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,
* See Laborde's character of the Spanish people; from him the sentiment of these last two lines is taken.
The roving Spanish Bands are reached at last, Charged, and dispersed like foam: but as a flight Of scattered quails by signs do reunite,
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.
THEY seek, are sought; to daily battle led, Shrink not, though far outnumbered by their Foes, For they have learnt 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 space; But who the limits of that power shall trace Which a brave People into light can bring Or hide, at will,-for freedom combating By just revenge inflamed? No foot may 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 subtle 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.
from our souls one truth departThat 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 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 to embrace (Though it were only for a moment's space) The triumphs of this hour; for they are THINE!
With a continuous cloud of texture close,
Heavy and wan, all whitened by the Moon, Which through that veil is indistinctly seen, A dull, contracted circle, yielding light So feebly spread, that not a shadow falls, Chequering the ground—from rock, plant, tree, or tower. At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam Startles the pensive traveller while he treads His lonesome path, with unobserving eye
Bent earthwards; he looks up the clouds are split Asunder, and above his head he sees
The clear Moon, and the glory of the heavens. There, in a black-blue vault she sails along, Followed by multitudes of stars, that, small And sharp, and bright, along the dark abyss Drive as she drives: how fast they wheel away, Yet vanish not !—the wind is in the tree,
But they are silent ;-still they roll along Immeasurably distant; and the vault,
Built round by those white clouds, enormous clouds, Still deepens its unfathomable depth.
At length the Vision closes; and the mind, Not undisturbed by the delight it feels, Which slowly settles into peaceful calm,
Is left to muse upon the solemn scene.
* Composed on the road between Nether Stowey and Alfoxden, 1797.
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