 | Ode on the arrival of the Potentates in Oxford |  |
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ODE ON THE ARRIVAL OF THE POTENTATES IN OXFORD.
I.
Happy our doom, when war's wild earthquake hurl'dFrom their proud thrones the cities of the world,
Wrapt in a dizzy hurricane of flames,
Still sweetly slumber'd our high arching bowers,
And the calm shadows of our hoary towers
On the blue quiet of our waveless Thames.
Oh, happy! in those dismal days of shame
When this fair earth and all her pomp became
A bauble for a despot's wayward hand;
High Fame for us her gorgeous vaunts unroll'd,
We liv'd amid the great, the sage of old,
Brave souls that erst the bark of Freedom mann'd;
From barter'd Ulm we fled to Leuctra's strife,
And lost in Cato's death Napoleon's life.
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II.
For the tame niggard earth seemed now to bearSouls only of that white and coward hue,
That to their pale complexion basely true,
Made virtue, and made wisdom of despair,
Shaming the God that made them free—each neck
Bow'd to a being of the same mean dust,
A giant but in wild ambition's lust,
Nations of slaves stoop'd vassal at his beck.
But Britain from the world and the world's shame
Sate sever'd, like her kindred Ocean free,
The rampire of her glories, Nelson's name,
And her broad flags that crimson'd the wide sea.
III.
Oh, wild to deem that ought but great and braveCould spring, Pultawa's Conqueror, from thy stem,
Or the rich stars of Frederick's diadem
Circle that abject thing, a royal slave.
In savage grandeur of portentous guilt,
Flush'd to fierce strength by blood that he hath spilt,
The wolf stalks grimly o'er the blasted plain,
Upsprings the Lion from his monarch lair,
With his broad mane's dun floating, loads the air,
And glares the faint intruder from his reign.
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But from cold waste of carnage dread in strife!
Thine hour of utterest anguish yet shall be
When human blood shall cease to flow for thee.
IV.
Now are the clouds that wrapt thy terrors broken,Now glorious hath fair Freedom's sun awoken.
On the proud Spaniard's mountains waste and rude
A wavering wild and fitful blaze it falls,
On Zaragoza's stately solitude,
With sad proud splendor gilds the broken walls.
His armed rest Vimeira's Lord hath burst,
Where, like a falcon his strong plumes he nurst,
Upleap'd on Victory's car, and cried, “Away,”
And taught her fiery steeds to own a master's sway—
By Talavera roll'd that thundering car,
Those thirsty wheels were slak'd in Douro's tide,
Tower'd Salamanca heard its rush afar,
Vittoria pamper'd the fierce courser's pride;
Now on the Pyrenean snows they prance,
Now sweep in dizzy speed the purple plains of France.
V.
Gone is earth's Lord in pomp and splendor forthWith all his revenue of human blood,
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The wild and wintry deserts of the north.
Slowly with forward front and backward tread,
Sad to be barr'd the joy of fight, recede
The fierce Muscovians' dark unbroken train
They may not sink by human arm o'erthrown,
Those harness'd Southern Myriad's—God alone
Whom he hath rais'd, shall spurn to dust again.
Shall then the winds on Moscow's royal wall
Rock the proud banners of a Stranger'd Foe.
No, Ancient and Majestic Empress! no,
Rather than be a slave, be not at all.
Lo to the Heaven her towery pomp aspire
In one wild mass of red uprolling fire.
With wither'd gaze and pale foreboding mien
The stranger walk'd where Moscow once had been;
The smouldering walls nod peril o'er his head,
And ashes are the pavement of his tread.
VI.
But God hath loos'd his ministers of wrath,In one white restless dome the welkin lowers;
The tempest from his rushing pinion showers
Bleak icy arrows o'er the woful path;
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Sweeps o'er the plain that cloudy chivalry.
By his warp'd standard dreams the dying man
Alive but to drear consciousness of pain,
How soft the summer gales of France would fan
The parching frost, that harrows up his brain;
Or treads slow struggling through the drifting snow
O'er myriads in their frosty sleep below.
Where is the Lord, the Chief of battles where?
Do the bold frostwinds ice Imperial breath?
Rich in their glories, doth he nobly share
The cold and dreary fellowship of death?
Fall deep, ye shades! be dark, thou wintry night
And veil the glories of the Hero's flight.
VII.
No steel of vengeance and no bolt of warCheck the fleet rushing of that lonely car;
No huntsman base may drive that mighty game,
But royal Conquerors crown his fall with fame.
Leipsic! be proud though mournful for that day
When the helm'd squadron of embattled Kings,
Beset their frantic quarry, fierce at bay,
And hemm'd him with the battle's iron wings.
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The bold Silesian tracks him to his den;
With soul of youth, and hoary front of age,
Grapples the Savage in his desperate rage.
VIII.
Paris! uprear on high thy gorgeous thrones,Lo at thy gates high Victory's sceptred sons.
Not there the dark revenge of injur'd foe,
Nor the fierce drunken pride of prosperous strife,
Even to the sunken master spirit of woe
Is given that worthless boon, his abject life;
And the sole penalty of France must be
By those she strove to fetter, to be free.
So rich in mercy had great Julius come
A mailed conqueror to his native Rome,
The Utican had died a tamer death,
And Brutus steel clung idle to its sheath.
And lo, where Britain's royal banner brings
The image of thy old majestic Kings;
For all her wasted wealth, her slaughter'd lives
Take the return, O France, that Britain gives.
IX.
Ye mighty Kings, a flatterer's honied rhymeWere poison to a free born Briton's tongue,
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Tinkles to slumber souls that scoff at wrong.
By those ye sway is witness'd what ye are,
Go search the nations! walk your subject earth!
If all be peaceful, free, and blissful there;
Thank Heaven that ye were born of royal birth.
THE END.
| Ode on the arrival of the Potentates in Oxford | |