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
Th' Eternal looks upon her sword that gleams,
Like His own lightning, over mountains high.
On rampart, and the banks of all her streams.
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.
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 inclose
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.
THE OAK OF GUERNICA.
The ancient Oak of Guernica, says Laborde in his Account of Biscay, is a most venerable natural monument. Ferdinand and Isabella, in the year 1476, after hearing mass in the Church of Santa Marie de la Antigua, repaired to this tree, under which they swore to the Biscayans to maintain their fueros (privileges). What other interest belongs to it in the minds of this people will appear from the following.
SUPPOSED ADDRESS TO THE SAME. 1810.
OAK of Guernica! tree of holier power
Than that which in Dodona did enshrine
(So faith too fondly deemed) a voice divine,
Heard from the depths of its aërial bower,
How canst thou flourish at this blighting hour?
What hope, what joy can sunshine bring to thee,
Or the soft breezes from the Atlantic sea,
The dews of morn, or April's tender shower?
-Stroke merciful and welcome would that be
Which should extend thy branches on the ground,
If never more within their shady round
Those lofty-minded lawgivers shall meet,
Peasant and lord, in their appointed seat,
Guardians of Biscay's ancient liberty.
INDIGNATION OF A HIGH-MINDED SPANIARD.
WE can endure that he should waste our lands,
Despoil our temples,--and by sword and flame
Return us to the dust from which we came ;
Such food a Tyrant's appetite demands:
And we can brook the thought that by his hands
Spain may be o'erpowered, and he possess,
For his delight, a solemn wilderness,
Where all the brave lie dead. But when of bands,
Which he will break for us, he dares to speak,—
Of benefits, and of a future day
When our enlightened minds shall bless his sway,
Then, the strained heart of fortitude proves weak:
Our groans, our blushes, our pale cheeks declare
That he has power t' inflict what we lack strength to bear
AVAUNT all specious pliancy of mind
In men of low degree, all smooth pretence !
I better like a blunt indifference
And self-respecting slowness, disinclined
To win me at first sight:-and be there joined
Patience and temperance with this high reserve,-
Honour that knows the path and will not swerve;
Affections, which, if put to proof, are kind;
And piety towards God.-Such men of old
Were England's native growth; and, throughout Spain,
Forests of such do at this day remain ;
Then for that country let our hopes be bold;
For matched with these shall policy prove vain,
Her arts, her strength, her iron, and her gold.
O'ERWEENING statesmen have full long relied
On fleets and armies, and external wealth:
But from within proceeds a nation's health;
Which shall not fail, though poor men cleave with pride
To the paternal floor; or turn aside,
In the thronged city, from the walks of gain,
As being all unworthy to detain
A soul by contemplation sanctified.
There are who cannot languish in this strife,
Spaniards of every rank, by whom the good
Of such high course was felt and understood:
Who to their country's cause have bound a life,
Erewhile by solemn consecration given
To labour and to prayer, to Nature and to Heaven.*
THE FRENCH AND THE SPANISH GUERILLAS.
HUNGER, and sultry heat, and nipping blast
From bleak hill-top, and length of march by night
Through heavy swamp, or over snow-clad height,
These hardships ill sustained, these dangers past,
The roving Spanish bands are reached at last,
Charged, and dispersed like foam :—but as a flight
Of scattered quails by signs do reunite,
So these, and, heard of once again, are chased
With combinations of long-practised art
And newly-kindled hope; but they are fled,
Gone 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,
'And hang like dreams around his guilty bed.
* See Laborde's character of the Spanish people; from him the senti ment of these two last lines is taken.
THEY seek, are sought; to daily battle led,
Shrink not, though far out-numbered by their foes:
For they have learned to open and to close
The ridges of grim war; and at their head
Are captains such as erst their country bred
Or fostered, self-supported chiefs,-like those
Whom hardy Rome was fearful to oppose,
Whose desperate shock the Carthaginian fled.
In one who lived unknown a shepherd's life
Redoubted 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.
THE power of armies is a visible thing,
Formal, and circumscribed in time and place;
But who the limits of that power can trace
Which a brave people into light can bring
Or hide, at will,-for freedom combating,
By just revenge inflamed? No foot can chase,
No eye can follow to a fatal place,
That power, that spirit, whether on the wing
Like the strong wind, or sleeping like the wind
Within its awful caves. From year to year
Springs this indigenous produce far and near;
No craft this subtile element can bind,
Rising like water from the soil, to find
In every nook a lip that it may cheer.
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!
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 wrapped 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 were it only for a moment's space)
The triumphs of this hour; for they are THINE!
FOR THE MORNING OF THE DAY APPOINTED for a general
THANKSGIVING, JANUARY 18, 1816.
HAIL, universal source of pure delight!
Thou that canst shed the bliss of gratitude
On hearts howe'er insensible or rude;
Whether thy orient visitations smite
The haughty towers where monarchs dwell;
Or thou, impartial sun, with presence bright
Cheer'st the low threshold of the peasant's cell.
-Not unrejoiced I see thee climb the sky
In naked splendour, clear from mist or haze,
Or cloud approaching to divert the rays
Which, even in deepest winter, testify
Thy power and majesty,
Dazzling the vision that presumes to gaze.
--Well does thine aspect usher in this day;
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