Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/276

 266 CONSOLATIONS OF SOLITUDE

Prosperity ne'er found thee too elate ;

Adversity still met thee undepressed ; Pure was thy life above all fear of fate ;

Thy heart was true, thy soul so self-possessed, That, if the earth but one man owned like thee, And all beside should slaves and tyrants be, He had loved virtue still ; such through all time are free.

Didst thou not say : " If, of a thousand, all '°

Must sink in freedom's struggle save but one, Best still to fight, best the whole race should fall

Save one free household ; liberty alone. Grafted on such a stock, would give creation To happiness more great than a whole nation Of cowering slaves could feel through a long generation " ?

Such was thy thought. Freedom thou hadst defended, Till to the polar seas thou hadst been pressed ;

And, when her reign upon the land was ended.

Thou wouldst have climbed the glassy iceberg's breast,

And on thy crystal raft have sought repose

In frozen regions where no herbage grows,

And the white bear roams wild midst everlasting snows.

Such once men knew thee, though thy name, o'ergrown With weeds of time, hath rusted in this age ;

Yet would I speak of some few things less known, Nor e'er yet written upon history's page, —

Alas, how few I because thou gav'st to flame "

Each record, howe'er precious to thy fame,

Which on another's cheek could raise the blush of shame.

Yet some wise words, by filial reverence shrined In memory's casket, would the muse unfold,

Though trifling. Sure thy shade no fault will find, But rather smile that such things should be told,

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