 | The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery
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XII.
EUROPEAN HOMAGE.
Upon his honour'd Bier, attendant,
With nodding plume and waving pendant,
Alone not Britain sent the bearers of his pall;
But, moved by gallant chivalry
That breathed of heart-nobility,
Seven Marshals graced with Heraldry,
From foreign lands, spontaneously from all,
Have come to tell of his career
Whose prowess friend and foe revere,
Each bearing in the crape-bound hand
Some bâton of extinct command
Monarchs or princes had in life bestow'd
On that brave Chief, to whom their Kingdoms owed
A vaster debt than peerless Rank can pay,
Or golden Orders in their gemm'd array.
Belgium and Prussia, Portugal and Spain,
And distant Russia, from her ice-bound plain,
With Hanover, and England too,
Remember'd mighty Waterloo!
But Austria sent no warrior-chief
Her own to blend with British grief;
Coldly apart from those united kings
Who each their homage to a Hero brings,
Preferr'd to stand, and gracelessly forget
The Past she burdens with an unpaid debt,
Because a woman-scourger in his body felt
A Nemesis for that vile blow he dealt;
Alas! that in an hour like this, the pride
Of less than Littleness was gratified!
And caused a Kingdom thus to stand alone,
Nor honour Him who saved her shaken throne.
| The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery
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