And my thick and struggling breath No stranger agony confounds The soldier on the war-field spread, And the night-wind clamors hoarse ! See! the starting wretch's head Lies pillowed on a brother's corse!) VII. Not yet enslaved, not wholly vile, Nor ever proud invader's rage Or sacked thy towers, or stained thy fields with gore. VIII. Abandoned of Heaven! mad avarice thy guide, stood, And joined the wild yelling of famine and blood! The nations curse thee! They with eager wonder ing Shall hear Destruction, like a vulture, scream! Strange-eyed Destruction! who with many a dream Of central fires through nether seas upthundering O Albion thy predestined ruins rise, The fiend-hag on her perilous couch doth leap, Muttering distempered triumph in her charmed sleep. IX. Away, my soul, away! In vain, in vain the birds of warning sing- I unpartaking of the evil thing, Have wailed my country with a loud Lament. Now I recentre my immortal mind In the deep sabbath of meek self-content; Cleansed from the vaporous passions that bedim God's Image, sister of the Seraphim. YE FRANCE. AN ODE. I. Clouds! that far above me float and pause, Ye Woods! that listen to the night-birds singing, By moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound, By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound! And O ye Clouds that far above me soared! Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be, With what deep worship I have still adored The spirit of divinest Liberty.. II. When France in wrath her giant-limbs upreared, And with that oath, which smote air, earth, and sea, Stamped her strong foot, and said she would be free, Bear witness for me, how I hoped and feared! With what a joy my lofty gratulation Unawed I sang, amid a slavish band: And flung a magic light o'er all her hills and groves; Yet still my voice, unaltered, sang defeat To all that braved the tyrant-quelling lance, III. "And what," I said, "though Blasphemy's loud scream With that sweet music of deliverance strove ! Though all the fierce and drunken passions wove A dance more wild than e'er was maniac's dream! Ye storms, that round the dawning east assembled, The Sun was rising, though ye hid his light! And when, to soothe my soul, that hoped and trembled, The dissonance ceased, and all seemed calm and bright; When France her front deep-scarred and gory Whether thy Love with unrefracted ray And first a landscape rose More wild and waste and desolate than where The white bear, drifting on a field of ice, Howls to her sundered cubs with piteous rage And savage agony. |