Methinks he would have scorn'd man's vaunted power To plough the deep; his pinions bore him down To Algiers the warlike, or the coral groves That blush beneath the green of Bona's waves; And traversed in an hour a wider space Than yonder gallant ship, with all her sails Wooing the winds, can cross from morn till eve. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The earthquake's self Disturb'd not him that memorable day, When o'er yon table-land, where Spain had built Cathedrals, cannon'd forts, and palaces, A palsy-stroke of Nature shook Oran, Turning her city to a sepulchre, And strewing into rubbish all her homes." There is wealth of imagination in this as well as wealth of observation. But Campbell is greatest in his poetry of freedom, in poems like _Men of England, Stanzas on the Battle of Navarino, Lines on Poland, the Power of Russia_, and such noble, profound expressions of spiritual freedom as that entitled _Hallowed Ground_. In such productions as these he plainly shows his spiritual superiority to the poets of the Lake School, who, like him, wrote glorious verse in honour of the nations who were struggling for their independence. The Lake poets honoured the struggle only when it was against the tyranny of Napoleon, England's enemy. Campbell makes no difference of this kind; in the name of freedom he often exhorts and even rebukes England, whereas to the other poets she is freedom's very hearth and home. Note, in _Men of England_, the warmth with which he insists that the records of valour in war are as nothing compared with the glowing love of liberty in the breasts of living men, and that the glory of the martyrs of freedom is worth a hundred Agincourts. Campbell's joy at the liberation of Greece is as genuine as his grief over the fall of Poland; but the poem on Poland is more ardent, in its indignation, its hope, its lament that "England has not heart to throw the gauntlet down." And the verses on the power of Russia display as clear an understanding of the danger to civilisation which lies in the success of Russia, and of the real significance of the defeat of Poland, as if a statesman had turned poet. "Were this some common strife of States embroil'd;-- Britannia on the spoiler and the spoil'd Might calmly look, and, asking time to breathe, Still honourably wear her olive wreath. But this is Darkness combating with Light; Earth's adverse Principles for empire fight." These are weighty words; and not less pregnant is the line: "The Polish eagle's fall is big with fate to man." The poem _Hallowed Ground_ is, in its bold simplicity, a plain protest against all superstition, whatever name it bears, and a manly confession of faith in the gospel of liberty as proclaimed by the eighteenth century. What is hallowed ground? asks Campbell: