long,
So oft, so vainly--learn to do no wrong!
A single step into the right had made
This man the Washington of worlds betrayed:
A single step into the wrong has given
His name a doubt to all the winds of heaven;
The reed of Fortune, and of thrones the rod,
Of Fame the Moloch or the demigod;
His country's Caesar, Europe's Hannibal,
Without their decent dignity of fall. 240
Yet Vanity herself had better taught
A surer path even to the fame he sought,
By pointing out on History's fruitless page
Ten thousand conquerors for a single sage.
While Franklin's quiet memory climbs to Heaven,
Calming the lightning which he thence hath riven,
Or drawing from the no less kindled earth
Freedom and peace to that which boasts his birth;[295]
While Washington's a watchword, such as ne'er
Shall sink while there's an echo left to air:[296] 250
While even the Spaniard's thirst of gold and war
Forgets Pizarro to shout Bolivar![297]
Alas! why must the same Atlantic wave
Which wafted freedom gird a tyrant's grave--
The king of kings, and yet of slaves the slave,
Who burst the chains of millions to renew
The very fetters which his arm broke through,
And crushed the rights of Europe and his own,
To flit between a dungeon and a throne?

VI.

But 'twill not be--the spark's awakened--lo! 260
The swarthy Spaniard feels his former glow;
The same high spirit which beat back the Moor
Through eight long ages of alternate gore
Revives--and where? in that avenging clime
Where Spain was once synonymous with crime,
Where Cortes' and Pizarro's banner flew,
The infant world redeems her name of "_New_."
'Tis the _old_ aspiration breathed afresh,
To kindle souls within degraded flesh,
Such as repulsed the Persian from the shore 270
Where Greece _was_--No! she still is Greece once more.
One common cause makes myriads of one breast,
Slaves of the East, or helots of the West:
On Andes'[298] and on Athos' peaks unfurled,
The self-same standard streams o'er either world:
The Athenian[299] wears again Harmodius' sword;
The Chili chief[300] abjures his foreign lord;
The Spartan knows himself once more a Greek,[301]
Young Freedom plumes the crest of each