XCI.

   And came, and saw, and conquered.  But the man
   Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee,
   Like a trained falcon, in the Gallic van,
   Which he, in sooth, long led to victory,
   With a deaf heart which never seemed to be
   A listener to itself, was strangely framed;
   With but one weakest weakness—­vanity: 
   Coquettish in ambition, still he aimed
At what?  Can he avouch, or answer what he claimed?

XCII.

   And would be all or nothing—­nor could wait
   For the sure grave to level him; few years
   Had fixed him with the Caesars in his fate,
   On whom we tread:  For this the conqueror rears
   The arch of triumph! and for this the tears
   And blood of earth flow on as they have flowed,
   An universal deluge, which appears
   Without an ark for wretched man’s abode,
And ebbs but to reflow!—­Renew thy rainbow, God!

XCIII.

   What from this barren being do we reap? 
   Our senses narrow, and our reason frail,
   Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep,
   And all things weighed in custom’s falsest scale;
   Opinion an omnipotence, whose veil
   Mantles the earth with darkness, until right
   And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale
   Lest their own judgments should become too bright,
And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light.

XCIV.

   And thus they plod in sluggish misery,
   Rotting from sire to son, and age to age,
   Proud of their trampled nature, and so die,
   Bequeathing their hereditary rage
   To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage
   War for their chains, and rather than be free,
   Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage
   Within the same arena where they see
Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree.

XCV.

   I speak not of men’s creeds—­they rest between
   Man and his Maker—­but of things allowed,
   Averred, and known,—­and daily, hourly seen —
   The yoke that is upon us doubly bowed,
   And the intent of tyranny avowed,
   The edict of Earth’s rulers, who are grown
   The apes of him who humbled once the proud,
   And shook them from their slumbers on the throne;
Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done.

XCVI.

   Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be,
   And Freedom find no champion and no child
   Such as Columbia saw arise when she
   Sprung forth a Pallas, armed and undefiled? 
   Or must such minds be nourished in the wild,
   Deep in the unpruned forest, midst the roar
   Of cataracts, where nursing nature smiled
   On infant Washington?  Has Earth no more
Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore?