Yet laugh not in your carnival of crime
Too proudly, ye oppressors !-Spain was free,
Her soil has felt the foot-prints, and her clime
Been winnow'd 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-shew 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 hangman-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.
AGAIN to the battle, Achaians!
Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance;
Our land, the first garden of Liberty's tree
It has been, and shall yet be the land of the free:
For the cross of our faith is replanted,
The pale dying crescent is daunted,
And we march that the foot-prints of Mahomet's slaves May be wash'd out in blood from our forefathers' graves. Their spirits are hovering o'er us,
And the sword shall to glory restore us.
Ah! what though no succour advances,
Nor Christendom's chivalrous lances
Are stretch'd 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-
e-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?
Accurs'd 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 extinguish'd in sadness;
Whilst our maidens shall dance with their white-waving arms,
Singing joy to the brave that deliver'd their charms,
When the blood of yon Mussulman cravens
Shall have purpled the beaks of our ravens.
WELL may sleep present us fictions,
Since our waking moments teem
With such fanciful convictions
As make life itself a dream.-
Half our daylight faith's a fable;
Sleep disports with shadows too,
Seeming in their turn as stable
As the world we wake to view.
Ne'er by day did Reason's mint
Give my thoughts a clearer print
Types not this," I said, "fair Spirit!
That my death-hour is not come?
Say, what days shall I inherit?—
Tell my soul their sum."
"No," he said, "yon phantom's aspect, Trust me, would appal thee worse,
Held in clearly-measured prospect:-
Ask not for a curse!
Make not, for I overhear
Thine unspoken thoughts as clear
As thy mortal ear could catch
The close-brought tickings of a watch
Make not the untold request
That's now revolving in thy breast.
Newdigate Prize Poem for 1825.
By RICHARD CLARKE SEWELL, of Magdalen College, Oxford.
THE dark pine waves on Tiber's classic steep,-
From rock to rock the headlong waters leap,
Tossing their foam on high, till leaf and flower
Glitter, like emeralds, in the sparkling shower:
Lovely-but lovelier from the charms that glow
Where Latium spreads her purple vales below;
The olive, smiling on the sunny hill,
The golden orchard, and the ductile rill,
the spring clear-bubbling in its rocky font,
The moss-grown cave, the Naiad's fabled haunt,
And, far as eye can strain, yon shadowy dome,
The glory of the earth, Eternal Rome.
This, this was Vesta's seat-sublime, alone,
The mountain crag appear'd her Virgin throne,
In all the majesty of Goddess might,
Fann'd by pure gales, and bathed in cloudless light;
Her's was the dash of Anio's sacred tide,
The flame from Heaven's ethereal fount supplied,
And the young forms that trod the marble shrine,
For earth too fair, for mortal too divine.
And, lo! where still ten circling columns rise
High o'er the arching spray's prismatic dyes,
Touch'd, but not marr'd-as time had paused to spare
The wreaths that bloom in lingering beauty there-
E'en where each mouldering wreck might seem to mourn
Her rifted shaft, her lov'd acanthus torn,
Nature's wild flowers in silent sorrows wave
Their votive sweets o'er Art's neglected grave.
But ye who sleep the calm and dreamless sleep,
Where joy forgets to smile, and woe to weep,
For you, blest maids, a long and last repose,
Has still'd each pulse that throbs, cach vein that glows;
For oft, too oft, the white and spotless vest
Conceal'd a bleeding heart, an aching breast;
Hope, that with cold despair held feeble strife,
And love that parted but with parting life;
Still would the cheek with human passion burn,
Still would the heart to fond remembrance turn,
Vow all itself to Heaven, but vow in vain,
Sigh for its thoughts, yet sigh to think again.
And thou, Immortal Bard, whose sweetest lays
Were hymn'd in rapture to thy Tiber's praise,
What, though no more the listening vales prolong
The playful echoes of thy Sabine song;
Weep not her olive-groves' deserted shade,
Her princely halls, in silent ruin laid,
Her altars mouldering on a nameless hill-
There all is beauty, all is glory still;
Flowers-yet more bright than Roman maiden wreath'd;
Prayers yet more pure than virgin priestess breathed;
A fane-more noble than the vestal trod-
The Christian's temple, to the Christian's God!
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