MARS owes to you his thunder* No! the clock ye framed to tell The press's magic letters, That blessing ye brought forth,Behold! it lies in fetters On the soil that gave it birth: But the trumpet must be heard, And the charger must be spurr'd; For your father Armin's sprite Calls down from heaven, that ye Shall gird you for the fight, And be free!-and be free! clime! * Germany invented gunpowder, clock-making, and printing. TO SIR FRANCIS BURDETT, ON HIS SPEECH DELIVERED IN PARLIAMENT, AUGUST 7, 1832, RESPECTING THE FOREIGN POLICY OF GREAT BRITAIN. BURDETT, enjoy thy justly foremost fame, Through good and ill report-through calm and storm For forty years the pilot of reform! But that which shall afresh entwine thy name Is that thou hast come nobly forth to chide Invoke the scorn-Alas! too few inherit The scorn for despots cherish'd by our sires, That baffled Europe's persecuting fires, And shelter'd helpless states!-Recall that spirit, And conjure back Old England's haughty mindConvert the men who waver now, and pause Between their love of self and human kind; And move, Amphion-like, those hearts of stone—The hearts that have been deaf to Poland's dying groan! Tell them, we hold the Rights of Man too dear, To bless ourselves with lonely freedom blest; But could we hope, with sole and selfish breast, To breathe untroubled Freedom's atmosphere? Suppose we wish'd it? England could not stand A lone oasis in the desert ground Of Europe's slavery; from the waste around Burdett, demand why Britons send abroad He prays to Heaven for England's king, he saysAnd dares he to the God of mercy kneel, Besmear'd with massacres from head to heel? No; Moloch is his god-to him he prays; And if his weird-like prayers had power to bring An influence, their power would be to curse. A serpent's slaver deadlier than its sting! Oh, feeble statesmen-ignominious times,* That lick the tyrant's feet, and smile upon his crimes! * There is not upon record a more disgusting scene of Russian hypocrisy, and (wo that it must be written!) of British humiliation, than that which passed on board the Talavera, when British sailors accepted money from the Emperor Nicholas, and gave him cheers. It will require the Talavera to fight well with the first Russian ship that she may have to encounter to make us forget that day. LINES ON A PICTURE OF A GIRL IN THE ATTITUDE OF PRAYER, BY THE ARTIST GRUSE, IN THE POSSESSION OF LADY STEPNEY. Was man e'er doom'd that beauty made And doat upon a phantom. Thou maid that in my inmost thought Why liv'st thou not-why art thou nought Whose looks seem lifted to the skies, As if they drew angelic eyes To greet thee at heaven's portals. Yet loveliness has here no grace, Abstracted or ideal Art ne'er but from a living face |