Ah! what though no succour advances,
Nor Christendom's chivalrous lances
Are stretched 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? Accursed 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 extinguished in sadness;
Whilst our maidens shall dance with their white-waving
Singing joy to the brave that delivered their charms,
When the blood of yon Mussulman cravens
Shall have purpled the beaks of our ravens.
Inscribed on the Monument lately finished by Mr. Chantrey, which has been erected by the Widow of Admiral Sir G. Campbell, K.C.B., to the memory of her husband.
O him, whose loyal, brave, and gentle heart,
Fulfilled the hero's and the patriot's part-
Whose charity, like that which Paul enjoined,
Was warm, beneficent, and unconfined-
This stone is reared: to public duty true,
The seaman's friend, the father of his crew-
Mild in reproof, sagacious in command,
He spread fraternal zeal throughout his band,
And led each arm to act, each heart to feel,
What British valour owes to Britain's weal.
These were his public virtues-but to trace
His private life's fair purity and grace,
To paint the traits that drew affection strong
From friends, an ample and an ardent throng,
And, more, to speak his memory's grateful claim
On her who mourns him most, and bears his name-
O'ercomes the trembling hand of widowed grief,
O'ercomes the heart, unconscious of relief
Save in religion's high and holy trust,
Whilst placing their memorial o'er his dust.
To the Memory of the Spanish Patriots latest killed in resisting the Regency and the Duke of Angoulême.
RAVE men who at the Trocadero fell
Bride your cannons conquered 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, ay, embrace your martyred lot,
Cursing the Bigot's and the Bourbon's chain,
And looking on your graves, though trophied not,
As holier, hallowed ground than priests could make the
spot!
What though your cause be baffled-freemen cast
In dungeons-dragged to death, or forced to flee;
Hope is not withered in affliction's blast-
The patriot's blood's the seed of Freedom's tree;
And short your orgies of revenge shall be,
Cowled 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 shrieked 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 practice 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,
The soil has felt the footprints, and her clime
Been winnowed 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-show 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 hangmen 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.
LL worldly shapes shall melt in gloom,
The Sun himself must die,
Before this mortal shall assume
Its Immortality!
I saw a vision in my sleep,
That gave my spirit strength to sweep
Adown the gulph of Time!
I saw the last of human mould
That shall Creation's death behold,
As Adam saw her prime !
The Sun's eye had a sickly glare,
The Earth with age was wan,
The skeletons of nations were
Around that lonely man!
Some had expired in fight-the brands
Still rested in their bony hands;
In plague and famine some!
Earth's cities had no sound nor tread;
And ships were drifting with the dead
To shores where all was dumb!
Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood
With dauntless words and high,
That shook the sere leaves from the wood
As if a storm passed by,
Saying, "We are twins in death, proud Sun,
Thy face is cold, thy race is run,
'Tis Mercy bids thee go.
For thou ten thousand thousand years
Hast seen the tide of human tears,
That shall no longer flow.
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