XIV.
But, tyrant, thou, the cause of all
The blood that streams, the tears that fall,
Who, by no faith or fear confin’d,
In impious triumph o’er mankind,
Thy desolating course hast driven,
Bursting the sacred ties that bind
Man to his fellow and to heaven!
All great and guilty as thou art,
Thou of the iron hand and heart,
Shalt suffer yet the vengeance due
To him, who swears but to betray,
Whose friendship aids but to undo,
And only smiles to slay!
The insatiate fiend who drives thee on
With treacherous hope elate,
From crime to crime, and throne to throne,
From Afric to the arctic zone,
But dupes thee to thy fate:
And Heav’n which, by thy power o’erthrown,
Will one day vindicate its own,
Condemns thee to be great!
The tempest, now thy sport and pride,
The flood on which thy fortunes ride,
Presumptuous and blind,
Ceasing at Heaven’s command to roar,
Shall cast thee naked on the shore,
The hate, and what thou fearest more,
The jest of all mankind.
And in thy hour of parting pain,
The parents’, widows’, orphans’ moan,
The shrieking of the battle plain,
The strangled prisoners’ midnight groan,
Shall harrow up thy brain;
From countless graves, the ghastly crew
Shall burst upon thy frensied view—
Thou peopler of the tomb!
And, stern and silent ’midst their cries,
The murder’d heir of Bourbon rise,
And through the shadowy gloom,
Shake the curst torches in thine eyes
That lighted to his doom!