AND SO, LIKE THE TOOL OF A DISUS'D ART, HE STOOD AT HIS WALL, AND RUSTED APART. _Canto_ VI. _p. 44._] "Still I can govern," said Captain Sword; "Fate I respect; and I stick to my word." And in truth so he did; but the word was one He had sworn to all vanities under the sun, To do, for their conq'rors, the least could be done. Besides, what had _he_ with his worn-out story, To do with the cause he had wrong'd, and the glory? No: Captain Sword a sword was still, He could not unteach his lordly will; He could not attemper his single thought; It might not be bent, nor newly wrought: And so, like the tool of a disus'd art, He stood at his wall, and rusted apart. 'Twas only for many-soul'd Captain Pen To make a world of swordless men. POSTSCRIPT; CONTAINING SOME REMARKS ON WAR AND MILITARY STATESMEN. POSTSCRIPT; CONTAINING SOME REMARKS ON WAR AND MILITARY STATESMEN. The object of this poem is to show the horrors of war, the false ideas of power produced in the minds of its leaders, and, by inference, the unfitness of those leaders for the government of the world. The author intends no more offence to any one than can be helped: he feels due admiration for that courage and energy, the supposed misdirection of which it deplores; he heartily acknowledges the probability, that that supposed misdirection has been hitherto no misdirection, but a necessity--but he believes that the time is come when, by encouraging the disposition to question it, its services and its sufferings may be no longer required, and he would fain tear asunder the veil from the sore places of war,--would show what has been hitherto kept concealed, or not shown earnestly, and for the purpose,--would prove, at all events, that the time has come for putting an end to those phrases in the narratives of warfare, by which a suspicious delicacy is palmed upon the reader, who is told, after everything has been done to excite his admiration of war, that his feelings are "spared" a recital of its miseries--that "a veil" is drawn over them--a "truce" given to descriptions which only "harrow up the soul," &c.