POOR conquered monarch! though that haughty glance Still speaks thy courage unsubdued by time, And in the grandeur of thy sullen tread Lives the proud spirit of thy burning clime; -- Fettered by things that shudder at thy roar, Torn from thy pathless wilds to pace this narrow floor! Thou wast the victor, and all nature shrunk Before the thunders of thine awful wrath; The steel-armed hunter viewed thee from afar, Fearless and trackless in thy lonely path! The famished tiger closed his flaming eye, And crouched and panted as thy step went by! Thou art the vanquished, and insulting man Bars thy broad bosom as a sparrow's wing; His nerveless arms thine iron sinews bind, And lead in chains the desert's fallen king; Are these the beings that have dared to twine Their feeble threads around those limbs of thine? So must it be; the weaker, wiser race, That wields the tempest and that rides the sea, Even in the stillness of thy solitude Must teach the lesson of its power to thee; And thou, the terror of the trembling wild, Must bow thy savage strength, the mockery of a child! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ROAST LEVIATHAN by LOUIS UNTERMEYER SEVEN TIMES THREE [ - LOVE] by JEAN INGELOW SMOKE IN WINTER by HENRY DAVID THOREAU THE PRELUDE: BOOK 1. CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL-TIME by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH SATIRE: 1. TO JOHN POYNZ (POINS) by THOMAS WYATT DEAD LOVE by MARY MATHEWS ADAMS ON THE THRESHOLD by ASTLEY H. BALDWIN |