Of the Redeemer's grace divine; O think on faith and bliss!- By many a death-bed I have been And many a sinner's parting seen, But never aught like this."
The war, that for a space
Now trebly thundering swelled the gale, And-STANLEY! was the cry ;- A light on Marmion's visage spread, And fired his glazing eye: With dying hand, above his head He shook the fragment of his blade, And shouted "Victory!-
Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!" Were the last words of Marmion.
Ode to Buonaparte, by LORD BYRON.
'TIS done but yesterday a King! And arm'd with kings to strive.- And now thou art a nameless thing So abject-yet alive!
Is this the man of thousand thrones, Who strew'd our earth with hostile bones, And can he thus survive?
Since he, miscall'd the Morning Star, Nor man, nor fiend, hath fall'n so far.
Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind Who bow'd so low the knee? By gazing on thyself grown blind, Thou taught'st the rest to see. With might unquestion'd,-power to save- Thine only gift hath been the grave,
To those that worshipp'd thee; Nor till thy fall could mortals guess Ambition's less than littleness.
Thanks for that lesson-it will teach To after warriors more
Than high philosophy can preach, And vainly preached before. That spell upon the minds of men, Breaks, never to unite again, That led them to adore
Those Pagod things of sabre-sway, With fronts of brass and feet of clay.
The triumph and the vanity, The rapture and the strife,* The earthquake voice of victory, To thee the breath of life; The sword, the sceptre, and that sway Which man seemed made but to obey, Wherewith renown was life,
All quell'd-dark spirit! what must be The madness of thy memory.
The desolator, desolate!
The victor overthrown! The arbiter of others' fate
A suppliant for his own!
Is it some yet imperial hope
That with such change can calmly cope? Or dread of death alone?
To die a prince-or live a slave— Thy choice is most ignobly brave!
He who of old would rend the oak Dream'd not of the rebound; Chain'd by the trunk he vainly broke Alone-how look'd he round?
Thou in the sternness of thy strength, An equal deed hast done at length And darker fate hast found:
Certaminus gaudia-the expression of Attila, in his harangue to his army, previous to the battle of Chalons; given in Cassiodorus.
He fell, the forest-prowlers' prey; But thou must eat thy heart away.
The Roman, when his burning heart Was slaked with blood of Rome, Threw down the dagger-dared depart, In savage grandeur home.-
He dared depart, in utter scorn Of men that such a yoke had borne, Yet left him such a doom?
His only glory was that hour Of self-upheld abandon'd power.
The Spaniard, when the lust of sway Had lost its quickening spell, Cast crowns for rosaries away, An empire for a cell.
A strict accountant of his beads, A subtile disputant in creeds, His dotage trifled well :
Yet better had he neither known A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne.
But thou-from thy reluctant hand The thunderbolt is wrung- Too late thou hear'st the high command
To which thy weakness clung;
All evil spirit as thou art,
It is enough to grieve the heart,
To see thine own unstrung:
To think that God's fair world hath been The footstool of a thing so mean.
The earth hath spilt her blood for him Who thus can hoard his own!
And monarchs bow'd the trembling limb And thank'd him for a throne! Fair freedom! we may hold thee dear, When thus thy mightiest foes their fear In humblest guise have shown.
Nor written thus in vain Thy triumphs tell of fame no more, Or deepen every stain.-
If thou hadst died as honour dies, Some new Napoleon might arise, To shame the world again.
But who would soar the solar height, To set in such a starless night?
Weighed in the balance, hero dust Is vile as vulgar clay; Thy scales mortality! art just To all that pass away;
But yet methought the living great
Some higher spaks should animate
To dazzle and dismay;
Nor deem'd contempt could thus make mirth Of these the conquerors of the earth.
And she proud Austria's mournful flower, Thy still imperial bride;
How bears her breast the torturing hour? Still clings she to thy side?
Must she too bend, must she too share Thy late repentance, long despair, Thou throneless Homicide?
If still she loves thee, hoard that gem, 'Tis worth thy vanished diadem!
Then haste thee to thy sullen isle, And gaze upon the sea; That element may meet thy smile, It ne'er was ruled by thee! Or trace with thine all idle hand In loitering mood upon the sand That earth is now as free!
That Corinth's pedagogue hath now Transferred his bye-word to thy brow.
Thou Timour in his captive's cage, What thoughts will there be thine, While brooding in thy prisoned rage? But one-" The world was mine." Unless like he of Babylon
All sense is with thy sceptre gone, Life will not long confine
That spirit pour'd so widely forth- So long obeyed-so little worth.
Or like the thief of fire from Heaven Wilt thou withstand the shock? And share with him, the unforgiven, His vulture and his rock!
Fore-doom'd by God, by man accurst And that last act, though not thy worst, The very fiend's arch mock; He in his fall preserved his pride, And if a mortal had as proudly died.
The following beautiful Ode on the degraded state of Sweden, was addressed to the Rev. Nicholas Collin, D. D. Rector of the Swede's Church, Philadelphia.-ANONY
WHERE has that martial spirit fled, The genius of a proud domain? Doth Sweden bow her helmed head,
And basely wear the conqueror's chain! Once she had statesmen, O how bright
In fame's unsullied scroll they shine! She once had warriors, men of might, And monarchs of the imperial line.
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