Glory and Empire! once upon these towers With Freedom--godlike Triad!--how ye sate! The league of mightiest nations in those hours When Venice was an envy, might abate, But did not quench her spirit; in her fate All were enwrapped: the feasted monarchs knew And loved their hostess, nor could learn to hate, Although they humbled. With the kingly few The many felt, for from all days and climes She was the voyager's worship; even her crimes Were of the softer order--born of Love. She drank no blood, nor fattened on the dead, But gladdened where her harmless conquests spread; For these restored the Cross, that from above Hallowed her sheltering banners, which incessant Flew between earth and the unholy Crescent, Which if it waned and dwindled, Earth may thank The city it has clothed in chains, which clank Now, creaking in the ears of those who owe The name of Freedom to her glorious struggles; Yet she but shares with them a common woe, And called the "kingdom" of a conquering foe, But knows what all--and, most of all, _we_--know, With what set gilded terms a tyrant juggles! IV The name of Commonwealth is past and gone O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe: Venice is crushed, and Holland deigns to own A sceptre, and endures the purple robe; If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone His chainless mountains, 'tis but for a time, For tyranny of late is cunning grown, And in its own good season tramples down The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime, Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion Of Freedom, which their fathers fought for and Bequeathed--a heritage of heart and hand, And proud distinction from each other land, Whose sons must bow them at a monarch's motion, As if his senseless sceptre were a wand Full of the magic of exploded science-- Still one great clime, in full and free defiance, Yet rears her crest, unconquered and sublime, Above the far Atlantic! She has taught Her Esau-brethren that the haughty flag, The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag, May strike to those whose red right hands have bought Rights cheaply earned with blood. Still, still forever, Better, though each man's life-blood were a river, That it should flow, and overflow, than creep Through thousand lazy channels in our veins, Dammed like the dull canal with locks and chains, And moving as a sick man in his sleep, Three paces, and then faltering:--better be Where the extinguished Spartans still are free, In their proud charnel of Thermopylæ, Than stagnate in our marsh,--or o'er the deep Fly, and one current to the ocean add, One spirit to the souls our fathers had, One freeman more, America, to thee! THE EAST