e ent ODE, WRITTEN DURING THE NEGOTIATIONS WITH BUONAPARTE, IN ROBERT SOUTHEY. I. WE WHO counsels peace at this momentous hour, When God hath given deliverance to the oppress'd, And to the injured power? Who counsels peace, when Vengeance like a flood From the four corners of the world cries out For justice upon one accursed head; II. Woe, woe to England! woe and endless shame, False to her feelings and unspotted fame, Be suffer'd still to stand! For by what names shall Right and Wrong be known;— And France, who yearns, even now to break her chain No! by the innumerable dead, Whose blood hath for his lust of power been shed, That peace which Death and Judgement can bestow, III. For sooner shall the Ethiop change his skin, Fair name might he have handed down, Fool! should he cast away that bright renown! Before him, which to choose. IV. But Evil was his Good, For all too long in blood had he been nurst, And ne'er was earth with verier tyrant curst. Bold man and bad, Remorseless, godless, full of fraud and lies, And black with murders and with perjuries, Himself in Hell's whole panoply he clad; No law but his own headstrong will he knew, No counsellor but his own wicked heart. From evil thus portentous strength he drew, And trampled under foot all human ties, All holy laws, all natural charities. V. O France! beneath this fierce Barbarian's sway Disgraced thou art to all succeeding times; Rapine, and blood, and fire have mark'd thy way, All loathsome, all unutterable crimes. A curse is on thee, France! from far and wide It hath gone up to Heaven; all lands have cried For vengeance upon thy detested head; All nations curse thee, France! for whereso'er In peace or war thy banner hath been spread, All forms of human woe have follow'd there: The Living and the Dead Cry out alike against thee! They who bear, Crouching beneath its weight, thine iron yoke, Join in the bitterness of secret prayer The voice of that innumerable throng, Whose slaughter'd spirits day and night invoke The everlasting Judge of right and wrong, How long, O Lord! Holy and Just, how long! VI. A merciless oppressor hast thou been, Thyself remorselessly oppress'd meantime; Greedy of war, when all that thou couldst gain Was but to dye thy soul with deeper crime, And rivet faster round thyself the chain. O, blind to honour, and to interest blind, When thus in abject servitude resign'd To this barbarian upstart, thou could'st brave God's justice, and the heart of human kind! Madly thou thoughtest to enslave the world, Thyself the while a miserable slave. Behold the flag of vengeance is unfurl'd! The dreadful armies of the North advance; While England, Portugal, and Spain combined, Give their triumphant banners to the wind, And stand victorious in the fields of France. VII. One man hath been for ten long wretched years One man in this most awful point of time For now whole Europe comes against thee bent; His wiles and their own strength the nations know; Wise from past wrongs, on future peace intent, The People and the Princes, with one mind, From all parts move against the general foe: One act of justice, one atoning blow, One execrable head laid low, Even yet, O France! averts thy punishment: Open thine eyes! too long hast thou been blind; Take vengeance for thyself, and for mankind! VIII. France! if thou lov'st thine ancient fame, By the bodies which lie all open to the sky, By the prayers that rise for curses on his head; IX. By those horrors which the night Witness'd when the torches' light, To the assembled murderers show'd Where the blood of Condé flow'd; By thy murder'd Pichegru's fame; By murder'd Wright,-an English name; By murder'd Palm's atrocious doom; By murder'd Hofer's martyrdom; Oh! by the virtuous blood thus vilely spilt, The Villain's own peculiar private guilt, Open thine eyes! too long hast thou been blind! Take vengeance for thyself, and for mankind! |