Classic Poem

While in long exile far from you I roam,
To soothe my heart with images of home,
For me, my friend, with rich poetic grace
The landscapes of my native isle you trace;
Her cultured meadows, and her lavish shades,
Her winding rivers, and her verdant glades;
Far as where, frowning on the flood below,
The rough Welsh mountain lifts its craggy brow;
Where nature throws aside her softer charms,
And with sublimer views the bosom warms.

Meanwhile my steps have strayed where Autumn yields
A purple harvest on the sunny fields;
Where, bending with their luscious weight, recline
The loaded branches of the clustering vine;
There, on the Loire's sweet banks, a joyful band
Culled the rich produce of the fruitful land;
The youthful peasant and the village maid,
And feeble age and childhood lent their aid.
The labours of the morning done, they haste
Where the light dinner in the field is placed;
Around the soup of herbs a circle make,
And all from one vast dish at once partake:
The vintage-baskets serve, reversed, for chairs,
And the gay meal is crowned with tuneless airs;
For each in turn must sing with all his might,
And some their carols pour in nature's spite.

Delightful land! ah, now with general voice
Thy village sons and daughters may rejoice;
Thy happy peasant, now no more — a slave
Forbade to taste one good that nature gave —
Views with the anguish of indignant pain
The bounteous harvest spread for him in vain.
Oppression's cruel hand shall dare no more
To seize with iron grip his scanty store,
And from his famished infants wring those spoils,
The hard-earned produce of his useful toils;
For now on Gallia's plains the peasant knows
Those equal rights impartial heaven bestows.
He now, by freedom's ray illumined, taught
Some self-respect, some energy of thought,
Discerns the blessings that to all belong,
And lives to guard his humble shed from wrong.

Auspicious Liberty! in vain thy foes
Deride thy ardour, and thy force oppose;
In vain refuse to mark thy spreading light,
While, like the mole, they hide their heads in night,
Or hope their eloquence with taper-ray
Can dim the blaze of philosophic day;
Those reasoners who pretend that each abuse,
Sanctioned by precedent, has some blest use!
Does then some chemic power to time belong,
Extracting by some process right from wrong?
Must feudal governments for ever last,
Those Gothic piles, the works of ages past?
Nor may obtrusive reason boldly scan,
Far less reform, the rude, mishapen plan?
The winding labyrinths, the hostile towers,
Whence danger threatens, and where horror lowers;
The jealous drawbridge, and the moat profound,
The lonely dungeon in the caverned ground;
The sullen dome above those central caves,
Where lives one despot and a host of slaves? —
Ah, Freedom, on this renovated shore
That fabric frights the moral world no more!
Shook to its basis by thy powerful spell,
Its triple walls in massy fragments fell;
While, rising from the hideous wreck, appears
The temple thy firm arm sublimely rears;
Of fair proportions, and of simple grace,
A mansion worthy of the human race.
For me, the witness of those scenes, whose birth
Forms a new era in the storied earth,
Oft, while with glowing breast those scenes I view,
They lead, ah friend beloved, my thoughts to you!
Ah, still each fine emotion they impart
With your idea mingles in my heart;
You, whose warm bosom, whose expanded mind,
Have shared this glorious triumph of mankind;
You, whom I oft have heard, with generous zeal,
With all that truth can urge or pity feel,
Refute the pompous argument, that tried
The common cause of millions to deride;
With reason's force the plausive sophist hit,
Or dart on folly the bright flash of wit;
Too swift, my friend, the moments winged their flight,
That gave at once instruction and delight;
That ever from your ample stores of thought
To my small stock some new accession brought.
How oft remembrance, while this bosom bleeds,
My pensive fancy to your dwelling leads;
Where, round your cheerful hearth, I weeping trace
The social circle, and my vacant place! —
When, to that dwelling friendship's tie endears,
When shall I hasten with the " joy of tears"?
That joy whose keen sensation swells to pain,
And strives to utter what it feels, in vain.