FRIEND! with a poor man's straits to fight Let warfare teach thy stalwart boy: Let him the Parthian's front annoy With lance in rest, a dreaded knight: Live in the field, inure his eye To danger. From the foeman's wall May the armed tyrant's dame, with all Her damsels, gaze on him, and sigh, "Dare not, in war unschooled, to rouse Yon Lion -- whom to touch is death, To whom red Anger ever saith, '@3Slay and slay on'@1 -- O prince, my spouse!" -- Honoured and blest the patriot dies. From death the recreant may not flee: Death shall not spare the faltering knee And coward back of him that flies. Valour -- unbeat, unsullied still -- Shines with pure lustre: all too great To seize or drop the sword of state, Swayed by a people's veering will. Valour -- to souls too great for death Heav'n op'ning -- treads the untrodden way: And this dull world, this damp cold clay, On wings of scorn, abandoneth. -- Let too the sealed lip honoured be. The babbler, who'd the secrets tell Of holy Ceres, shall not dwell Where I dwell; shall not launch with me A shallop. Heaven full many a time Hath with the unclean slain the just: And halting-footed Vengeance must O'ertake at last the steps of crime. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SIT DOWN SAD SOUL by BRYAN WALLER PROCTER THE HOUSE OF LIFE: 79. THE MONOCHORD by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI LEANDER DROWNED by PHILIP AYRES THE IDLERS by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE UNQUIET EYE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |