Rhymes On The Road. Extract II. Geneva.

FATE OF GENEVA IN THE YEAR 1782.     A FRAGMENT.     Yes--if there yet live some of those,     Who, when this small Republic rose,     Quick as a startled hive of bees,     Against her leaguering enemies--[1]     When, as the Royal Satrap shook         His well-known fetters at her gates,     Even wives and mothers armed and took         Their stations by their sons and mates;     And on these walls there stood--yet, no,         Shame to the traitors--would have stood     As firm a band as e'er let flow         At Freedom's base their sacred blood;     If those yet live, who on that night     When all were watching, girt for fight,     Stole like the creeping of a pest     From rank to rank, from breast to breast,     Filling the weak, the old with fears,     Turning the heroine's zeal to tears,--     Betraying Honor to that brink,     Where, one step more, and he must sink--     And quenching hopes which tho' the last,     Like meteors on a drowning mast,     Would yet have led to death more bright,     Than life e'er lookt, in all its light!     Till soon, too soon, distrust, alarms         Throughout the embattled thousands ran,     And the high spirit, late in arms,     The zeal that might have workt such charms,         Fell like a broken talisman--     Their gates, that they had sworn should be         The gates of Death, that very dawn,     Gave passage widely, bloodlessly,         To the proud foe--nor sword was drawn,     Nor even one martyred body cast     To stain their footsteps, as they past;     But of the many sworn at night     To do or die, some fled the sight,     Some stood to look with sullen frown,         While some in impotent despair     Broke their bright armor and lay down,         Weeping, upon the fragments there!--     If those, I say, who brought that shame,     That blast upon GENEVA'S name     Be living still--tho' crime so dark         Shall hang up, fixt and unforgiven,     In History's page, the eternal mark         For Scorn to pierce--so help me, Heaven,     I wish the traitorous slaves no worse,         No deeper, deadlier disaster     From all earth's ills no fouler curse         Than to have *********** their master!