urn no more
Thy children slain on Moskwa's shore,
Cut off from evil! want, and anguish,
And care, for ever brooding and in vain;
No more to be beguiled! no more to languish
Under the yoke of labour and of pain!
Their doom of future joy or woe
For good or evil done below,
The Judge of all the earth will order rightly!
Flee winding error through the flowery way,
To daily follow truth! to ponder nightly
On time, and death, and judgment, nearer day by day!
Bewail thy bane, deluded France,
Vain-glory, overweening pride,
And harrying earth with eagle glance,
Ambition, frantic homicide!
Lament, of all that armed throng
How few may reach their native land!
By war and tempest to be borne along,
To strew, like leaves, the Scythian strand?
Before Jehovah who can stand?
His path in evil hour the dragon cross'd!
He casteth forth his ice! at his command
The deep is frozen!--all is lost!
For who, great God, is able to abide thy frost?

EPODE.

Elate of heart, and wild of eye,
Crested horror hurtles by;
Myriads, hurrying north and east,
Gather round the funeral feast!
From lands remote, beyond the Rhine,
Running o'er with oil and wine,
Wide-waving over hill and plain,
Herbage green, and yellow grain;
From Touraine's smooth irriguous strand,
Garden of a fruitful land,
To thy dominion, haughty Rhone,
Leaping from thy craggy throne;
From Alp and Apennine to where
Gleam the Pyrenees in air;
From pastoral vales and piny woods,
Rocks and lakes and mountain-floods,
The warriors come, in armed might
Careering, careless of the right!
Their leader he who sternly bade
Freedom fall; and glory fade,
The scourge of nations ripe for ruin,
Planning oft their own undoing!
But who in yonder swarming host
Locust-like from coast to coast,
Reluctant move, an alien few,
Sullen, fierce, of sombre hue,
Who, forced unhallow'd arms to bear,
Mutter to the moaning air,
Whose curses on the welkin cast
Edge the keen and icy blast!
Iberia, sorrow bade thee nurse
Those who now the tyrant curse,
Whose wrongs for vengeance cry aloud!
Lo, the coming of a cloud!
To burst in wrath, and sweep away
Light as chaff the firm array!
To rack with pain, or lull to rest
Both oppressor and oppress'd.

ANTISTROPHE.

Is it the wind from tower to tower
Low-murmuring at midnight hour?