And thy limbs black with lightning – dost thou yet | |
Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget? | |
LXXXIX | |
Thou dost; – but all thy foster-babes are dead – | |
The men of iron; and the world hath rear’d | |
795 | Cities from out their sepulchres: men bled |
In imitation of the things they fear’d, | |
LXXXIII | |
Oh thou whose chariot roll’d on Fortune’s wheel | |
740 | Triumphant Sylla! Thou, who didst subdue |
Thy country’s foes ere thou wouldst pause to feel | |
The wrath of thy own wrongs, or reap the due | |
Of hoarded vengeance till thine eagles flew | |
O’er prostrate Asia; – thou, who with thy frown | |
745 | Annihilated senates – Roman, too, |
With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down | |
With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown – | |
LXXXIV | |
The dictatorial wreath – couldst thou divine | |
To what would one day dwindle that which made | |
750 | Thee more than mortal? and that so supine |
By aught than Romans Rome should thus be laid? | |
She who was named Eternal, and array’d | |
Her warriors but to conquer – she who veil’d | |
Earth with her haughty shadow, and display’d, | |
755 | Until the o’er-canopied horizon fail’d, |
Her rushing wings – Oh! she who was Almighty hail’d! | |
LXXXV | |
Sylla was first of victors; but our own | |
The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell; he | |
Too swept off senates while he hew’d the throne | |
760 | Down to a block – immortal rebel! See |
What crimes it costs to be a moment free | |
And famous through all ages! but beneath | |
His fate the moral lurks of destiny; | |
His day of double victory and death | |
765 | Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his breath. |
LXXXVI | |
The third of the same moon whose former course | |
Had all but crown’d him, on the selfsame day | |
Deposed him gently from his throne of force, | |
And laid him with the earth’s preceding clay. | |
770 | And show’d not Fortune thus how fame and sway, |
And all we deem delightful, and consume | |
Our souls to compass through each arduous way, | |
Are in her eyes less happy than the tomb? | |
Were they but so in man’s, how different were his doom! | |
LXXXVII | |
775 | And thou, dread statue! yet existent in |
The austerest form of naked majesty, | |
Thou who beheldest ’mid the assassins’ din | |
At thy bathed base the bloody Cæsar lie, | |
Folding his robe in dying dignity, | |
780 | An offering to thine altar from the queen |
Of gods and men, great Nemesis! did he die, | |
And thou too perish Pompey? have ye been | |
Victors of countless kings, or puppets of a scene? | |
LXXXVIII | |
And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome | |
785 | She-wolf! whose brazen-imaged dugs impart |
The milk of conquest yet within the dome | |
Where, as a monument of antique art, | |
Thou standest: – Mother of the mighty heart, | |
Which the great founder suck’d from thy wild teat, | |
790 | Scorch’d by the Roman Jove’s etherial dart, |
And thy limbs black with lightning – dost thou yet | |
Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget? | |
LXXXIX | |
Thou dost; – but all thy foster-babes are dead – | |
The men of iron; and the world hath rear’d | |
795 | Cities from out their sepulchres: men bled |
In imitation of the things they fear’d, | |
And fought and conquer’d, and the same course steer’d, | |
At apish distance; but as yet none have, | |
Nor could the same supremacy have near’d | |
800 | Save one vain man, who is not in the grave, |
But, vanquish’d by himself, to his own slaves a slave – | |
XC | |
The fool of false dominion – and a kind | |
Of bastard Cæsar, following him of old | |
With steps unequal; for the Roman’s mind | |
805 | Was modell’d in a less terrestrial mould, |
With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold, | |
And an immortal instinct which redeem’d | |
The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold, | |
Alcides with the distaff now he seem’d | |
810 | At Cleopatra’s feet, — and now himself he beam’d. |
XCI | |
And came — and saw – and conquer’d! But the man | |
Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee, | |
Like a train’d falcon, in the Gallic van, | |
Which he, in sooth, long led to victory, | |
815 | With a deaf heart which never seem’d to be |
A listener to itself was strangely framed; | |
With but one weakest weakness – vanity, | |
Coquettish in ambition – still he aim’d – | |
At what? can he avouch – or answer what he claim’d? | |
XCII | |
820 | And would be all or nothing – nor could wait |
For the sure grave to level him; few years | |
Had fix’d him with the Cæsars in his fate, | |
On whom we tread: For | |
The arch of triumph! and for this the tears | |
825 | And blood of earth flow on as they have flow’d, |
An universal deluge, which aears, | |
Without an ark for wretched man’s abode | |
And ebbs but to reflow! – Renew thy rainbow, God! | |
XCIII | |
What from this barren being do we reap? | |
830 | Our senses narrow, and our reason frail, |
Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep, | |
And all things weigh’d in custom’s falsest scale: | |
Opinion an omnipotence, – whose veil | |
Mantles the earth with darkness, until right | |
835 | And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale |
Lest their own judgments should become too bright, | |
And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light. | |
XCIV | |
And thus they plod in sluggish misery, | |
Rotting from sire to son, and age to age, | |
840 | Proud of their trampled nature, and so die, |
Bequeathing their hereditary rage | |
To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage | |
War for their chains, and rather than be free, | |
Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage | |
845 | Within the same arena where they see |
Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree. | |
XCV | |
I speak not of men’s creeds – they rest between | |
Man and his Maker – but of things allow’d, | |
Averr’d, and known, – and daily, hourly seen - | |
850 | The yoke that is upon us doubly bow’d, |
And the intent of tyranny avow’d, | |
The edict of Earth’s rulers, who are grown | |
The apes of him who humbled once the proud, | |
And shook them from their slumbers on the throne; | |
855 | Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done. |
XCVI | |
Can trants but b trants conuer’d be | |
And Freedom find no champion and no child | |
Such as Columbia saw arise when she | |
Sprung forth a Pallas, arm’d and undefiled? | |
860 | Or must such minds be nourish’d in the wild, |
Deep in the unpruned forest, ’midst the roar | |
Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled | |
On infant Washington? Has Earth no more | |
Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore? | |
XCVII | |
865 | But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime, |
And fatal have her Saturnalia been | |
To Freedom’s cause, in every age and clime; | |
Because the deadly days which we have seen, | |
And vile Ambition, that built up between | |
870 | Man and his hopes an adamantine wall, |
And the base pageant last upon the scene, | |
Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall | |
Which nips life’s tree, and dooms man’s worst — his second fall. | |
XCVIII | |
Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying | |
875Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind; | |
Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying, | |
The loudest still the tempest leaves behind; | |
Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind, | |
Chopp’d by the axe, looks rough and little worth, |