Classic Poem

The Swede I sing, by Heaven ordain'd to save
His country's glories from a Danish grave,
Restore her laws, her Papal rites efface,
And fix her freedom on a lasting base.

Celestial Liberty! by whom impell'd
From early youth fair honour's path he held;
By whose strong aid his patient courage rose
Superior to the rushing tide of woes,
And at whose feet, when Heaven his toils repaid,
His brightest wreaths the grateful hero laid:
Me too assist; with thy inspiring beam
Aid my weak powers, and bless my rising theme!

Stockholm to Christiern bow'd her captive head; }
By Treachery's axe her slaughter'd senate bled, }
And her brave chief was numbered with the dead. }
Piled with her breathless sons, th' uncultured land
With daily ravage fed a wasteful band;
And ruthless Christiern, wheresoe'er be flew,
Around his steps a track of crimson drew.
Already, by Heaven's dark protection led,
To Dalecarlia Sweden's hero fled;
There, with a pious friend retired, unknown,
He mourn'd his country's sorrows, and his own.
Those mountain peasants, negatively free,
The sole surviving friends of Liberty,
Unbought by bribes, still trample Christiern's power,
And wait in silence the decisive hour.

'Twas morn when Christiern bade a herald call
His secret council to the regal hall--
Those whom his skill, selecting, had combined
To share the deep recesses of his mind:
In these the prince unshaken trust reposed,
To these his intricate designs disclosed;
Their counsel, teeming with maturest thought,
His ripening plans to full perfection brought,
Each enterprise with proper means supplied,
And stemm'd strong difficulty's threatening tide:
The summons heard, th' obedient train attend,
Collect, and hastening toward the palace bend.

First of their order, as in rank and fame
Superior, Upsal's haughty prelate came;
Erect in priestly pride, he stalk'd along,
And tower'd supreme o'er all the princely throng.
A soul congenial, and a mind replete
With ready artifice and bold deceit,
To suit a tyrant's ends, however base,
In Christiern's friendship had secured his place.
His were the senator's and courtier's parts,
And all the statesman's magazine of arts;
His, each expedient, each all-powerful wile,
To thwart a foe, or win a monarch's smile:
The nicely-plann'd and well-pursued intrigue;
The smooth evasion of the hollow league;
The specious argument, that subtly strays
Thro' winding sophistry's protracted maze:
The complicated, deep, immense design,
That works in darkness like a labouring mine,
Unknown to all, 'till, bursting into birth,
Its wide explosion shakes th' astonish'd earth.
His was the prompt invention, fruitful still
In means subservient to the varying will:
The flexible expertness, smooth and mean,
That glides thro' obstacles, and wins unseen:
The quick discernment, that with eagle eyes
Sees distant storms in ether darkly rise,
And active vigour, that arrests their course,
Or to a different aim diverts their force.
He, in a happier land, by freedom bless'd,
Had hallow'd virtue dawn'd upon his breast,
Had done some glorious deed, to stamp his name
High on the roll of ever-during fame;
Snatch'd from Oppression's jaws some victim realm,
Or fix'd in stable peace his country's wavering helm.
But baleful Guilt usurp'd with fatal care
A heart which Virtue had been proud to share;
And turn'd to hateful dross the radiant ore,
Whose lustre might have gilded Sweden's shore.
As the red dog star, Autumn's fiery eye,
Shines eminent o'er all the spangled sky,
While thro' th' afflicted earth his torrid breath
Darts glowing fevers and a cloud of death:
So Trollio shone, in whose corrupted mind
Transcendent genius and deep guilt combined;
Placed all his arduous aims within his reach,
Yet fix'd the stamp of infamy on each.
But Providence, whose undiscover'd plan
Lies deeper than the wiliest schemes of man,
Can bare the sty designer's latent guilt,
And crush to dust the structures he has built;
Can disappoint the subtle tyrant's spite,
And stem the billows of his stormy might;
Confound a Trollio's skill, a Christiern's power,
And blast presumption in its haughtiest hour.
So Christiern found--and Trollio found it true,
(Unwelcome truth, to his experience new!)
That he, who trusts in guilty friendship, binds
His fortune to a cloud, that shifts with veering winds.
Throned in Religion's seat, he scorn'd her laws,
And with a cool indifference view'd her cause:
Yet, might her earthly treasures feed the fire
Of wild ambition, or base gain's desire,
He could assume, at will, her fairest dress--
Could plunge in Superstition's dark recess--
Or the red mask of Bigotry put on;
The fiercest champion, where there needed none.
But, should she cross some glittering enterprise,
Her pleas, her awful threats, he could despise;
Oaths, lightly sworn, and now forgotten things,
Vanish'd, like smoke before the tempest's wings.
At interest's call, when danger's sudden voice
Extinguish'd hope, nor left a final choice,
His sacred honours he renounc'd, and fled
To hide in silent solitude his head:
At interest's call, he calmly thrust aside
Each bond of conscience that opposed his pride,
And, deeming every scruple out of place,
Back posted to his dignified disgrace.

Next, with a lofty step advancing, came
A martial chieftain--Otho was his name:
In Denmark born, of an illustrious line,
Whose glories, now effaced, had ceased to shine;
And he was but unanxious to redeem
Those honours, in his eyes a worthless dream.
Trained in licentious customs, he despised
All virtue's rules, and pleasure only prized;
And, faithful as the magnet, turn'd his head
To follow fortune wheresoe'er it led:
Tho' hostile justice rear'd her loftiest mound,
To bar his passage o'er forbidden ground.
Swift o'er all impediments he flew,
And strain'd his eyes to keep the prize in view.
Religion, virtue, sense, to him were nought;
He hated none, yet none employ'd his thought,
Save when he glitter'd in their borrowed beam,
To gain preferment, or to court esteem.
The minister, not tool, of Christiern's will,
He serv'd his measures, yet despis'd him still:
Scann'd with impartial view th'encircling scene,
Glancing o'er all an eye exact and keen,
Advantage to descry; and seldom fail'd,
When Virtue's cause by Fortune's will prevail'd,
On virtue's side his valour to display,
And ne'er forsake it, but for better pay.
And, e'en when Danger round his fenceless head
Her threatening weight of mountain surges spread,
He, like a whale amid the tempest's roar,
Smiled at the storm, nor deign'd to wish it o'er.
'Twas dull instinctive boldness--like a fire
Pent up in earth, whose forces ne'er expire,
By grossest fuel nourished, but immured
In dingy night, shine heavy and obscured;
Sustain'd by this thro' all the scenes of strife,
Whose dark succession form'd his chequer'd life,
He ne'er the soul's sublimer courage felt,
That warms the heart, and teaches it to melt;
That nurses liberty's expanding seeds,
And teems prolific with the noblest deeds.
To guide the storm of battle o'er the plain,
Condense its force, expand it, or restrain;
To turn the tide of conquest to defeat
By stratagems too fatally complete,
Or freeze it by delay; to aim at will
The well-timed stroke that mars all adverse skill;
To range, in order firm, th'embattled line;
Or shape, as regular, the bold design;
All these were his--yet not all these could claim
Exemptions from the lot of penal shame,
Or snatch from glory's plant one servile wreath,
To deck the waste of crimes, that frown'd beneath.
Harden'd in villany, with fate unfeign'd
He mock'd at warning, scorn'd reproach, nor deign'd
To answer either, and remorse's dart
Recoil'd from his impenetrable heart:
Save in those hours when darkness or when pain
Recals its force, and guilt recedes again;
When passion, vice, and fancy quit their sway,
When lawless pleasure trembling shrinks away,
While black conviction's rushing whirlwinds quench
Her smoky torch, and leave a sickening stench;
And thro' the soul's chill gloom, fierce conscience pours
His fiery arrows in resistless showers.
But, as accumulated guilt oppress'd
With stronger obstacles his hardening breast,
Faint and more faint the dread awakenings grew,
And their subsiding terrors soon withdrew.
Like traces on the mountain's giant form
Imprinted by the finger of the storm,
They vanish'd; fierce atrocity return'd
Triumphant, and the galling shackles spurn'd.

Him closely following, with a thoughtful pace
And slow, the young Ernestus took his place;
Like Bernheim, graced with an illustrious birth,
But hapless Sweden was his native earth.
His father sunk by death's untimely doom,
His youthful mother followed to the tomb,
And to a honour'd friend's paternal care
Bequeath'd her only hope, her infant heir.
With wary steps had Harfagar pass'd o'er
The world's wide scene, and learn'd its various lore;
And, with religion's pole-star for his guide,
Serenely voyaged life's tempestuous tide.
Yet in Ernestus' mind his skilful sense
Observ'd no dawn of future excellence;
He found no early graces to adorn
Of springing life the inauspicious morn;
No prompt benevolence, no sacred flow
Of purest feeling taught his heart to glow;
But virtue's native influence was in him,
A wintry sun-beam, not extinct, but dim.
Yet Harfagar with kind attention tried
To rouse the warmth her hidden beams supplied;
And, wheresoe'er his penetrating eye
One bud of distant promise could descry,
There all his toil was bent, to fix the root
Unmoved, and spread secure the growing shoot.
He watch'd the rising blossoms as they grew,
Preserv'd with constant care their lively hue,
Spread o'er each flow'ret a protecting veil
To shelter it from trial's rougher gale,
And clear'd, with strenuous and unceasing toil,
From each insidious weed th' improving soil.
His patient diligence had won at length
A partial triumph over nature's strength:
Tho' unsuppress'd th' internal weakness still
With frequent bias pois'd the wavering will,
Still losing ground, it seem'd to die away,
Like nightly storms before advancing day:
When thrice seven rolling years matured his age,
And call'd him forth to life's eventful stage.

'Twas now the time, when all the northern land
Was sinking under Christiern's ruthless hand;
When patriotism from Sweden's hills sublime
With tearful eyes o'erlook'd the subject clime,
And saw where Stenon and a matchless few,
To her bright race unalterably true,
Regardless of the thunders launch'd by Rome,
Self-titled arbitress of future doom,
O'er a waste realm her shatter'd flag unfurl'd,
Conspicuous to the whole applauding world.
Ernestus' sire in Sweden's state before
High eminence and ample influence bore;
And public hope call'd forth the willing youth
To join the cause of liberty and truth;
Yet here his wary diffidence look'd round
For due support--but no support was found,
For Harfagar, whose strong unconquer'd mind }
The tyrant knew, unmatch'd among mankind, }
Caught in his snares, was now in chains confined. }
The sudden blow his resolution shook;
Deliberate fortitude his heart forsook;
The pile of hope, that many a year had rear'd,
Seem'd sunk in air, and now no more appear'd.
Stenon had welcomed him, benign and free,
With warm and undissembling amity,
Enroll'd him in the list of friends select
He singled out his measures to direct--
And e'en his life was in Ernestus' power.
This Christiern saw, and urg'd the fatal hour.
With bribes and honours he the youth attack'd,
With promised secrecy his proffers back'd,
Tried smooth persuasion's most effectual strain,
And added threats, not likely to be vain.
Strong was th' assault; he arm'd his hopeless breast,
And summon'd all his forces to the test.
His unassisted strength awhile withstood,
With desperate energy, th' invading flood,
As the pale victim of all-conquering death
With one faint effort struggles yet for breath.
His courage soon beneath th' encounter bent,
Languid before, and now by efforts spent;
He yielded--his brave chief to death betray'd,
And Stenon's blood dyed treachery's reeking blade.

'Twas done; and peace the traitor's bosom left,
Of every comfort, every joy bereft.
Rack'd by despair, in vain he sought repose:
Round all his steps a cloud of horror rose,
From keen reflection's maddening sting he fled,
And rush'd on further crimes devoid of dread;
Touch'd the abyss, and lest his eye might view
Th' abandon'd shore, into its depths withdrew.

'Twas night; the cheerless moon's o'erclouded ray
Shone dim; the breeze's murmurs died away:
On his wan brow unwonted slumbers creep,
And drench his soul in visionary sleep.
When lo! deep thunders on his startled ear
Successive roll, and shadowy forms appear;
As thro' the misty vale at morning rise
A row of trees before the traveller's eyes.
His father's, from the first of time, arose,
Their country's friends, and terror of her foes,
Who factions quell'd, or legal justice plann'd,
Or bade fair science brighten o'er the land.
They came; they stopp'd--an angry eye they cast
On the pale slumberer, and in silence pass'd.
Again the thunder roll'd; the lightning flew;
His country's form appear'd before his view:
All stain'd with gore appear'd her azure vest,
And her dim eyes unusual grief confess'd.
The gloomy phantom on Ernestus frown'd,
And with her sceptre touch'd the yawning ground:
A boundless space, with mourning myriads spread,
Appear'd below, and thus the vision said:
"Behold th' abode of traitors! Sylla here,
And guiltier Cæsar, mourn their mad career;
Here Curio gnaws his chain--Ernestus! see
A darker grave;--a grave reserv'd for thee!"
The widening chasm around him seem'd to grow.
His kindred spirits call'd him from below;
When lo! it closed--and from heaven's opening height,
A brilliant ray burst on his dazzled sight,
And broke the dream.--In deep amazement lost,
Unnumber'd thoughts his feverish bosom cross'd;
Hope, wonder, fear, and penitence combined,
For many a hour oppress'd his varying mind,
'Till now in heaven's blue space the lamp of day
Was hung serene: he hail'd the cheering ray,
And thus began: "Eternal beam, give ear!
Earth, air, and thou, all-ruling Monarch, hear!
Call'd forth by thee from the deep maze of ill,
I haste, to work the mandates of thy will.
This hour, this moment, unappall'd by shame,
The servitude of guilt I will disclaim;
And, if eternal mercy deign to spare
The forfeit life she rescued from despair,
'Tis mine to watch my country's hapless cause,
And with fix'd soul defend her injured laws.
Hear, Stenon, hear! from heaven's bright arch bend down
The sapphire glories of thy radiant crown,
Accept th' atonement with propitious brow,
And thro' the courts of heaven proclaim my vow!"

Thus spoke Ernestus, and in silence sought
The council hall, involved in careful thought.

These occupied a more distinguished seat;
A chosen train the monarch's list complete.
There unsubmitting Brask's proud genius shone,
There Bernheim's might, in many a contest known;
There Theodore: a bold ungovern'd soul,
Rapacious, fell, and fearless of control:
A harlot's favour rais'd him from the dust,
To rise the pander of tyrannic lust:
Graced with successive gifts, at length he shone
With wondering Trollio on the sacred throne.
With pleasure's arts, and sophistry's refined,
Alike he pleas'd the body and the mind;
Skilful alike to cheat the wandering soul,
Or mix luxurious pleasure's midnight bowl.
All these, and more, at Christiern's sudden call,
(A shining conclave) fill the towering hall.

Ere yet they enter'd, Trollio left the rest,
Th' advancing monarch met, and thus address'd:

"Hear, Christiern, hear! th' unwelcome news attend,
Forced from the lips of an unwilling friend.
Nor think 'tis from a mean suspicious heart
I speak my message from our friends apart;
I know their general worth, in duty tried,
Yet in one man I tremble to confide:
False to his country, to himself, and thee,
Sick of success, and tired of infamy,
Ernestus now prepares to burst your yoke,
And win his freedom by some glorious stroke.
I know him well; his ever-varying soul
Now se