An Ode for Washington's Birthday
February 22, 2020 |
| 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.
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