XLV.

Full swiftly Harold wends his lonely way
Where proud Sevilla (1) triumphs unsubdued:
Yet is she free the spoiler's wish'd-for prey !
Soon, soon shall Conquest's fiery foot intrude,
Blackening her lovely domes with traces rude.
Inevitable hour! 'Gainst fate to strive

Where Desolation plants her famish'd brood
Is vain, or Ilion, Tyre might yet survive,
And Virtue vanquish all, and Murder cease to thrive

XLVI.

But all unconscious of the coming doom,
The feast, the song, the revel here abounds;
Strange modes of merriment the hours consume,
Nor bleed these patriots with their country's
[sounds;

wounds:

Nor here War's clarion, but Love's rebeck (2) Here Folly still his votaries inthralls ;

And young-eyed Lewdness walks her midnight rounds:

Girt with the silent crimes of Capitals,

Still to the last kind Vice clings to the tott'ring walls.

(1) [" At Seville, we lodged in the house of two Spanish unmarried ladies, women of character, the eldest a fine woman, the youngest pretty. The freedom of manner, which is general here, astonished me not a little; and, in the course of further observation, I find that reserve is not the characteristic of Spanish belles. The eldest honoured your unworthy son with very particular attention, embracing him with great tenderness at parting (I was there but three days), after cutting off a lock of his hair, and presenting him with one of her own, about three feet in length, which I send you, and beg you will retain till my return. Her last words were, Adios, tu hermoso, me gusto mucho!''Adieu, you pretty fellow, you please me much!'"- Lord B. to his Mother, Aug. 1809.]

(2) [A kind of fiddle, with only two strings, played on by a bow, said to have been brought by the Moors into Spain. -E]

XLVII.

Not so the rustic-with his trembling mate
He lurks, nor casts his heavy eye afar,
Lest he should view his vineyard desolate,
Blasted below the dun hot breath of war.
No more beneath soft Eve's consenting star
Fandango twirls his jocund castanet:

Ah, monarchs! could ye taste the mirth ye mar,
Not in the toils of Glory would ye fret;

The hoarse dull drum would sleep, and Man be happy yet!

XLVIII.

How carols now the lusty muleteer?
Of love, romance, devotion is his lay,

As whilome he was wont the leagues to cheer,
His quick bells wildly jingling on the way?
No! as he speeds, he chants "Viva el Rey!" (1)
And checks his song to execrate Godoy,
The royal wittol Charles, and curse the day
When first Spain's queen beheld the black-eyed boy,
And gore-faced Treason sprung from her adulterate
joy.

(1) " Viva el Rey Fernando!" Long live King Ferdinand! is the chorus of most of the Spanish patriotic songs. They are chiefly in dispraise of the old king Charles, the Queen, and the Prince of Peace. I have heard many of them: some of the airs are beautiful. Don Manuel Godoy, the Principe de la Paz, of an ancient but decayed i mily, was born at Badajoz, on the frontiers of Portugal, and was originally the ranks of the Spanish guards; till his person attracted the queen's eyes, and raised him to the dukedom of Alcudia, &c. &c. It is to this man that the Spaniards universally impute the ruin of their country.-[See, for ample particulars concerning the flagitious court of Charles IV., Southey's History of the Peninsular War, vol. i.—E]

XLIX.

On yon long, level plain, at distance crown'd With crags, whereon those Moorish turrets rest, Wide scatter'd hoof-marks dint the wounded

ground;

And, scathed by fire, the greensward's darken'd vest Tells that the foe was Andalusia's guest:

Here was the camp, the watch-flame, and the host, Here the bold peasant storm'd the dragon's nest; Still does he mark it with triumphant boast,

And points to yonder cliffs, which oft were won and lost.

L.

And whomsoe'er along the path you meet
Bears in his cap the badge of crimson hue,

Which tells you whom to shun and whom to greet: (1)

Woe to the man that walks in public view
Without of loyalty this token true:

Sharp is the knife, and sudden is the stroke;
And sorely would the Gallic foeman rue,

If subtle poniards, wrapt beneath the cloke, [smoke. Could blunt the sabre's edge, or clear the cannon's

LI.

At every turn Morena's dusky height
Sustains aloft the battery's iron load;
And, far as mortal eye can compass sight,
The mountain-howitzer, the broken road,
The bristling palisade, the fosse o'erflow'd,
The station'd bands, the never-vacant watch,
The magazine in rocky durance stow'd,

The holster'd steed beneath the shed of thatch, The ball-piled pyramid, (2) the ever-blazing match,

(1) The red cockade, with "Fernando VII.," in the centre.

(2) All who have seen a battery will recollect the pyramidal form in

LII.

Portend the deeds to come: but he whose nod
Has tumbled feebler despots from their sway,
A moment pauseth ere he lifts the rod;
A little moment deigneth to delay:

Soon will his legions sweep through these their way; The West must own the Scourger of the world. Ah! Spain! how sad will be thy reckoning-day, When soars Gaul's Vulture, with his wings unfurl'd, And thou shalt view thy sons in crowds to Hades hurl'd.

LIII.

And must they fall? the young, the proud, the brave,
To swell one bloated Chief's unwholesome reign?
No step between submission and a grave?
The rise of rapine and the fall of Spain?
And doth the Power that man adores ordain
Their doom, nor heed the suppliant's appeal?
Is all that desperate Valour acts in vain?

And Counsel sage, and patriotic Zeal, [of steel? The Veteran's skill, Youth's fire, and Manhood's heart

LIV.

Is it for this the Spanish maid, aroused,

Hangs on the willow her unstrung guitar, And, all unsex'd, the anlace hath espoused, Sung the loud song, and dared the deed of war? And she, whom once the semblance of a scar Appall'd, an owlet's larum chill'd with dread, Now views the column-scattering bay'net jar, The falchion flash, and o'er the yet warm dead Stalks with Minerva's step where Mars might quake to tread.

which shot and shells are piled. The Sierra Morena was fortified in every defile through which I passed in my way to Seville.

LV.

Ye who shall marvel when you hear her tale, Oh! had you known her in her softer hour, Mark'd her black eye that mocks her coal-black veil, Heard her light, lively tones in Lady's bower, Seen her long locks that foil the painter's power, Her fairy form, with more than female grace, Scarce would you deem that Saragoza's tower Beheld her smile in Danger's Gorgon face, Thin the closed ranks, and lead in Glory's fearful chase.

LVI.

Her lover sinks-she sheds no ill-timed tear; Her chief is slain-she fills his fatal post; Her fellows flee-she checks their base career; The foe retires-she heads the sallying host: Who can appease like her a lover's ghost? Who can avenge so well a leader's fall? [lost? What maid retrieve when man's flush'd hope is Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul, Foil'd by a woman's hand, before a batter'd wall? (1)

(1) Such were the exploits of the Maid of Saragoza, who by her valour elevated herself to the highest rank of heroines. When the author was at Seville she walked daily on the Prado, decorated with medals and orders, by command of the Junta. [The exploits of Augustina, the famous heroine of both the sieges of Saragoza, are recorded at length in one of the most splendid chapters of Southey's History of the Peninsular War. At the time when she first attracted notice, by mounting a battery where her lover had fallen, and working a gun in his room, she was in her twenty-second year, exceedingly pretty, and in a soft feminine style of beauty. She has further had the honour to be painted by Wilkie, and alluded to in Wordsworth's Dissertation on the Convention (misnamed) of Cintra; where a noble passage concludes in these words: -" Saragoza has exemplified a melancholy, yea, a

1