Selected Poems (20 page)

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!’
¹

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:
¹

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,
²
the ever-blazing match,

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?
¹

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: