Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, EUROPE, by REGINALD HEBER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

EUROPE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: At that dread season when th' indignant north
Last Line: "but spain, the brave, the virtuous, shall be free."
Subject(s): Europe; War


AT that dread season when th' indignant North
Pour'd to vain wars her tardy numbers forth,
When Frederic bent his ear to Europe's cry,
And fann'd too late the flame of liberty;
By feverish hope oppress'd, and anxious thought,
In Dresden's grove the dewy cool I sought.
Through tangled boughs the broken moonshine play'd,
And Elbe slept soft beneath his linden shade; --
Yet slept not all; -- I heard the ceaseless jar,
The rattling waggons, and the wheels of war;
The sounding lash, the march's mingled hum,
And, lost and heard by fits, the languid drum;
O'er the near bridge the thundering hoofs that trode,
And the far-distant fife that thrill'd along the road.
Yes, sweet it seems across some watery dell
To catch the music of the pealing bell;
And sweet to list, as on the beach we stray,
The ship-boy's carol in the wealthy bay: --
But sweet no less, when justice points the spear,
Of martial wrath the glorious din to hear,
To catch the war-note on the quivering gale,
And bid the blood-red paths of conquest hail.
Oh! song of hope, too long delusive strain!
And hear we now thy flattering voice again?
But late, alas! I left thee cold and still,
Stunn'd by the wrath of Heaven, on Pratzen's hill.
Oh! on that hill may no kind month renew
The fertile rain, the sparkling summer dew!
Accursed of God, may those bleak summits tell
The field of anger where the mighty fell.
There youthful faith and high-born courage rest,
And, red with slaughter, freedom's humbled crest,
There Europe, soil'd with blood her tresses grey,
And ancient honour's shield, -- all vilely thrown away.
Thus mused my soul, as in succession drear
Rose each grim shape of wrath and doubt and fear;
Defeat and shame in grisly vision past,
And vengeance, bought with blood, and glorious death the last
Then as my gaze their waving eagles met,
And through the night each sparkling bayonet,
Still memory told how Austria's evil hour
Had felt on Praga's field a Frederic's power,
And Gallia's vaunting train, and Moscow's horde,
Had flesh'd the maiden steel of Brunswick's sword.
Oh! yet I deem'd that fate, by justice led,
Might wreathe once more the veteran's silver head
That Europe's ancient pride would yet disdain
The cumbrous sceptre of a single reign;
That conscious right would tenfold strength afford,
And Heaven assist the patriot's holy sword,
And look in mercy through th' auspicious sky,
To bless the saviour host of Germany.
And are they dreams, these bodings, such as shed
Their lonely comfort o'er the hermit's bed?
And are they dreams? or can the Eternal Mind
Care for a sparrow, yet neglect mankind?
Why, if the dubious battle own His power,
And the red sabre, where He bids, devour,
Why then can one the curse of worlds deride,
And millions weep a tyrant's single pride?
Thus sadly musing, far my footsteps stray'd
Rapt in the visions of the Aonian maid.
It was not she, whose lonely voice I hear
Fall in soft whispers on my love-lorn ear;
My daily guest, who wont my steps to guide
Through the green walks of scented even-tide,
Or stretch'd with me in noonday ease along,
To list the reaper's chant, or throstle's song: --
But she of loftier port; whose grave controul
Rules the fierce workings of the patriot's soul;
She, whose high presence, o'er the midnight oil,
With fame's bright promise cheers the student's toil;
That same was she, whose ancient law refined
The sober hardihood of Sydney's mind.
Borne on her wing, no more I seem'd to rove
By Dresden's glittering spires, and linden grove;
No more the giant Elbe, all silver bright,
Spread his broad bosom to the fair moonlight,
While the still margent of his ample flood
Bore the dark image of the Saxon wood --
(Woods happy once, that heard the carols free,
Of rustic love, and cheerful industry;
Now dull and joyless lie their alleys green,
And silence marks the track where France has been.)
Far other scenes than these my fancy view'd:
Rocks robed in ice, a mountain solitude;
Where on Helvetian hills, in godlike state,
Alone and awful, Europe's Angel sate:
Silent and stern he sate; then, bending low,
Listen'd th' ascending plaints of human woe.
And waving as in grief his towery head,
"Not yet, not yet, the day of rest," he said;
"It may not be. Destruction's gory wing
Soars o'er the banners of the younger king,
Too rashly brave, who seeks with single sway
To stem the lava on its destined way.
Poor glittering warriors, only wont to know
The bloodless pageant of a martial show;
Nurslings of peace, for fiercer fights prepare,
And dread the step-dame sway of unaccustom'd war!
They fight, they bleed! -- Oh! had that blood been shed
When Charles and valour Austria's armies led;
Had these stood forth the righteous cause to shield,
When victory waver'd on Moravia's field;
Then France had mourn'd her conquests made in vain,
Her backward-beaten ranks, and countless slain; --
Then had the strength of Europe's freedom stood,
And still the Rhine had roll'd a German flood!
"Oh! nursed in many a wile, and practised long
To spoil the poor, and cringe before the strong;
To swell the victor's state, and hovering near,
Like some base vulture in the battle's rear,
To watch the carnage of the field, and share
Each loathsome alms the prouder eagles spare:
A curse is on thee, Brandenburgh! the sound
Of Poland's wailing drags thee to the ground;
And, drunk with guilt, thy harlot lips shall know
The bitter dregs of Austria's cup of woe.
"Enough of vengeance! O'er th' ensanguined plain
I gaze, and seek their numerous hosts in vain;
Gone like the locust band, when whirlwinds bear
Their flimsy legions through the waste of air.
Enough of vengeance! -- By the glorious dead,
Who bravely fell where youthful Lewis led;
By Blucher's sword in fiercest danger tried,
And the true heart that burst when Brunswick died;
By her whose charms the coldest zeal might warm,
The manliest firmness in the fairest form --
Save, Europe, save the remnant! -- Yet remains
One glorious path to free the world from chains.
Why, when yon northern band in Eylau's wood
Retreating struck, and track'd their course with blood,
While one firm rock the floods of ruin stay'd,
Why, generous Austria, were thy wheels delay'd?
And Albion!" -- Darker sorrow veil'd his brow --
"Friend of the friendless -- Albion, where art thou?
Child of the Sea, whose wing-like sails are spread,
The covering cherub of the ocean's bed!
The storm and tempest render peace to thee,
And the wild-roaring waves a stern security.
But hope not thou in Heaven's own strength to ride,
Freedom's loved ark, o'er broad oppression's tide;
If virtue leave thee, if thy careless eye
Glance in contempt on Europe's agony.
Alas! where now the bands who wont to pour
Their strong deliverance on th' Egyptian shore?
Wing, wing your course, a prostrate world to save,
Triumphant squadrons of Trafalgar's wave.
"And thou, blest star of Europe's darkest hour,
Whose words were wisdom and whose counsels power,
Whom Earth applauded through her peopled shores!
(Alas! whom Earth too early lost deplores: --)
Young without follies, without rashness bold,
And greatly poor amidst a nation's gold!
In every veering gale of faction true,
Untarnish'd Chatham's genuine child, adieu!
Unlike our common suns, whose gradual ray
Expands from twilight to intenser day,
Thy blaze broke forth at once in full meridian sway.
O, proved in danger! not the fiercest flame
Of discord's rage thy constant soul could tame;
Not when, far striding o'er thy palsied land,
Gigantic treason took his bolder stand;
Not when wild zeal, by murderous faction led,
On Wicklow's hills her grass-green banner spread;
Or those stern conquerors of the restless wave
Defied the native soil they wont to save.
Undaunted patriot! in that dreadful hour,
When pride and genius own a sterner power;
When the dimm'd eyeball, and the struggling breath,
And pain, and terror, mark advancing death; --
Still in that breast thy country held her throne,
Thy toil, thy fear, thy prayer, were hers alone,
Thy last faint effort hers, and hers thy parting groan.
"Yes, from those lips while fainting nations drew
Hope ever strong, and courage ever new; --
Yet, yet, I deem'd by that supporting hand
Propp'd in her fall might Freedom's ruin stand;
And purged by fire, and stronger from the storm,
Degraded justice rear her reverend form.
Now, hope, adieu! -- adieu the generous care
To shield the weak, and tame the proud in war!
The golden chain of realms, when equal awe
Poised the strong balance of impartial law;
When rival states as federate sisters shone,
Alike, yet various, and though many, one;
And, bright and numerous as the spangled sky,
Beam'd each fair star of Europe's galaxy --
All, all are gone, and after-time shall trace
One boundless rule, one undistinguished race;
Twilight of worth, where nought remains to move
The patriot's ardour, or the subject's love.
"Behold, e'en now, while every manly lore
And every muse forsakes my yielding shore;
Faint, vapid fruits of slavery's sickly clime,
Each tinsel art succeeds, and harlot rhyme!
To gild the vase, to bid the purple spread
In sightly foldings o'er the Grecian bed,
Their mimic guard where sculptured gryphons keep,
And Memphian idols watch o'er beauty's sleep;
To rouse the slumbering sparks of faint desire
With the base tinkling of the Teian lyre;
While youth's enervate glance and gloating age
Hang o'er the mazy waltz, or pageant stage;
Each wayward wish of sickly taste to please,
The nightly revel and the noon-tide ease --
These, Europe, are thy toils, thy trophies these!
"So, when wide-wasting hail, or whelming rain,
Have strew'd the bearded hope of golden grain,
From the wet furrow, struggling to the skies,
The tall, rank weeds in barren splendour rise;
And strong, and towering o'er the mildew'd ear,
Uncomely flowers and baneful herbs appear;
The swain's rich toils to useless poppies yield,
And Famine stalks along the purple field.
"And thou, the poet's theme, the patriot's prayer! --
Where, France, thy hopes, thy gilded promise, where?
When o'er Montpelier's vines, and Jura's snows,
All goodly bright, young freedom's planet rose?
What boots it now, (to our destruction brave,)
How strong thine arm in war? a valiant slave!
What boots it now that wide thine eagles sail,
Fann'd by the flattering breath of conquest's gale?
What, that, high-piled within yon ample dome,
The blood-bought treasures rest of Greece and Rome?
Scourge of the Highest, bolt in vengeance hurl'd
By Heaven's dread justice on a shrinking world!
Go, vanquish'd victor, bend thy proud helm down
Before thy sullen tyrant's steely crown,
For him in Afric's sands, and Poland's snows,
Rear'd by thy toil the shadowy laurel grows;
And rank in German fields the harvest springs
Of pageant councils and obsequious kings.
Such purple slaves, of glittering fetters vain,
Link'd the wide circuit of the Latian chain;
And slaves like these shall every tyrant find,
To gild oppression, and debase mankind.
"Oh! live there yet whose hardy souls and high,
Peace bought with shame, and tranquil bonds defy?
Who, driven from every shore, and lords in vain
Of the wide prison, of the lonely main,
Cling to their country's rights with free-born zeal,
More strong from every stroke, and patient of the steel!
Guiltless of chains, to them has Heaven consign'd
Th' entrusted cause of Europe and mankind!
Or hope we yet in Sweden's martial snows
That freedom's weary foot may find repose?
No; -- from yon hermit shade, yon cypress dell,
Where faintly peals the distant matin-bell;
Where bigot kings and tyrant priests had shed
Their sleepy venom o'er his dreadful head;
He wakes, th' avenger -- hark! the hills around,
Untamed Asturia bids her clarion sound;
And many an ancient rock, and fleecy plain,
And many a valiant heart returns the strain:
Heard by that shore, where Calpe's armed steep
Flings its long shadow o'er th' Herculean deep,
And Lusian glades, whose hoary poplars wave
In soft sad murmurs over Inez' grave.
They bless the call who dared the first withstand
The Moslem wasters of their bleeding land,
When firm in faith, and red with slaughter'd foes,
Thy spear-encircled crown, Asturia, rose.
Nor these alone; as loud the war-notes swell,
La Mancha's shepherd quits his cork-built cell:
Alhama's strength is there, and those who till
(A hardy race!) Morena's scorched hill;
And in rude arms through wide Gallicia's reign,
The swarthy vintage pours her vigorous train.
"Saw ye those tribes? not theirs the plumed boast,
The sightly trappings of a marshall'd host;
No weeping nations curse their deadly skill,
Expert in danger, and inured to kill: --
But theirs the kindling eye, the strenuous arm:
Theirs the dark cheek, with patriot ardour warm,
Unblanch'd by sluggard ease, or slavish fear,
And proud and pure the blood that mantles there.
Theirs from the birth is toil; -- o'er granite steep,
And heathy wild, to guard the wandering sheep;
To urge the labouring mule, or bend the spear
'Gainst the night-prowling wolf, or felon bear;
The bull's hoarse rage in dreadful sport to mock,
And meet with single sword his bellowing shock.
Each martial chant they know, each manly rhyme,
Rude ancient lays of Spain's heroic time;
Of him in Xeres' carnage fearless found,
(His glittering brows with hostile spear-heads bound;)
Of that chaste king whose hardy mountain train
O'erthrew the knightly race of Charlemagne;
And chiefest him who rear'd his banner tall
(Illustrious exile!) o'er Valencia's wall;
Ungraced by kings, whose Moorish title rose
The toil-earn'd homage of his wondering foes.
"Yes; every mouldering tower and haunted flood,
And the wild murmurs of the waving wood;
Each sandy waste, and orange-scented dell,
And red Buraba's field, and Lugo, tell,
How their brave fathers fought, how thick the invaders fell.
"Oh! virtue long forgot, or vainly tried,
To glut a bigot's zeal or tyrant's pride;
Condemn'd in distant climes to bleed and die
'Mid the dank poisons of Tlascala's sky;
Or when stern Austria stretch'd her lawless reign,
And spent in northern fights the flower of Spain;
Or war's hoarse furies yell'd on Ysell's shore,
And Alva's ruffian sword was drunk with gore,
Yet dared not then Tlascala's chiefs withstand
The lofty daring of Castalia's band;
And weeping France her captive king deplored,
And cursed the deathful point of Ebro's sword.
Now, nerved with hope, their night of slavery past
Each heart beats high in freedom's buxom blast;
Lo! conquest calls, and beckoning from afar,
Uplifts his laurel wreath, and waves them on to war.
-- Woe to th' usurper then, who dares defy
The sturdy wrath of rustic loyalty!
Woe to the hireling bands foredoom'd to feel
How strong in labour's horny hand the steel!
Behold e'en now, beneath yon Boetic skies
Another Pavia bids her trophies rise;
E'en now in base disguise and friendly night,
Their robber-monarch speeds his secret flight;
And with new zeal the fiery Lusians rear,
(Roused by their neighbour's worth) the long-neglected spear.
"So when stern winter chills the April showers,
And iron frost forbids the timely flowers;
Oh, deem not thou the vigorous herb below
Is crush'd and dead beneath th' incumbent snow:
Such tardy suns shall wealthier harvests bring
Than all the early smiles of flattering spring."
Sweet as the martial trumpet's silver swell,
On my charm'd sense the unearthly accents fell:
Me wonder held, and joy chastised by fear,
As one who wish'd, yet hardly hoped to hear.
"Spirit," I cried, "dread teacher, yet declare,
In that good fight, shall Albion's arm be there?
Can Albion, brave and wise, and proud, refrain
To hail a kindred soul, and link her fate with Spain?
Too long her sons, estranged from war and toil,
Have loathed the safety of the sea-girt isle;
And chid the waves which pent their fire within,
As the stall'd war-horse wooes the battle's din.
Oh, by this throbbing heart, this patriot glow,
Which, well I feel, each English breast shall know
Say, shall my country, roused from deadly sleep,
Crowd with her hardy sons yon western steep?
And shall once more the star of France grow pale,
And dim its beams in Roncesvalles' vale?
Or shall foul sloth and timid doubt conspire
To mar our zeal, and waste our manly fire?"
Still as I gazed his lowering features spread,
High rose his form, and darkness veil'd his head;
Fast from his eyes the ruddy lightning broke,
To Heaven he rear'd his arm and thus he spoke:
"Woe, trebly woe to their slow zeal who bore
Delusive comfort to Iberia's shore!
Who in mid conquest, vaunting, yet dismay'd,
Now gave and now withdrew their laggard aid;
Who when each bosom glow'd, each heart beat high,
Chill'd the pure stream of England's energy,
And lost in courtly forms and blind delay
The loiter'd hours of glory's short-lived day.
"O peerless island, generous, bold and free,
Lost, ruin'd Albion, Europe mourns for thee!
Hadst thou but known the hour in mercy given
To stay thy doom, and ward the ire of Heaven;
Bared in the cause of man thy warrior breast,
And crush'd on yonder hills the approaching pest,
Then had not murder sack'd thy smiling plain,
And wealth, and worth, and wisdom, all been vain!
"Yet, yet awake! while fear and wonder wait
On the poised balance, trembling still with fate!
If aught their worth can plead, in battle tried,
Who tinged with slaughter Tajo's curdling tide;
(What time base truce the wheels of war could stay,
And the weak victor flung his wreath away;) --
Or theirs, who, doled in scanty bands afar,
Waged without hope the disproportion'd war,
And cheerly still, and patient of distress,
Led their forwasted files on numbers numberless!
"Yes, through the march of many a weary day,
As yon dark column toils its seaward way;
As bare, and shrinking from the inclement sky,
The languid soldier bends him down to die;
As o'er those helpless limbs, by murder gored,
The base pursuer waves his weaker sword,
And, trod to earth, by trampling thousands press'd,
The horse-hoof glances from that mangled breast; --
E'en in that hour his hope to England flies,
And fame and vengeance fire his closing eyes.
"Oh! if such hope can plead, or his, whose bier
Drew from his conquering host their latest tear;
Whose skill, whose matchless valour gilded flight:
Entomb'd in foreign dust, a hasty soldier's rite;
Oh! rouse thee yet to conquer and to save,
And wisdom guide the sword which justice gave!
"And yet the end is not! from yonder towers
While one Saguntum mocks the victor's powers:
While one brave heart defies a servile chain,
And one true soldier wields a lance for Spain;
Trust not, vain tyrant, though thy spoiler band
In tenfold myriads darken half the land;
(Vast as that power, against whose impious lord
Bethulia's matron shook the nightly sword;)
Though ruth and fear thy woundless soul defy,
And fatal genius fire thy martial eye:
Yet trust not here o'er yielding realms to roam,
Or cheaply bear a bloodless laurel home.
"No! by His viewless arm whose righteous care
Defends the orphan's tear, the poor man's prayer;
Who, Lord of Nature, o'er this changeful ball
Decrees the rise of empires, and the fall;
Wondrous in all His ways, unseen, unknown,
Who treads the wine-press of the world alone;
And robed in darkness, and surrounding fears,
Speeds on their destined road the march of years!
No! -- shall yon eagle, from the snare set free,
Stoop to thy wrist, or cower his wing for thee?
And shall it tame despair, thy strong controul,
Or quench a nation's still reviving soul? --
Go, bid the force of countless bands conspire
To curb the wandering wind, or grasp the fire!
Cast thy vain fetters on the troublous sea!
But Spain, the brave, the virtuous, shall be free."





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