THESE Pieces of Poetry were written at a period when the eyes of Europe
were turned on Poland, then making-certainly not her last, but let us
hope rather, her penultimate struggle for her liberties. I thought to
suppress them, the events being passed; but this was an unworthy
reflection, for the subject of the wrongs and oppressions of humanity
must be ever stirring and ever new, finding an answer back from every
healthy heart, while there remains one kingdom on the earth under
oppression, and one subject who feels himself a slave.
THE VOICE OF POLAND TO EUROPE.
MUST we again be trampled to the dust,
Crushed beneath Tyranny's gigantic tread?
Nations of Europe-hear!-ye shall-ye must!
Ye have stood by and watched us while we bled,
Nor raised a hand, nor mourned our heroes dead;
Will ye now look on, and our struggles mock?
Lo, Liberty hath burst her bonds of lead;
Her arm is raised, her throne is on the rock;
She stamps upon her chains, and earth hath felt the shock.
And chiefly thou, high France! who standest now Prouder than Rome when crowned with loftiest bays! Will Freedom's wreath be shaken from thy brow, Or stained, in stooping from thy height to raise Those who have basked within its sunlike rays, Until they felt they, too, were men once more, Who dared to emulate thy glorious days; And wash their wrongs out in their tyrants' gore, Or perish in the field-crushed down for evermore?
Spirit of Kosciusko! rouse-awake
From thy long sleep, and look upon our deeds: Our hearts no more can bend, but they shall break; We may be scattered by the shock like weeds On the surf-beaten shore,-but still succeeds The tide until it reach its fated height; Never in vain the heart of freeman bleeds! Blood may be shed like water in the fight, Mankind awakes at last, and vindicates the right!
And thou, to whom our cries in vain ascended
From Prague's red bridge, from Warsaw's fiery wall!
O God of Freedom! if our crimes offended,
And made Thee, then, insensate to our call,
Are we not now more sinned against? Then fall
Thy lightnings on them, scorching like a scroll!
And let the nations who behold our thrall
Prove in their turn the tyrant's worst controul:
Oh, let them feel the iron entering in the soul!
SENTIMENTS OF A NOBLE POLE.
WHY should we shrink? say, what have we to lose?—
Our lives?—why, what are they in the great scale,
When weighed with liberty? We can not fail.
Power, and the arm of tyranny subdues,
Ay, doth annihilate; but still we choose
The bright path left, while nobly we depart,
The unconquered lords of our own destiny!
Is it not better thus to greatly die,
Than live, and wear the fetters of the heart?
So deemed the Spartan at Thermopylæ:
So the free Switzer on his hills, when fell
The Austrian's pride beneath the shaft of Tell!
Have we not matched them, glorious as they were?
Have we not proved what courage and despair
Can do when plunging in the desperate strife?
Look on our wrongs, avenging Heaven!-we swear
Never to yield our weapons but with life;
Our challenge word is war-"war, even to the knife."*
REFLECTIONS OF THE POLISH PEASANT.
YES-they are coming!-all is now at stake:
The storm is gathering round us, and we hear,
With anxious minds, yet all distinct from fear,
The thunder in the distance! It will break-
And we shall see our frail huts blaze afar,
Our fields ploughed up with guns and shattering shells,
*The never-to-be-forgotten answer of Palafox at the seige of Zaragoza, on receiving his final summons to surrender.
Our covert haunts, where peace and blessing dwells,
Blasted by the volcanic breath of War!
This we could bear like men; but we have wives
And infant children! What will be their fate?
Oh, this subdues our hearts when most elate!
We give our country what we owe our lives:
But who will shelter them when we are dead?—
Who strike to earth the cowards that dare shed
The blood of unprotected woman ?—GOD!
To HIM do we commit them: they will see,
Perchance, the very battle-field where we
Lie cold and mangled on the bloody sod,
Feeling their sufferings no more! But when
Freedom is won,-Hope tells us that again
Her ark shall ride triumphant o'er the flood,—
Then will they lead our children to the spot,
And point our graves, and say, with saddening thought,
"Here sleep the brave who bought it with their blood."
FEELINGS OF THE HIGH-MINDED POLISH SOLDIER, ON THE AUTOCRAT'S MANIFESTO.
Ay, let him threat-we laugh his threats to scorn!
They are our exultation and our pride,
The proof of fears which vainly he would hide.
Such miserable shifts are ever born
From tyranny and impotence. But when
He dares to tell us that we are misled ;
Of benefits that we have reaped instead
Of wrongs ;—that we are blest beneath his yoke ;—
That we are his by right of conquest;-then,
We feel his power in our souls !—that stroke
Is more than we can bear!-the blush of shame
Mantles our cheeks; we think of what we were,
And are, and for a moment could despair.
But a revulsion comes,-the indignant flame
Of vengeance swells our bosoms,-Liberty
Fills us with inspiration; and we feel,
While firmer in our hands we grasp the steel,
That we can shield ourselves from infamy,
That the great hour is come to conquer or to die!
THOUGHTS ON THE POLISH MANIFESTO.
"As if the annals of the world had not taught that, even after an
interval of ages, nations reduced to foreign subjection did not always
recover that independence which had been destined for them by the
Creator from the beginning of time."-Extract from the Polish
Manifesto.
YES! that great truth, descended from high Heaven,
Speaks like the awful voice of prophecy!
It cometh from the shadows of the past,
And hath its echo in futurity !—
A faith by God himself to virtue given,
That time, and wreck, and Nature shall outlast.
Behold the principle innate in man,
Like life renewed, and manifest by this ;-
Tyrants have risen since the world began,
And prostrated whole empires in the abyss
Of ruin, leaving, like the blasting wind,
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