When Philip's son possess'd his native lands
And train'd on grecian fields his grecian bands,
In Thebes subdued, or Athens near her fall,
He saw no honor, or despised it all.
To be reduced to universal sway
The world's vast prospect in perspective lay;—
While yet restricted to Larissa's plain
He cursed his fortune for a lot so mean,
On all his steps the gloom of sadness hung,
And fierce resentment all his bosom stung
That fortune's whim restrain'd to such a floor,
Had done so little, and might do no more.
Mercantile Tyre his laboring mind oppress'd,
The persian throne deprived his soul of rest—
The world his stage, he meant to play his part,
And unsubjected India gall'd his heart!
Look to the east where Tamerlane display'd
His crescent[B] moons and nations prostrate laid,
March where he would, the world before him bow'd
In conquest mighty, as of conquest proud—
What was the event? let tragic story tell
While sad sensations in the bosom swell—
What were the effects? in every step we trace
The wasteful havoc of a royal race,
Once fertile fields a howling desert made
The town in ashes, or the town decay'd,
Degraded man to native wildness turn'd,
His prospects clouded and his commerce spurn'd—
If such the outset of this mad career
What will the last disgusting scene appear,
Of all he conquer'd, when no more remains
Than vagrant subjects, or unpeopled plains!
[B] The three crescent moons in the turkish military standard, which had their origin, it is said, from the asiatic Tartars. Timurbeck (or Tamerlane) was of tartarian extraction.—Freneau's note.
Thus, when ambition prompts the ardent mind,
The soul, eccentric, frantic, unconfined,
To peace a stranger, soars to heights unknown,
And, slighting reason, yields the will to none;
Mere passion rules, degrading powers prevail,
And cool reflection quits the unbalanced scale.
It leaves the haunts of happiness and rest
To float on winds, disorder'd and unblest,
Quits all the calm that nature meant for man
To find some prize, or form the aspiring plan;
That plan ungain'd, the object cheats the view,
Or, if attain'd, they other marks pursue;
Till all is closed in disappointment's shade
And folly wonders at the flight she made:
Ambition's self finds every prospect vain,
The visions vanish, and the glooms remain.
And such the vice, with nations as with man,
Such the great failing since the world began:
To power exalted, as to power they rose
By honest toils, and humbling all their foes;
That zenith gain'd, they covet vast domains
And all, that pride from vast possession gains,
Till glittering visions bring the uneasy sigh
And uncontrol'd dominion blasts the eye.
Britain! we cite you to our bar, once more;
What but ambition urged you to our shore?—
To abridge our native rights, seven years you strove;
Seven years were ours your arm of death to prove,
To find, that conquest was your sovereign view;
Your aims, to fetter, humble, and subdue,
To seize a soil which not your labor till'd
When the rude native scarcely we repell'd,
When, with unbounded rage, their nations swore
To hurl the out-law'd stranger from their shore,
Or swell the torrent with their thousands slain
No more to approach them, or molest their reign.—
What did we ask?—what right but reason owns?
Yet even the mild petition met your frowns.
Submission, only, to a monarch's will
Could calm your rage, or bid your storm be still,
Before our eyes the angry shades appear
Of those, whose relics we this day inter:
They live, they speak, reproach you, and complain
Their lives were shorten'd by your galling chain:
They aim their shafts, directed to your breast,—
Let rage, and fierce resentment tell the rest.
These coffins, tokens of our last regard,
These mouldering bones your vengeance might have spared.—
If once, in life, they met you on the main,
If to your arms they yielded on the plain,—
Man, once a captive, all respect should claim
That Britain gave, before her days of shame.
How changed their lot! in floating dungeons thrown,
They sigh'd unpitied, and relieved by none:
In want of all that nature's wants demand,
They met destruction from some traitor's hand,
Who treated all with death or poison here,
Or the last groan, with ridicule severe.
A sickening languor to the soul returns
And kindling passion at the motive spurns:
The murders here, did we at length display
Would more than paint an indian tyrant's sway:
Then hush the theme, and to the dust restore
These, once so wretched near Manhattan's shore,
When tyrants ruled, whose hearts no mercy felt:
In blood they wallow'd as in death they dealt.