Childe Harolds Pilgrimage | Page 6

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!'

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.
XLIX.
On yon long level plain, at distance crowned
With crags, whereon
those Moorish turrets rest,
Wide scattered hoof-marks dint the
wounded ground;
And, scathed by fire, the greensward's darkened
vest
Tells that the foe was Andalusia's guest:
Here was the camp,
the watch-flame, and the host,
Here the brave peasant stormed 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:

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 foemen rue,
If subtle poniards, wrapt beneath the
cloak,
Could blunt the sabre's edge, or clear the cannon's smoke.
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'erflowed,
The stationed bands, the never-vacant watch,
The
magazine in rocky durance stowed,
The holstered steed beneath the
shed of thatch,
The ball-piled pyramid, the ever-blazing match,

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 the 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 unfurled,
And thou shalt view thy sons in crowds to
Hades hurled.
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,
The veteran's skill, youth's fire, and manhood's
heart of steel?
LIV.
Is it for this the Spanish maid, aroused,
Hangs on the willow her
unstrung guitar,
And, all unsexed, the anlace hath espoused,
Sung
the loud song, and dared the deed of war?
And she, whom once the
semblance of a scar
Appalled, an owlet's larum chilled with dread,

Now views the column-scattering bayonet jar,
The falchion flash, and
o'er the yet warm dead
Stalks with Minerva's step where Mars might
quake to tread.
LV.
Ye who shall marvel when you hear her tale,
Oh! had you known her
in her softer hour,
Marked 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?
What maid
retrieve when man's flushed hope is lost?
Who hang so fiercely on the
flying Gaul,
Foiled by a woman's hand, before a battered wall?
LVII.
Yet are Spain's maids no race of Amazons,
But formed for all the
witching arts of love:
Though thus in arms they emulate her sons,

And in the horrid phalanx dare to move,
'Tis but the tender fierceness
of the dove,
Pecking the hand that hovers o'er her mate:
In softness
as in firmness far above
Remoter females, famed for sickening prate;

Her mind is nobler sure, her charms perchance as great.
LVIII.
The seal Love's dimpling finger hath impressed
Denotes how soft that
chin which bears his touch:
Her lips, whose kisses pout to leave their
nest,
Bid man be valiant ere he merit such:
Her glance, how wildly
beautiful! how much
Hath Phoebus wooed in vain to spoil her cheek

Which glows yet smoother from his amorous clutch!
Who round
the North for paler dames would seek?
How poor their forms appear?
how languid, wan, and weak!
LIX.

Match me, ye climes! which poets love to laud;
Match me, ye harems!
of the land where now
I strike my strain, far distant, to applaud

Beauties that even a cynic must avow!
Match me those houris, whom
ye scarce allow
To taste the gale lest Love should ride the wind,

With Spain's dark-glancing daughters--deign to know,
There your
wise Prophet's paradise we find,
His black-eyed maids of Heaven,
angelically kind.
LX.
O thou, Parnassus! whom I now survey,
Not in the frenzy of a
dreamer's