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.

XIV.

O'ER the wide earth, on mountain and on plain,
Dwells in the affections and the soul of man
A Godhead, like the universal PAN,
But more exalted, with a brighter train:
And shall his bounty be dispensed in vain,
Showered equally on city and on field,
And neither hope nor steadfast promise yield
In these usurping times of fear and pain?
Such doom awaits us. Nay, forbid it Heaven!
We know the arduous strife, the eternal laws
To which the triumph of all good is given,
High sacrifice, and labour without pause,
Even to the death: - else wherefore should the eye
Of man converse with immortality?

XVII.

SAY what is Honour? - "T is 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 fai!,
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.

XV.

ON THE FINAL SUBMISSION OF THE TYROLESE.

Ir was a moral end for which they fought;
Else how, when mighty Thrones were put to shame,
Could they, poor Shepherds, have preserved an aim,
A resolution, or enlivening thought?
Nor hath that moral good been vainly sought;
For in their magnanimity and fame

Powers have they left, an impulse, and a claim
Which neither can be overturned nor bought.
Sleep, Warriors, sleep! among your hills repose!
We know that ye, beneath the stern control
Of awful prudence, keep the unvanquished soul.
And, when impatient of her guilt and woes
Europe breaks forth, then, Shepherds! shall ye rise
For perfect triumph o'er your Enemies.

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!

*See Note.

XIX.

Raas Schill! by death delivered, take thy flight
From Prussia's timid region. Go, and rest
With heroes, 'mid the Islands of the Blest,
on the Fields of empyrean light.

A teor wert thou in a darksome night;

Yer shall thy name, conspicuous and sublime,
Stand in the spacious firmament of time,
Fed as a star: such glory is thy right.
Ains! it may not be: for earthly fame

Fortune's frail Dependant; yet there lives
A Judge, who, as man claims by merit, gives;
fo whose all-pondering mind a noble aim,
Futhfully 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;
Wao 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,

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.

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.-1810.

АH! where is Palafox? Nor tongue nor pen Reports of him, his dwelling or his grave!

That this great Servant of a righteous cause

Mt still have sad or vexing thoughts to endure, Ye may a sympathising spirit pause,

A monished by these truths, and quench all pain la thankful joy and gratulation pure.*

XXI.

Look now on that Adventurer who hath paid
I vows to Fortune; who, in cruel slight
O' virtuous hope, of liberty, and right,
Flath followed wheresoe'er a way was made
Be the blind Goddess;-ruthless, undismayed;
And so bath gained at length a prosperous Height,
Rnd which the Elements of worldly might
Breath his haughty feet, like clouds, are laid.
Ongless power that stands by lawless force!

*ith and a former Sonnet, in honour of the same Sovereign, me be understood as a Poet availing himself of the situation which the King of Sweden occupied, and of the principles ed in his manifestoes; as laying hold of these advantages Se the parpose of embodying moral truths. This remark tril perhaps, as well have been suppressed; for to those who may be in sympathy with the course of these Poems, it will be weron; and will, I fear, be thrown away upon that other then whose beweted admiration of the intoxicated despot here

ed in contrast with him, is the most melancholy evidence ✅ begradation in British feeling and intellect which the times

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.

XXX.

THE FRENCH AND THE SPANISH GUERILLAS.

PR, and sultry heat, and nipping blast
F-a bleak hill-top, and length of march by night
Tmagh heavy swamp, or over snow-clad height,
These hardships ill sustained, these dangers past,
The roving Spanish Bands are reached at last,
arged, and dispersed like foam: but as a flight
f scattered quails by signs do reunite,

So these,—and, heard of once again, are chased
With combinations of long-practised art
A newly-kindled hope; but they are fled,

se are they, viewless as the buried dead;

Where now! - Their sword is at the Foeman's heart!
And thus from year to year his walk they thwart,
Lad bang like dreams around his guilty bed.

XXXIII. 1811.

HERE pause: the poet claims at least this praise,
That virtuous Liberty hath been the scope
Of his pure song, which did not shrink from hope
In the worst moment of these evil days;
From hope, the paramount duty that Heaven lays,
For its own honour, on man's suffering heart.†
Never may from our souls one truth depart,
That an accursed thing it is to gaze

On prosperous Tyrants with a dazzled eye;
Nor, touched with due abhorrence of their guilt
For whose dire ends tears flow, and blood is spilt,
And justice labours in extremity,
Forget thy weakness, upon which is built,
O wretched Man, the Throne of Tyranny!

XXXI.

SPANISH GUERILLAS, 1811,

Tary seek, are sought; to daily battle led,

rak not, though far outnumbered by their Foes, they have learnt to open and to close

The nages of grim War; and at their head
Are Captains such as erst their Country bred
ofstered, self-supported Chiefs, like those
W hardy Rome was fearful to oppose,

W base desperate shock the Carthaginian fled.
In one who lived unknown a Shepherd's life,
Recoated Viriatus breathes again;

And Mina, nourished in the studious shade,
With that great Leader* vies, who, sick of strife
And bloodshed, longed in quiet to be laid
In some green Island of the western main.

XXXII — 1911.

The power of Armies is a visible thing,
Portal, and circumscribed in time and space;
But who the limits of that power shall trace
Which a brave People into light can bring
Orde, at will, — for Freedom combating
Best revenge inflamed? No foot may chase,
Nere can follow, to a fatal place

The power, that spirit, whether on the wing
Late the strong wind, or sleeping like the wind
Wahm its awful caves. From year to year
ngs this indigenous produce far and near
No craft this subtle element can bind,
Rng like water from the soil, to find
In every nook a lip that it may cheer.

⚫Sertorius.

XXXIV.

THE FRENCH ARMY IN RUSSIA.-1812–13.

HUMANITY, delighting to behold

A fond reflection of her own decay,

Hath painted Winter like a Traveller — old,
Propped on a staff and, through the sullen day,
In hooded mantle, limping o'er the Plain,
As though his weakness were disturbed by pain.
Or, if a juster fancy should allow

An undisputed symbol of command,
The chosen sceptre is a withered bough,
Infirmly grasped within a palsied hand.
These emblems suit the helpless and forlorn,
But mighty Winter the device shall scorn.

For he it was dread Winter! who beset,
Flinging round van and rear his ghastly net,
That host, when from the regions of the Pole
They shrunk, insane ambition's barren goal,
That Host, as huge and strong as e'er defied
Their God, and placed their trust in human pride!
As fathers persecute rebellious sons,

He smote the blossoms of their warrior youth;

He called on Frost's inexorable tooth

Life to consume in manhood's firmest hold;
Nor spared the reverend blood that feebly runs;

For why, unless for liberty enrolled

And sacred home, ah! why should hoary Age be bold?

Fleet the Tartar's reinless steed,

But fleeter far the pinions of the Wind,
Which from Siberian caves the Monarch freed,
And sent him forth, with squadrons of his kind,

+["What an awful duty, what a nurse of all other, the fairest virtues, does not HOPE become! We are bad ourselves, because we despair of the goodness of others."

COLERIDGE: The Friend,' Vol. I. p. 172.-H. R.]

And bade the Snow their ample backs bestride,
And to the battle ride.

No pitying voice commands a halt,
No courage can repe the dire assault;
Distracted, spiritless, benumbed, and blind,
Whole legions sink—and, in one instant, find
Burial and death: look for them — and descry,
When morn returns, beneath the clear blue sky,
A soundless waste, a trackless vacancy!

That through the texture of yon azure dome
Cleaves its glad way, a cry of harvest home
Uttered to Heaven in ecstasy devout!

The barrier Rhine hath flashed, through battle-smok
On men who gaze heart-smitten by the view
As if all Germany had felt the shock!
Fly, wretched Gauls! ere they the charge renew
Who have seen (themselves delivered from the yoke
The unconquerable Stream his course pursue.*

XXXV.

ON THE SAME OCCASION.

YE Storms, resound the praises of your King!
And ye mild Seasons-in a sunny clime,
Midway on some high hill, while Father Time
Looks on delighted-meet in festal ring,
And loud and long of Winter's triumph sing!
Sing ye, with blossoms crowned, and fruits, and flowers,
Of Winter's breath surcharged with sleety showers,
And the dire flapping of his hoary wing!
Knit the blithe dance upon the soft green grass;
With feet, hands, eyes, looks, lips, report your gain;
Whisper it to the billows of the main,
And to the aërial zephyrs as they pass,
That old decrepit Winter- He hath slain

That Host, which rendered all your bounties vain!

XXXVIII.

NOVEMBER, 1813.

Now that all hearts are glad, all faces bright,
Our aged Sovereign sits; to the ebb and flow
Of states and kingdoms, to their joy or woe,
Insensible; he sits deprived of sight,
And lamentably wrapt in twofold night,
Whom no weak hopes deceived; whose mind ensued.
Through perilous war, with regal fortitude,
Peace that should claim respect from lawless Might.
Dread King of kings, vouchsafe a ray divine
To his forlorn condition! let thy grace
Upon his inner soul in mercy shine;
Permit his heart to kindle, and embrace
(Though it were only for a moment's space)
The triumphs of this hour; for they are THINE!

XXXIX.

ON THE DISINTERMENT OF THE REMAINS OF THE DUKE D'ENGHIEN.

DEAR Reliques! from a pit of vilest mould
Uprisen to lodge among ancestral kings;
And to inflict shame's salutary stings
On the remorseless hearts of men grown old
In a blind worship; men perversely bold
Even to this hour; yet at this hour they quake;
And some their monstrous Idol shall forsake,
If, to the living, truth was ever told
By aught surrendered from the hollow grave:
O murdered Prince! meek, loyal, pious, brave!
The power of retribution once was given:
But 'tis a rueful thought that willow-bands
So often tie the thunder-wielding hands
Of Justice sent to earth from highest Heaven!

* The event is thus recorded in the journals of the day — “Wheu the Austrians took Hockheim, in one part of the engagement they got to the brow of the hill, whence they had their first view of the Rhine. They instantly halted-not a gun was fired not a voice heard: they stood gazing on the river with those feelings which the events of the last fifteen years at one called up. Prince Schwartzenberg rode up to know the ca of this sudden stop; they then gave three cheers, rushed at the enemy, and drove them into the water."