Ode for General Washingtons Birthday
No Spartan tube, no Attic shell,
No lyre Æolian I awake;
Tis libertys bold note I swell,
Thy harp, Columbia, let me take!
See gathering thousands, while I sing,
A broken chain exulting bring,
And dash it in a tyrants face,
And dare him to his very beard,
And tell him he no more is feared
No more the despot of Columbias race!
A tyrants proudest insults bravd,
They shouta People freed! They hail an Empire saved.
Where is mans god-like form?
Where is that brow erect and bold
That eye that can unmovd behold
The wildest rage, the loudest storm
That eer created fury dared to raise?
Avaunt! thou caitiff, servile, base,
That tremblest at a despots nod,
Yet, crouching under the iron rod,
Canst laud the hand that struck th insulting blow!
Art thou of mans Imperial line?
Dost boast that countenance divine?
Each skulking feature answers, No!
But come, ye sons of Liberty,
Columbias offspring, brave as free,
In dangers hour still flaming in the van,
Ye know, and dare maintain, the Royalty of Man!
Alfred! on thy starry throne,
Surrounded by the tuneful choir,
The bards that erst have struck the patriot lyre,
And rousd the freeborn Britons soul of fire,
No more thy England own!
Dare injured nations form the great design,
To make detested tyrants bleed?
Thy England execrates the glorious deed!
Beneath her hostile banners waving,
Every pang of honour braving,
England in thunder calls, The tyrants cause is mine!
That hour accurst how did the fiends rejoice
And hell, thro all her confines, raise the exulting voice,
That hour which saw the generous English name
Linkt with such damned deeds of everlasting shame!
Thee, Caledonia! thy wild heaths among,
Famd for the martial deed, the heaven-taught song,
To thee I turn with swimming eyes;
Where is that soul of Freedom fled?
Immingled with the mighty dead,
Beneath that hallowd turf where Wallace lies
Hear it not, WALLACE! in thy bed of death.
Ye babbling winds! in silence sweep,
Disturb not ye the heros sleep,
Nor give the coward secret breath!
Is this the ancient Caledonian form,
Firm as the rock, resistless as the storm?
Show me that eye which shot immortal hate,
Blasting the despots proudest bearing;
Show me that arm which, nervd with thundering fate,
Crushd Usurpations boldest daring!
Dark-quenchd as yonder sinking star,
No more that glance lightens afar;
That palsied arm no more whirls on the waste of war.
Poems by Robert Burns
