War! is the watchword of our race!
Lo! how the baffled leader seizeth,
With fetter'd hands, his Iron Crown--
A dread abyss his spirit freezeth!
Down, down he goes, to ruin down!
And Europe's armaments are driven,
Like mist, along the blood-stain'd snow--
That snow shall melt 'neath summer's heaven,
With the last footstep of the foe.
'Twas a wild storm of fear and wonder,
When Europe woke and burst her chain;
The accursed race, like scatter'd thunder,
After the tyrant fled amain.
And Nemesis a doom hath spoken,
The Mighty hears that doom with dread:
The wrongs thou'st done shall now be wroken,
Tyrant, upon thy guilty head!
Thou shalt redeem thy usurpation,
Thy long career of war and crime,
In exile's eating desolation,
Beneath a far and stranger clime.
And oft the midnight sail shall wander
By that lone isle, thy prison-place,
And oft a stranger there shall ponder,
And o'er that stone a pardon trace,
Where mused the Exile, oft recalling
The well-known clang of sword and lance,
The yells, Night's icy ear appalling;
His own blue sky--the sky of France;
Where, in his loneliness forgetting
His broken sword, his ruin'd throne,
With bitter grief, with vain regretting,
On his fair Boy he mused alone.
But shame, and curses without number,
Upon that reptile head be laid,
Whose insults now shall vex the slumber
Of him--that sad discrowned shade!
No! for his trump the signal sounded,
Her glorious race when Russia ran;
His hand, 'mid strife and battle, founded
Eternal liberty for man!
* * * * *
The next specimen for which we have to request the indulgence of our
readers, is a little composition of a very different and much less
ambitious character. The idea is simple enough, and not, we think,
entirely devoid of originality--the primary object of every translator
in the selection of the subjects on which he is to exercise his
dexterity.
THE STORM.
See, on yon rock, a maiden's form,
Far o'er the wave a white robe flashing,
Around, before the blackening storm,
On the loud beach the billows dashing;
Along the waves, now red, now pale,
The lightning-glare incessant gleameth;
Whirling and fluttering in the gale,
The snowy robe incessant streameth;
Fair is that sea in blackening storm,
And fair that sky with lightnings riven,
But fairer far that maiden
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