Nor Ætna, nor Vesuvius, though combined
In horrid league, and chafed by every wind
That from the hoarse Æolian cave is driven,
Could with such wreck astound both earth and heaven.
Rage, Elements! wreck, ravage all ye can,

Ye are not half so fierce as man to man!

Wide and more wide, self-warned, without command,
Gaul's awe-struck files their circling wings expand;
Through many a stage of horrors had they past-
The climax this, the direst and the last;
Albeit unused o'er others' griefs to moan,
Soon shall they purchase feeling from their own.
From flank to centre, and from rear to van,
The billowing, crackling conflagration ran,-

Wraps earth in sulphurous wave, and now the skies
With fall colossal magnitude defies,-

Extends her base, while sword and spear retire,
Weak as the bulrush to the lava's ire.
Long had that circle, belted wide and far
By burnished helm, and bristling steel of war,
Presented hideous to the Gallic host

One blazing sea, one adamantine coast!

High o'er their head the bickering radiance towers,
Or falls from clouds of smoke in scorching showers :
Beneath their crimson concave long they stood
Like bordering pines, when lightning fires the wood,
And as they hemmed that grim horizon in,
Each read in each the terrors of the scene.

Some feared—accusing conscience waked the fear,—
The DAY of wrath and retribution near,

Deemed that they heard that thundrous Voice proclaim, "Thou Moon to blood be turned, thou Earth to flame!"

Red-robed Destruction far and wide extends Her thousand arms, and summons all her fiends To glut their fill, a gaunt and ghastly brood! Their food is carnage, and their drink is blood;

Their music, woe: nor did that feast of hell
Fit concert want, the conquerors' savage yell—
Their groans and shrieks whom sickness, age, or wound,
Or changeless, fearless love in fatal durance bound.

While valour sternly sighs, while beauty weeps; And vengeance, soon to wake like Sampson, sleeps, Shrouded in flame, the Imperial City low

Like Dagon's temple falls—but falls to crush the foe!

Tyrant! think not SHE unavenged shall burn;
Thou too hast much to suffer, much to learn:
That thirst of power the Danube but inflamed,
By Neva's cooler current may be tamed.
Triumph a little space by craft and crime,

Two foes thou canst not conquer-Truth, and Time.
Resistless pair! they doom thy power to fade,
Lost in the ruins that itself hath made!

Or, dainned to fame, like Babylon to scowl
O'er wastes where serpents hiss, hyænas howl.

Forge then the links of martial law, that bind,
Enslave, imbrute, and mechanise the mind;
Indite thy conscript code with iron pen,
That cancels crime, demoralizes men ;

Thy false and fatal aid to virtue lend,

And start a Washington, a Nero end;
And vainly strive to strangle in his youth
Freedom, the Herculean son of Light and Truth.
Stepfather foul!-thou to his infant bed

Didst steal, and drop a changeling in his stead.

Yes, yes,-I see thee turn thy vaunting gaze,

Where files reflect to files the o'erpowering blaze;
Rather, like Xerxes, o'er those numbers sigh,
Braver than his, but sooner doomed to die.
Here-number only courts that death it cloys!
Here-might is weakness, and herself destroys!
Lead then thy southern myriads locked in steel,
Lead on! too soon their nerveless arm shall feel

Those magazines impregnable of snow,

That kill without a wound, o'erwhelm without a foe!

I see thee, 't is the bard's prophetic eye, Blindly presumptuous Chief,-I see thee fly! While breathing skeletons, and bloodless dead, Point to the thirsting foe the track you tread. To seize was easy, and to march was plain; Hard to retreat, and harder to retain. Reft of thy trappings, pomp, and glittering gear, Dearth in thy van,—destruction in thy rear,— Like foiled Darius, doomed too late to know The stern enigmas of a Scythian foe,Thy standard torn, while 'vengeful scorpions sting The Imperial bird, and cramp his flagging wing,The days are numbered of thy motley host, Freedom's vain fear, Oppression's vainer boast.

And lo! the Beresyna opens wide

His yawning mouth, his wintry weltering tide!
Expectant of his mighty meal, he flows

In silent ambush through his trackless snows:
There shall thy way-worn ranks despairing stand,
Like trooping spectres on the Stygian strand,
And curse their fate and thee,and conquest sown
With retribution deep, in vain repentance moan!

Thy Veteran worn by wounds, and years, and toils,
Pilgrim of honour in all suns and soils!
By thy ambition foully tempted forth
To fight the frozen rigours of the north,
Above complaint, indignant at his wrongs,
Curses the morsel that his life prolongs,

Unpierced, unconquered sinks; yet breathes a sigh,—
For he had hoped a soldier's death to die.
Was it for this that fatal hour he braved,

When o'er the Cross the conquering Crescent waved?
Was it for this he ploughed the Western main,
To weld the struggling Negro's broken chain,-

Faced his relentless hate, to frenzy fired;
Stung by past wrongs, by present hopes inspired,
Then hurried home to lend his treacherous aid,
And stain more deeply still the warrior's blade,
When spoiled Iberia, roused to deeds sublime,
Made vengeance virtue-clemency a crime;
And 'scaped he these, to fall without a foe?
The wolf his sepulchre? his shroud the snow!

'Tis morn!-but lo, the warrior-steed in vain The trumpet summons from the bloodless plain; Ne'er was he known till now to stand aloof,

Still midst the slain was found his crimson hoof;
And struggling still to join that well-known sound,
He dies, ignobly dies, without a wound!
Oft had he hailed the battle from afar,

And pawed to meet the rushing wreck of war!
With reinless neck the danger oft had braved,
And crushed the foe-his wounded rider saved;
Oft had the rattling spear and sword assailed
His generous heart, and had as often failed:
That heart no more life's frozen current thaws,
Brave, guiltless champion, in a guilty cause!
One northen night more hideous work hath done,
Than whole campaigns beneath a southern`sun.

Spoiled Child of Fortune! could the murdered Turk,
Or wronged Iberian view thy ghastly work,
They'd sheathe the 'vengeful blade, and clearly see
France needs no deadlier, direr curse than thee.
War hath fed war!-such was thy dread behest,
Now view the iron fragments of the feast.
O, if to cause and witness others' grief
Unmoved, be firmness-thou art Stoa's Chief!
Thy fell recorded boast, all Zeno said

Outdoes-"I wear my heart within my head!".
Caught in the Northern net, what darest thou dare?
Snatch might from madness? courage from despair?
If courage lend thy breast a transient ray,
'Tis the storm's lightning-not the beam of day:

When on thine hopes the cloud of battle lowers,
And frowns the vengeance of insulted powers;
When victory trembles in the doubtful scale,
And Death deals thick and fast his iron hail;
When all is staked, and the dread hazard known,
A rising scaffold, and a falling throne!

Then, can thy dastard soul some semblance wear
Of manhood's stamp-when fear hath conquered fear!

Canst thou be brave? whose dying prospects show A scene of all that's horrible in woe!

On whose ambition, long by carnage nursed,

Death stamps the greatest change—the last, the worst!
Death!-to thy view most terrible of things,
Dreadful in all he takes and all he brings!
-But, King of Terrors! ere thou seize thy prey,
Point with a lingering dart to Moscow's fatal day;
Shake with that scene his agonizing frame,
And on the wreck of nations write his name!
O, when will conquerors from example learn,
Or truth from aught but self-experience earn?
How many Catos must be wept again!
How many Cæsars sacrificed in vain!
While Europe dozed too aged to be taught
The historic lesson young Columbia caught,
Enraptured hung o'er that inspiring theme,
Conned it by wood, by mountain, and by stream,
Till every Grecian, Roman name, the morn
Of Freedom hailed,—and Washington was born!

I see thee redden at that mighty name,
That fills the herd of conquerors with shame:
But ere we part, Napoleon! deign to hear
The bodings of thy future dark career;
Fate to the poet trusts her iron leaf,

Fraught with thy ruin-read it and be brief,

Then to thy senate flee, to tell the tale

Of Russia's full revenge, Gaul's deep indignant wail. -It is thy doom false greatness to pursue,

Rejecting, and rejected by, the true;