University of Virginia Library

13 Ode to Liberty

STROPHE

Who shall awake the Spartan fife,
And call in solemn sounds to life
The youths, whose locks divinely spreading,
Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue,
At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding,
Applauding Freedom loved of old to view?
What new Alcaeus, Fancy-blest,
Shall sing the sword in myrtles dressed,
At Wisdom's shrine awhile its flame concealing,
(What place so fit to seal a deed renowned?)
Till she her brightest lightnings round revealing,
It leaped in glory forth and dealt her prompted wound!
O goddess, in that feeling hour,
When most its sounds would court thy ears,
Let not my shell's misguided power
E'er draw thy sad, thy mindful tears.
No, Freedom, no, I will not tell
How Rome, before thy weeping face,
With heaviest sound, a giant-statue, fell,
Pushed by a wild and artless race
From off its wide ambitious base,
When Time his northern sons of spoil awoke,
And all the blended work of strength and grace,
With many a rude repeated stroke
And many a barbarous yell, to thousand fragments broke.

EPODE 2

Yet even, where'er the least appeared,
The admiring world thy hand revered;
Still midst the scattered states around
Some remnants of her strength were found;
They saw by what escaped the storm
How wondrous rose her perfect form;
How in the great, the laboured whole,
Each mighty master poured his soul!
For sunny Florence, seat of art,
Beneath her vines preserved a part,
Till they, whom Science loved to name,
(O who could fear it?) quenched her flame.
And lo, an humbler relic laid
In jealous Pisa's olive shade!
See small Marino joins the theme,
Though least, not last in thy esteem;
Strike, louder strike the ennobling strings
To those whose merchant sons were kings;
To him who, decked with pearly pride,
In Adria weds his green-haired bride;
Hail, port of glory, wealth and pleasure,
Ne'er let me change this Lydian measure:
Nor e'er her former pride relate
To sad Liguria's bleeding state.
Ah no! more pleased thy haunts I seek
On wild Helvetia's mountains bleak
(Where, when the favoured of thy choice,
The daring archer, heard thy voice,
Forth from his eyrie roused in dread,
The ravening Eagle northward fled);
Or dwell in willowed meads more near,
With those to whom thy stork is dear:
Those whom the rod of Alva bruised,
Whose crown a British queen refused!
The magic works, thou feel'st the strains,
One holier name alone remains;
The perfect spell shall then avail.
Hail nymph, adored by Britain, hail!

ANTISTROPHE

Beyond the measure vast of thought,
The works the wizard Time has wrought!
The Gaul, 'tis held of antique story,
Saw Britain linked to his now adverse strand,
No sea between nor cliff sublime and hoary:
He passed with unwet feet through all our land.
To the blown Baltic then, they say,
The wild waves found another way,
Where Orcas howls, his wolfish mountains rounding;
Till all the banded West at once 'gan rise,
A wide wild storm even Nature's self confounding,
Withering her giant sons with strange uncouth surprise.
This pillared earth so firm and wide,
By winds and inward labours torn,
In thunders dread was pushed aside,
And down the shouldering billows borne.
And see, like gems, her laughing train,
The little isles on every side,
Mona, once hid from those who search the main,
Where thousand elfin shapes abide,
And Wight who checks the westering tide,
For thee consenting heaven has each bestowed,
A fair attendant on her sovereign pride:
To thee this blest divorce she owed,
For thou hast made her vales thy loved, thy last abode!

SECOND EPODE