tracting health,
Rest satisfied, and ask no other wealth:
Rough and unyielding, like their native soil,
The hardy sons of Nature and of Toil;
Resistless vigour, resolute and warm,
Strings every nerve, and braces every arm.
Foremost to vindicate the righteous cause,
And from th' oppressor guard their injur'd laws,
Thro' many a rolling century these have shone
Th' unfailing champions of the Swedish throne,
And now with all my forces singly cope,
Sweden's last bulwark, and her choicest hope.
No trivial loss their courage will alarm,
No threatening martial show their minds disarm,
And bribes, those glittering, oft successful darts,
Will find no entrance to their guarded hearts.
No--fields must smoke, and blood in torrents flow,
Ere all our force can master such a foe."

More had he said, but, with indignant heat
Inspired, Ernestus started from his seat:
His soul's resistless ardour bade him rise,
His kindling soul came rushing to his eyes--

"Yes! fresh domains to ruin must succeed,
Fresh cities sink in flame, fresh thousands bleed!
What want'st thou more, thou prodigal of guilt!
Oppression's sword is buried to the hilt
In unoffending blood--what want'st thou more,
Thou sanguinary pest of an unhappy shore?
Far as thy sight can stretch, look round, and see
All Sweden piled with monuments of thee;
Behold her provinces with slaughter strown,
Her ruined fields, her castles overthrown;
Behold--But ah! more glaring than the rest,
In me thy brightest trophy stands confess'd!
Yes--prompt each fatal mandate to fulfil,
Perpetual slave of thy tyrannic will,
I stood, to sovereign infamy preferr'd,
The meanest of thy mercenary herd:
Thy crimes I copied--for thy worthless gold
My monarch's life, my country's freedom sold!
The cloud of wrath that veils in thickening gloom
Thee and those partners of thy crimes and doom,
In its black scope involv'd me--not a ray
Shot thro' the ambient night one glimpse of day;
'Till heaven's own mercy offer'd to my view
From its dark sphere, a radiant avenue:
Cheer'd with fresh hope, its limits I forsook,
And, wing'd with new-born speed, a fresh direction took.
If Heaven prohibit not the blow, my fate
Lies in thy hands; my transitory date
This hour may close; and thou, e'en thou, mayst be