Hang o'er the nazy waltz, or pageant stage, Each wayward wish of sickly taste to please, The nightly revel and the noontide easeThese, Europe. are thy toils, thy trophies these. 'So, when wide-wasting hail, or whelming rain Have strowed the bearded hope of golden grain, From the wet furrow, struggling to the skies, The tall, rank weeds in barren splendor rise; And strong, and towering o'er the mildewed ear, Uncomely flowers and baneful herbs appear: The swain's rich toils to useless poppies yield, And Famine stalks along the purple field. And thou, the poet's theme, the patriot's prayer: Where, France, thy hopes, thy gilded promise where ; When o'er Montpelier's vines, and Jura's snows, All goodly bright, young Freedom's planet rose? What boots it now, (to our destruction brave,) How strong thine arm in war? a valiant slave. What boots it now that wide thine eagles sail, Fanned by the flattering breath of conquest's gale, What, that, high-piled within yon ample dome, The blood-bought treasures rest of Greece and Rome? Scourge of the highest, bolt in vangeance hurled By Heaven's dread justice on a shrinking world, Go, vanquished victor, bend thy proud helm down Before thy sullen tyrant's steely crown. For him in Afric's sands, and Poland's snows, Reared by thy toil the shadowy laurel grows; And rank in German fields the harvest springs Of pageant councils and obsequious kings. Such purple slaves, of glittering fetters vain, Linked the wide circuit of the Latian chain; And slaves like these shall every tyrant find, To gild oppression, and debase mankind. O, live there yet whose hardy souls and high Peace bought with shame, and tranquil bonds defy? Who, driven from every shore, and lords in vain Of the wide prison of the lonely main, Cling to their country's rights with freeborn zeal, More strong from every stroke, and patient of the steel? Guiltless of chains, to them has Heaven consigned Untamed Asturia bids her clarion sound; The sightly trappings of a marshalled host; Ánd heathy wild, to guard the wandering sheep, To urge the laboring mule, or bend the spear 'Gainst the night-prowling wolf, or felon bear; The bull's hoarse rage in dreadful sport to mock, And meet with single sword his bellowing shock. Each martial chant they know,each manly rhyme, Rude, ancient lays of Spain's heroic time. Of him in Xeres' carnage fearless found, (His glittering brows with hostile spear-heads bound ;) Of that chaste king whose hardy mountain train And the wild murmurs of the waving wood; How their brave fathers fought, how thick the invaders fell. 'O, virtue long forgot, or vainly tried, To glut a bigot's zeal, or tyrant's pride; Condemned in distant climes to bleed and die 'Mid the dank poisons of Tlascala's sky; Or when stern Austria stretched her lawless reign And spent in northern fights the flower of Spain; Or war's hoarse furies yelled on Ysell's shore, And Alva's ruffian sword was drunk with gore. Yet dared not then Tlascala's chiefs withstand The lofty daring of Castilia's band; And weeping France her captive king deplored, And cursed the deathful point of Ebro's sword. Now, nerved with hope, their night of slavery past, Each heart beats high in freedom's buxom blast; Lo, Conquest calls, and beckoning from afar, Uplifts his laurel wreath, and waves them on to war. -Wo to th' usurper then, who dares defy 'So when stern winter chills the April showers, And iron frost forbids the timely flowers, |