Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/312

274 Or step to grandeur through the paths of shame,

And wear a deeper brand and gaudier chain?

Or if their Destiny be born aloof

From lowliness, or tempted thence in vain,

In their own souls sustain a harder proof,

The inner war of Passions deep and fierce?

Florence! when thy harsh sentence razed my roof,

I loved thee; but the vengeance of my verse,

The hate of injuries which every year

Makes greater, and accumulates my curse,

Shall live, outliving all thou holdest dear—

Thy pride, thy wealth, thy freedom, and even that,

The most infernal of all evils here,

The sway of petty tyrants in a state;

For such sway is not limited to Kings,

And Demagogues yield to them but in date,

As swept off sooner; in all deadly things,

Which make men hate themselves, and one another,

In discord, cowardice, cruelty, all that springs

From Death the Sin-born's incest with his mother,

In rank oppression in its rudest shape,

The faction Chief is but the Sultan's brother,

And the worst Despot's far less human ape.

Florence! when this lone spirit, which so long

Yearned, as the captive toiling at escape,

To fly back to thee in despite of wrong,

An exile, saddest of all prisoners,