TO THE MEMORY OF THE SPANISH PATRIOTS
LATEST KILLED IN RESISTING THE REGENCY AND THE DUKE OF ANGOULEME.
BRAVE men who at the Trocadero fell-
Beside your cannons conquer'd not, though slain,
There is a victory in dying well
For Freedom, and ye have not died in vain ;
For come what may, there shall be hearts in Spain
To honour, aye embrace your martyr'd lot,
Cursing the Bigot's and the Bourbon's chain,
And looking on your graves, though trophied not,
As holier, hallow'd ground, than priests could make the spot!
What though your cause be baffled-freemen cast
In dungeons-dragg'd to death, or forced to flee;
Hope is not wither'd in affliction's blast
The patriot's blood's the seed of Freedom's tree;
And short your orgies of revenge shall be,
Cowl'd Demons of the Inquisitorial cell!
Earth shudders at your victory,-for ye
Are worse than common fiends from Heaven that fell,
The baser, ranker sprung, Autochthones of hell!
Go to your bloody rites again-bring back
The hall of horrors and the assessor's pen,
Recording answers shriek'd upon the rack;
Smile o'er the gaspings of spine-broken men ;-
Preach, perpetrate damnation in your den
Then let your altars, ye blasphemers! peal
With thanks to Heaven, that let you loose again,
To practise deeds with torturing fire and steel
No eye may search-no tongue may challenge or reveal!
Yet laugh not in your carnival of crime
Too proudly, ye oppressors !-Spain was free,
Her soil has felt the foot-prints, and her clime
Been winnow'd by the wings of Liberty ;
And these even parting scatter as they flee
Thoughts-influences, to live in hearts unborn,
Opinions that shall wrench the prison-key
From Persecution-shew her mask off-torn,
And tramp her bloated head beneath the foot of Scorn.
Glory to them that die in this great cause!
Kings, Bigots, can inflict no brand of shame,
Or shape of death, to shroud them from applause :
No!-manglers of the martyr's earthly frame!
Your hangman-fingers cannot touch his fame.
Still in your prostrate land there shall be some
Proud hearts, the shrines of Freedom's vestal flame.
Long trains of ill may pass unheeded, dumb,
But vengeance is behind, and justice is to come.
AGAIN to the battle, Achaians!
Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance;
Our land, the first garden of Liberty's tree
It has been, and shall yet be the land of the free:
For the cross of our faith is replanted,
The pale dying crescent is daunted,
And we march that the foot-prints of Mahomet's slaves May be wash'd out in blood from our forefathers' graves.
Their spirits are hovering o'er us,
And the sword shall to glory restore us.
Ah! what though no succour advances,
Nor Christendom's chivalrous lances
Are stretch'd in our aid-be the combat our own!
And we'll perish or conquer more proudly alone:
For we've sworn by our Country's assaulters,
By the virgins they've dragged from our altars,
By our massacred patriots, our children in chains,
By our heroes of old and their blood in our veins,
That living, we shall be victorious,
Or, that dying, our deaths shall be glorious.
A breath of submission we breathe not;
The sword that we've drawn we will sheathe not!
Its scabbard is left where our martyrs are laid,
And the vengeance of ages has whetted its blade.
Earth may hide-waves engulph-fire consume us,
But they shall not to slavery doom us:
If they rule, it shall be o'er our ashes and graves;
But we've smote them already with fire on the waves,
And new triumphs on land are before us.
To the charge!Heaven's banner is o'er us.
This day shall ye blush for its story,
Or brighten your lives with its glory.
Our women, Oh, say, shall they shriek in despair,
Or embrace us from conquest with wreaths in their hair?
Accurs'd may his memory blacken,
If a coward there be that would slacken
Till we've trampled the turban and shown ourselves worth
Being sprung from and named for the godlike of earth.
Strike home, and the world shall revere us
As heroes descended from heroes.
Old Greece lightens up with emotion
Her inlands, her isles of the Ocean;
Fanes rebuilt and fair towns shall with jubilee ring,
And the Nine shall new-hallow their Helicon's spring:
Our hearths shall be kindled in gladness,
That were cold and extinguish'd in sadness;
Whilst our maidens shall dance with their white-waving arms,
Singing joy to the brave that deliver'd their charms,
When the blood of yon Mussulman cravens
Shall have purpled the beaks of our ravens.
WELL may sleep present us fictions,
Since our waking moments teem
With such fanciful convictions
As make life itself a dream.
Half our daylight faith's a fable;
Sleep disports with shadows too,
Seeming in their turn as stable
As the world we wake to view.
Ne'er by day did Reason's mint
Give my thoughts a clearer print
VOL. LXVII.
Newdigale Prize Poem for 1825.
By RICHARD CLARKE SEWELL, of Magdalen College, Oxford.
THE dark pine waves on Tiber's classic steep,
From rock to rock the headlong waters leap,
Tossing their foam on high, till leaf and flower
Glitter, like emeralds, in the sparkling shower:
Lovely-but lovelier from the charms that glow
Where Latium spreads her purple vales below;
The olive, smiling on the sunny hill,
The golden orchard, and the ductile rill,
the spring clear-bubbling in its rocky font,
The moss-grown cave, the Naiad's fabled haunt,
And, far as eye can strain, yon shadowy dome,
The glory of the earth, Eternal Rome.
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