torments a common grief
Do I alone expect relief!
Our aching sorrows to disclose,
Our discontents, our wrongs repeat,
To hurl defiance at our foes,
And let the soul respire, is sweet!
All that my conscience wills I speak
At once, and then my heart may break!

"Too sure King Henry's presage rose;--
De Brehan link'd him with our foes:
Yes! ours! the Brehans us'd to be
Patterns of faith and loyalty:
And many a knightly badge they wore,
And many a trace their 'scutcheons bore,
Of noble deeds in days of yore,--
Of royal bounty, and such trust
As suits the generous and the just.

"From every record it appears,
That Normandy three hundred years
Has seen in swift succession run
With English kings, from sire to son:
But which of all those records saith,
That we may change and barter faith:
That if our favour is not sure,
Or our inheritance secure;
If envy of a rival's fame,
Or hatred at a foeman's name,
Or other reason unconfest,
Now feigning sleep in every breast;
Upon our minds, our interest weigh,
While any fiercer passion sway;
We may invite a foreign yoke,
All truth disown'd, allegiance broke?
Plot, and lay guileful snares to bring,
At cost of blood, a stranger king?
And of what blood, if it succeed,
Do ye atchieve the glorious deed?
Not of the base! when ye surprize
A lurking mischief in the eyes,
Dark hatred, cunning prompt to rise,
And leap and catch at any prey,
Such are your choice! your comrades they!
But if a character should stand
Not merely built by human hand;
Common observances; the ill
Surrounding all; a wayward will;
Envy; resentment; falsehood's ease
To win its way, evade, and please:
If, turning from this worldly lore,
As soul-debasing, servile, poor,
The growing mind becomes, at length,
Healthy and firm in moral strength;
Allows no parley and no plea,
The sources of its actions free,
They spring strait forward, to a goal
Which bounds, surmounts, and crowns the whole!
Ye seek not to allay such force,
To interrupt so bold a course!
What were the use of minds like these,
That will not on occasion seize,
Nor stoop to aid the dark design,
Nor follow in the devious line?
As soon, in the close twisted brake,
Could lions track the smo