University of Virginia Library

TO POERIO AND HIS FELLOW-PATRIOTS.

O noble souls, freed from the foulest spite
That ever tyrannous and heartless fool
Wreak'd on the worth that shamed his worthless rule,
Linking your very bodies, day and night,
With lower souls, in hopes your patient might
Would droop despairing, as by Stygian pool;
(But you, oh you, masters in sorrow's school,
Lifted the heart-touch'd lowness to your height);—
Oh resting now, where men can trust a throne,
And served with such deep honour as endures
Beyond all gauds (for in comparison
With years of conquest over woes like yours,

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Glory, the Frenchman's feather, may be spurn'd)
Live long the new-found life your great good hearts have earn'd.