Pallas, armed and undefined?
Or must such minds be nourished in the wild,
Deep in the unpruned forest, 'midst the roar[ny]
Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled
On infant Washington? Has Earth no more
Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore?

XCVII.

But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime;[nz]
And fatal have her Saturnalia been[oa]
To Freedom's cause, in every age and clime;
Because the deadly days which we have seen,
And vile Ambition, that built up between
Man and his hopes an adamantine wall,
And the base pageant[477] last upon the scene,
Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall
Which nips Life's tree, and dooms Man's worst--his second fall.[478]

XCVIII.

Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,
Streams like the thunder-storm _against_ the wind;[479]
Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying,
The loudest still the Tempest leaves behind;
Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind,
Chopped by the axe, looks rough and little worth,
But the sap lasts,--and still the seed we find
Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North;
So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth.

XCIX.

There is a stern round tower of other days[480]
Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone,
Such as an army's baffled strength delays,
Standing with half its battlements alone,
And with two thousand years of ivy grown,
The garland of Eternity, where wave
The green leaves over all by Time o'erthrown;--
What was this tower of strength? within its cave
What treasure lay so locked, so hid?--A woman's grave.[ob]

C.

But who was she, the Lady of the dead,
Tombed in a palace? Was she chaste and fair?
Worthy a king's--or more--a Roman's bed?
What race of Chiefs and Heroes did she bear?
What daughter of her beauties was the heir?
How lived--how loved--how died she? Was she not
So honoured--and conspicuously there,
Where meaner relics must not dare to rot,
Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot?

CI.

Was she as those who love their lords, or they
Who love the lords of others? such have been