What art thou, Man, that mak’st a pride of strife, A glory of the sufferings of thy kind? That dar’st profanely sport with human life, And ev’n in cruelty canst greatness find? Oh, steeped in folly, oh, intensely blind, And worshipping false Honour more than God, Of beasts derided is thy boasted mind! Fawn on thy gilded butchers, kiss the rod, But deem not scenes like these have Heaven’s approving nod. XXXIX. Not these thy triumphs, England! Ne’er again Thy soul shall covet save of Locrian power And intellect the glory! Beaconing men To happiness be thine--still Freedom’s tower, Still making every scowling despot cower By labouring mind alone! let Justice wrest The axe from War, and give to man her dower. Plant, plant the olive pure from East to West, And bare not, save compelled, the sword ’gainst human breast! XL. Salustian quick regained his wonted strength, Such strength as leaves the feebler tide of life, And near Ernani--moved of moderate length The journey--to a house with comforts rife, His patrimony fair, where sound of strife There comes not. Grassy slopes and orchards gay, And sweetest daughter to replace a wife Embalmed in deathless memory, fill the day With gentlest exercise, and health resumes its sway. XLI. And Nial oft on fiery steed doth ride O’er the brief space that sunders them, to mark The old man’s progress. Oft bright eyes replied In mutual glances blithe as song of lark At each returning. Soft, though lustrous dark, Beamed Isabel on Nial’s blue-eyed smile. Salustian saw full clear the kindling spark, Nor chid the flame that grew and spread the while, Till Nial’s plighted troth was echoed without guile. XLII. Her soul was all absorbed in his--her life Was cast, since meeting, in another mould. The cloud or sunshine, calm repose or strife, Must be together shared, the bliss untold Or mortal grief must Fate for both unfold! No thought her bosom entered but was Nial’s; Self-consecrate to him, her champion bold-- His--his--though Destiny pour all its phials, His--his ’mid love’s best joys or life’s acutest trials! XLIII. Now tranquilly beneath the autumnal sun, Whose beams the mountain breezes tempered bland, Salustian, Isabel from sorrow won Full many an hour by wings angelic fanned; And oft within their lawn doth Nial stand, And pluck the golden apple from the bough, Or cull grapes purple-clustering for the hand Of Isabel--now plum or almond--now The green and luscious fig, the peach with blushing brow. XLIV.