Chapter XXI

O’er all the landscape’s varied scene
My footsteps wander’d; up the green;
Thro’ tangled forest spreading wide;
Along the mountain’s echoing side;
Through vales where streams pellucid glide;
O’er lawns the forest groves between,
Whence, dim, the mountain’s head is seen,
Embosom’d in a misty veil,
In giant strength it views the dale;
O’er the soft landscape’s tranquil form
Frowns, midst the terrors of the storm,
Scorns the low beauties of the vale,
And bares its forehead to the gale.
Such he, whose high, ambitious mind
Sighs for an empire unconfined;
The path of blood, and danger braves,
To tyrannise a land of slaves;
Who stems, with iron nerve, the tide,
To raise his empire’s tow’ring pride;
Who scorns the humble vale of peace,
Retirement, and domestic ease;
No joy within his bosom glows,
To virtue cold as Alpine snows;
No blessing falls upon his head,
For him no fervant prayer is said;
Unknown to him the soul serene,
The smiling eye, the cheerful mein;
Peace flies his bosom, fell despair
Fixes her fiend-like impress there;--
None weep his fall, none dress his bier,
Or heave for him one sigh sincere;
Nor love, nor friendship’s soothing power
Attend his dissolution’s hour.

XXIII

The Macedonian’s restless mood
Deluged the world in kindred blood.
Not half the globe in fetters chain’d,
Could sate him, while the rest remain’d.
Unmeasured, as earth’s farthest bound,
Ambition, still new conquest found;
But still, though lord of every soil,
Enrich’d by every kingdom’s spoil,
Unknown to him the pure delight,
Of deeds approved in virtue’s sight;
Blood mark’d the progress of his fame,
And terror waits upon his name.