Childe Harolds Pilgrimage | Page 5

Cava's traitor-sire first called the band

That dyed thy mountain-streams with Gothic gore?
Where are those
bloody banners which of yore
Waved o'er thy sons, victorious to the
gale,
And drove at last the spoilers to their shore?
Red gleamed the
cross, and waned the crescent pale,
While Afric's echoes thrilled with
Moorish matrons' wail.
XXXVI.
Teems not each ditty with the glorious tale?
Ah! such, alas, the hero's
amplest fate!
When granite moulders and when records fail,
A
peasant's plaint prolongs his dubious date.
Pride! bend thine eye from
heaven to thine estate,
See how the mighty shrink into a song!
Can
volume, pillar, pile, preserve thee great?
Or must thou trust
Tradition's simple tongue,
When Flattery sleeps with thee, and
History does thee wrong?
XXXVII.
Awake, ye sons of Spain! awake! advance
Lo! Chivalry, your ancient
goddess, cries,
But wields not, as of old, her thirsty lance,
Nor

shakes her crimson plumage in the skies:
Now on the smoke of
blazing bolts she flies,
And speaks in thunder through yon engine's
roar!
In every peal she calls--'Awake! arise!'
Say, is her voice more
feeble than of yore,
When her war-song was heard on Andalusia's
shore?
XXXVIII.
Hark! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note?
Sounds not the
clang of conflict on the heath?
Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre
smote;
Nor saved your brethren ere they sank beneath
Tyrants and
tyrants' slaves?--the fires of death,
The bale-fires flash on high:
--from rock to rock
Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe:

Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc,
Red Battle stamps his foot,
and nations feel the shock.
XXXIX.
Lo! where the Giant on the mountain stands,
His blood-red tresses
deepening in the sun,
With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands,

And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon;
Restless it rolls, now fixed,
and now anon
Flashing afar,--and at his iron feet
Destruction
cowers, to mark what deeds are done;
For on this morn three potent
nations meet,
To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most
sweet.
XL.
By Heaven! it is a splendid sight to see
(For one who hath no friend,
no brother there)
Their rival scarfs of mixed embroidery,
Their
various arms that glitter in the air!
What gallant war-hounds rouse
them from their lair,
And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey!

All join the chase, but few the triumph share:
The Grave shall bear
the chiefest prize away,
And Havoc scarce for joy can cumber their
array.

XLI.
Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice;
Three tongues prefer strange
orisons on high;
Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies.

The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, Victory!
The foe, the victim,
and the fond ally
That fights for all, but ever fights in vain,
Are
met--as if at home they could not die -
To feed the crow on Talavera's
plain,
And fertilise the field that each pretends to gain.
XLII.
There shall they rot--Ambition's honoured fools!
Yes, Honour decks
the turf that wraps their clay!
Vain Sophistry! in these behold the
tools,
The broken tools, that tyrants cast away
By myriads, when
they dare to pave their way
With human hearts--to what?--a dream
alone.
Can despots compass aught that hails their sway?
Or call
with truth one span of earth their own,
Save that wherein at last they
crumble bone by bone?
XLIII.
O Albuera, glorious field of grief!
As o'er thy plain the Pilgrim
pricked his steed,
Who could foresee thee, in a space so brief,
A
scene where mingling foes should boast and bleed.
Peace to the
perished! may the warrior's meed
And tears of triumph their reward
prolong!
Till others fall where other chieftains lead,
Thy name shall
circle round the gaping throng,
And shine in worthless lays, the
theme of transient song.
XLIV.
Enough of Battle's minions! let them play
Their game of lives, and
barter breath for fame:
Fame that will scarce reanimate their clay,

Though thousands fall to deck some single name.
In sooth, 'twere sad
to thwart their noble aim
Who strike, blest hirelings! for their

country's good,
And die, that living might have proved her shame;

Perished, perchance, in some domestic feud,
Or in a narrower sphere
wild Rapine's path pursued.
XLV.
Full swiftly Harold wends his lonely way
Where proud Sevilla
triumphs unsubdued:
Yet is she free--the spoiler's wished-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 famished 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 wounds;
Nor here
War's clarion, but Love's rebeck sounds;
Here Folly still his votaries
enthralls,
And young-eyed Lewdness walks her midnight rounds:

Girt with the silent crimes of capitals,
Still to the last kind Vice clings
to the tottering walls.
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