And trample on each other to obtain
The cup which brings oblivion of a chain
Heavy and sore,-in which long yoked they ploughed
The sand, or if there sprung the yellow grain,
'Twas not for them, their necks were too much bowed, 90
And their dead palates chewed the cud of pain :-
Yes! the few spirits-who, despite of deeds
Which they abhor, confound not with the cause
Those momentary starts from Nature's laws,
Which, like the pestilence and earthquake, smite
But for a term, then pass, and leave the earth
With all her seasons to repair the blight
With a few summers, and again put forth
Cities and generations-fair, when free-
For, Tyranny, there blooms no bud for thee!
Glory and Empire! once upon these towers
With Freedom-godlike Triad! how you sate!
The league of mightiest nations, in those hours
When Venice was an envy, might abate,
But did not quench, her spirit-in her fate
All were enwrapped: the feasted monarchs knew
And loved their hostess, nor could learn to hate,
Although they humbled-with the kingly few
The many felt, for from all days and climes
She was the voyager's worship;-even her crimes
Were of the softer order, born of Love-
She drank no blood, nor fattened on the dead,
But gladdened where her harmless conquests spread;
For these restored the Cross, that from above
Hallowed her sheltering banners, which incessant
Flew between earth and the unholy Crescent,2
Which, if it waned and dwindled, Earth may thank
The city it has clothed in chains, which clank
Now, creaking in the ears of those who owe
1. [Compare Lord Tennyson's stanzas
"Of old sat Freedom on the heights."]
2. [Compare Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza xiv. line 3, note x and line 6, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 339, 340.]
The name of Freedom to her glorious struggles; 120
Yet she but shares with them a common woe,
And called the "kingdom"1 of a conquering foe,—
But knows what all-and, most of all, we know—
With what set gilded terms a tyrant juggles!
The name of Commonwealth is past and gone
O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe;
Venice is crushed, and Holland deigns to own
A sceptre, and endures the purple robe; 2
If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone
His chainless mountains, 't is but for a time,
For Tyranny of late is cunning grown,
And in its own good season tramples down
The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime,
Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean 3
Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion
Of Freedom, which their fathers fought for, and
Bequeathed-a heritage of heart and hand,
And proud distinction from each other land,
Whose sons must bow them at a Monarch's motion,
As if his senseless sceptre were a wand
Full of the magic of exploded science
Still one great clime, in full and free defiance,
Yet rears her crest, unconquered and sublime,
Above the far Atlantic!-She has taught
Her Esau-brethren that the haughty flag,
The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag,
1. [In 1814 the Italian possessions of the Emperor of Austria were "constituted into separate and particular states, under the title of the kingdom of Venetian Lombardy."-Koch's Europe, p. 234.]
2. [The Prince of Orange ... was proclaimed Sovereign Prince of the Low Countries, December 1, 1813; and in the following year, August 13, 1814, on the condition that he should make a part of the Germanic Confederation, he received the title of King of the Netherlands.-Ibid., p. 233.]
3. [Compare "Oceano dissociabili," Hor., Odes, I. iii. 22.]
4. In October, 1812, the American sloop Wasp captured the English brig Frolic; and December 29, 1812, the Constitution compelled the frigate Java to surrender. In the following year, February 24, 1813, the Hornet met the Peacock off the Demerara, and reduced her in fifteen minutes to a sinking condition. On June 28, 1814, the sloop-of
May strike to those whose red right hands have bought
Rights cheaply earned with blood.-Still, still, for ever
Better, though each man's life-blood were a river,
That it should flow, and overflow, than creep
Through thousand lazy channels in our veins,
Dammed like the dull canal with locks and chains,
And moving, as a sick man in his sleep,
Three paces, and then faltering :-better be
Where the extinguished Spartans still are free,
In their proud charnel of Thermopylæ,
Than stagnate in our marsh,-or o'er the deep
Fly, and one current to the ocean add,
One spirit to the souls our fathers had,
One freeman more, America, to thee!1
war Wasp captured and burned the sloop Reindeer, and on September 11, 1814, the Confiance, commanded by Commodore Downie, and other vessels surrendered."-History of America, by Justin Winsor, 1888, vii. 380, seq.]
1. [Byron repented, or feigned to repent, this somewhat provocative eulogy of the Great Republic: "Somebody has sent me some American abuse of Mazeppa and the Ode;' in future I will compliment nothing but Canada, and desert to the English."-Letter to Murray, February 21, 1820, Letters, 1900, iv. 410. It is possible that the allusion is to an article, "Mazeppa and Don Juan," in the Analectic Magazine, November, 1819, vol. xiv. pp. 405-410.]
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