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XVI.

HAIL, Zaragoza! If with unwet eye
We can approach, thy sorrow to behold,
Yet is the heart not pitiless nor cold;
Such spectacle demands not tear or sigh.
These desolate Remains are trophies high
Of more than martial courage in the breast
Of peaceful civic virtue: they attest
Thy matchless worth to all posterity.
Blood flowed before thy sight without remorse;
Disease consumed thy vitals; War upheaved
The ground beneath thee with volcanic force;
Dread trials! yet encountered and sustained
Till not a wreck of help or hope remained,
And Law was from necessity received.

SAY, what is Honour ?

XVII.

'Tis the finest sense

Of justice which the human mind can frame,
Intent each lurking frailty to disclaim,
And guard the way of life from all offence
Suffered or done. When lawless violence
A Kingdom doth assault, and in the scale
Of perilous war her weightiest Armies fail,
Honour is hopeful elevation whence

Glory, and Triumph. Yet with politic skill
Endangered States may yield to terms unjust,
Stoop their proud heads, but not unto the dust, -
A Foe's most favourite purpose to fulfil :
Happy occasions oft by self-mistrust
Are forfeited; but infamy doth kill.

-

XVIII.

THE martial courage of a day is vain,
An empty noise of death the battle's roar,
If vital hope be wanting to restore,
Or fortitude be wanting to sustain,
Armies or Kingdoms.

We have heard a strain

Of triumph, how the labouring Danube bore

A weight of hostile corses: drenched with gore
Were the wide fields, the hamlets heaped with slain.
Yet see, the mighty tumult overpast,

Austria a Daughter of her Throne hath sold!
And her Tyrolean Champion we behold
Murdered like one ashore by shipwreck cast,
Murdered without relief. Oh! blind as bold,
To think that such assurance can stand fast!

XIX.

BRAVE Schill! by death delivered, take thy flight From Prussia's timid region.

Go, and rest

With heroes, 'mid the Islands of the Blest,
Or in the Fields of empyrean light.

A meteor wert thou in a darksome night;
Yet shall thy name, conspicuous and sublime,
Stand in the spacious firmament of time,
Fixed as a star: such glory is thy right.
Alas! it may not be: for earthly fame

Is Fortune's frail Dependant; yet there lives
A Judge, who, as man claims by merit, gives;
To whose all-pondering mind a noble aim,
Faithfully kept, is as a noble deed;

In whose pure sight all virtue doth succeed.

XX.

CALL not the royal Swede unfortunate,

Who never did to Fortune bend the knee;
Who slighted fear, rejected steadfastly

Temptation; and whose kingly name and state
Have "perished by his choice, and not his fate!”
Hence lives He, to his inner self endeared;

And hence, wherever virtue is revered,

He sits a more exalted Potentate,

Throned in the hearts of men.

Should Heaven ordain

That this great Servant of a righteous cause

Must still have sad or vexing thoughts to endure,
Yet may a sympathising spirit pause,

Admonished by these truths, and quench all pain
In thankful joy and gratulation pure.*

XXI.

Look now on that Adventurer who hath paid
His vows to Fortune; who, in cruel slight
Of virtuous hope, of liberty, and right,
Hath followed wheresoe'er a way was made
By the blind Goddess; - ruthless, undismayed;
And so hath gained at length a prosperous Height,
Round which the Elements of worldly might
Beneath his haughty feet, like clouds, are laid.
O joyless power that stands by lawless force!
Curses are his dire portion, scorn, and hate,
Internal darkness and unquiet breath;
And, if old judgments keep their sacred course,
Him from that Height shall Heaven precipitate
By violent and ignominious death.

* See note.

XXII.

Is there a Power that can sustain and cheer
The captive Chieftain, by a Tyrant's doom,
Forced to descend alive into his tomb,

A dungeon dark! where he must waste the year,
And lie cut off from all his heart holds dear;
What time his injured Country is a stage
Whereon deliberate Valour and the Rage
Of righteous vengeance side by side appear,
Filling from morn to night the heroic scene
With deeds of hope and everlasting praise :
Say can he think of this with mind serene
And silent fetters? Yes, if visions bright
Shine on his soul, reflected from the days
When he himself was tried in open light.

XXIII.

Ан! where is Palafox?

1810.

Nor tongue nor pen

Reports of him, his dwelling or his grave!

Does yet the unheard-of Vessel ride the wave?
Or is she swallowed up, remote from ken
Of pitying human-nature? Once again

Methinks that we shall hail thee, Champion brave,
Redeemed to baffle that imperial Slave,

And through all Europe cheer desponding men
With new-born hope. Unbounded is the might
Of martyrdom, and fortitude, and right.
Hark, how thy Country triumphs! Smilingly
The Eternal looks upon her sword that gleams,
Like his own lightning, over mountains high,
On rampart, and the banks of all her streams.

XXIV.

IN due observance of an ancient rite,
The rude Biscayans, when their Children lie
Dead in the sinless time of infancy,

Attire the peaceful Corse in vestments white;
And, in like sign of cloudless triumph bright,
They bind the unoffending Creature's brows
With happy garlands of the pure white rose:
This done, a festal Company unite

In choral song; and, while the uplifted Cross
Of Jesus goes before, the Child is borne
Uncovered to his grave. Her piteous loss
The lonesome Mother cannot choose but mourn;
Yet soon by Christian faith is grief subdued,
And joy attends upon her fortitude.

XXV.

FEELINGS OF A NOBLE BISCAYAN AT ONE
OF THESE FUNERALS.

1810,

YET, yet, Biscayans! we must meet our Foes
With firmer soul, yet labour to regain

Our ancient freedom; else 'twere worse than vain
To gather round the Bier these festal shows.
A garland fashioned of the pure white rose
Becomes not one whose Father is a slave:
Oh, bear the Infant covered to his Grave!
These venerable mountains now enclose
A People sunk in apathy and fear.
If this endure, farewell, for us, all good!
The awful light of heavenly Innocence
Will fail to illuminate the Infant's bier;
And guilt and shame, from which is no defence,
Descend on all that issues from our blood.

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