WEEP on, weep on, your hour is past; Your dreams of pride are o'er; The fatal chain is round you cast, And you are men no more. In vain the hero's heart hath bled; The sage's tongue hath warn'd in vain; -- O Freedom! once thy flame hath fled, It never lights again! Weep on -- perhaps in after days, They'll learn to love your name; When many a deed may wake in praise That long hath slept in blame. And when they tread the ruin'd aisle Where rest at length the lord and slave, They'll wondering ask, how hands so vile Could conquer hearts so brave? "'T was fate," they'll say, "a wayward fate, Your web of discord wove; And, while your tyrants join'd in hate, You never join'd in love. But hearts fell off that ought to twine, And man profaned what God had given, Till some were heard to curse the shrine Where others knelt to Heaven." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NATHAN HALE [SEPTEMBER 22, 1776] by FRANCIS MILES FINCH POLLY by WILLIAM BRIGHTY RANDS A CRADLE SONG by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS SESTET SENT TO A FRIEND WITH A VOLUME OF TENNYSON by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH OUT OF THE VAST by AUGUSTUS WRIGHT BAMBERGER HOW GREY THE WORLD WAS by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT IN DEATH by MARY EMILY NEELEY BRADLEY THE WANDERER: PROLOGUE. PART 3 by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON |