“Was the prophecy fulfilled?”
  The sullen disc of the declining sun
  Was crimson with a curse and a portent,
  And scarce his angry ray lit up the land
  That lay below, whose lurid gloom appeared
  Freaked with a moving mist, which, reeking up
  From dim tarns hateful with a horrid ban,
  Took shapes forbidden and without a name. 
  Gigantic night-birds, rising from the reeds
  With cries discordant, startled all the air,
  And bodiless voices babbled in the gloom. 
  But not to me came any voice again;
  And, covering my face with thin, dead hands,
  I wept, and woke, and cried aloud to God!

POLITICS.

  That land full surely hastens to its end
  Where public sycophants in homage bend
  The populace to flatter, and repeat
  The doubled echoes of its loud conceit. 
  Lowly their attitude but high their aim,
  They creep to eminence through paths of shame,
  Till fixed securely in the seats of pow’r,
  The dupes they flattered they at last devour.

  Poesy.

  Successive bards pursue Ambition’s fire
  That shines, Oblivion, above thy mire. 
  The latest mounts his predecessor’s trunk,
  And sinks his brother ere himself is sunk. 
  So die ingloriously Fame’s elite,
  But dams of dunces keep the line complete.

IN DEFENSE.

  You may say, if you please, Johnny Bull, that our girls
  Are crazy to marry your dukes and your earls;
  But I’ve heard that the maids of your own little isle
  Greet bachelor lords with a favoring smile.

  Nay, titles, ’tis said in defense of our fair,
  Are popular here because popular there;
  And for them our ladies persistently go
  Because ’tis exceedingly English, you know.

  Whatever the motive, you’ll have to confess
  The effort’s attended with easy success;
  And—­pardon the freedom—­’tis thought, over here,
  ’Tis mortification you mask with a sneer.

  It’s all very well, sir, your scorn to parade
  Of the high nasal twang of the Yankee maid,
  But, ah, to my lord when he dares to propose
  No sound is so sweet as that “Yes” from the nose.

  Our ladies, we grant, walk alone in the street
  (Observe, by-the-by, on what delicate feet!)
  ’Tis a habit they got here at home, where they say
  The men from politeness go seldom astray.

  Ah, well, if the dukes and the earls and that lot
  Can stand it (God succor them if they cannot!)
  Your commoners ought to assent, I am sure,
  And what they ’re not called on to suffer, endure.

  “’Tis nothing but money?” “Your nobles are bought?”
  As to that, I submit, it is commonly thought
  That England’s a country not specially free
  Of Croesi and (if you’ll allow it) Croesae.

  You’ve many a widow and many a girl
  With money to purchase a duke or an earl. 
  ’Tis a very remarkable thing, you’ll agree,
  When goods import buyers from over the sea.