Skip to main content

An Ode for Washington's Birthday

Robert Burns

Robert Burns (1759–1796).  Poems and Songs.

(George Washington born Feb. 22, 1732.)
Burns asks for Columbia's harp, and then sings of liberty. He bewails the sad state of the land of Alfred and Wallace which once championed liberty, and now fights for tyranny.

Vol. 6, pp. 492-494 of The Harvard Classics


466. Ode for General Washington’s Birthday


NO Spartan tube, no Attic shell,
  No lyre Æolian I awake;
’Tis liberty’s bold note I swell,
  Thy harp, Columbia, let me take!
See gathering thousands, while I sing,
A broken chain exulting bring,
  And dash it in a tyrant’s face,
And dare him to his very beard,
And tell him he no more is feared—
  No more the despot of Columbia’s race!
A tyrant’s proudest insults brav’d,
They shout—a People freed! They hail an Empire saved.

Where is man’s god-like form?
  Where is that brow erect and bold—
  That eye that can unmov’d behold
The wildest rage, the loudest storm
That e’er created fury dared to raise?
Avaunt! thou caitiff, servile, base,
That tremblest at a despot’s nod,
Yet, crouching under the iron rod,
  Canst laud the hand that struck th’ insulting blow!
Art thou of man’s Imperial line?
Dost boast that countenance divine?
  Each skulking feature answers, No!
But come, ye sons of Liberty,
Columbia’s offspring, brave as free,
In danger’s hour still flaming in the van,
Ye know, and dare maintain, the Royalty of Man!

Alfred! on thy starry throne,
  Surrounded by the tuneful choir,
  The bards that erst have struck the patriot lyre,
  And rous’d the freeborn Briton’s soul of fire,
No more thy England own!
Dare injured nations form the great design,
  To make detested tyrants bleed?
  Thy England execrates the glorious deed!
  Beneath her hostile banners waving,
  Every pang of honour braving,
England in thunder calls, “The tyrant’s cause is mine!”
That hour accurst how did the fiends rejoice
And hell, thro’ all her confines, raise the exulting voice,
That hour which saw the generous English name
Linkt with such damned deeds of everlasting shame!

Thee, Caledonia! thy wild heaths among,
Fam’d for the martial deed, the heaven-taught song,
  To thee I turn with swimming eyes;
Where is that soul of Freedom fled?
Immingled with the mighty dead,
  Beneath that hallow’d turf where Wallace lies
Hear it not, WALLACE! in thy bed of death.
  Ye babbling winds! in silence sweep,
  Disturb not ye the hero’s sleep,
Nor give the coward secret breath!
Is this the ancient Caledonian form,
Firm as the rock, resistless as the storm?
Show me that eye which shot immortal hate,
  Blasting the despot’s proudest bearing;
Show me that arm which, nerv’d with thundering fate,
  Crush’d Usurpation’s boldest daring!—
Dark-quench’d as yonder sinking star,
No more that glance lightens afar;

That palsied arm no more whirls on the waste of war.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Nightingale's Healing Melody

Hans Christian Anderson Hans Christian Andersen. (1805–1875)   The Nightingale, from Tales. The Emperor of China lies on his deathbed grieving for the song of his favorite bird. Hark, the song! It charms, coaxes, and bribes Death to depart. It brings new life to the master. IN China, you must know, the Emperor is a Chinaman, and all whom he has about him are Chinamen too. It happened a good many years ago, but that’s just why it’s worth while to hear the story, before it is forgotten. The Emperor’s palace was the most splendid in the world; it was made entirely of porcelain, very costly, but so delicate and brittle that one had to take care how one touched it. In the garden were to be seen the most wonderful flowers, and to the costliest of them silver bells were tied, which sounded, so that nobody should pass by without noticing the flowers. Yes, everything in the Emperor’s garden was admirably arranged. And it extended so far, that the gardener himself did not know where th

The Soaring Eagle and Contented Stork

Guiseppe Mazzini Guiseppe Mazzini, Byron and Goethe Mazzini labored for the freedom of Italy, but was exiled. Byron and Goethe also battled for liberty. Mazzini wrote an essay in which he compared Byron to a soaring eagle and Goethe to a contented stork. (Byron arrived in Greece to fight for Greek freedom, Jan. 5, 1824.) I STOOD one day in a Swiss village at the foot of the Jura, and watched the coming of the storm. Heavy black clouds, their edges purpled by the setting sun, were rapidly covering the loveliest sky in Europe, save that of Italy. Thunder growled in the distance, and gusts of biting wind were driving huge drops of rain over the thirsty plain. Looking upwards, I beheld a large Alpine falcon, now rising, now sinking, as he floated bravely in the very midst of the storm and I could almost fancy that he strove to battle with it. At every fresh peal of thunder, the noble bird bounded higher aloft, as if in answering defiance. I followed him with my eyes for a l

Odysseus Silenced the Sirens

Homer Homer (fl. 850 B.C.). Book XII, The Odyssey. When his ship approached the siren's rock, Odysseus stuffed the ears of his crew with wax and had himself bound to the mast that he might hear the alluring voice of the siren and yet not wreck his ship on the enchanted rock. Odysseus, his passage by the Sirens, and by Scylla and Charybdis. The sacrilege committed by his men in the isle Thrinacia. The destruction of his ships and men. How he swam on a plank nine days together, and came to Ogygia, where he stayed seven years with Calypso. ‘NOW after the ship had left the stream of the river Oceanus, and was come to the wave of the wide sea, and the isle Aeaean, where is the dwelling place of early Dawn and her dancing grounds, and the land of sunrising, upon our coming thither we beached the ship in the sand, and ourselves too stept ashore on the sea beach. There we fell on sound sleep and awaited the bright Dawn.