YET, yet, Biscayans! we must meet our Foes
With firmer soul, yet labour to regain
Our ancient freedom; else 'twere worse than vain
To gather round the bier these festal shows.
A garland fashioned of the pure white rose
Becomes not one whose father is a slave:
Oh, bear the infant covered to his grave!
These venerable mountains now enclose
A people sunk in apathy and fear.
If this endure, farewell for us, all good!
The awful light of heavenly innocence
Will fail to illuminate the infant's bier;
And guilt and shame, from which is no defence,
Descend on all that issues from our blood.

Feelings of a Noble Biscayan at such a Funeral 1810

OAK of Guernica! Tree of holier power
Than that which in Dodona did enshrine
(So faith too fondly deemed) a voice divine
Heard from the depths of its aërial bower—
How canst thou flourish at this blighting hour?
What hope, what joy can sunshine bring to thee,
Or the soft breezes from the Atlantic sea,
The dews of morn, or April's tender shower?
Stroke merciful and welcome would that be
Which should extend thy branches on the ground,
If never more within their shady round
Those lofty-minded Lawgivers shall meet,
Peasant and lord, in their appointed seat,
Guardians of Biscay's ancient liberty.

The Oak of Guernica 1810

Indignation We can endure that He should waste our lands, of a High- Despoil our temples, and by sword and flame minded Return us to the dust from which we came ; Spaniard

1810 Such food a Tyrant's appetite demands;

And we can brook the thought that by his hands
Spain may be overpowered, and he possess,
For his delight, a solemn wilderness

Where all the brave lie dead. But, when of bands
Which he will break for us he dares to speak,
Of benefits, and of a future day

When our enlightened minds shall bless his sway;
Then, the strained heart of fortitude proves weak:
Our groans, our blushes, our pale cheeks declare
That he has power to inflict what we lack strength
to bear.

Hope for AVAUNT all specious pliancy of mind
Spain In men of low degree, all smooth pretence!
1810
I better like a blunt indifference,

And self-respecting slowness, disinclined

To win me at first sight: and be there joined
Patience and temperance with this high reserve,
Honour that knows the path and will not swerve;
Affections which, if put to proof, are kind;
And piety towards God. Such men of old
Were England's native growth; and throughout
Spain,

Thanks to high God) forests of such remain :
Then for that Country let our hopes be bold;
For matched with these shall policy prove vain,
Her arts, her strength, her iron, and her gold.

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.

A Nation's true Wealth

1810

The French

HUNGER, and sultry heat, and nipping blast
From bleak hill-top, and length of march by night and the
Through heavy swamp,or over snow-clad height- Guerillas
Spanish
These hardships ill sustained, these dangers past, 1810
The roving Spanish Bands are reached at last,
Charged, and dispersed like foam: but as a flight
Of scattered quails by signs do reunite,

So these, 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.

Spanish THEY seek, are sought; to daily battle led,
Guerillas Shrink not, though far outnumbered by their Foes,
1811 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 Viriathus 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.

1811

The Power THE power of Armies is a visible thing,
of a brave Formal, and circumscribed in time and space;
People But who the limits of that shall trace
power
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

HERE pause the poet claims at least this praise, Hope in time That virtuous Liberty hath been the scope of Tyranny pure song, which did not shrink from hope

Of his

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.
Never may from our souls one truth depart―
That 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!

www

YE Storms, resound the praises of your King!
And ye mild Seasons-in a sunny clime,
Midway on some high hill, while father Time
Looks on delighted-meet in festal ring,
And loud and long of Winter's triumph sing!
Sing ye, with blossoms crowned, and fruits, and
flowers,

Of Winter's breath surcharged with sleety showers,
And the dire flapping of his hoary wing!
Knit the blithe dance upon the soft green grass;
With feet, hands, eyes, looks, lips, report your gain;
Whisper it to the billows of the main,

And to the aërial zephyrs as they pass,
That old decrepit Winter-He hath slain

That Host, which rendered all your bounties vain!

1811

The French
Army in
Russia