V. The Desolator desolate! The Victor overthrown! The Arbiter of others' fate Is it some yet imperial hope That with such change can calmly cope? To die a prince or live a slave VI. He who of old would rend the oak, Chained by the trunk he vainly broke, Alone how looked he round? Thou, in the sternness of thy strength, VII. The Roman, 5 when his burning heart Was slaked with blood of Rome, Threw down the dagger dared depart, In savage grandeur, home. He dared depart, in utter scorn Of men that such a yoke had borne, His only glory was that hour VIII. The Spaniard, when the lust oft sway Had lost its quickening spell, Cast crowns for rosaries away, A strict accountant of his beads, Yet better had he neither known A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne. But thou IX. from thy reluctant hand The thunderbolt is wrung Too late thou leav'st the high command To which thy weakness clung; All Evil Spirit as thou art, It is enough to grieve the heart, To see thine own unstrung; To think that God's fair world hath been The footstool of a thing so mean; X. And Earth hath spilt her blood for him, Who thus can hoard his own! And Monarchs bowed the trembling limb, Fair Freedom! we may hold thee dear, XI. Thine evil deeds are writ in gore, Thy triumphs tell of fame no more, If thou hadst died as honour dies, To shame the world again But who would soar the solar height, XII. Weighed in the balance, hero dust Is vile as vulgar clay; Thy scales, Mortality! are just To all that pass away; But yet methought, the living great To dazzle and dismay; Nor deemed Contempt could thus make mirth Of these, the Conquerors of the earth. XIII. And she, proud Austria's mournful flower, Thy still imperial bride; How bears her breast the torturing hour? Still clings she to thy side? Must she too bend, must she too share If still she loves thee, hoard that gem, XIV. Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle, That element may meet thý smile, That Corinth's pedagogue hath now |