d to Victory,
With a deaf heart which never seemed to be
A listener to itself, was strangely framed;
With but one weakest weakness--Vanity--[nt]
Coquettish in ambition--still he aimed--
And what? can he avouch, or answer what he claimed?[nu]

XCII.

And would be all or nothing--nor could wait
For the sure grave to level him; few years
Had fixed him with the Caesars in his fate
On whom we tread: For _this_ the conqueror rears
The Arch of Triumph! and for this the tears
And blood of earth flow on as they have flowed,
An universal Deluge, which appears
Without an Ark for wretched Man's abode,
And ebbs but to reflow!--Renew thy rainbow, God![nv]

XCIII.

What from this barren being do we reap?[473]
Our senses narrow, and our reason frail,
Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep,
And all things weighed in Custom's falsest scale;[474]
Opinion an Omnipotence,--whose veil
Mantles the earth with darkness, until right
And wrong are accidents, and Men grow pale
Lest their own judgments should become too bright,
And their free thoughts be crimes, and Earth have too much light.

XCIV.

And thus they plod in sluggish misery,[nw]
Rotting from sire to son, and age to age,[475]
Proud of their trampled nature, and so die,[nx]
Bequeathing their hereditary rage
To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage
War for their chains, and rather than be free,
Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage
Within the same Arena where they see
Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree.

XCV.

I speak not of men's creeds--they rest between
Man and his Maker--but of things allowed,
Averred, and known, and daily, hourly seen--
The yoke that is upon us doubly bowed,
And the intent of Tyranny avowed,
The edict of Earth's rulers, who are grown
The apes of him who humbled once the proud,
And shook them from their slumbers on the throne;
Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done.

XCVI.

Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be,
And Freedom find no Champion and no Child[476]
Such as Columbia saw arise when she
Sprung forth a