Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.

VII. On the Last Failure of Kosciusko

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

O WHAT a loud and fearful shriek was there,

As though a thousand souls one death-groan poured!

Ah me! they saw beneath a hireling’s sword

Their KOSCIUSKO fall! Through the swart air

(As pauses the tired Cossack’s barbarous yell

Of triumph) on the chill and midnight gale

Rises with frantic burst, or sadder swell,

The dirge of murdered Hope! while Freedom pale

Bends in such anguish o’er her destined bier,

As if from eldest time some Spirit meek

Had gathered in a mystic urn each tear

That ever on a patriot’s furrowed cheek

Fit channel found; and she had drained the bowl

In the mere wilfulness and sick despair of soul!