XCI.
The trumpet of the northern winds has blown,
And it is answer'd by the dying roar
Of armies on that boundless field o'erthrown:
Now in the awful gusts the desert hoar
Is tempested, a sea without a shore,
Lifting its feathery waves. The legions fly;
Volley on volley, down the hailstones pour;—
Blind, famish'd, frozen, mad, the wanderers die,
And dying, hear the storm but wilder thunder by.
XCII.
Such is the hand of heaven! A human blow
Had crush'd them in the fight, or flung the chain,
Round them where Moscow's stately towers were low,
And all be still'd. But Thou ! thy battle plain
Was a whole empire; that devoted train
Must war from day to day with storm and gloom,
(Man following, like the wolves, to rend the slain,)
Must lie from night to night as in a tomb,
Must fly, toil, bleed for home; yet never see that home.
XCIII.
The despot 'scaped; for his was yet to show
What mimes may play ambition's haughtiest part,
To show the recreant branded on his brow,
Whose noblest art was but the slaughterer's art;
Lest future villains from the mire should start,
And rave, and slay, and dare to call it fame.
Behold him now , the man without a heart,
Him of the battles,—him the soul of flame,—
Scorn'd, banish'd, chain'd for life; and glad to live in shame.
XCIV.
He's gone!—The world in arms pronounced his ban;
His wand is plunged ten thousand fathoms deep:
The sword of wrath has broke his talisman;
And now, to his foul tomb content to creep,
The outcast wanders on the loneliest steep,
That ever whiten'd to the ocean wave;
A monument of blasted guilt, to weep,
If his hard eye can weep, the price he gave,
To meet that spot at last,—his prison and his grave.
XCV.
But he has perish'd, as the broken surge
That at his feet now dies along the shore:
The scourge's work fulfill'd—the gory scourge
Is flung abhorr'd away—his world is o'er.
Fool! see thy emblem; where with rush and roar
The ocean-pillar whirls to meet the sky,
Ploughing with giant speed the waters hoar,
Fear to the distant, ruin to the nigh;
It bursts—it sinks—'tis gone—its very echoes die.
XCVI.
Earth shook with that wild empire's overthrow;
And the foundations, that as fate seem'd deep,
Are dust—and England gave the final blow.
France rush'd like lava from the mountain's steep,
But England met it with the ocean's sweep,
And o'er it roll'd in towering majesty,
Leaving its burning mass, a gloomy heap.
Days of our toil and triumph! ye shall die!—
But on the self same pile with man, and memory!
XCVII.
Monarch of England! in our trial-hour,
Thy prayer was to thy people shield and sword;
Thy secret spirit was a living power.
Like his who on the mountain's brow adored
When round its base the pagan battle roar'd;
The lifting of thy hands was victory;
A deadlier host around our mountain pour'd.
Now dust and ashes on their standards lie,
Why was that triumph hid from thy paternal eye!
XCVIII.
It was in mercy that the veil was spread!
Thou didst not see the blossoms of thy throne,
Mother and infant, on one dying bed.
Thou didst not weep upon the sullen stone
That hid thy queen; thy more than princely son;
High dreams were glowing round thy lonely tower;
Still lived to thee each loved and parted one;
Till on thine eye-ball burst th' immortal hour,
And the dead met thy gaze in angel light and power.
XCIX.
We talk not of the parting rites—the pomp—
Our heart above our Father's grave decays.
Yet all was regal there; the silver tromp,
The proud procession through the Gothic maze,
The silken banner, thousand torches' blaze,
Gilding the painted pane, and imaged stone;
The chapel's deeper glow,—the cresset's rays,
Like diamonds on the wall of velvet strown;
And, flashing from the roof, the helm, and gonfalon.
C.
Yet still the thought is hallow'd; and the train
Of solemn memories o'er the mind will come
With long and lofty pleasure, touch'd by pain.
I hear the anthem; now, as in the tomb,
Dying away;—then, through the upper gloom
Roll'd, like the Judgment thunders from the cloud,
Above that deep and gorgeous catacomb,
Where sat the nation's mightiest, pale, and proud,
Throned in their dim alcoves, each fix'd as in his shroud.
CI.
Still lives the vision of the kingly hall,
The noble kneeling in his canopy,
The prelate in his sculptured, shadowy stall,
The knight beneath his falchion glittering high,
All bending on a central pall the eye,
Where melancholy gleams a crown of gold,
An empty crown.—'Tis sinking, silently,
'Tis gone! yet does the living world not hold
A purer heart than now beneath that crown is cold.
CII.
And ye ethereal ministrants, whose eyes
Night veils not; splendid watchers of our sphere;
Heard ye not rising to your solemn skies
From the land's widest limits voices drear,
As if in each that moment sank the bier?
From mount and shore roll'd up the mighty peal,
Then died!—and all was death-like on the ear.
But it was gone afar, the ocean's swell
Round the hush'd world had borne its noblest monarch's knell.
CIII.
Raise we his monument! what giant pile
Shall honour him to far posterity?
His monument shall be his ocean-isle,
The voice of his redeeming thunders be
His epitaph upon the silver sea.
And million spirits from whose necks he tore
The fetter, and made soul and body free;
And unborn millions from earth's farthest shore
Shall bless the C HRISTIAN K ING , till the last sun is o'er.
The trumpet of the northern winds has blown,
And it is answer'd by the dying roar
Of armies on that boundless field o'erthrown:
Now in the awful gusts the desert hoar
Is tempested, a sea without a shore,
Lifting its feathery waves. The legions fly;
Volley on volley, down the hailstones pour;—
Blind, famish'd, frozen, mad, the wanderers die,
And dying, hear the storm but wilder thunder by.
XCII.
Such is the hand of heaven! A human blow
Had crush'd them in the fight, or flung the chain,
Round them where Moscow's stately towers were low,
And all be still'd. But Thou ! thy battle plain
Was a whole empire; that devoted train
Must war from day to day with storm and gloom,
(Man following, like the wolves, to rend the slain,)
Must lie from night to night as in a tomb,
Must fly, toil, bleed for home; yet never see that home.
XCIII.
The despot 'scaped; for his was yet to show
What mimes may play ambition's haughtiest part,
To show the recreant branded on his brow,
Whose noblest art was but the slaughterer's art;
Lest future villains from the mire should start,
And rave, and slay, and dare to call it fame.
Behold him now , the man without a heart,
Him of the battles,—him the soul of flame,—
Scorn'd, banish'd, chain'd for life; and glad to live in shame.
XCIV.
He's gone!—The world in arms pronounced his ban;
His wand is plunged ten thousand fathoms deep:
The sword of wrath has broke his talisman;
And now, to his foul tomb content to creep,
The outcast wanders on the loneliest steep,
That ever whiten'd to the ocean wave;
A monument of blasted guilt, to weep,
If his hard eye can weep, the price he gave,
To meet that spot at last,—his prison and his grave.
XCV.
But he has perish'd, as the broken surge
That at his feet now dies along the shore:
The scourge's work fulfill'd—the gory scourge
Is flung abhorr'd away—his world is o'er.
Fool! see thy emblem; where with rush and roar
The ocean-pillar whirls to meet the sky,
Ploughing with giant speed the waters hoar,
Fear to the distant, ruin to the nigh;
It bursts—it sinks—'tis gone—its very echoes die.
XCVI.
Earth shook with that wild empire's overthrow;
And the foundations, that as fate seem'd deep,
Are dust—and England gave the final blow.
France rush'd like lava from the mountain's steep,
But England met it with the ocean's sweep,
And o'er it roll'd in towering majesty,
Leaving its burning mass, a gloomy heap.
Days of our toil and triumph! ye shall die!—
But on the self same pile with man, and memory!
XCVII.
Monarch of England! in our trial-hour,
Thy prayer was to thy people shield and sword;
Thy secret spirit was a living power.
Like his who on the mountain's brow adored
When round its base the pagan battle roar'd;
The lifting of thy hands was victory;
A deadlier host around our mountain pour'd.
Now dust and ashes on their standards lie,
Why was that triumph hid from thy paternal eye!
XCVIII.
It was in mercy that the veil was spread!
Thou didst not see the blossoms of thy throne,
Mother and infant, on one dying bed.
Thou didst not weep upon the sullen stone
That hid thy queen; thy more than princely son;
High dreams were glowing round thy lonely tower;
Still lived to thee each loved and parted one;
Till on thine eye-ball burst th' immortal hour,
And the dead met thy gaze in angel light and power.
XCIX.
We talk not of the parting rites—the pomp—
Our heart above our Father's grave decays.
Yet all was regal there; the silver tromp,
The proud procession through the Gothic maze,
The silken banner, thousand torches' blaze,
Gilding the painted pane, and imaged stone;
The chapel's deeper glow,—the cresset's rays,
Like diamonds on the wall of velvet strown;
And, flashing from the roof, the helm, and gonfalon.
C.
Yet still the thought is hallow'd; and the train
Of solemn memories o'er the mind will come
With long and lofty pleasure, touch'd by pain.
I hear the anthem; now, as in the tomb,
Dying away;—then, through the upper gloom
Roll'd, like the Judgment thunders from the cloud,
Above that deep and gorgeous catacomb,
Where sat the nation's mightiest, pale, and proud,
Throned in their dim alcoves, each fix'd as in his shroud.
CI.
Still lives the vision of the kingly hall,
The noble kneeling in his canopy,
The prelate in his sculptured, shadowy stall,
The knight beneath his falchion glittering high,
All bending on a central pall the eye,
Where melancholy gleams a crown of gold,
An empty crown.—'Tis sinking, silently,
'Tis gone! yet does the living world not hold
A purer heart than now beneath that crown is cold.
CII.
And ye ethereal ministrants, whose eyes
Night veils not; splendid watchers of our sphere;
Heard ye not rising to your solemn skies
From the land's widest limits voices drear,
As if in each that moment sank the bier?
From mount and shore roll'd up the mighty peal,
Then died!—and all was death-like on the ear.
But it was gone afar, the ocean's swell
Round the hush'd world had borne its noblest monarch's knell.
CIII.
Raise we his monument! what giant pile
Shall honour him to far posterity?
His monument shall be his ocean-isle,
The voice of his redeeming thunders be
His epitaph upon the silver sea.
And million spirits from whose necks he tore
The fetter, and made soul and body free;
And unborn millions from earth's farthest shore
Shall bless the C HRISTIAN K ING , till the last sun is o'er.