University of Virginia Library

First of all created things,
God's eldest born, O tell me, Time!
E'er since within that car of thine,
Drawn by those steeds, whose speed divine,
Through ev'ry age and ev'ry clime,
Nor pause nor rest has known;
'Mongst all the scenes long since gone by,
Since first thou op'd'st thy closeless eye,
Did its scared glances ever rest
Upon a vision so unblest,
So fearful as our own?

If thus thou start'st in wild affright
At what thyself hast brought to light,
O yet relent! nor still unclose
New volumes vast of human woes.
Thy bright and bounteous brother, yonder Sun,
Whose course coeval still with thine doth run,
Sick'ning at the sights unholy,
Frightful crime, and frantic folly,
By thee, presumptuous! with delight
Forced upon his awful sight,
Abandons half his regal right,
And yields the hated world to Night.
And e'en when through the honored day
He still benignly deigns to sway,
High o'er th' horizon prints his burnish'd tread,
Oft calls his clouds,
With sable shrouds,
To hide his glorious head!

And Luna, of yet purer view,
His sister and his regent too,
Beneath whose mild and sacred reign
Thou darest display thy deeds profane,
Pale and appalled, has frowned her fears,
Or veiled her brightness in her tears.
While all her starry court, attendant near,
Only glance, and disappear.

But Thou, relentless! not in thee
These horrors wake humanity:
Though Sun, and Moon, and Stars combin'd,
Ne'er did it change thy fatal mind,
Nor e'er thy wayward steps retrace,
Nor e'er restrain thy courser's race,
Nor e'er efface the blood thou'd'st shed,
Nor raise to life the murdered dead.

Is't not enough, thou spoiler, tell!
That, subject to thy stern behest,
The might of ancient empire fell,
And sunk to drear and endless rest?
Fallen is the Roman eagle's flight,
The Grecian glory sunk in night;
And prostrate arts and arms no more withstand;
Those own thy Vandal flame, and these thy conq'ring hand.
Then be destruction's sable banner furled,
Nor wave its shadows o'er the modern world!

In vain the prayer. Still opens wide,
Renewed each former tragic scene
Of Time's dark drama; while beside
Grief and Despair their vigils keep;
And Mem'ry only lives to weep
The mould'ring dust of WHAT HAS BEEN.
How nameless now the once famed earth,
That gave to Kosciusco birth,
The pillared realm that proudly stood,
Propped by his worth, cemented by his blood.
As towers the lion of the wood
O'er all surrounding living things,
So, 'mid the herd of vulgar kings,
The dauntless Dalecarlian stood.
“Pillowed by flint, by damps enclosed,”
Upon the mine's cold lap reposed,
Yet firm he followed freedom's plan;
“Dared with eternal Night reside,
“And threw inclemency aside,”
Conq'ror of Nature as of Man!
And earn'd by toils unknown before,
Of blood and death, the crown he wore;
That radiant crown, whose flood of light
Illumined once a nation's sight,
Spirit of Vasa! this its doom?
Gleams in a dungeon's living tomb!

Where'er the frightened mind can fly,
But nearer ruins meet her eye.
Ah! not Arcadia's pictured scene
Could more the poet's dream engage,
Nor manners more befitting seem
The vision of a golden age,
Than where the chamois loved to roam
Through old Helvetia's rugged home;
Where Uri's echoes loved to swell
To kindred rocks the name of Tell;
And past'ral girls and rustic swains,
Were simple as their native plains,
Nor mild alone, but bold, the mind,
The soldier and the shepherd joined;
The Roman heraldry restored;
The crook was quartered with the sword.
Their seed-time cheerful labor stored;
Plenty piled their vintage board;
Peace loved their daily fold to keep;
Contentment tranquillized their sleep;
Till through those giant guards of stone,
Where Freedom fixed her “mountain-throne,”
Battle's blood-hounds forced their way
And made the Human Flock their prey!

Is it Fact, or Fancy tells,
That now another mandate's gone?
Hark, e'en now those fated wheels
Roll the rapid ruin on!
Lo, where the generous and the good,
The heart to feel, the hand to dare;
Iberia pours her noblest blood,
Iberia lifts her holiest prayer!
The while from all her rocks and vales
Her peasant-bands by thousands rise;
Their altar is their native plains,
Themselves, the willing sacrifice.
While HE, the “strangest birth of time,”
Red with gore, and grim with crime,
Whose fate more prodigies attend,
And in whose course more terrors blend,
And o'er whose birth more portents lower,
Than ever crowned,
In lore renowned,
The Macedonian's natal hour!
Now here, now there, he takes his stand,
The 'stablish'd earth his footsteps jar;
Goads to the fight his vassal-band,
While ebbs or flows, at his command,
The torrent of the war!

Could the bard, whose powers sublime
Scaled the heights of epic glory,
And rendered in immortal rhyme
Of Rome's disgrace the blushing story;
Where, formed of treason and of woes,
Pharsalia's gory genius rose;
Might he again
Renew the strain,
That once his truant Muse had charmed,
Each foreign tone
Unwak'd had lain;
And patriot Spain,
And Spain alone
The Spaniard's patriot heart had warmed!

Then had the chords proclaimed no more
His deeds, his death renowned of yore;
Who, when each ling'ring hope was slain,
And Freedom fought with Fate in vain,
Lone in the city, 'reft of all,
While Usurpation stormed the wall,
The tyrant's entrance scorned to see,
But died with dying Liberty.

Those chords had raised the local strain;
That bard a filial flight had ta'en;
Forgot all else; the ancient past,
Thick in oblivion's mists o'ercast,
Or past and present both combined
Within the graspings of his mind;
In what now' is, viewed what hath been;
The dead within the living seen:
Owned transmigration's strange control,
In Spaniards owned the Cato-soul;
And wailed in tones of martial grief,
The valiant band and hero-chief,
Who shared in Saragossa's doom,
And made their Utica their tomb.
Bright be the am'ranth of their fame!
May Palafox a Lucan claim!

That bard no more had filled his rhymes
With Cæsar's greatness, Cæsar's crimes;
Another Cæsar waked the string,
Alike usurper, traitor, king.
Another Cæsar? rashly said!
Forgive the falsehood, mighty shade!
'Mong'st Julius' treasons, still we know
The faithful friend, the gen'rous foe;
And even enmity could see
Some virtues of humanity.

But thou! by what accursed name
Shall we denote thy features here?
In records of infernal Fame
Where shall we find thy black compeer?
Thou, whose perfidious might of mind
Nor Pity moves, nor faith can bind;
Whose friends, whose followers vainly crave
That trust which should reward the brave;
Whose foes, 'mid tenfold War's alarms,
Dread more thy treachery than thine arms.
The Ishmaelite, 'mid deserts bred,
Who robs at last whom first he fed,
The midnight murd'rer of the guest
With whom he shared the morning's feast,
This Arab wretch, compared with thee,
Is honor and humanity!

And shall that proud, that ancient land,
In treasure rich, in pageant grand,
Land of romance, where sprang of old
Adventures strange and champions bold,
Of holy faith and gallant fight,
And bannered hall, and armored knight,
And tournament, and minstrelsy,
The NATIVE LAND OF CHIVALRY!
Shall all these “blushing honors” bloom
For Corsica's detested son?
These ancient worthies own his sway,
The upstart fiend of yesterday?
O, for the kingly sword and shield
That once the victor monarch sped,
What time from Pavia's trophied field
The royal Frank was captive led!
May Charles's laurels, gained for you,
Ne'er, Spaniards, on your brows expire;
Nor the degenerate sons subdue
The conq'rors of their nobler sire.
None higher 'mid the zodiac line
Of sovereigns and of saints you claim,
Than fair Castilia's star could shine,
And brighten down the sky of fame.
Wise, magnanimous, refined,
Accomplished friend of human kind,
Who first the Genoese sail unfurled,
The mighty mother of an infant world,
Illustrious Isabel! Shall thine,
Thy children, kneel at Gallia's shrine?
No: rise, thou venerated shade,
In heaven's own armor bright arrayed,
Like Pallas to her Grecian band;
Nerve ev'ry heart and ev'ry hand;
Pervious or not to mortal sight,
Still guard thy gallant offspring's right,
Display thine Ægis from afar,
And lend a thunderbolt to war!

God of battles! from thy throne,
God of vengeance, aid their cause!
Make it, conq'ring one, thine own!
'Tis faith, and liberty, and laws.
'Tis for these they pour their blood:
The cause of man—the cause of God!
Not now avenge, all-righteous power,
Peruvia's red and ruined hour;
Nor mangled Montezuma's head;
Nor Guatimozin's burning bed;
Nor give the guiltless up to fate,
For Cortez' crimes, Pizarro's hate!
Thou, who behold'st, enthroned afar,
Beyond the vision of the keenest star,
Far through creation's ample round,
The universe's utmost bound;
Where war in other shape appears,
The destined plague of other spheres;
Other Napoleons arise
To stain the earth and cloud the skies;
And other realms in martial ranks succeed,
Fight like Iberians, like Iberians bleed!
If an end is e'er designed
The dire destroyers of mankind;
O, be some seraphim assigned,
To breathe it to the patriot mind!
What Brutus, bright in arms arrayed,
What Cordè bares the righteous blade?
Or if the vengeance, not our own,
Be sacred to thy arm alone;
When shall be signed the blest release,
And wearied worlds refreshed with peace!
O could the muse but dare to rise
Far o'er these low and clouded skies,
Above the threefold heaven to soar,
And in thy very sight implore!
In vain. While angels veil them there,
While faith half fears to lift her prayer,
The glance profane shall fancy dare?
Yet there around, a fearful band,
Thy ministers of vengeance stand.
Lo, at thy bidding stalks the storm;
The lightning takes a local form;
The floods erect their hydra head;
The pestilence forsakes his bed;
Intolerable light appears to wait;
And far-off darkness stands in awful state!

For thee, O time!
If still thou speed'st thy march of crime,
'Gainst all that's beauteous or sublime;
Still prov'st thyself the sworn ally,
And author of mortality;
Infuriate earth, too long supine,
Whilst demon-like thou lov'st to ride,
Ending every work beside,
Shall live to see the end of thine,
Her great revenge shall see!
By prayer shall move th' Almighty power
To antedate that final hour,
When the archangel firm shall stand,
Upon the ocean and the land;
His crown a radiant rainbow sphere,
His echoes seven-fold thunders near,
The last dread fiat shall proclaim:
Shall swear by His tremendous name,
Who formed the earth, the heavens, and sea,
Time shall no longer be!