No More Learning

His only glory was that hour
Of self-upheld abandoned power.

VIII.

The Spaniard, when the lust of sway
Had lost its quickening spell,[252]
Cast crowns for rosaries away,
An empire for a cell;
A strict accountant of his beads,
A subtle disputant on creeds,
His dotage trifled well:[253]
Yet better had he neither known
A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne.

IX.

But thou--from thy reluctant hand
The thunderbolt is wrung--
Too late thou leav'st the high command
To which thy weakness clung;
All Evil Spirit as thou art,
It is enough to grieve the heart
To see thine own unstrung;
To think that God's fair world hath been
The footstool of a thing so mean;

X.

And Earth hath spilt her blood for him,
Who thus can hoard his own!
And Monarchs bowed the trembling limb,
And thanked him for a throne!
Fair Freedom! we may hold thee dear,
When thus thy mightiest foes their fear
In humblest guise have shown.
Oh! ne'er may tyrant leave behind
A brighter name to lure mankind!

XI.

Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,
Nor written thus in vain--
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,
Or deepen every stain:
If thou hadst died as Honour dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise,
To shame the world again--
But who would soar the solar height,
To set in such a starless night? [ip]

XII.

Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust
Is vile as vulgar clay;[iq]
Thy scales, Mortality!
are just
To all that pass away:
But yet methought the living great
Some higher sparks should animate,
To dazzle and dismay:
Nor deem'd Contempt could thus make mirth
Of these, the Conquerors of the earth.

XIII. [254]

And she, proud Austria's mournful flower,
Thy still imperial bride;
How bears her breast the torturing hour?
Still clings she to thy side?
Must she too bend, must she too share
Thy late repentance, long despair,
Thou throneless Homicide?
If still she loves thee, hoard that gem,--
'Tis worth thy vanished diadem! [255]

XIV.

Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle,
And gaze upon the sea;[ir]
That element may meet thy smile--
It ne'er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all idle hand[is]
In loitering mood upon the sand
That Earth is now as free!
That Corinth's pedagogue[256] hath now
Transferred his by-word to thy brow.

XV.

Thou Timour! in his captive's cage[257][it]
What thoughts will there be thine,
While brooding in thy prisoned rage?
But one--"The world _was_ mine! "
Unless, like he of Babylon,[258]
All sense is with thy sceptre gone,[259]
Life will not long confine
That spirit poured so widely forth--
So long obeyed--so little worth!

XVI.