THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL

by James Russell Lowell

PRELUDE TO PART FIRST.

OVER his keys the musiug Organist,
  Beginning doubtfully and far away,
First lets his fingers wander as they list,
  And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay;
Then, as the touch of his loved instrument
  Gives hope and ferver, nearer draws his theme,
First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent
Along the wavering vista of his dream.

    Not only around our infancy
    Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;
    Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,
    We Sinais climb and know it not.

  Over our manhood bend the skies;
    Against our fallen and traitor lives
  The great winds utter prophecies;
    With our faint hearts the mountain strives;
  Its arms outstretched, the druid wood
    Waits with its Benedicite;
  And to our age's drowsy blood
    Still shouts the inspiring sea.

  Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us:
    The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in.
  The priest hath his fee comes and shrives us,
    We bargain for the graves we lie in;
  At the devil's booth are all things sold,
  Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;
  For a cap and bells our lives we pay,
    Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking:
  'T is heaven alone that is given away,
  'T is only God may be had for the asking;
  No price is set on the lavish summer;
  June may be had by the poorest comer,

  And what is so rare as a day in June?
    Then, if ever, come perfect days;
  Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
    And over it softly her warm ear lays;
  Whether we look, or whether we listen,
  We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
  Every clod feels a stir of might,
    An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
  And groping blindly above it for light,
    Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
  The flush of life may well be seen
    Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
  The crowlip startles in meadows green,
    The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
  And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean
    To be some happy creature's palace;
  The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
    Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
  And lets his illumined being o'errun
    With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and signs;
He signs to the wide world, and she to her nest, -
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

  Now is the high tide of the year,
    And whatever of life hath ebbed away

Comes flooding back with a rippy cheer,
 Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it;
We are happy now because God wills it;
No matter how barren the past may have been,
'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green;
We sit in the warms hade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;
  The breeze comes whispering in our ear
  That dandelions are blossoming near,
That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,
That the river is bluer than the sky,
That the robin is plastering his house hard by:
And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For other couriers we should not lack;
  We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing, -
And hark!  how clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
  Tells all in his lusty crowing!

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,
Everything is upward striving;
'T is as easy now for the heart to be true
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, -
'T is the natural way of liing:
Who knows whither the clouds have fled?
In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake;
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;
The sould partakes the season's youth,
And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,
Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.
  What wonder if Sir Launfal now
  Remember the keeping of his vow?

PART FIRST.

"MY golden spurs now bring to me,
And bring to me my richest mail,
For to-morrow I go over land and sea
In search of the Holy Grail:
Shall never a bed for me be spread,
Nor shall a pillow be under my head,
Till I begin my vow to keep;
Here on the rushes will I sleep.
And perchance there may come a vision true
Ere day create the world anew."
Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim;
Slumber fell like a cloud on him,
And into his soul the vision flew.

The crows flapped over by twos and threes,
In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees,
The little birds sang as if it were
The one day of summer in all the year,
And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees:
The castle alone in the landscape lay
Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray;
'T was the proudest hall in the North Countree,
And never its gates might opened be,
Save to lord or lady of high degree;
Summer besieged it on every side,
But the churlish stone her assaults defied;
She could not scale the chilly wall,
Though around if for leagues her pavilions tall
    Stretched left and right.
    Over the hills and out of sight;
      Green and broad was every tent,
      And out of each a murmur went
    Till the breeze fell off at night.

The draw-bridge dropped with a surly clang,
And through the dark arch a charger sprang,
Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight,
In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright
It seemed the dark castle had gathered all
Those shafts the fierve sun had shot over its wall
In his siege of three hundred summers long,
And binding them all in one blazing sheaf,
Had cast them forth; so, young and strong,
And lightsome as a locust leaf,
Sir Launfal flashed forth in his maiden mail,
To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail.

It was morning on hill and stream and tree,
And morning in the young knight's heart;
Only the castle moodily
Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free,
     And gloomed by itself apart;
The season brimmed all other things up
Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup.

As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate,
He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by the same,
Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate;
And a loathing over Sir Launful came;
The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill
The flesh 'neath his armor 'gan shrink and crawl,
And midway its leap his heart stood still
Like a frozen waterfall;
For this man, so foul and bent of stature,
Rasped harshly againt his dainty nature,
And seemed the one blot on blot on the summer morn, -
So he tosses him a price of gold in scone,

The leper raised not the gold from the dust: -
"Better to me the poor man's crust,
Better the blessing of the poor,
Though I turn me empty from his door:
That is no true alms which the hand can hold;
He gives only the worthless gold
  Who gives from a sence of duty;
But he who gives but a slender mite,
And gives to that which is out of sight, -
  That thread of the all-sustaining Beaty
Which runs through all and doth all unite, -
The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms,
The heart outstrethes its eager palms;
For a god goes with it and makes it store
To the soul that was starving in darkness before."

PRELUDE TO PART SECOND.

DOWN swept the chill wind from the mountain peak,
From the snow five thousand summers old;
On open wold and hilltop bleak
It had gathered all the cold,
And whirled it like sleet on the wandered's cheek;
It carried a shiver everywhere
From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare;
The little brook heard it, and built a roof
'Neath which he could house him winter-proof;
All night by the white stars' frosty gleams
He groined his arches and matched his beams;
Slender and clear were his crystal spars
As the lashes of light that trim the stars;
He sculptured every summer delight
In his halls and chambers out of sight;
Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt
Down through a frost-leaved forest crypt.
Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees
Bending to counterfeit a breeze;
Sometimes the roof no frework knew
But silvery mosses that downward grew;
Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief
With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf;
Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear
For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here
He had caught the nodding bulrush tops
And hung them thickly with diamond drops,
That crystalled the beams of moon and sun,
And made a star of every one:
No mortal bulder's most rare device
Could match this winter palace of ice;
'T was as if every image that mirrored lay
In his depths serene through the summer day,
Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky,
    Lest the happy model should be lost,
Had been mimicked in fairy masonry
    By the elfin builders of the frost.

Within the hall are song and laughter:
The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly,
And sprouting is every corbel and rafter
With lightsome green of ivy and holly;
Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide
Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide;
The broad flame pennons droop and flap
And belly and tug as a flag in the wind;
Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap,
Hunted to death in its galleries blind;
And swift little troops of silent sparks,
Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear,
Go threading the soot forest's tangled darks
Like herds of startled deer.

But the wind without was eager and sharp;
Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp,
        And rattles and wrings
        The icy strings,
Singing in dreary monotone
A Christmas carol of its own,
Whose burden still, as he might guess.
Was "Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless!"

The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch
As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch,
And he sat in the gateway and saw all night
The great hall fire, so cheery and bold,
Through the window slits of the castle old,
Build out its piers of ruddy light
Against the drift of the cold.

PART SECOND.

THERE was never a leaf on bush or tree,
The bare boughs rattled shudderingly;
The river was dumb and could not speak,
For the weaver Winter its shround had spun;
A single crow on the tree-top bleak
From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun:
Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold,
As if her veins were sapless and old,
And she rose up decrepitly
For a last dim look at earth and sea.

Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate,
For another heir in his earldom sate:
An old, bent man, worn out and frail,
He came back from seeking the Holy Grail.
Little he recked of his earldom's loss,
No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross;
But deep in his soul the sigh he wore,
The badge of the suffering and the poor.

Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare
Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air,
For it was just at the Christmas-time;
So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime,
And sought for a shelter from cold and snow
In the light and warmth of long ago.
He sees the snake-like caravan crawl
O'er the edge of the desert, black and small,
Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one,
He can count the camels in the sun,
As over the red-hot sands they pass
To where, in its slender necklace of grass,
The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade,
And with its own self like and infant played,
And waved its signal of palms.

"For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms:" -
The happy camels may reach the spring,
But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing,
The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone,
That cowers beside him, a thing as lone
And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas
In the desolate horror of his disease.

And Sir Launfal said, - "I behold in thee
An image of Him who died on the tree;
Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, -
Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns, -
And to thy life were not denied
The wounds in the hands and feet and side:
Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me;
Behold, through him, I give to thee!"

Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes
And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he
Remembered in what a haughtier guise
He had flung an alms to leprosie,
When he girt his young life up in gilded mail
And set forth in search of the Holy Grail.
The heart within him was ashes and dust:
He parted in twain his single crust,
He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink,
And gave the leper to eat and drink;
'T was mouldy crust of coarse brown bread,
'T was water out of a wooden bowl, -
Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed,
And 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty soul.

As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face,
A light shone round about the place;
The leper no longer crouched at his side,
But stood before him glorified,
Shining and tall and fair and straight
  As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate, -
Himself the Gate whereby men can
Enter the temple of God in Man.

His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine,
And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine,
That mingle their softness and quite in one
With the shaggy unrest they float down upon;
And the voice that was softer than silence said: -
"Lo, it is I, be not afraid!
In many climes, without avail,
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail:
Behold, it is here, - this cup which thou
Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now;
This crust is my body broken for thee,
This water His blood that died on the tree;
The Holy Supper is kept indeed
In whatso we share with another's need.
Not what we give, but what we share, -
For the gift without the giver is bare;
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, -
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me."

Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound: -
"The Grail in my castle here is found!
Hand my idle armor up on the wall,
Let it be the spider's banquet-hall;
He must be fenced with stronger mail
Who would seek and find the Holy Grail."

The castle gate stands open now,
And the wanderer is welcome to the hall
As the hang-bird is to the elm-tree bough;
No longer scowl the turrets tall.
The summer's long siege at last is o'er:
When the first poor outcast went in at the door,
She entered with him in disguise;
And mastered the fortress by surprise;
There is no spot she loves so well on ground;
She lingers and smiles there the whole year round;
The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land
Has hall and bower at his command;
And there's no poor man in the North Countree
But is lord of the earldom as much as he.

目次に戻る

TAM O' SHANTER

by Robert Burns

Of Brownyis and of Bogillis full is this Buke. - Gavin Douglas


When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neebors neebors meet,
As market days are wearing late,
An' folk begin to tak the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Where sits our sulky sullen dame,  10
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
  This truth fand honest Tam o' Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter
(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses
For honest men and bonnie lasses).
  O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise
As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice!
She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,
A bletherin', blusterin', drunken blellum;  20
That frae November till October,
Ae market day thou was na sober;
That ilka melder wi' the miller
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;
That everv naig ca'd a shoe on,
The smith and thee gat roarin' fou on;
That at the Lord's house, even on Sunday,
Thou drank wi' Kirkfon Jean till Monday.
She prophesied that, late or soon,
Thou would be found deep drowned in Doon;  30
Or catched wi' warlocks in the mirk
By Alloway's auld haunted kirk.
   Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet
To think how mony counsels sweet,
How mony lengthened sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises!
  But to our tale: Ae market night,
Tam had got planted unco right,
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely;  40
And at his elbow, Souter Johnny,
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony;
Tam lo'ed him like a very brither;
They had been fou for weeks thegither.
The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter,
And ay the ale was growing better:
The landlady and Tam grew gracious,
Wi' favors secret, sweet, and precious;
The souter tauld his queerest stories;
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus:  50
The storm without might rair and rustle,
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.
  Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
E'en drowned himsel amang the nappy.
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure,
The minutes winged their way wi' pleasure;
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious!
  But pleasures are like poppies spread -
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;  60
Or like the snow falls in the river -
A moment white, then melts forever;
Or like the borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.
Nae man can tether time nor tide;
The hour approaches Tam maun ride;
That hour, o' night's black arch the keystane,
That dreary hour, he mounts his beast in;  70
And sic a night he taks the road in,
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in.
  The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last;
The rattling show'rs rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallowed;
Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellowed:
That night, a child might understand,
The Deil had business on his hand.
  Weel mounted on his gray mare, Meg,
A better never lifted leg,  80
Tam skelpit on through dub and mire,
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;
Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet;
Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet;
Whiles glowring round wi' prudent cares,
Lest bogles catch him unawares.
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry.
  By this time he was cross the ford,
Where in the snaw the chapman smoored;  90
And past the birks and meikle stane,
Where drunken Charlie brak's neck bane;
And through the whins, and by the cairn,
Where hunters fand the murdered bairn;
And near the thorn, aboon the well,
Where Mungo's mither hanged hersel.
Before him Doon pours all his floods;
The doubling storm roars through the woods;
The lightnings flash from pole to pole;
Near and more near the thunders roll:  100
When, glimmering through the groaning trees,
Kirk-Alloway seemed in a bleeze;
Through ilka bore the beams were glancing;
And loud resounded mirth and dancing.
  Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil;
Wi' usquebae, we'll face the devil!
The swats sae reamed in Tammie's noddle,
Fair play, he cared na deils a boddle!  110
But Maggie stood right sair astonished,
Till, by the heel and hand admonished,
She ventured forward on the light;
And, vow! Tam saw an unco sight!
Warlocks and witches in a dance!
Nae cotillon brent new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock-bunker in the east,
There sat auld Nick, in shape o'beast -  120
A touzie tyke, black, grim, and large!
To gie them music was his charge:
He screwed the pipes and gart them skirl.
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.
Coffins stood round like open presses,
That shawed the dead in their last dresses;
And by some devilish cantraip sleight
Each in its cauld hand held a light,
By which heroic Tam was able
To note upon the haly table  130
A murderer's banes in gibbet airns;
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns;
A thief new-cutted frae the rape -
Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape;
Five tomahawks, wi' blude red rusted;
Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted;
A garter, which a babe had strangled;
A knife, a father's throat had mangled,
Whom his ain son o' life bereft -
The gray hairs yet stack to the heft;  140
Wi' mair of horrible and awfu',
Which even to name wad be unlawfu'.
  As Tammie glowred, amazed, and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious:
The piper loud and louder blew;
The dancers quick and quicker flew;
They reeled, they set, they crossed, they cleekit,
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit,
And coost her duddies to the wark,
And linkit at it in her sark!  150
  Now Tam, O Tam! had thae been queans,
A' plump and strapping in their teens;
Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen,
Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen!
Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair,
That ance were plush, o' gude blue hair,
I wad hae gi'en them off my hurdies,
For ae blink o' the bonnie burdies!
  But withered beldams, auld and droll,
Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal,  160
Louping and flinging on a crummock,
I wonder didna turn thy stomach.
  But Tam kent what was what fu' brawlie
There was ae winsome wench and walie
That night enlisted in the core,
Lang after kent on Carrick shore!
(For mony a beast to dead she shot,
And perished mony a bonnie boat,
And shook baith meikle corn and bear,
And kept the countryside in fear.)  170
Her cutty sark, o' Paisley harn,
That while a lassie she had worn,
In longitude though sorely scanty,
It was her best, and she was vauntie.
Ah! little kent thy reverend grannie
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie
Wi' twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches)
Wad ever graced a dance of witches!
  But here my muse her wing maun cour;
Sic flights are far beyond her pow'r -  180
To sing how Nannie lap and flang
(A souple jade she was, and strang);
And how Tam stood, like ane bewitched,
And thought his very een enriched;
Even Satan glowred, and fidged fu' fain,
And hotched and blew wi' might and main:
Till first ae caper, syne anither,
Tam tint reason a' thegither,
And roars out, "Weel done, Cutty-sark!"
And in an instant all was dark!  190
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied,
When out the hellish legion sallied.
  As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke
When plundering herds assail their byke,
As open pussie's mortal foes
When pop! she starts before their nose,
As eager runs the market crowd,
When "Catch the thief!" resounds aloud.
So Maggie runs; the witches follow,
Wi' mony an eldritch skriech and hollow.  200
  Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou'll get thy fairin'!
In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin'!
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin'!
Kate soon will be a woefu' woman!
Now do thy speedy utmost, Meg,
And win the keystane o' the brig:
There at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running stream they darena cross.
But ere the keystane she could make,
The fient a tail she had to shake!  210
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie pressed,
And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle;
But little wist she Maggie's mettle!
Ae spring brought off her master hale,
But left behind her ain gray tail:
The carlin claught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.
  Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read,
Each man and mother's son, take heed;  220
Whene'er to drink you are inclined,
Or cutty-sarks rin in your mind,
Think! ye may buy the joys o'er dear;
Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare.

目次に戻る

LINES ON POLAND

by Thomas Campbell

AND have I lived to see thee sword in hand
Uprise again, immortal Polish Land ! -
Whose flag brings more than chivalry to mind,
And leaves the tri-color in shade behind;
A theme for uninspired lips too strong!
That swells my heart beyond the power of song: -
Majestic men, whose deeds have dazzled faith,
Ah! yet your fate's suspense arrests my breath;
Whilst envying bosoms bared to shot and steel,
I feel the more that fruitlessly I feel.

Poles! with what indignation I endure
Th' half-pitying servile mouths that call you poor;
Poor! is it England mocks you with her grief,
Who hates, but dares not chide, th' Imperial Thief?
France with her soul beneath a Bourbon's thrall,
And Germany that has no soul at all,-
States, quailing at the giant overgrown,
Whom dauntless Poland grapples with alone!
No, ye are richin fame e'en whilst ye bleed:
We cannot aid you - we are poor indeed!
In fate's defiance - in the world's great eye,
Poland has won her immortality;
The Butcher, should he reach her bosom now,
Could not tear Glory's garland from her brow;
Wreath'd, filleted, the victim falls renown'd,
And all her ashes will be holy ground!
But turn, my soul, from presages so dark:
Great Poland's spirit is a deathless spark
That's fann'd by Heaven to mock the Tyrant's rage:
She, like the eagle, will renew her age,
And fresh historic plumes of Fame put on,
Another Athens after Marathon, -
Where eloquence shall fulmine, arts refine,
Bright as her arms that now in battle shine.
Come - should the heavenly shock my life destroy,
And shut its flood-gates with excess of joy!
Come but the day when Poland's fight is won -
And on my grave-stone shine the morrow's sun -
The day that sees Warsaw's cathedral glow
With endless ensigns ravish'd from the foe,-
Her women lifting their fair hands with thanks,
Her pious warriors kneeling in their ranks,
The scutcheon'd walls of high heraldic boast,
The odorous altars' elevated host,
The organ sounding through the aisle's long glooms,
The mighty dead seen sculptured o'er their tombs;
(John, Europe's saviour - Poniatowski's fair
Resemblance - Kosciusko's shall be there;)
The taper'd pomp - the hallelujah's swell,
Shall o'er the soul's devotion cast a spell,
Till visions cross the rapt enthusiast's glance,
And all the scene becomes a waking trance.
Should Fate put far - far off that glorious scene,
And gulfs of havoc interpose between,
Imagine not, ye men of every clime,
Who act, or by your sufferance share, the crime -
Your brother Abel's blood shall vainly plead
Against the "deep damnation" of the deed.
Germans, ye view its horror and disgrace
With cold phosphoric eyes and phlegm of face.
Is Allemagne profound in science, lore,
And minstrel art? - her shame is but the more
To doze and dream by governments oppress'd,
The spirit of a book-worm in each breast.
Well can ye mouth fair Freedom's classic line
And talk of Constitutions o'er your wine:
But all your vows to break the tyrant's yoke
Expire in Bacchanalian song and smoke;
Heavens! can no ray of foresight pierce the leads
And mystic metaphysics of your heads,
To show the self-same grave, Oppression delves
For Poland's rights, is yawning for yourselves?

See, whilst the Pole, the vanguard aid of France,
Has vaulted on his harb and couch'd the lance,
France turns from her abandon'd friends afresh,
And soothes the Bear that prowls for patriot flesh;
Buys, ignominious purchase! short repose,
With dying curses, and the groans of those
That served, and loved, and put in her their trust.
Frenchmen! the dead accuse you from the dust -
Brows laurell'd - bosoms mark'd with many a scar
For France - that wore her Legion's noblest star,
Cast dumb reproaches from the field of Death
On Gallic honour: and this broken faith
Has robb'd you more of Fame - the life of life -
Than twenty battles lost in glorious strife!
And what of England ? - is she steep'd so low
In poverty, crest-fallen, and palsied so,
That we must sit much wroth, but timorous more,
With Murder knocking at our neighbour's door! -
Not Murder mask'd and cloak'd with hidden knife,
Whose owner owes the gallows life for life;
But Public Murder! - that with pomp and gaud,
And royal scorn of Justice, walks abroad
To wring more tears and blood than e'er were wrung
By all the culprits Justice ever hung!
We read the diadem'd Assassin's vaunt,
And wince, and wish we had not hearts to pant
With useless indignation - sigh, and frown,
But have not hearts to throw the gauntlet down.

If but a doubt hung o'er the grounds of fray,
Or trivial rapine stopp'd the world's highway;
Were this some common strife of States embroil'd; -
Britannia on the spoiler and the spoil'd
Might calmly look, and, asking time to breathe,
Still honourably wear her olive wreath.
But this is Darkness combating with Light;
Earth's adverse Principles for empire fight:
Oppression, that has belted half the globe,
Far as his knout could reach or dagger probe,
Holds reeking o'er our brother-freemen slain
That dagger-shakes it at us in disdain;
Talks big to Freedom's states of Poland's thrall.
And, trampling one, contemns them one and all.

My country! colours not thy once proud brow
At this affront! - Hast thou not fleets enow
With Glory's streamer, lofty as the lark,
Gay fluttering o'er each thunder-bearing bark,
To warm the insulter's seas with barbarous blood,
And interdict his flag from Ocean's flood?
Ev'n now far off the sea-cliff, where I sing,
I see, my Country and my Patriot king!
Your ensign glad the deep.  Becalm'd and slow
A war-ship rides; while Heaven's prismatic bow
Uprisen behind her on th' horizon's base,
Shines flushing through the tackle, shrouds, and stays,
And wraps her giant form in one majestic blaze.
My soul accepts the omen; Fancy's eye
Has sometime a veracious augury:
The Rainbow types Heaven's promise to my sight;
The Ship, Britannia's interposing Might!
But if there should be none to aid you, Poles,
Ye'll but to prouder pitch wind up your souls,
Above example, pity, praise, or blame,
To sow and reap a boundless field of Fame.
Ask aid no more from Nations that forget
Your championship - old Europe's mighty debt.
Though Poland, Lazarus-like, has burst the gloom,
She rises not a beggar from the tomb:
In Fortune's frown, on Danger's giddiest brink,
Despair and Poland's name must never link.
All ills have bounds - p1ague, whirlwind, fire, and flood:
Even Power can spill but bounded sums of' blood.
States caring not what Freeedom's price may be,
May late or soon, but must at last be free;
For body killing tyrants cannot kill
The public soul - the hereditary will
That downward, as from sire to son it goes,
By shifting bosoms more intensely glows:
Its heir-loom is the heart, and slaughter'd men
Fight fiercer in their orphans o'er again.
Poland recasts - though rich in heroes old -
Her men in more and more heroic monld:
Her eag1e ensign best among mankind
Becomes, and types her eagle-strength of mind:
Her praise Upon my faltering lips expires:
Resume it, younger bards, and nobler lyres!