"When Freedom, dressed in blood-stained vest,
To every knight her war-song sung,
Upon her head wild weeds were spread;
A gory anlace by her hung:
She danced upon the heath;
She heard the voice of death;
Pale-eyed Affright, his heart of silver hue,
In vain assailed her bosom to acale;[13]
She heard unmoved the shrieking voice of woe,
And Sadness in the owlet shake the dale.
She shook the pointed spear,
On high she reared her shield;
Her foemen all appear,
And fly along the field.
Power, with his head aloft unto the skies,
His spear a sunbeam, and his shield a star,
Like two fierce flaming meteors rolled his eyes,
Chafes with his iron feet and sounds to war.
She sits upon a rock,
She bends before his spear,
She rises with the shock,
Wielding her own in air.
Hard as the thunder doth she drive it on;
Wit, closely mantled, guides it to his crown,
His long, sharp spear, his spreading shield is gone:
He falls, and falling, rolleth thousands down.
War, gore-faced War, by Envy armed, arist,[14]
His fiery helmet nodding to the air.
Ten bloody arrows in his straining fist."
*...*...*...*
Next let us take a poem whose truest criticism is contained in its own
title: