ARMINIUS.
Back, Back;—he fears not foaming flood
Who fears not steel-clad line:—
No warrior thou of German blood,
No brother thou of mine.
Go earn Rome's chain to load thy neck,
Her gems to deck thy hilt;
And blazon honor's hapless wreck
With all the gauds of guilt.
But wouldst thou have me share the prey?
By all that I have done,
The Varian bones that day by day
Lie whitening in the sun;
The legion's trampled panoply
The eagle's shattered wing.
I would not be for earth or sky
So scorned and mean a thing,
Ho, call me here the wizard, boy,
Of dark and subtle skill,
To agonize but not destroy,
To torture, not to kill.
When swords are out, and shriek and shout
Leave little room for prayer,
No fetter on man's arm or heart
Hangs half so heavy there.
I curse him by the gifts the land
Hath won from him and Rome.
The riving axe, the wasting brand,
Rent forest, blazing home.
I curse him by our country's gods,
The terrible, the dark,
The breakers of the Roman rods,
The smiters of the bark.
Oh, misery that such a ban
On such a brow should be!
Why comes he not in battle's van
His country's chief to be?
To stand a comrade by my side,
The sharer of my fame,
And worthy of a brother's pride,
And of a brother's name?
But it is past!—where heroes press
And cowards bend the knee,
Arminius is not brotherless,
His brethren are the free.
They come around:—one hour, and light
Will fade from turf and tide,
Then onward, onward to the fight,
With darkness for our guide.
To-night, to-night, when we shall meet
In combat face to face,
Then only would Arminius greet
The renegade's embrace.
The canker of Rome's guilt shall be
Upon his dying name;
And as he lived in slavery,
So shall he fall in shame.