KOSCIUSKO TO THE CORPSE OF POLAND.
(1796.)
Now thou art dead. The sheet which Winter wove
Of whitest snow to hide thy corpse away
Is reddened through and through, and no Spring ray
Will warm thee back, O Freedom's butchered love.
And if at times thou still shalt seem to move,
'Twill be but like the dead, who, as some say,
Shift in their graves when black eclipse turns day
To unexpected night in heaven above.
Dead, dead, quite dead! Henceforward thou shalt be
A ghost that ever and anon shall come
To scare the nations at their revelry:
A sudden chill shall hush their joyous hum,
And there upon their threshold they shall see
Thy phantom standing motionless and dumb.
