No More Learning

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.

Or, like the thief of fire from heaven,[260]
Wilt thou withstand the shock?
And share with him, the unforgiven,
His vulture and his rock!
Foredoomed by God--by man accurst,[iu]
And that last act, though not thy worst,
The very Fiend's arch mock;[261]
He in his fall preserved his pride,
And, if a mortal, had as proudly died! [iv][262]

XVII.

There was a day--there was an hour,
While earth was Gaul's--Gaul thine--[iw]
When that immeasurable power
Unsated to resign
Had been an act of purer fame
Than gathers round Marengo's name
And gilded thy decline,
Through the long twilight of all time,
Despite some passing clouds of crime.

XVIII.

But thou forsooth must be a King
And don the purple vest,
As if that foolish robe could wring
Remembrance from thy breast.
Where is that faded garment? where[ix]
The gewgaws thou wert fond to wear,
The star, the string, the crest? [iy][263]
Vain froward child of Empire!
say,
Are all thy playthings snatched away?

XIX.

Where may the wearied eye repose[iz]
When gazing on the Great;
Where neither guilty glory glows,
Nor despicable state?
Yes--One--the first--the last--the best--
The Cincinnatus of the West,
Whom Envy dared not hate,
Bequeathed the name of Washington,
To make man blush there was but one! [ja][264]





LARA. [jb]



CANTO THE FIRST. [265]

I.

The Serfs[266] are glad through Lara's wide domain,[267]
And Slavery half forgets her feudal chain;
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord,
The long self-exiled Chieftain, is restored:
There be bright faces in the busy hall,
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;
Far checkering o'er the pictured window, plays
The unwonted faggot's hospitable blaze;
And gay retainers gather round the hearth,
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth. 10

II.

The Chief of Lara is returned again:
And why had Lara crossed the bounding main?
Left by his Sire, too young such loss to know,[268]
Lord of himself,--that heritage of woe,
That fearful empire which the human breast
But holds to rob the heart within of rest! --
With none to check, and few to point in time
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime;
Then, when he most required commandment, then
Had Lara's daring boyhood governed men. [jc] 20
It skills not, boots not step by step to trace
His youth through all the mazes of its race;
Short was the course his restlessness had run,[jd]
But long enough to leave him half undone.

III.

And Lara left in youth his father-land;
But from the hour he waved his parting hand
Each trace waxed fainter of his course, till all
Had nearly ceased his memory to recall.
His sire was dust, his vassals could declare,
'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there; 30
Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture grew
Cold in the many, anxious in the few.