Classic Poem

How curst are those who despots must obey!
Where ev'ry feeling yields to martial sway;
No swelling sails their empty ports adorn,
Or cheerful swains impatient wish for morn:
Their iron marts a mournful scene display,
And trembling peasants dread the coming day,
That calls them forth to join the barter'd train
Of human victims, on the sanguin'd plain.
No converse here, save the projected fight,
And watch-words murm'ring thro' the silent night;
Each genial spark of love's endearing flame
Sunk in the vortex of a soldier's name.
Yet here has genius, with a lavish hand,
Beprais'd the monarch of this blood-stain'd land.

Oft has the bard of Prussia's virtues sung,
To sooth ambition flatt'ring lyres were strung.
Avaunt the thought! for sure no grace cou'd find
A moment's lodgment in that savage mind.
His matchless valour, and his watchful care,
But cloak'd ambition in a virtuous gear,
Thro' ev'ry crime t'ambition's point he'd soar,
Each trophy teem'd with floods of human gore,
From glory's lift erase the tyrant's name,
This single act blasts all his bloody fame.