Weighed in the balance, hero dust 100 Is vile as vulgar clay: Thy scales, Mortality, are just To all that pass away: But yet methought the living great Some higher sparks should animate, 105 To dazzle and dismay: Nor deemed Contempt could thus make mirth Of these, the conquerors of the earth. And she, proud Austria’s mournful flower, Thy still imperial bride, 110 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? 115 If still she loves thee, hoard that gem; ’Tis worth thy vanished diadem! Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle, And gaze upon the sea; That element may meet thy smile-- 120 It ne’er was ruled by thee! Or trace with thine all-idle hand, In loitering mood upon the sand, That Earth is now as free, That Corinth’s pedagogue hath now 125 Transferred his by-word to thy brow. Thou Timour! in his captive’s cage-- What thoughts will there be thine, While brooding in thy prisoned rage? But one--‘The world _was_ mine!’ 130 Unless, like he of Babylon, All sense is with thy sceptre gone, Life will not long confine That spirit poured so widely forth-- So long obeyed--so little worth! 135 Or, like the thief of fire from heaven, Wilt thou withstand the shock? And share with him, the unforgiven, His vulture and his rock! Foredoomed by God--by man accurst, 140 And that last act, though not thy worst, The very Fiend’s arch-mock; He in his fall preserved his pride, And, if a mortal, had as proudly died! _Lord Byron._ CCXIV _SONG._ FOR THE ANNIVERSARY MEETING OF THE PITT CLUB OF SCOTLAND, 1814. O dread was the time, and more dreadful the omen, When the brave on Marengo lay slaughtered in vain, And beholding broad Europe bowed down by her foemen, Pitt closed in his anguish the map of her reign! Not the fate of broad Europe could bend his brave spirit 5 To take for his country the safety of shame; O then in her triumph remember his merit, And hallow the goblet that flows to his name.