To Kosciusko by Leigh Hunt

………………To Kosciusko 

‘Tis like thy patient valour thus to keep,
Great Kosciusko, to the rural shade,
While Freedom’s ill-found amulet still is made
Pretence for old aggression, and a heap
Of selfish mockeries. There, as in the sweep
Of stormier fields, thou earnest with thy blade,
Transform’d, not inly alter’d, to the spade,
Thy never yielding right to a calm sleep.
There came a wanderer, borne from land to land
Upon a couch, pale, many-wounded, mild,
His brow with patient pain dulcetly sour.
Men stoop’d with awful sweetness on his hand,
And kiss’d it; and collected Virtue smiled,
To think how sovereign her enduring hour.

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Tadeusz Kosciusko, hero in the Polish rebellion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadeusz_Ko%C5%9Bciuszko

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote a sonnet by the same title
that was published Dec.16, 1794.  It can be seen here:

https://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/to-kosciusko-by-samuel-taylor-coleridge/

Hunt’s sonnet was published in November of 1815. John Keats also wrote a sonnet with this title and I’ll publish it in a few days.

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