by Coleridge · Cluster: Nationalism and Patriotism · Democracy · Liberty Political Freedom
Abstract
A sonnet lamenting the fall of the Polish patriot Kosciuszko and the death-groan of murdered Hope; themes of liberty crushed, despair, and the cost of patriotic struggle.
Connections
Topoi: Last Stand Motifs: Death Themes & Concepts: Liberty Political Freedom, War and its Cost, Grief and Loss, Heroism Forms & Genres: Sonnet
Testo integrale / Full text
O what a loud and fearful shriek was there,
As though a thousand souls one death-groan pour’d!
Ah me! they saw beneath a Hireling’s sword
Their KOSKIUSKO fall! Through the swart air
(As pauses the tir’d Cossac’s barbarous yell 5
Of Triumph) on the chill and midnight gale
Rises with frantic burst or sadder swell
The dirge of murder’d Hope! while Freedom pale
Bends in such anguish o’er her destin’d bier,
As if from eldest time some Spirit meek 10
Had gather’d in a mystic urn each tear
That ever on a Patriot’s furrow’d cheek
Fit channel found; and she had drain’d the bowl
In the mere wilfulness, and sick despair of soul!
December 16, 1794.