High rose his form,and darkness veiled his head. Fast from his eyes the ruddy lightning broke, To heaven he reared his arm, and thus he spoke: 'Wo, trebly wo to their slow zeal who bore Delusive comfort to Iberia's shore. Who in mid conquest, vaunting, yet dismayed, Chilled the pure stream of England's energy, 'O peerless island, generous, bold, and free, Lost, ruined Albion, Europe mourns for thee. Hadst thou but known the hour in mercy given To stay thy doom, and ward the ire of heaven; Bared in the cause of man thy warrior breast, And crushed on yonder hills the approaching pest, Then had not murder sacked thy smiling plain, And wealth,and worth,and wisdom all been vain. . Yet, yet awake, while fear and wonder wait, On the poised balance, trembling still with fate. If aught their worth can plead, in battle tried, Who tinged with slaughter Tajo's curdling tide; (What time base truce the wheels of war could stay, And the weak victor flung his wreath away)— Or theirs, who, doled in scanty bands afar, 'O, if such hope can plead, or his, whose bier And yet the end is not: from yonder towers, While one Saguntum mocks the victor's powers, While one brave heart defies a servile chain, And one true soldier wields a lance for Spain; Trust not, vain tyrant, though thy spoiler band In tenfold myriads darken half the land; (Vast as that power, against whose impious lord Bethulia's matron shook the nightly sword;) Though ruth and fear thy woundless soul defy, And fatal genius fire thy martial eye; Yet trust not here o'er yielding realms to roam, Or cheaply bear a bloodless laurel home. Defends the orphan's tear, the poor man's prayer; No-shall yon eagle, from the snare set free, |