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'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.
I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ring

With the blood-hounds that bark for thy fugitive' King!
Lo! anointed by Heaven with the vials of wrath,
Behold, where he flies on his desolate path!

Now, in darkness and billows, he sweeps from my sight:
Rise! rise! ye wild tempests, and cover his flight!
'Tis finished. Their thunders are hushed on the moors:
Culloden is lost, and my country deplores!

But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where?
For the red eye of battle is shut in despair.
Say, mounts he the ocean-wave, banished, forlorn,
Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn?
Ah, no! for a darker departure is near;

The war-drum is muffled, and black is the bier ;
His death-bell is tolling! Oh, mercy! dispel

Yon sight, that it freezes my spirit to tell!
Life flutters convulsed in his quivering limbs,
And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims!
Accursed be the faggots that blaze at his feet,
Where his heart shall be thrown, ere it ceases to beat,
With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale-

Lochiel.-Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale: For never shall Albin a destiny meet,

So black with dishonour, so foul with retreat.

Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in their gore, Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore,

Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains,

While the kindling of life in his bosom remains,

Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,

With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe!
And, leaving in battle no blot on his name,

Look proudly to Heaven from the death-bed of fame.

1 Prince Charles, whom the Highlanders of that day regarded as their rightful king.

XIX.-ON SLAVERY.

OH! for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,

Might never reach me more! My ear is pain'd,
My soul is sick with every day's report

Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd. There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart—

It does not feel for man.

That natural bond

Of brotherhood is sever'd as the flax

That falls asunder at the touch of fire.

He finds his fellow guilty-of a skin

Not colour'd like his own; and, having power
To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause,
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.
Lands intersected by a narrow frith,
Abhor each other. Mountains interpos'd,
Make enemies of nations who had else,
Like kindred drops been mingled into one.
Thus man devotes his brother and destroys;
And, worse than all, and most to be deplor'd,
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat
With stripes, that Mercy, with a bleeding heart,
Weeps, when she sees inflicted on a beast.
Then what is man? And what man seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush
And hang his head, to think himself a man?
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's
Just estimation, priz'd above all price,

I had much rather be myself the slave,

And wear the bonds than fasten them on him.
We have no slaves at home-then why abroad?
And they themselves, once ferried o'er the wave
That parts us, are emancipate and loos'd.
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall!
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then,
And let it circulate through every vein

Of all your empire; that, where Britain's power
Is felt, mankind may feel her

mercy too.

XX.-YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND.

Ye mariners of England!

That guard our native seas;

Whose flag has braved a thousand years
The battle and the breeze.

Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe!

And sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.

The spirits of your fathers

Shall start from every wave!

For the deck it was their field of fame,
And ocean was their grave;
Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell,
Your manly hearts shall glow,
As ye sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.

Britannia needs no bulwark,

No towers along the steep;

Her march is o'er the mountain waves,
Her home is on the deep.
With thunders from her native oak,
She quells the flood below,

As they roar on the shore,

When the stormy winds do blow;
When the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
The meteor-flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn;

Till danger's troubled night depart,
And the star of peace return.
Then, then, ye ocean-warriors!
Our song and feast shall flow
To the fame of your name,

When the storm has ceased to blow;
When the fiery fight is heard no more,
And the storm has ceased to blow.

XXI. THE BATTLE OF HOHENLINDEN.

ON Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay th' untrodden snow;
And dark as winter was the flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

But Linden showed another sight,
When the drum beat at dead of night,
Commanding fires of death to light
The darkness of her scenery!

By torch and trumpet fast arrayed,
Each horseman drew his battle-blade;
And furious every charger neighed,

To join the dreadful revelry.

Then shook the hills with thunder riven;
Then rushed the steed to battle driven;
And, louder than the bolts of heaven,
Far flashed the red artillery.

But redder yet those fires shall glow,
On Linden's hills of stained snow;
And bloodier yet shall be the flow,
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

'Tis morn-but scarce yon level sun
Can pierce the war-cloud rolling dun,
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun

Shout 'mid their sulphurous canopy.

The combat deepens: On, ye brave!
Who rush to glory or the grave!
Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy chivalry!

Few, few shall part where many meet!
The snow shall be their winding-sheet;
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre!

XXII. THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

Nor a drum was heard-not a funeral note, As his corse to the ramparts we hurried; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot, O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

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