But did not quench, her spirit-in her fate 105 All were enwrapp'd: the feasted monarchs knew

And loved their hostess, nor could learn to hate, Although they humbled—with the kingly few The many felt, for from all days and climes She was the voyager's worship;—even her crimes Were of the softer order-born of Love,

III

She drank no blood, nor fatten❜d on the dead, But gladden'd where her harmless conquests spread ;

For these restored the Cross, that from above Hallow'd her sheltering banners, which incessant Flew between earth and the unholy Crescent, 116 Which, if it waned and dwindled, Earth may

thank

The city it has clothed in chains, which clank
Now, creaking in the ears of those who owe
The name of Freedom to her glorious struggles;
Yet she but shares with them a common woe, 121
And call'd the "kingdom" of a conquering foe,—
But knows what all-and, most of all, we know-
With what set gilded terms a tyrant juggles!

IV.

The name of Commonwealth is past and gone 125
O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe;
Venice is crush'd, and Holland deigns to own
A sceptre, and endures the purple robe;
If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone

His chainless mountains, 'tis but for a time, 130
For tyranny of late is cunning grown,
And in its own good season tramples down
The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime,
Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean
Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion
Of Freedom, which their fathers fought for, and
Bequeath'd—a heritage of heart and hand,
And proud distinction from each other land,
Whose sons must bow them at a monarch's

motion,

As if his senseless sceptre were a wand

Full of the magic of exploded science—

Still one great clime, in full and free defiance,
Yet rears her crest, unconquer'd and sublime,
Above the far Atlantic!—She has taught
Her Esau-brethren that the haughty flag,
The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag,

135

140

145

May strike to those whose red right hands have

bought

Rights cheaply earn'd with blood. Still, still, for

ever

Better, though each man's life-blood were a river,
That it should flow, and overflow, than creep 150
Through thousand lazy channels in our veins,
Damm'd like the dull canal with locks and chains,
And moving, as a sick man in his sleep,
Three paces, and then faltering :-better be
Where the extinguish'd Spartans still are free, 155
In their proud charnel of Thermopylæ,
Than stagnate in our marsh,-or o'er the deep
Fly, and one current to the ocean add,
One spirit to the souls our fathers had,
One freeman more, America, to thee!

160

NOTES TO THE POEMS.

NOTE 1.

Written after swimming from Sestos to Abydos.

Page 176.

The

On the 3d of May, 1810, while the Salsette (Captain Bathurst) was lying in the Dardanelles, Lieutenant Ekenhead of that frigate and the writer of these rhymes swam from the European shore to the Asiatic-by-thebye, from Abydos to Sestos would have been more correct. The whole distance from the place whence we started to our landing on the other side, including the length we were carried by the current, was computed by those on board the frigate at upwards of four English miles; though the actual breadth is barely one. rapidity of the current is such that no boat can row directly across, and it may in some measure be estimated from the circumstance of the whole distance being accomplished by one of the parties in an hour and five, and by the other in an hour and ten minutes. The water was extremely cold from the melting of the mountain-snows. About three weeks before, in April, we had made an attempt, but having ridden all the way from the Troad the same morning, and the water being of an icy chillness, we found it necessary to post