Has run his raging race, has closed the scene of blood.
Chiefs, armed around, behold their vanquished lord;
Nor spread the guardian shield, nor lift the loyal sword.
He falls; and earth again is free:
Hark! at the call of Liberty,
All Nature lifts the choral song.
The fir-trees on the mountain's head,
Rejoice through all their pomp of shade;
The lordly cedars nod on sacred Lebanon:
Tyrant! they cry, since thy fell force is broke,
Our proud heads pierce the skies, nor fear the woodman's stroke.
Hell, from her gulf profound,
Rouses at thine approach; and all around,
Her dreadful notes of preparation sound.
See, at the awful call,
Her shadowy heroes all,
E'en mighty kings, the heirs of empire wide,
Rising with solemn state, and slow,
From their sable thrones below,
Meet and insult thy pride.
"What! dost thou join our ghostly train,
A flitting shadow light and vain?
Where is thy pomp, thy festive throng,
The revel dance, and wanton song?
Proud king! Corruption fastens on thy breast;
And calls her crawling brood, and bids them share the feast.
"O Lucifer! thou radiant star;
Son of the Morn; whose rosy car
Flamed foremost in the van of day;
How art thou fallen, thou King of Light!
How fallen from thy meridian height!
Who saidst, 'The distant poles shall hear me and obey.
High o'er the stars my sapphire throne shall glow,
And, as Jehovah's self, my voice the heavens shall bow.'
He spake, he died. Distained with gore,
Beside yon yawning cavern hoar,
See where his livid corse is laid.
The aged pilgrim, passing by,
Surveys him long with dubious eye,
And muses on his fate, and shakes his reverend head. "Just Heavens! is thus thy pride imperial gone?
Is this poor heap of dust the King of Babylon?
Is this the man, whose nod
Made the earth tremble; whose terrific rod
Levelled her loftiest cities? Where he trod,
Famine pursued and frowned;
Till Nature, groaning round,
Saw her rich realms transformed to deserts dry;
While, at his crowded prison's gate,
Grasping the keys of fate,
Vain man! behold thy righteous doom;
Behold each neighboring monarch's tomb;
The trophied arch, the breathing bust,
The laurel shades their sacred dust:
While thou, vile outcast, on this hostile plain,
Moulder'st a vulgar corse, among the vulgar slain.
"No trophied arch, no breathing bust,
Shall dignify thy trampled dust:
No laurel flourish o'er thy grave.
For why, proud king, thy ruthless hand
Hurled desolation o'er the land,
And crushed the subject race, whom kings are born to save:
Eternal infamy shall blast thy name,
And all thy sons shall share their impious father's shame.
"Rise, purple Slaughter! furious rise;
Unfold the terror of thine eyes;
Dart thy vindictive shafts around:
Let no strange land a shade afford,
No conquered nations call them lord;
Nor let their cities rise to curse the goodly ground.
For thus Jehovah swears; No name, no son,
No remnant shall remain of haughty Babylon.""
Thus saith the righteous Lord:
My vengeance shall unsheathe the flaming sword;
O'er all thy realms my fury shall be poured.
Where yon proud city stood,
I'll spread the stagnant flood;
And there the bittern in the sedge shall lurk,
Moaning with sullen strain;
While, sweeping o'er the plain,
Destruction ends her work.
Yes, on mine holy mountain's brow,
I'll crush this proud Assyrian foe
The irrevocable word is spoke.
From Judah's neck the galling yoke
Spontaneous falls, she shines with wonted state;
Thus by myself I swear, and what I swear is fate."
LESSON CLXXIX. THE DOWNFALL OF POLAND.—
O sacred Truth! thy triumph ceased a while,
And Hope, thy sister, ceased with thee to smile,
When leagued Oppression poured to Northern wars
Her whiskered panders and her fierce hussars,
Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn,
Pealed her loud drum, and twanged her trumpet horn;
Tumultuous horror brooded o'er her van,
Presaging wrath to Poland,-and to man!
Warsaw's last champion from her height surveyed,
Wide o'er the fields a waste of ruin laid,-
O 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 watch-word and reply;
Then pealed the notes, omnipotent to charm,
And the loud tocsin told 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 away,
Bursts the wild cry of horror and dismay!
Hark! as the mouldering 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!
O 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 Sion 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 of Heaven!
Prone to the dust Oppression shall be hurled,
Her name, her nature, withered from the world!
LESSON CLXXX.-NAPOLEON AT REST.-JOHN PIERPONT.
His falchion flashed along the Nile;
His hosts he led through Alpine snows;
O'er Moscow's towers, that blazed the while,
His eagle flag unrolled,-and froze.
Here sleeps he now, alone! Not one,
Of all the kings, whose crowns he gave,
Bends o'er his dust;-nor wife nor son
Has ever seen or sought his grave.
Behind this sea-girt rock, the star,
That led him on from crown to crown,
Has sunk; and nations from afar
Gazed as it faded and went down.
High is his couch;-the ocean flood,
Far, far below, by storms is curled;
As round him heaved, while high he stood,
A stormy and unstable world.
Alone he sleeps! The mountain cloud,
That night hangs round him, and the breath
Of morning scatters, is the shroud
That wraps the conqueror's clay in death.
Pause here! The far-off world, at last,
Breathes free; the hand that shook its thrones,
And to the earth its mitres cast,
Lies powerless now beneath these stones.
Hark! comes there, from the pyramids,
And from Siberian wastes of snow,
And Europe's hills, a voice that bids
The world he awed to mourn him?-No:
The only, the perpetual dirge
That's heard there, is the sea-bird's cry,—
The mournful murmur of the surge,-
The cloud's deep voice, the wind's low sigh.
LESSON CLXXXI.-NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.-DR. CHANNING.
Such was Napoleon Bonaparte. But some will say, he was still a great man. This we mean not to deny. But we would have it understood, that there are various kinds or orders of greatness, and that the highest did not belong 5 to Bonaparte. There are different orders of greatness. Among these the first rank is unquestionably due to moral greatness, or magnanimity; to that sublime energy, by which the soul, smitten with the love of virtue, binds itself
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