صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

Warsaw's last champion from her height surveyed Wide o'er the fields a waste of ruin laid;

Oh, Heaven! he cried, my bleeding country save!
Is there no hand on high to shield the brave?
Yet, though destruction sweep these lovely plains,
Rise, fellow-men! our country yet remains!
By that dread name we wave the sword on high!
And swear for her to live! with her to die!

He said, and on the rampart-heights arrayed
His trusty warriors, few, but undismayed;
Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form,
Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm.
Low murmuring sounds along their banners fly,
Revenge or death, the watchword and reply;
Then pealed the notes omnipotent to charm,
And the loud tocsin tolled their last alarm!
In vain, alas ! in vain, ye gallant few !
From rank to rank your volleyed thunder flew :
Oh! bloodiest picture in the book of Time
Sarmatia fell unwept, without a crime;
Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe,

Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe!

Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear, Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career: Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell,

And Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell!

The sun went down, nor ceased the carnage there! Tumultuous murder shook the midnight air; On Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow, His blood-dyed waters murmuring far below;

The storm prevails, the rampart yields a way,
Bursts the wild cry of horror and dismay !
Hark! as the smouldering piles with thunder fall,
A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call!
Earth shook, red meteors flashed along the sky,
And conscious Nature shuddered at the cry!

Oh, righteous Heaven! ere Freedom found a grave, Why slept the sword omnipotent to save?

Where was thine arm, O Vengeance, where thy rod,
That smote the foes of Zion and of God?
That crushed proud Ammon, when his iron car
Was yoked in wrath, and thundered from afar?
Where was the storm that slumbered till the host
Of blood-stained Pharaoh left their trembling coast,
Then bade the deep in wild commotion flow,
And heaved an ocean on their march below?
Departed spirits of the mighty dead!

Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled!

Friends of the world! restore your swords to man,
Fight in his sacred cause, and lead the van!
Yet for Sarmatia's tears of blood atone,
And make her arm puissant as your own!
Oh, once again to Freedom's cause return
The patriot Tell,-the Bruce of Bannockburn !
Yes! thy proud lords, unpitied land! shall see
That man hath yet a soul, and dare be free!
A little while, along thy saddening plains,
The starless night of desolation reigns;
Truth shall restore the light by Nature given,

And, like Prometheus, bring the fire from heaven!

Prone to the dust Oppression shall be hurled, Her name, her nature, withered from the world!

[blocks in formation]

leagued oppression. The Russians, Prussians, and Austrians united to dismember Poland, 1794. There were three partitions of Poland: (1) by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, in 1772, when 82,000 English square miles of Polish territory were divided among the three countries mentioned; (2) by Russia and Prussia, in 1793-118,000 English square miles; and (3) by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, again, in 179582,000 English square miles. Pandours (or Pandours'), Hungarian light-armed infantry. Hussars, the national cavalry of Hungary and Croatia, light-armed. (Now, the light cavalry of European armies.) tócsin, alarm-bell. Sarmátia, Poland. Kosciusko, a great Polish

general and patriot. He was born about the middle of last century, of an ancient and noble Lithuanian family.

CAMPBELL.

depărted unpitied

He served in the American War of Independence, and thereafter returned home to fight for his country against the Russians. Having held out for several months against an overwhelming force of Russians and Prussians, he fell in the battle of Maciejowice, Oct. 10, 1794, covered with wounds. After being kept prisoner for some time, he was set free. He died Oct. 15, 1817. Prāgue (Prāg), for Praga, a suburb of Warsaw, on the right bank of the Vistula, connected with the city by a bridge of boats.

Marathon, a plain and village

on the east coast of Attica, about twenty miles northeast of Athens, where the Greeks defeated the Persians in 490 B.C. This victory saved Europe from Asiatic domination.

Leuctra, a village of Boeotia, in Greece, where the Thebans

under Epaminondas defeated the Spartans in 371 B.C. This victory put an end to the dominating influence Sparta over Greece. pu-iss-ant (now pú-iss-ant),

of

powerful. French, puissant; from Lat. posse, "to be able." Prometheus (three syllables) stole fire from heaven in a hollow staff, Zeus having in anger withheld it from mortals.

JAMES WATT.

MR. JAMES WATT, the great improver of the steamengine, died on the 25th of August, 1819, at his seat of Heathfield, near Birmingham, in the eighty-fourth year of his age.

[ocr errors]

This name fortunately needs no commemoration of ours; for he that bore it survived to see it crowned with undisputed and unenvied honours; and many generations will probably pass away before it shall have gathered all its fame." We have said that Mr. Watt was the great improver of the steam-engine; but, in truth, as to all that is admirable in its structure, or vast in its utility, he should rather be described as its inventor. It was by his inventions that its action was so regulated as to make it capable of being applied to the finest and most delicate manufactures, and its power so increased as to set weight and solidity at defiance. By his admirable contrivance, it has become a thing stupendous alike for its force and its flexibility-for the prodigious power which it can exert, and the ease, and precision, and ductility with which that power can be varied, distributed, and applied. The trunk of an elephant, that can pick up a pin or rend an oak, is

[ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][graphic]

Watts' Beam Engine.

v. Steam-pipe.-T. Slide-valve.-J. Cylinder.-H. Condenser.-PE. Exhausting or air-pump.-WY. Feed-pump of the boiler. - UX. Feeding pump of the cistern R.-pZ. Governor.-dd. Excentric. ABCD. Parallelogram.-GM. Connecting rod and crank.-V. Fly-wheel.

« السابقةمتابعة »