Chapter XIV

But, tyrant, thou, the cause of all
The blood that streams, the tears that fall,
Who, by no faith or fear confin’d,
In impious triumph o’er mankind,
Thy desolating course hast driven,
Bursting the sacred ties that bind
Man to his fellow and to heaven!
All great and guilty as thou art,
Thou of the iron hand and heart,
Shalt suffer yet the vengeance due
To him, who swears but to betray,
Whose friendship aids but to undo,
And only smiles to slay!
The insatiate fiend who drives thee on
With treacherous hope elate,
From crime to crime, and throne to throne,
From Afric to the arctic zone,
But dupes thee to thy fate:
And Heav’n which, by thy power o’erthrown,
Will one day vindicate its own,
_Condemns_ thee to be great!
The tempest, now thy sport and pride,
The flood on which thy fortunes ride,
Presumptuous and blind,
Ceasing at Heaven’s command to roar,
Shall cast thee naked on the shore,
The hate, and what thou fearest more,
The jest of all mankind.
And in thy hour of parting pain,
The parents’, widows’, orphans’ moan,
The shrieking of the battle plain,
The strangled prisoners’ midnight groan,
Shall harrow up thy brain;
From countless graves, the ghastly crew
Shall burst upon thy frensied view--
Thou peopler of the tomb!
And, stern and silent ’midst their cries,
The murder’d heir of Bourbon rise,
And through the shadowy gloom,
Shake the curst torches in thine eyes
That lighted to his doom!

XV.

But not to that tremendous hour
Does Heaven remit its torturing power;
And ev’n thy tyrant heart shall feel,
That _here_--that _now_--there’s vengeance still!
In vain, thy gorgeous state would hide
Of conscious fear and wounded pride,
The self-inflicted pang;--
Though monarchs to thy car be tied,
Though over half the world beside,
Thy chains of conquest clang,--
Britain and Spain, erect and proud,
Defy thee to the strife aloud,
And wave to Europe’s servile crowd,
The flag of liberty:
In it, thou seest thy glory’s shroud;
It’s shadow, like a thunder cloud,
O’erhangs thy destiny.

XVI.

Yes, thou shalt learn--and, at the tale,
Thy pride shall shrink, thy hope shall fail,
Though falsehood’s hand have trac’d
The lying legend--thou shall know
Thy marshals foiled--thy thousands low--
Thy puppet King disgrac’d!
Far other thoughts their bosoms fill;
As now to Talavera’s hill
Proud in their numbers and their skill,
The Gallic columns haste:
The same they are, and led by those,
The scourges of the world’s repose,
Victors of Milan’s fair domain,
Of Austerlitz’s wintry plain,
And Friedland’s sandy waste:
Who Prussia’s shiver’d sceptre hurl’d
Down to the dust, and from the world
Her very name erased:
Who boast them, in presumptuous tone,
Each feat and fortune to have known
Of war, except _defeat_ alone;
But now of _that_ to taste!

XVII.

Valiant tho’ vain, tho’ boastful wise--
Marshals, and Dukes!--with skilful eyes
They view the adverse line;
And well their prudent councils weigh
The eventful danger of the day,
Where Britain’s banners shine.
‘What though the Spanish spear we foil,
Poor were the prize, and vain the toil:--
Nothing is done till Britain’s spoil
Attest our victory:
Till, on the wings of terror borne,
The Leopards, scattered and forlorn,
Fly to their guardian sea.
On then!--let _Britain_ prove our might!
_Her’s_ be the trial of the fight,
The peril and the pain!
Press her with growing thousands round,
Dash that red banner to the ground,
And seal the fate of Spain!’

XVIII.

Thus France her baseless vision forms:
But HE,--long tried in battle storms--
In Ind’s unequal war
Scattering, like dust, the sable swarms
Of Scindiah and Berar;
He, conqueror still where’er he turns,
On Zealand’s frozen reign,
Or where the sultry summer burns
Vimero’s rocky plain;
Who, from his tyrant station shook,
With grasp of steel, Abrantes’ Duke;
HE, who from Douro’s rescued side,
Dispersed Dalmatia’s upstart pride;--
In fortune and desert, the same
On every scene of war,
Sebastiani’s pride shall tame;
And practised Jourdan’s veteran fame,
And Victor! thy portentous name
Shall fade before his star!

XIX.

In front of Talavera’s wall,
And near the confluent streams, the Gaul
His royal banner rears to sight,
With all the borrow’d blazon bright
Of Leon and Castille;
And seems to meditate a fight
That Spain alone shall feel.
Oh, vain pretence! to Wellesley’s eyes,
As pervious as the air!
He knows, that while the red cross flies,
From the strong covert, where she lies
Entrench’d and shelter’d, Spain defies
The utmost France can dare--
That Britain, on her blood-stain’d hill,
The brunt of fight must bear--
And France, though baffled thrice, will still
Strain all her force, exhaust her skill,
To plant her eagles there;
Which soon, from that commanding height
Would speed their desolating flight,
And, sweeping o’er the scatter’d plain,
The hopes of England and of Spain
With iron talon tear.

XX.

Now from the dark artillery broke
Lightning flash and thunder stroke;
And cloud on cloud of fiery smoke
Rolls in the darken’d air:
Wrapp’d in its shade, unheard, unseen,
Artful surprise and onset keen
The crafty foes prepare--
Three columns of the flower of France
With rapid step and firm, advance,
At first thro’ tangled ground,
O’er fence and dell and deep ravine;
At length they reach the level green--
The midnight battle’s murderous scene--
The valley’s eastern bound.
There in a rapid line they form,
Thence are just rushing to the storm
By bold Belluno led,
When sudden thunders shake the vale,
Day seems, as if eclipsed, to fail,
The light of heaven is fled;
A dusty whirlwind rides the sky,
A living tempest rushes by
With deafening clang and tread--
‘A charge! a charge!’ the British cry,
‘And Seymour at its head.’