* * * *

Lo! the deciding hour at last appears;
The hour of every freeman's hopes and fears!

* * * * *

See Freedom mounting her eternal throne,
The sword submitted, and the laws her own!
See! public Power, chastised, beneath her stands,
With eyes intent, and uncorrupted hands!
See private life by wisest arts reclaimed!
See ardent youth to noblest manners framed!
See us acquire whate'er was sought by you,
If Curio, only Curio will be true.

'Twas then--O shame! O trust how ill repaid!
O Latium, oft by faithless sons betrayed!--
'Twas then--What frenzy on thy reason stole?
What spells unsinewed thy determined soul?--
Is this the man in Freedom's cause approved?
The man so great, so honored, so beloved?
This patient slave by tinsel chains allured?
This wretched suitor for a boon abjured?
This Curio, hated and despised by all?
Who fell himself to work his country's fall?

O lost, alike to action and repose!
Unknown, unpitied in the worst of woes!
With all that conscious, undissembled pride,
Sold to the insults of a foe defied!
With all that habit of familiar fame,
Doomed to exhaust the dregs of life in shame!
The sole sad refuge of thy baffled art
To act a stateman's dull, exploded part,
Renounce the praise no longer in thy power,
Display thy virtue, though without a dower,
Contemn the giddy crowd, the vulgar wind,
And shut thy eyes that others may be blind.

* * * * *

O long revered, and late resigned to shame!
If this uncourtly page thy notice claim
When the loud cares of business are withdrawn,
Nor well-drest beggars round thy footsteps fawn;
In that still, thoughtful, solitary hour,
When Truth exerts her unresisted power,
Breaks the false optics tinged with fortune's glare,
Unlocks the breast, and lays the passions bare:
Then turn thy eyes on that important scene,
And ask thyself--if all be well within.
Where is the heart-felt worth and weight of soul,
Which labor could not stop, nor fear control?
Where the known dignity, the stamp of awe,
Which, half abashed, the proud and venal saw?
Where the calm triumphs of an honest cause?
Where the delightful taste of just applause?