BOOK I.
The Swede I sing, by Heaven ordain'd to save
His country's glories from a Danish grave,
Restore her laws, her Papal rites efface,
And fix her freedom on a lasting base.
Celestial Liberty! by whom impell'd
From early youth fair honour's path he held;
By whose strong aid his patient courage rose
Superior to the rushing tide of woes,
And at whose feet, when Heaven his toils repaid,
His brightest wreaths the grateful hero laid:
Me too assist; with thy inspiring beam
Aid my weak powers, and bless my rising theme!
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'Twas morn when Christiern bade a herald call
His secret council to the regal hall—
Those whom his skill, selecting, had combined
To share the deep recesses of his mind:
In these the prince unshaken trust reposed,
To these his intricate designs disclosed;
Their counsel, teeming with maturest thought,
His ripening plans to full perfection brought,
Each enterprise with proper means supplied,
And stemm'd strong difficulty's threatening tide:
The summons heard, th' obedient train attend,
Collect, and hastening toward the palace bend.
First of their order, as in rank and fame
Superior, Upsal's haughty prelate came;
Erect in priestly pride, he stalk'd along,
And tower'd supreme o'er all the princely throng.
A soul congenial, and a mind replete
With ready artifice and bold deceit,
To suit a tyrant's ends, however base,
In Christiern's friendship had secured his place.
His were the senator's and courtier's parts,
And all the statesman's magazine of arts;
His, each expedient, each all-powerful wile,
To thwart a foe, or win a monarch's smile:
The nicely-plann'd and well-pursued intrigue;
The smooth evasion of the hollow league;
The specious argument, that subtly strays
Thro' winding sophistry's protracted maze:
The complicated, deep, immense design,
That works in darkness like a labouring mine,
Unknown to all, 'till, bursting into birth,
Its wide explosion shakes th' astonish'd earth.
His was the prompt invention, fruitful still
In means subservient to the varying will:
The flexible expertness, smooth and mean,
That glides thro' obstacles, and wins unseen:
The quick discernment, that with eagle eyes
Sees distant storms in ether darkly rise,
And active vigour, that arrests their course,
Or to a different aim diverts their force.
He, in a happier land, by freedom bless'd,
Had hallow'd virtue dawn'd upon his breast,
Had done some glorious deed, to stamp his name
High on the roll of ever-during fame;
Snatch'd from Oppression's jaws some victim realm,
Or fix'd in stable peace his country's wavering helm.
But baleful Guilt usurp'd with fatal care
A heart which Virtue had been proud to share;
And turn'd to hateful dross the radiant ore,
Whose lustre might have gilded Sweden's shore.
As the red dog star, Autumn's fiery eye,
Shines eminent o'er all the spangled sky,
While thro' th' afflicted earth his torrid breath
Darts glowing fevers and a cloud of death:
So Trollio shone, in whose corrupted mind
Transcendent genius and deep guilt combined;
Placed all his arduous aims within his reach,
Yet fix'd the stamp of infamy on each.
But Providence, whose undiscover'd plan
Lies deeper than the wiliest schemes of man,
Can bare the sty designer's latent guilt,
And crush to dust the structures he has built;
Can disappoint the subtle tyrant's spite,
And stem the billows of his stormy might;
Confound a Trollio's skill, a Christiern's power,
And blast presumption in its haughtiest hour.
So Christiern found—and Trollio found it true,
(Unwelcome truth, to his experience new!)
That he, who trusts in guilty friendship, binds
His fortune to a cloud, that shifts with veering winds.
Throned in Religion's seat, he scorn'd her laws,
And with a cool indifference view'd her cause:
Yet, might her earthly treasures feed the fire
Of wild ambition, or base gain's desire,
He could assume, at will, her fairest dress—
Could plunge in Superstition's dark recess—
Or the red mask of Bigotry put on;
The fiercest champion, where there needed none.
But, should she cross some glittering enterprise,
Her pleas, her awful threats, he could despise;
Oaths, lightly sworn, and now forgotten things,
Vanish'd, like smoke before the tempest's wings.
At interest's call, when danger's sudden voice
Extinguish'd hope, nor left a final choice,
His sacred honours he renounc'd, and fled
To hide in silent solitude his head:
At interest's call, he calmly thrust aside
Each bond of conscience that opposed his pride,
And, deeming every scruple out of place,
Back posted to his dignified disgrace.
Next, with a lofty step advancing, came
A martial chieftain—Otho was his name:
In Denmark born, of an illustrious line,
Whose glories, now effaced, had ceased to shine;
And he was but unanxious to redeem
Those honours, in his eyes a worthless dream.
Trained in licentious customs, he despised
All virtue's rules, and pleasure only prized;
And, faithful as the magnet, turn'd his head
To follow fortune wheresoe'er it led:
Tho' hostile justice rear'd her loftiest mound,
To bar his passage o'er forbidden ground.
Swift o'er all impediments he flew,
And strain'd his eyes to keep the prize in view.
Religion, virtue, sense, to him were nought;
He hated none, yet none employ'd his thought,
Save when he glitter'd in their borrowed beam,
To gain preferment, or to court esteem.
The minister, not tool, of Christiern's will,
He serv'd his measures, yet despis'd him still:
Scann'd with impartial view th'encircling scene,
Glancing o'er all an eye exact and keen,
Advantage to descry; and seldom fail'd,
When Virtue's cause by Fortune's will prevail'd,
On virtue's side his valour to display,
And ne'er forsake it, but for better pay.
And, e'en when Danger round his fenceless head
Her threatening weight of mountain surges spread,
He, like a whale amid the tempest's roar,
Smiled at the storm, nor deign'd to wish it o'er.
'Twas dull instinctive boldness—like a fire
Pent up in earth, whose forces ne'er expire,
By grossest fuel nourished, but immured
In dingy night, shine heavy and obscured;
Sustain'd by this thro' all the scenes of strife,
Whose dark succession form'd his chequer'd life,
He ne'er the soul's sublimer courage felt,
That warms the heart, and teaches it to melt;
That nurses liberty's expanding seeds,
And teems prolific with the noblest deeds.
To guide the storm of battle o'er the plain,
Condense its force, expand it, or restrain;
To turn the tide of conquest to defeat
By stratagems too fatally complete,
Or freeze it by delay; to aim at will
The well-timed stroke that mars all adverse skill;
To range, in order firm, th'embattled line;
Or shape, as regular, the bold design;
All these were his—yet not all these could claim
Exemptions from the lot of penal shame,
Or snatch from glory's plant one servile wreath,
To deck the waste of crimes, that frown'd beneath.
Harden'd in villany, with fate unfeign'd
He mock'd at warning, scorn'd reproach, nor deign'd
To answer either, and remorse's dart
Recoil'd from his impenetrable heart:
Save in those hours when darkness or when pain
Recals its force, and guilt recedes again;
When passion, vice, and fancy quit their sway,
When lawless pleasure trembling shrinks away,
While black conviction's rushing whirlwinds quench
Her smoky torch, and leave a sickening stench;
And thro' the soul's chill gloom, fierce conscience pours
His fiery arrows in resistless showers.
But, as accumulated guilt oppress'd
With stronger obstacles his hardening breast,
Faint and more faint the dread awakenings grew,
And their subsiding terrors soon withdrew.
Like traces on the mountain's giant form
Imprinted by the finger of the storm,
They vanish'd; fierce atrocity return'd
Triumphant, and the galling shackles spurn'd.
Him closely following, with a thoughtful pace
And slow, the young Ernestus took his place;
Like Bernheim, graced with an illustrious birth,
But hapless Sweden was his native earth.
His father sunk by death's untimely doom,
His youthful mother followed to the tomb,
And to a honour'd friend's paternal care
Bequeath'd her only hope, her infant heir.
With wary steps had Harfagar pass'd o'er
The world's wide scene, and learn'd its various lore;
And, with religion's pole-star for his guide,
Serenely voyaged life's tempestuous tide.
Yet in Ernestus' mind his skilful sense
Observ'd no dawn of future excellence;
He found no early graces to adorn
Of springing life the inauspicious morn;
No prompt benevolence, no sacred flow
Of purest feeling taught his heart to glow;
But virtue's native influence was in him,
A wintry sun-beam, not extinct, but dim.
Yet Harfagar with kind attention tried
To rouse the warmth her hidden beams supplied;
And, wheresoe'er his penetrating eye
One bud of distant promise could descry,
There all his toil was bent, to fix the root
Unmoved, and spread secure the growing shoot.
He watch'd the rising blossoms as they grew,
Preserv'd with constant care their lively hue,
Spread o'er each flow'ret a protecting veil
To shelter it from trial's rougher gale,
And clear'd, with strenuous and unceasing toil,
From each insidious weed th' improving soil.
His patient diligence had won at length
A partial triumph over nature's strength:
Tho' unsuppress'd th' internal weakness still
With frequent bias pois'd the wavering will,
Still losing ground, it seem'd to die away,
Like nightly storms before advancing day:
When thrice seven rolling years matured his age,
And call'd him forth to life's eventful stage.