Classic Poem

ODE

TO HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY, ALEXANDER THE FIRST, EMPEROR OF ALL THE RUSSIAS

1.

Conqueror, Deliverer, Friend of human-kind!
The free, the happy Island welcomes thee;
Thee, from thy wasted realms,
So signally revenged;
From Prussia's rescued plains;
From Dresden's field of slaughter, where the ball,
Which struck Moreau's dear life,
Was turn'd from thy more precious head aside;
From Leipsic's dreadful day,
From Elbe, and Rhine, and Seine,
In thy career of conquest overpast;
From the proud Capital
Of haughty France subdued,
Then to her rightful line of Kings restored;
Thee, Alexander! thee, the Great, the Good,
The Glorious, the Beneficent, the Just,
Thee to her honor'd shores
The mighty Island welcomes in her joy.

2.

Sixscore full years have past,
Since to these friendly shores
Thy famous ancestor,
Illustrious Peter , came.
Wise traveller he, who over Europe went,
Marking the ways of men;
That so to his dear country, which then rose
Among the nations in uncultured strength,
He might bear back the stores
Of elder polity,
Its sciences and arts.
Little did then the industrious German think,—
The soft Italian, lapp'd in luxury,—
Helvetia's mountain sons, of freedom proud,—
The patient Hollander,
Prosperous and warlike then,—
Little thought they that, in that farthest North,
From Peter 's race should the Deliverer spring,
Destined by Heaven to save
Art, Learning, Industry,
Beneath the bestial hoof of godless Might
All trampled in the dust.
As little did the French,
Vaunting the power of their Great Monarch then,
(His schemes of wide ambition yet uncheck'd,)
As little did they think,
That from rude Moscovy the stone should come,
To smite their huge Colossus, which bestrode
The subject Continent;
And from its feet of clay,
Breaking the iron limbs and front of brass,
Strew the rejoicing Nations with the wreck.

3.

Roused as thou wert with insult and with wrong
Who should have blamed thee if, in high wrought mood
Of vengeance and the sense of injured power,
Thou from the flames which laid
The City of thy Fathers in the dust,
Hadst bid a spark be brought,
And borne it in thy tent,
Religiously by night and day preserved,
Till on Montmartre's height,
When open to thine arms,
Her last defence o'erthrown,
The guilty city lay,
Thou hadst call'd every Russian of thine host
To light his flambeau at the sacred flame,
And sent them through her streets,
And wrapt her roofs and towers,
Temples and palaces,
Her wealth and boasted spoils,
In one wide flood of fire,
Making the hated Nation feel herself
The miseries she had spread?

4.

Who should have blamed the Conqueror for that deed?
Yea, rather would not one exulting cry
Have risen from Elbe to Nile,
How is the Oppressor fallen!
Moscow's re-rising walls
Had rung with glad acclaim;
Thanksgiving hymns had fill'd
Tyrol's rejoicing vales;
How is the Oppressor fallen!
The Germans in their grass-grown marts had met
To celebrate the deed;
Holland's still waters had been starr'd
With festive lights, reflected there
From every house and hut,
From every town and tower;
The Iberian and the Lusian's injured realms,
From all their mountain-holds,
From all their ravaged fields,
From cities sack'd, from violated fanes,
And from the sanctuary of every heart,
Had pour'd that pious strain—
How is the Oppressor fallen!
Righteous art thou, O Lord!
Thou, Zaragoza, from thy sepulchres
Hadst join'd the hymn; and from thine ashes thou
Manresa, faithful still!
The blood that calls for vengeance in thy streets,
Madrid, and Porto thine,
And that which from the beach
Of Tarragona sent its cry to Heaven,
Had rested then appeased.
Orphans had clapp'd their hands,
And widows would have wept exulting tears,
And childless parents, with a bitter joy,
Have blest the avenging deed.

5.

But thou hadst seen enough
Of horrors,—amply hadst avenged mankind.
Witness that dread retreat,
When God and nature smote
The Tyrant in his pride
No wider ruin overtook
Sennacherib's impious host;
Nor when the frantic Persian led
His veterans to the Lybian sands;
Nor when united Greece
O'er the barbaric power that victory won
Which Europe yet may bless.
A fouler Tyrant cursed the groaning earth,—
A fearfuler destruction was dispensed.
Victorious armies followed on his flight;
On every side he met
The Cossack's dreadful spear;
On every side he saw
The injured nation rise,
Invincible in arms.
What myriads, victims of one wicked will,
Spent their last breath in curses on his head
There, where the soldiers' blood
Froze in the festering wound;
And nightly the cold moon
Saw sinking thousands in the snow lie down,
Whom there the morning found
Stiff as their icy bed.

6.

Rear high the monument!
In Moscow and in proud Petropolis,
The brazen trophy build;
Cannon on cannon piled,
Till the huge column overtop your towers!
From France the Tyrant brought
These instruments of death
To work your overthrow;
He left them in his flight
To form the eternal record of his own
Raise, Russia, with thy spoils,
A nobler monument
Than e'er imperial Rome
Built in her plenitude of pride and power
Still, Alexander! on the banks of Seine,
Thy noblest monument
For future ages stands—
P ARIS SUBDUED AND SPARED .

7.

Conqueror, Deliverer, Friend of human-kind,
The free, the happy Island welcomes thee!
Thee, Alexander! thee, the Great, the Good,
The Glorious, the Beneficent, the Just!
Thee to her honor'd shores
The mighty Island welcomes in her joy.