Gustavus Vasa | Page 9

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