Selected Poems (100 page)

And thy limbs black with lightning – dost thou yet

Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget?

LXXXIX

Thou dost; – but all thy foster-babes are dead –

The men of iron; and the world hath rear’d

795

Cities from out their sepulchres: men bled

In imitation of the things they fear’d,

LXXXIII

Oh thou whose chariot roll’d on Fortune’s wheel

740

Triumphant Sylla! Thou, who didst subdue

Thy country’s foes ere thou wouldst pause to feel

The wrath of thy own wrongs, or reap the due

Of hoarded vengeance till thine eagles flew

O’er prostrate Asia; – thou, who with thy frown

745

Annihilated senates – Roman, too,

With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down

With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown –

LXXXIV

The dictatorial wreath – couldst thou divine

To what would one day dwindle that which made

750

Thee more than mortal? and that so supine

By aught than Romans Rome should thus be laid?

She who was named Eternal, and array’d

Her warriors but to conquer – she who veil’d

Earth with her haughty shadow, and display’d,

755

Until the o’er-canopied horizon fail’d,

Her rushing wings – Oh! she who was Almighty hail’d!

LXXXV

Sylla was first of victors; but our own

The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell; he

Too swept off senates while he hew’d the throne

760

Down to a block – immortal rebel! See

What crimes it costs to be a moment free

And famous through all ages! but beneath

His fate the moral lurks of destiny;

His day of double victory and death

765

Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his breath.
¹

LXXXVI

The third of the same moon whose former course

Had all but crown’d him, on the selfsame day

Deposed him gently from his throne of force,

And laid him with the earth’s preceding clay.

770

And show’d not Fortune thus how fame and sway,

And all we deem delightful, and consume

Our souls to compass through each arduous way,

Are in her eyes less happy than the tomb?

Were they but so in man’s, how different were his doom!

LXXXVII

775

And thou, dread statue! yet existent in

The austerest form of naked majesty,

Thou who beheldest ’mid the assassins’ din

At thy bathed base the bloody Cæsar lie,

Folding his robe in dying dignity,

780

An offering to thine altar from the queen

Of gods and men, great Nemesis! did he die,

And thou too perish Pompey? have ye been

Victors of countless kings, or puppets of a scene?

LXXXVIII

And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome

785

She-wolf! whose brazen-imaged dugs impart

The milk of conquest yet within the dome

Where, as a monument of antique art,

Thou standest: – Mother of the mighty heart,

Which the great founder suck’d from thy wild teat,

790

Scorch’d by the Roman Jove’s etherial dart,

And thy limbs black with lightning – dost thou yet

Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget?

LXXXIX

Thou dost; – but all thy foster-babes are dead –

The men of iron; and the world hath rear’d

795

Cities from out their sepulchres: men bled

In imitation of the things they fear’d,

And fought and conquer’d, and the same course steer’d,

At apish distance; but as yet none have,

Nor could the same supremacy have near’d

800

Save one vain man, who is not in the grave,

But, vanquish’d by himself, to his own slaves a slave –

XC

The fool of false dominion – and a kind

Of bastard Cæsar, following him of old

With steps unequal; for the Roman’s mind

805

Was modell’d in a less terrestrial mould,

With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold,

And an immortal instinct which redeem’d

The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold,

Alcides with the distaff now he seem’d

810

At Cleopatra’s feet, — and now himself he beam’d.

XCI

And came — and saw – and conquer’d! But the man

Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee,

Like a train’d falcon, in the Gallic van,

Which he, in sooth, long led to victory,

815

With a deaf heart which never seem’d to be

A listener to itself was strangely framed;

With but one weakest weakness – vanity,

Coquettish in ambition – still he aim’d –

At what? can he avouch – or answer what he claim’d?

XCII

820

And would be all or nothing – nor could wait

For the sure grave to level him; few years

Had fix’d him with the Cæsars in his fate,

On whom we tread: For
this
the conqueror rears

The arch of triumph! and for this the tears

825

And blood of earth flow on as they have flow’d,

An universal deluge, which aears,

Without an ark for wretched man’s abode

And ebbs but to reflow! – Renew thy rainbow, God!

XCIII

What from this barren being do we reap?

830

Our senses narrow, and our reason frail,

Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep,

And all things weigh’d in custom’s falsest scale:

Opinion an omnipotence, – whose veil

Mantles the earth with darkness, until right

835

And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale

Lest their own judgments should become too bright,

And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light.

XCIV

And thus they plod in sluggish misery,

Rotting from sire to son, and age to age,

840

Proud of their trampled nature, and so die,

Bequeathing their hereditary rage

To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage

War for their chains, and rather than be free,

Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage

845

Within the same arena where they see

Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree.

XCV

I speak not of men’s creeds – they rest between

Man and his Maker – but of things allow’d,

Averr’d, and known, – and daily, hourly seen -

850

The yoke that is upon us doubly bow’d,

And the intent of tyranny avow’d,

The edict of Earth’s rulers, who are grown

The apes of him who humbled once the proud,

And shook them from their slumbers on the throne;

855

Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done.

XCVI

Can trants but b trants conuer’d be

And Freedom find no champion and no child

Such as Columbia saw arise when she

Sprung forth a Pallas, arm’d and undefiled?

860

Or must such minds be nourish’d in the wild,

Deep in the unpruned forest, ’midst the roar

Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled

On infant Washington? Has Earth no more

Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore?

XCVII

865

But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime,

And fatal have her Saturnalia been

To Freedom’s cause, in every age and clime;

Because the deadly days which we have seen,

And vile Ambition, that built up between

870

Man and his hopes an adamantine wall,

And the base pageant 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.

XCVIII

Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying

875Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind;

Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying,

The loudest still the tempest leaves behind;

Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind,

Chopp’d by the axe, looks rough and little worth,