Every where gallant hearts and spirits true,
Are served up victims to the vile and few;
While England, every where--the general foe
Of Truth and Freedom, wheresoe'er they glow--
Is first, when tyrants strike, to aid the blow.
Oh, England! could such poor revenge atone
For wrongs, that well might claim the deadliest one;
Were it a vengeance, sweet enough to sate
The wretch who flies from thy intolerant hate,
To hear his curses on such barbarous sway
Echoed, where'er he bends his cheerless way;--
Could _this_ content him, every lip he meets
Teems for his vengeance with such poisonous sweets;
Were _this_ his luxury, never is thy name
Pronounced, but he doth banquet on thy shame;
Hears maledictions ring from every side
Upon that grasping power, that selfish pride,
Which vaunts its own and scorns all rights beside;
That low and desperate envy which to blast
A neighbor's blessings risks the few thou hast;--
That monster, Self, too gross to be concealed,
Which ever lurks behind thy proffered shield;--
That faithless craft, which, in thy hour of need,
Can court the slave, can swear he shall be freed,
Yet basely spurns him, when thy point is gained,
Back to his masters, ready gagged and chained!
Worthy associate of that band of Kings,
That royal, ravening flock, whose vampire wings
O'er sleeping Europe treacherously brood,
And fan her into dreams of promist good,
Of hope, of freedom--but to drain her blood!
If _thus_ to hear thee branded be a bliss
That Vengeance loves, there's yet more sweet than this,
That 'twas an Irish head, an Irish heart,
Made thee the fallen and tarnisht thing thou art;
That, as the centaur gave the infected vest
In which he died, to rack his conqueror's breast,
We sent thee CASTLEREAGH:--as heaps of dead
Have slain their slayers by the pest they spread,
So hath our land breathed out, thy fame to dim,
Thy strength to waste and rot thee soul and limb,
Her worst infections all condensed in him!
* * * * *
When will the world shake off such yokes? oh, when
Will that redeeming day shine out on men,
That shall behold them rise, erect and free
As Heaven and Nature meant mankind should be!
When Reason shall no longer blindly bow
To the vile pagod things, that o'er her brow,
Like him of Jaghernaut, drive trampling now;
Nor Conquest dare to desolate God's earth;
Nor drunken Victory, with a NERO'S mirth,
Strike her lewd harp amidst a people's groans;--
But, built on love, the world's exalted thrones
Shall to the virtuous and the wise be given--
Those bright, those sole Legitimates of Heaven!
_When_ will this be?--or, oh! is it, in truth,
But one of those sweet, day-break dreams of youth,
In which the Soul, as round her morning springs,
'Twixt sleep and waking, see such dazzling things!
And must the hope, as vain as it is bright,
Be all resigned?--and are _they_ only right,
Who say this world of thinking souls was made
To be by Kings partitioned, truckt and weighed
In scales that, ever since the world begun,
Have counted millions but as dust to one?
Are _they_ the only wise, who laugh to scorn
The rights, the freedom to which man was born?
Who .
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