To Kosciusko

[ZaunköniG]

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TO KOSCIUSKO
WHO NEVER FOUGHT EITHER FOR BONAPARTE OR THE ALLIES.


'Tis like thy patient valour thus to keep,
Great Kosciusko, to the rural shade,
While Freedom's ill-found amulet still is made
Pretence for old aggression, and a heap

Of selfish mockeries. There, as in the sweep
Of stormier fields, thou earnest with thy blade,
Transformed, not inly altered, to the spade,
Thy never-yielding right to a calm sleep.

There came a wanderer, borne from land to land
Upon a couch, pale, many-wounded, mild,
His brow with patient pain dulcetly sour.

Men stoop'd, with awful sweetness, on his hand,
And kissed it; and collected Virtue smiled,
To think how sovereign her enduring hour.



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