Are met – as if at home they could not die – | |
To feed the crow on Talavera’s plain, | |
And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain. | |
XLII | |
450 | There shall they rot – Ambition’s honour’d fools! |
Yes, Honour decks the turf that wraps their clay! | |
Vain Sophistry! in these behold the tools, | |
The broken tools, that tyrants cast away | |
By myriads, when they dare to pave their way | |
455 | With human hearts – to what? – a dream alone. |
Can despots compass aught that hails their sway? | |
Or call with truth one span of earth their own, | |
Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone? | |
XLIII | |
Oh, Albuera, glorious field of grief! | |
460 | As o’er thy plain the Pilgrim prick’d his steed, |
Who could foresee thee, in a space so brief, | |
A scene where mingling foes should boast and bleed! | |
Peace to the perish’d! may the warrior’s meed | |
And tears of triumph their reward prolong! | |
465 | Till others fall where other chieftains lead, |
Thy name shall circle round the gaping throng, | |
And shine in worthless lays, the theme of transient song. | |
XLIV | |
Enough of Battle’s minions! let them play | |
Their game of lives and barter breath for fame: | |
470 | Fame that will scarce re-animate their clay, |
Though thousands fall to deck some single name. | |
In sooth ’twere sad to thwart their noble aim | |
Who strike blest hirelings! for their country’s good, | |
And die, that living might have proved her shame; | |
475 | Perish’d, perchance, in some domestic feud, |
Or in a narrower sphere wild Rapine’s path pursued. | |
XLV | |
Full swiftly Harold wends his lonely way | |
Where proud Sevilla triumphs unsubdued: | |
Yet is she free – the spoiler’s wish’d-for prey! | |
480 | Soon, soon shall Conquest’s fiery foot intrude, |
Blackening her lovely domes with traces rude. | |
Inevitable hour! ’Gainst fate to strive | |
Where Desolation plants her famish’d brood | |
Is vain, or Ilion, Tyre might yet survive, | |
485 | And Virtue vanquish all, and Murder cease to thrive. |
XLVI | |
But all unconscious of the coming doom, | |
The feast, the song, the revel here abounds; | |
Strange modes of merriment the hours consume, | |
Nor bleed these patriots with their country’s wounds: | |
490 | Nor here War’s clarion, but Love’s rebeck sounds; |
Here Folly still his votaries inthralls; | |
And young-eyed Lewdness walks her midnight rounds: | |
Girt with the silent crimes of Capitals, | |
Still to the last kind Vice clings to the tott’ring walls. | |
XLVII | |
495 | Not so the rustic – with his trembling mate |
He lurks, nor casts his heavy eye afar, | |
Lest he should view his vineyard desolate, | |
Blasted below the dun hot breath of war. | |
No more beneath soft Eve’s consenting star | |
500 | Fandango twirls his jocund castanet: |
Ah, monarchs! could ye taste the mirth ye mar, | |
Not in the toils of Glory would ye fret; | |
The hoarse dull drum would sleep, and Man be happy yet! | |
XLVIII | |
How carols now the lusty muleteer? | |
505 | Of love, romance, devotion is his lay, |
As whilome he was wont the leagues to cheer, | |
His quick bells wildly jingling on the way? | |
No! as he speeds, he chants ‘Vivã el Rey!’ | |
And checks his song to execrate Godoy, | |
510 | The royal wittol Charles, and curse the day |
When first Spain’s queen beheld the black-eyed boy | |
And gore-faced Treason sprung from her adulterate joy. | |
XLIX | |
On yon long, level plain, at distance crown’d | |
With crags, whereon those Moorish turrets rest, | |
515 | Wide scatter’d hoof-marks dint the wounded ground; |
And, scathed by fire, the greensward’s darken’d vest | |
Tells that the foe was Andalusia’s guest: | |
Here was the camp, the watch-flame, and the host, | |
Here the bold peasant storm’d the dragon’s nest; | |
520 | Still does he mark it with triumphant boast, |
And points to yonder cliffs, which oft were won and lost. | |
L | |
And whomsoe’er along the path you meet | |
Bears in his cap the badge of crimson hue, | |
Which tells you whom to shun and whom to greet: | |
525 | Woe to the man that walks in public view |
Without of loyalty this token true: | |
Sharp is the knife, and sudden is the stroke; | |
And sorely would the Gallic foeman rue, | |
If subtle poniards, wrapt beneath the cloke, | |
530 | Could blunt the sabre’s edge, or clear the cannon’s smoke. |
LI | |
At every turn Morena’s dusky height | |
Sustains aloft the battery’s iron load; | |
And, far as mortal eye can compass sight, | |
The mountain-howitzer, the broken road, | |
535 | The bristling palisade, the fosse o’erflow’d, |
The station’d bands, the never-vacant watch, | |
The magazine in rocky durance stow’d, | |
The holster’d steed beneath the shed of thatch, | |
The ball-piled pyramid, | |
LII | |
540 | Portend the deeds to come: – but he whose nod |
Has tumbled feebler despots from their sway, | |
A moment pauseth ere he lifts the rod; | |
A little moment deigneth to delay: | |
Soon will his legions sweep through these their way; | |
545 | The West must own the Scourger of the world. |
Ah! Spain! how sad will be thy reckoning-day, | |
When soars Gaul’s Vulture, with his wings unfurl’d, | |
And thou shalt view thy sons in crowds to Hades hurl’d. | |
LIII | |
And must they fall? the young, the proud, the brave, | |
550 | To swell one bloated Chief’s unwholesome reign? |
No step between submission and a grave? | |
The rise of rapine and the fall of Spain? | |
And doth the Power that man adores ordain | |
Their doom, nor heed the suppliant’s appeal? | |
555 | Is all that desperate Valour acts in vain? |
And Counsel sage, and patriotic Zeal, | |
The Veteran’s skill, Youth’s fire, and Manhood’s heart of steel? | |
LIV | |
Is it for this the Spanish maid, aroused, | |
Hangs on the willow her unstrung guitar, | |
560 | And, all unsex‘d, the anlace hath espoused, |
Sung the loud song, and dared the deed of war? | |
And she, whom once the semblance of a scar | |
Appall’d, an owlet’s larum chill’d with dread, | |
Now views the column-scattering bay’net jar, | |
565 | The falchion flash, and o’er the yet warm dead |
Stalks with Minerva’s step where Mars might quake to tread. | |
LV | |
Ye who shall marvel when you hear her tale, | |
Oh! had you known her in her softer hour, | |
Mark’d her black eye that mocks her coal-black veil, | |
570 | Heard her light, lively tones in Lady’s bower, |
Seen her long locks that foil the painter’s power, | |
Her fairy form, with more than female grace, | |
Scarce would you deem that Saragoza’s tower | |
Beheld her smile in Danger’s Gorgon face, | |
575 | Thin the closed ranks, and lead in Glory’s fearful chase. |
LVI | |
Her lover sinks – she sheds no ill-timed tear; | |
Her chief is slain – she fills his fatal post; | |
Her fellows flee – she checks their base career; | |
The foe retires – she heads the sallying host: | |
580 | Who can appease like her a lover’s ghost? |
Who can avenge so well a leader’s fall? | |
What maid retrieve when man’s flush’d hope is lost? | |
Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul, | |
Foil’d by a woman’s hand, before a batter’d wall? | |
LVII | |
585 | Yet are Spain’s maids no race of Amazons, |
But form’d for all the witching arts of love: | |
Though thus in arms they emulate her sons, | |
And in the horrid phalanx dare to move, | |
‘Tis but the tender fierceness of the dove, | |
590 | Pecking the hand that hovers o’er her mate: |