How far removed from what the feeling breast
Yields boastless, breathed in sighs to the distress'd!
Which whispers sympathy, with tender fear,
And almost dreads to pour its balmy tear.
But such I know not now! Unseen, alone,
I heave the heavy sigh, I draw the groan;
And, madd'ning, turn to days of liveliest joy,
When o'er my native hills I cast mine eyes,
And said, exulting--"Freemen here shall sow
The seed that soon in tossing gold shall glow!
While Plenty, led by Liberty, shall rove,
Gay and rejoicing, through the land they love;
And 'mid the loaded vines, the peasant see
His wife, his children, breathing out,--'We're free!'
But now, O wretched land! above thy plains,
Half viewless through the gloom, vast Horror reigns,
No happy peasant, o'er his blazing hearth,
Devotes the supper hour to love and mirth;
No flowers on Piety's pure altar bloom;
Alas! they wither now, and strew her tomb!
From the Great Book of Nations fiercely rent,
My country's page to Lethe's stream is sent--
But sent in vain! The historic Muse shall raise
O'er wronged Sarmatia's cause the voice of praise,--
Shall sing her dauntless on the field of death,
And blast her royal robbers' bloody wrath!"
"It must be Constantine's!" cried Euphemia, in a voice of surprised
delight, while springing up to take the paper out of the deriding
reader's hand when he finished.
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