No More Learning

Thou other Element! as strong and stern,
To teach a lesson conquerors will not learn! --
Whose icy wing flapped o'er the faltering foe,
Till fell a hero with each flake of snow;
How did thy numbing beak and silent fang,
Pierce, till hosts perished with a single pang! 190
In vain shall Seine look up along his banks
For the gay thousands of his dashing ranks!
In vain shall France recall beneath her vines
Her Youth--their blood flows faster than her wines;
Or stagnant in their human ice remains
In frozen mummies on the Polar plains.
In vain will Italy's broad sun awaken
Her offspring chilled; its beams are now forsaken.
Of all the trophies gathered from the war,
What shall return? the Conqueror's broken car! [288] 200
The Conqueror's yet unbroken heart! Again
The horn of Roland[289] sounds, and not in vain.
Lutzen, where fell the Swede of victory,[290]
Beholds him conquer, but, alas! not die:
Dresden[291] surveys three despots fly once more
Before their sovereign,--sovereign as before;[ea]
But there exhausted Fortune quits the field,
And Leipsic's[292] treason bids the unvanquished yield;
The Saxon jackal leaves the lion's side
To turn the bear's, and wolf's, and fox's guide; 210
And backward to the den of his despair
The forest monarch shrinks, but finds no lair!

Oh ye! and each, and all! Oh France!
who found
Thy long fair fields ploughed up as hostile ground,
Disputed foot by foot, till Treason, still
His only victor, from Montmartre's hill[293]
Looked down o'er trampled Paris! and thou Isle,
Which seest Etruria from thy ramparts smile,
Thou momentary shelter of his pride,
Till wooed by danger, his yet weeping bride! 220
Oh, France! retaken by a single march,
Whose path was through one long triumphal arch!
Oh bloody and most bootless Waterloo!
Which proves how fools may have their fortune too,
Won half by blunder, half by treachery:
Oh dull Saint Helen! with thy gaoler nigh--
Hear! hear Prometheus[294] from his rock appeal
To Earth,--Air,--Ocean,--all that felt or feel
His power and glory, all who yet shall hear
A name eternal as the rolling year; 230
He teaches them the lesson taught so long,
So oft, so vainly--learn to do no wrong!
A single step into the right had made
This man the Washington of worlds betrayed:
A single step into the wrong has given
His name a doubt to all the winds of heaven;
The reed of Fortune, and of thrones the rod,
Of Fame the Moloch or the demigod;
His country's Caesar, Europe's Hannibal,
Without their decent dignity of fall. 240
Yet Vanity herself had better taught
A surer path even to the fame he sought,
By pointing out on History's fruitless page
Ten thousand conquerors for a single sage.
While Franklin's quiet memory climbs to Heaven,
Calming the lightning which he thence hath riven,
Or drawing from the no less kindled earth
Freedom and peace to that which boasts his birth;[295]
While Washington's a watchword, such as ne'er
Shall sink while there's an echo left to air:[296] 250
While even the Spaniard's thirst of gold and war
Forgets Pizarro to shout Bolivar! [297]
Alas! why must the same Atlantic wave
Which wafted freedom gird a tyrant's grave--
The king of kings, and yet of slaves the slave,
Who burst the chains of millions to renew
The very fetters which his arm broke through,
And crushed the rights of Europe and his own,
To flit between a dungeon and a throne?


VI.

But 'twill not be--the spark's awakened--lo! 260
The swarthy Spaniard feels his former glow;
The same high spirit which beat back the Moor
Through eight long ages of alternate gore
Revives--and where?