AY—down to the dust with them, slaves as they are— | |
| From this hour, let the blood in their dastardly veins, | |
| That shrunk at the first touch of Liberty’s war, | |
| Be sucked out by tyrants, or stagnate in chains! | |
| |
| On, on, like a cloud, through their beautiful vales, | 5 |
| Ye locusts of tyranny, blasting them o’er— | |
| Fill, fill up their wide sunny waters, ye sails | |
| From each slave-mart of Europe, and poison their shore! | |
| |
| Let their fate be a mock-word—let men of all lands | |
| Laugh out, with a scorn that shall ring to the poles, | 10 |
| When each sword that the cowards let fall from their hands | |
| Shall be forged into fetters to enter their souls! | |
| |
| And deep and more deep as the iron is driven, | |
| Base slaves! may the whet of their agony be, | |
| To think—as the damned haply think of that heaven | 15 |
| They had once in their reach—that they might have been free! | |
| |
| Shame, shame, when there was not a bosom, whose heat, | |
| Ever rose o’er the Zero of ——’s heart, | |
| That did not, like echo, your war-hymn repeat, | |
| And send all its prayers with your liberty’s start | 20 |
| |
| When the world stood in hope—when a spirit, that breathed | |
| The fresh air of the olden time, whispered about, | |
| And the swords of all Italy half-way unsheathed, | |
| But waited one conquering cry to flash out! | |
| |
| When around you, the shades of your mighty in fame, | 25 |
| Filicajas and Petrarchs, seemed bursting to view, | |
| And their words and their warnings—like tongues of bright flame | |
| Over Freedom’s apostles—fell kindling on you! | |
| |
| Good God! that in such a proud moment of life, | |
| Worth the history of ages—when, had you but hurled | 30 |
| One bolt at your bloody invader, that strife | |
| Between freemen and tryants had spread through the world— | |
| |
| That then—oh disgrace upon manhood! even then, | |
| You should falter, should cling to your pitiful breath, | |
| Cower down into beasts, when you might have stood men, | 35 |
| And prefer the slave’s life of damnation to death! | |
| |
| It is strange—it is dreadful—shout, tyranny, shout, | |
| Through your dungeons and palaces, “Freedom is o’er!”— | |
| If there lingers one spark of her light, tread it out, | |
| And return to your empire of darkness once more. | 40 |
| |
| For, if such are the braggarts that claim to be free, | |
| Come, Despot of Russia, thy feet let me kiss— | |
| Far nobler to live the brute bondman of thee, | |
| Than to sully even chains by a struggle like this. | |
| |
