But freedom is our sword and shield,And all their arts are unavailing.To arms! to arms! ye brave, etc.
From the French of CLAUDE JOSEPH ROUGET DE LISLE.
* * * * *
Her hair was tawny with gold, her eyes with purple were dark,Her cheeks' pale opal burnt with a red and restless spark.
Never was lady of Milan nobler in name and in race;Never was lady of Italy fairer to see in the face.
Never was lady on earth more true as woman and wife,Larger in judgment and instinct, prouder in manners and life.
She stood in the early morning, and said to her maidens, "BringThat silken robe made ready to wear at the court of the king.
"Bring me the clasps of diamonds, lucid, clear of the mote,Clasp me the large at the waist, and clasp me the small at the throat.
"Diamonds to fasten the hair, and diamonds to fasten the sleeves,Laces to drop from their rays, like a powder of snow from the eaves."
Gorgeous she entered the sunlight which gathered her up in a flame,While straight, in her open carriage, she to the hospital came.
In she went at the door, and gazing, from end to end,"Many and low are the pallets, but each is the place of a friend."
Up she passed through the wards, and stood at a young man's bed:Bloody the band on his brow, and livid the droop of his head.
"Art thou a Lombard, my brother? Happy art thou!" she cried,And smiled like Italy on him: he dreamed in her face and died.
Pale with his passing soul, she went on still to a second:Hewas a grave, hard man, whose years by dungeons were reckoned.
Wounds in his body were sore, wounds in his life were sorer."Art thou a Romagnole?" Her eyes drove lightnings before her.
"Austrian and priest had joined to double and tighten the cordAble to bind thee, O strong one,—free by the stroke of a sword.
"Now be grave for the rest of us, using the life overcastTo ripen our wine of the present (too new) in glooms of the past."
Down she stepped to a pallet where lay a face like a girl's,Young, pathetic with dying,—a deep black hole in the curls.
"Art thou from Tuscany, brother? and seest thou, dreaming in pain,Thy mother stand in the piazza, searching the list of the slain?"
Kind as a mother herself, she touched his cheeks with her hands:"Blessèd is she who has borne thee, although she should weep as shestands."
On she passed to a Frenchman, his arm carried off by a ball:Kneeling,… "O more than my brother! how shall I thank thee for all?
"Each of the heroes round us has fought for his land and line,Butthouhast fought for a stranger, in hate of a wrong not thine.
"Happy are all free peoples, too strong to be dispossessed;But blessèd are those among nations who dare to be strong for therest!"
Ever she passed on her way, and came to a couch where pinedOne with a face from Venetia, white with a hope out of mind.
Long she stood and gazed, and twice she tried at the name,But two great crystal tears were all that faltered and came.
Only a tear for Venice?—she turned as in passion and loss,And stooped to his forehead and kissed it, as if she were kissingthe cross.
Faint with that strain of heart, she moved on then to another,Stern and strong in his death. "And dost thou suffer, my brother?"
Holding his hands in hers:—"Out of the Piedmont lionCometh the sweetness of freedom! sweetest to live or to die on."
Holding his cold, rough hands,—"Well, O, well have ye doneIn noble, noble Piedmont, who would not be noble alone."
Back he fell while she spoke. She rose to her feet with a spring,—"That was a Piedmontese! and this is the Court of the King."
* * * * *
The breaking waves dashed highOn a stern and rock-bound coast,And the woods against a stormy skyTheir giant branches tossed;
And the heavy night hung darkThe hills and waters o'er,When a band of exiles moored their barkOn the wild New England shore.
Not as the conqueror comes,They, the true-hearted, came;Not with the roll of the stirring drums,And the trumpet that sings of fame:
Not as the flying come,In silence and in fear;—They shook the depths of the desert gloomWith their hymns of lofty cheer.
Amidst the storm they sang,And the stars heard, and the sea;And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rangTo the anthem of the free.
The ocean eagle soaredFrom his nest by the white wave's foam,And the rocking pines of the forest roared,—This was their welcome home.
There were men with hoary hairAmidst that pilgrim-band:Why had they come to wither there,Away from their childhood's land?
There was woman's fearless eye,Lit by her deep love's truth;There was manhood's brow serenely high,And the fiery heart of youth.
What sought they thus afar?Bright jewels of the mine?The wealth of the seas, the spoils of war?—They sought a faith's pure shrine!
Ay, call it holy ground,The soil where first they trod;They have left unstained what there they found,—Freedom to worship God.
* * * * *
When Freedom, from her mountain height,Unfurled her standard to the air,She tore the azure robe of night,And set the stars of glory there!She mingled with its gorgeous dyesThe milky baldric of the skies,And striped its pure, celestial whiteWith streakings of the morning light;Then, from his mansion in the sun,She called her eagle-bearer down,And gave into his mighty handThe symbol of her chosen land!
Majestic monarch of the cloud!Who rear'st aloft thy regal form,To hear the tempest trumping loud,And see the lightning lances driven,When strive the warriors of the storm,And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven,—Child of the Sun! to thee 'tis givenTo guard the banner of the free,To hover in the sulphur smoke,To ward away the battle-stroke,And bid its blendings shine afar,Like rainbows on the cloud of war,The harbingers of victory!
Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,The sign of hope and triumph high!When speaks the signal-trumpet tone,And the long line comes gleaming on,Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,Each soldier's eye shall brightly turnTo where thy sky-born glories burn,And, as his springing steps advance,Catch war and vengeance from the glance.
And when the cannon-mouthings loudHeave in wild wreaths the battle shroud,And gory sabres rise and fallLike shoots of flame on midnight's pall,Then shall thy meteor glances glow,And cowering foes shall shrink beneathEach gallant arm that strikes belowThat lovely messenger of death.
Flag of the seas! on ocean waveThy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;When death, careering on the gale,Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,And frighted waves rush wildly backBefore the broadside's reeling rack,Each dying wanderer of the seaShall look at once to heaven and thee,And smile to see thy splendors flyIn triumph o'er his closing eye.
Flag of the free heart's hope and home,By angel hands to valor given!Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,And all thy hues were born in heaven.Forever float that standard sheet!Where breathes the foe but falls before us,With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us!
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[Footnote A: Begun during the attack on Fort McHenry, by a British fleet, which on the night of Sept. 13, 1814, unsuccessfully bombarded that fort from the river Chesapeake; the author, an envoy from the city of Baltimore, having been detained as a prisoner on the fleet.]
O, say, can you see by the dawn's early lightWhat so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?—Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the clouds of the fightO'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming!And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet waveO'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?
On that shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,In full glory reflected now shines on the stream;'Tis the star-spangled banner! O, long may it waveO'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly sworeThat the havoc of war and the battle's confusionA home and a country should leave us no more?Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.No refuge could save the hireling and slaveFrom the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave;And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth waveO'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!
O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall standBetween their loved homes and the war's desolation!Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heaven-rescued landPraise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,And this be our motto. "In God is our trust:"And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall waveO'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.
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New England's dead! New England's dead!On every hill they lie;On every field of strife, made redBy bloody victory.Each valley, where the battle pouredIts red and awful tide,Beheld the brave New England swordWith slaughter deeply dyed.Their bones are on the northern hill,And on the southern plain,By brook and river, lake and rill,And by the roaring main.
The land is holy where they fought,And holy where they fell;For by their blood that land was bought,The land they loved so well,Then glory to that valiant band,The honored saviours of the land!
O, few and weak their numbers were,—A handful of brave men;But to their God they gave their prayer,And rushed to battle then.The God of battles heard their cry,And sent to them the victory.
They left the ploughshare in the mold,Their flocks and herds without a fold,The sickle in the unshorn grain,The corn, half-garnered, on the plain,And mustered, in their simple dress,For wrongs to seek a stern redress,To right those wrongs, come weal, come woe,To perish, or o'ercome their foe.
And where are ye, O fearless men?And where are ye to-day?I call:—the hills reply againThat ye have passed away;That on old Bunker's lonely height,In Trenton, and in Monmouth ground,The grass grows green, the harvest brightAbove each soldier's mound.The bugle's wild and warlike blastShall muster them no more;An army now might thunder past,And they heed not its roar.The starry flag, 'neath which they foughtIn many a bloody day,From their old graves shall rouse them not,For they have passed away.
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All grim and soiled and brown and tan,I saw a Strong One, in his wrath,Smiting the godless shrines of manAlong his path.
The Church beneath her trembling domeEssayed in vain her ghostly charm:Wealth shook within his gilded homeWith strange alarm.
Fraud from his secret chambers fledBefore the sunlight bursting in:Sloth drew her pillow o'er her headTo drown the din.
"Spare," Art implored, "yon holy pile;That grand old time-worn turret spare:"Meek Reverence, kneeling in the aisleCried out, "Forbear!"
Gray-bearded Use, who, deaf and blind,Groped for his old accustomed stone,Leaned on his staff, and wept to findHis seat o'erthrown.
Young Romance raised his dreamy eyes,O'erhung with paly locks of gold,—"Why smite," he asked in sad surprise,"The fair, the old?"
Yet louder rang the Strong One's stroke,Yet nearer flashed his axe's gleam;Shuddering and sick of heart I woke,As from a dream.
I looked: aside the dust-cloud rolled,—The Waster seemed the Builder too;Upspringing from the ruined OldI saw the New.
'Twas but the ruin of the bad,—The wasting of the wrong and ill;Whate'er of good the old time hadWas living still.
Calm grew the brows of him I feared,The frown which awed me passed away,And left behind a smile which cheeredLike breaking day.
The grain grew green on battle-plains,O'er swarded war-mounds grazed the cow;The slave stood forging from his chainsThe spade and plough.
Where frowned the fort, pavilions gayAnd cottage windows, flower-entwined,Looked out upon the peaceful bayAnd hills behind.
Through vine-wreathed cups with wine once red.The lights on brimming crystal fell,Drawn, sparkling, from the rivulet headAnd mossy well.
Through prison-walls, like Heaven-sent hope,Fresh breezes blew, and sunbeams strayed,And with the idle gallows-ropeThe young child played.
Where the doomed victim in his cellHad counted o'er the weary hours,Glad school-girls, answering to the bell,Came crowned with flowers.
Grown wiser for the lesson given,I fear no longer, for I knowThat where the share is deepest drivenThe best fruits grow.
The outworn rite, the old abuse,The pious fraud transparent grown,The good held captive in the useOf wrong alone,—
These wait their doom, from that great lawWhich makes the past time serve to-day;And fresher life the world shall drawFrom their decay.
O backward-looking son of time!The new is old, the old is new,The cycle of a change sublimeStill sweeping through.
So wisely taught the Indian seer;Destroying Seva, forming Brahm,Who wake by turn Earth's love and fear,Are one, the same.
Idly as thou, in that old dayThou mournest, did thy sire repine;So, in his time, thy child grown grayShall sigh for thine.
But life shall on and upward go;The eternal step of Progress beatsTo that great anthem, calm and slow,Which God repeats.
Take heart!—the Waster builds again,—A charmèd life old Goodness hath;The tares may perish,—but the grainIs not for death.
God works in all things; all obeyHis first propulsion from the night:Wake thou and watch!—the world is grayWith morning light!
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High walls and huge the body may confine,And iron gates obstruct the prisoner's gaze,And massive bolts may baffle his design,And vigilant keepers watch his devious ways;But scorns the immortal mind such base control:No chains can bind it and no cell enclose.Swifter than light it flies from pole to pole,And in a flash from earth to heaven it goes.It leaps from mount to mount; from vale to valeIt wanders, plucking honeyed fruits and flowers;It visits home to hear the fireside taleAnd in sweet converse pass the joyous hours;'Tis up before the sun, roaming afar,And in its watches wearies every star.
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When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth's achingbreastRuns a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west,And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climbTo the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublimeOf a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time.
Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe,When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems to and fro;At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start,Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart.And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future'sheart.
So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill,Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill,And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels his sympathies with GodIn hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod,Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in the nobler clod.
For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along,Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flush of right orwrong;Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frameThrough its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame;—In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim.
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom orblight,Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.
Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand,Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land?Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 'tis Truth alone is strong,And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throngTroops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong.
Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments see,That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through Oblivion's sea;Not an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cryOf those Crises, God's stern winnowers, from whose feet earth'schaff must fly;Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by.
Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but recordOne death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word;Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—Yet that scaffold sways the Future, and, behind the dim unknown,Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great,Slow of faith, how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate,But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din,List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,—"They enslave their children's children who make compromise withsin."
Slavery, the earthborn Cyclops, fellest of the giant brood,Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who have drenched the earthwith blood,Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our purer day,Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his miserable prey;—Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless children play?
Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just;Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified,And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.
Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes,—they were souls that stoodalone,While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone,Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam inclineTo the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine,By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.
By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track,Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back,And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learnedOne new word of that grandCredowhich in prophet-hearts hathburnedSince the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heavenupturned.
For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands,On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands;Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn,While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe returnTo glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn.
'Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slavesOf a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves,Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime;—Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind theirtime?Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make Plymouth rocksublime?
They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts,Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the Past's;But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath made usfree,Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits fleeThe rude grasp of that Impulse which drove them across the sea.
They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to oursires,Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar-fires;Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our haste toslay,From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps awayTo light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to-day?
New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth;They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth;Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be,Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate wintersea,Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key.
December, 1845.
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