University of Virginia Library

ADVICE TO A RAVEN IN RUSSIA.

Black fool, why winter here? These frozen skies,
Worn by your wings and deafened by your cries,
Should warn you hence, where milder suns invite,
And Day alternates with his mother Night.
You fear, perhaps, your food will fail you there—
Your human carnage, that delicious fare,
That lured you hither, following still your friend,
The great Napoleon, to the world's bleak end.
You fear because the southern climes pour'd forth
Their clustering nations to infest the north—
Bavarians, Austrians—those who drink the Po,
And those who skirt the Tuscan seas below,
With all Germania, Neustria, Belgia, Gaul,
Doom'd here to wade through slaughter to their fall.
You fear he left behind no wars to feed
His feather'd cannibals and nurse the breed.
Fear not, my screamer, call your greedy train,
Sweep over Europe, hurry back to Spain—
You'll find his legions there, the valiant crew,
Please best their masters when they toil for you.
Abundant there they spread the country o'er,
And taint the breeze with every nation's gore—
Iberian, Russian, British, widely strown,
But still more wide and copious flows their own.
Go where you will, Calabria, Malta, Greece,
Egypt and Syria still his fame increase.
Domingo's fattened isle and India's plains
Glow deep with purple drawn from Gallic veins.
No raven's wing can stretch the flight so far
As the torn bandrols of Napoleon's war.
Choose then your climate, fix your best abode—
He'll make you deserts and he'll bring you blood.
How could you fear a dearth? Have not mankind,
Though slain by millions, millions left behind?
Has not conscription still the power to wield
Her annual falchion o'er the human field?
A faithful harvester! or if a man
Escape that gleaner, shall he 'scape the ban,
The triple ban, that, like the hound of hell,
Gripes with three joles to hold his victims well!
Fear nothing, then! hatch fast your ravenous brood,
Teach them to cry to Buonaparte for food.
They'll be, like you, of all his suppliant train,
The only class that never cries in vain!
For see what natural benefits you lend—
The surest way to fix the mutual friend—
While on his slaughtered troops your tribes are fed,
You cleanse his camp and carry off his dead,
Imperial scavenger, but now, you know,
Your work is vain amid these hills of snow.
His tentless troops are marbled through with frost,
And changed to crystal when the breath is lost.
Mere trunks of ice, though limn'd like human frames,
And lately warmed with life's endearing flames,
They cannot taint the air, the world infest,
Nor can you tear one fibre from their breast.
No! from their visual sockets as they lie,
With beak and claws you cannot pluck an eye—
The frozen orb, preserving still its form,
Defies your talons as it braves the storm,
But stands and stares to God as if to know,
In what curst hands he leaves his world below!
Fly then, or starve, though all the dreadful road
From Minsk to Moscow with their bodies strow'd
May count some myriads, yet they can't suffice
To feed you more beneath these dreadful skies.
Go back and winter in the wilds of Spain;
Feast there awhile, and in the next campaign
Rejoin your master, for you'll find him then,
With his new millions of the race of men,
Clothed in his thunders, all his flags unfurl'd,
Raging and storming o'er a prostrate world!
War after war his hungry soul requires;
State after state shall sink beneath his fires.
Yet other Spains in victim smoke shall rise.
And other Moscows suffocate the skies.
Each land lie reeking with its people slain,
And not a stream run bloodless to the main,
Till men resume their souls, and dare to shed
Earth's total vengeance on the monster's head!