Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Africa: Vol. XXIV. 1876–79.
Ode on the Battle of Algiers
By Robert Southey (17741843)O
Ere England’s gallant ships
Shall, of their beauty, pomp, and power disrobed,
Like sea-birds on the sunny main,
Rock idly in the port.
A work of righteousness,
Yea, of sublimest mercy, must be done:
England will break the oppressor’s chain,
And set the captives free.
Triumphantly displayed,
Thou sacred banner of the glorious Isle,
Known wheresoever keel hath cut
The navigable deep,—
Of havoc and of death,
Than when, resisting fiercely, but in vain,
Algiers her moony standard lowered,
And signed the conqueror’s law.
In erring credence hold;
And if the victims of captivity
Could in the silent tomb have heard
The thunder of the fight,—
Had heaved the oppressive soil,
And earth been shaken like the mosques and towers,
When England on those guilty walls
Her fiery vengeance sent.
When the delivered slave
Revisits once again his own dear home,
And tells of all his sufferings past,
And blesses Exmouth’s name.
That holy joy extends;
Sardinian mothers pay their vows fulfilled;
And hymns are heard beside thy banks,
O Fountain Arethuse!
And deeper strains shall rise
From many an overflowing heart to Heaven;
Nor will they in their prayers forget
The hand that set them free.