XLIX.

On yon long, level plain, at distance crown'd
With crags, whereon those Moorish turrets rest,
Wide scatter'd hoof-marks dint the wounded ground;
And, scathed by fire, the greensward's darken'd vest
Tells that the foe was Andalusia's guest:
Here was the camp, the watch-flame, and the host,
Here the bold peasant storm'd 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:1
Wo 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 foeman 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'erflow'd,
The station'd bands, the never-vacant watch,
The magazine in rocky durance stow'd,
The holster'd steed beneath the shed of thatch,
The ball-piled pyramid,2 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 their 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 unfurl'd,
And thou shalt view thy sons in crowds to Hades hurl'd.

1 The red cockade, with "Fernando VII.," in the centre. 2 All who have seen a battery will recollect the pyramidal form in which shot and shells are piled. The Sierra Morena was fortified in every defile through which I passed in my way to Seville.

Such were the exploits of the Maid of Saragoza, who by her valor elevated herself to the highest rank of heroines. When the author was at Seville, she walked daily on the Prado, decorated with medals and orders, by command of the Junta.-[The exploits of Augustina, the famous heroine of both the sieges of Saragoza, are recorded at length in Southey's History of the Peninsular War. At the time when she first attracted notice, by mounting a battery where her lover had fallen, and working a gun in his room, she was in her twenty-second year, exceedingly pretty, and in a soft

LIV.

Is it for this the Spanish maid, aroused,
Hangs on the willow her unstrung guitar,
And, all unsex'd, the anlace hath espoused,
Sung the loud song, and dared the deed of war?
And she, whom once the semblance of a scar
Appall'd, an owlet's larum chill'd with dread,
Now views the column-scattering bay'net 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,
Mark'd 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 flush'd hope is lost?
Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul,
Foil'd by a woman's hand, before a batter'd wall?"

LVII.

Yet are Spain's maids no race of Amazons,
But form'd 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

LIII.

LVIII.

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?

The seal Love's dimpling finger hath impress'd
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 woo'd in vain to spoil her cheek,
Which glows yet smoother from his amorous clutch!
Who round the North for paler dames would seek?

And doth the Power that man adores ordain
Their doom, nor heed the suppliant's appeal?
Is all that desperate Valor acts in vain?
And Counsel sage, and patriotic Zeal,

The Veteran's skill, Youth's fire, and Manhood's heart How poor their forms appear! how languid, wan, and

of steel?

weak!

Remoter females, famed for sickening prate;
Her mind is noble sure, her charms perchance as

great.

feminine style of beauty. She has further had the honor to be painted by Wilkie, and alluded to in Wordsworth's Dissertation on the Convention (misnamed) of Cintra; where a noble passage concludes in these words:-" Saragoza has exemplified a melancholy, yea, a dismal truth,-yet consolatory and full of joy,-that when a people are called suddenly to fight for their liberty, and are sorely pressed upon, their best field of battle is the floors upon which their children have played; the chambers where the family of each man has slept; upon or under the roofs by which they have been sheltered; in the gardens of their recreation; in the street, or in the market-place; before the altars of their temples, and among their congregated dwellings, blazing or uprooted."]

4 Sigilla in mento impressa Amoris digitulo

Vestigio demonstrant mollitudinem." AUL. GEL

LXVII.

LXXII.

From morn till night, from night till startled Morn
Peeps blushing on the revel's laughing crew,
The song is heard, the rosy garland worn;
Devices quaint, and frolics ever new,
Tread on each other's kibes. A long adieu
He bids to sober joy that here sojourns:
Naught interrupts the riot, though in lieu
Of true devotion monkish incense burns,

The lists are oped, the spacious area clear'd,
Thousands on thousands piled are seated round;
Long ere the first loud trumpet's note is heard,
Ne vacant space for lated wight is found:
Here dons, grandees, but chiefly dames abound,
Skill'd in the ogle of a roguish eye,

Yet ever well inclined to heal the wound;
None through their cold disdain are doom'd to die,

And love and prayer unite, or rule the hour by turns.' As moon-struck bards complain, by Love's sad archery.

LXVIII.

The Sabbath comes, a day of blessed rest;
What hallows it upon this Christian shore?
Lo! it is sacred to a solemn feast:

Hark! heard you not the forest-monarch's roar?
Crashing the lance, he snuffs the spouting gore
Of man and steed, o'erthrown beneath his horn;
The throng'd arena shakes with shouts for more;
Yells the mad crowd o'er entrails freshly torn,
Nor shrinks the female eye, nor ev'n affects to mourn.

LXIX.

The seventh day this; the jubilee of man.
London! right well thou know'st the day of prayer:
Then thy spruce citizen, wash'd artisan,
And smug apprentice gulp their weekly air:
Thy coach of hackney, whiskey, one-horse chair,
And humblest gig through sundry suburbs whirl;
To Hampstead, Brentford, Harrow, make repair;
Till the tired jade the wheel forgets to hurl,
Provoking envious gibe from each pedestrian churl.'
LXX.

Some o'er thy Thamis row the ribbon'd fair,
Others along the safer turnpike fly;

Some Richmond-hill ascend, some scud to Ware,
And many to the steep of Highgate hie.
Ask ye, Baotian shades! the reason why?
"Tis to the worship of the solemn Horn,
Grasp'd in the holy hand of Mystery,

In whose dread name both men and maids are sworn,
And consecrate the oath' with draught, and dance till

morn.

LXXI.

All have their fooleries-not alike are thine,
Fair Cadiz, rising o'er the dark blue sea!
Soon as the matin bell proclaimeth nine,
Thy saint adorers count the rosary:
Much is the VIRGIN teased to shrive them free
(Well do I ween the only virgin there)
From crimes as numerous as her beadsmen be;
Then to the crowded circus forth they fare:
Young, old, high, low, at once the same diversion share.

"[ -"monkish temples share The hours misspent, and all in turns is love and prayer."MS.J 2["And droughty then alights, and roars for Roman purl."-MS.]

3 This was written at Thebes, and consequently in the best situation for asking and answering such a question; not as the birthplace of Pindar, but as the capital of Baotia, where the first riddle was propounded and solved.

[Lord Byron alludes to a ridiculous custom which formerly prevailed at the public-houses in Highgate, of administering a burlesque oath to all travellers of the middling rank who stopped there. The party was sworn on a pair of horns, fastened, "never to kiss the maid when he could the mistress; never to eat brown bread when he could get white; never to drink small beer when he could get strong," with many other injunctions of the like kind,to all which was added the saving clause,-" unless you like it best."]

[The croupe is a particular leap taught in the manège."-MS.]

["In thus mixing up the light with the solemn, it was the intention of the poet to imitate Ariosto. But it is far easier to rise, with grace, from the level of a strain generally familiar, into an occasional short burst of pathos or splendor, than to interrupt thus a prolonged tone of solemnity by any descent into the ludicrous or burlesque. In the former case, the transition may have the effect of softening | or elevating; while, in the latter, it almost invariably shocks ;-for the same reason, perhaps, that a trait of pathos or high feeling, in comedy, has a peculiar charm; while the intrusion of comic scenes into tragedy, however sanetioned among us by habit and authority, rarely fails to of fend. The poet was himself convinced of the failure of the experiment, and in none of the succeeding cantos of Childe Harold repeated it."-MOORE.]

T

LXXXII.

Oh! many a time, and oft, had Harold loved,
Or dream'd he loved, since rapture is a dream;
But now his wayward bosom was unmoved,
For not yet had he drunk of Lethe's stream;
And lately had he learn'd with truth to deem
Love has no gift so grateful as his wings:
How fair, how young, how soft soe'er he seem,
Full from the fount of Joy's delicious springs
Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings.5

And all whereat the generous soul revolts,
Which the stern dotard deem'd he could encage,
Have pass'd to darkness with the vanish'd age.
Who late so free as Spanish girls were seen,
(Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage,)
With braided tresses bounding o'er the green,
While on the gay dance shone Night's lover-loving

Queen?

LXXXIII.

Yet to the beauteous form he was not blind,
Though now it moved him as it moves the wise;
Not that Philosophy on such a mind

E'er deign'd to bend her chastely-awful eyes:
But Passion raves itself to rest, or flies;

And Vice, that digs her own voluptuous tomb,
Had buried long his hopes, no more to rise:
Pleasure's pall'd victim! life-abhorring gloom
Wrote on his faded brow cursed Cain's unresting doorn.

LXXXIV.

Still he beheld, nor mingled with the throng;
But view'd them not with misanthropic hate:
Fain would he now have join'd the dance, the song;
But who may smile that sinks beneath his fate?
Naught that he saw his sadness could abate:
Yet once he struggled 'gainst the demon's sway,
And as in Beauty's bower he pensive sate,
Pour'd forth this unpremeditated lay,

To charms as fair as those that sooth'd his happier day.

[The reader will do well to compare Lord Byron's animated picture of the popular "sport" of the Spanish nation, with the very circumstantial details contained in the charm142 "Letters of Don Leucadio Doblado," (i. e. the Rev. Blanco White,) published in 1822. So inveterate was, at In the one time, the rage of the people for this amusement, that even boys mimicked its features in their play. saughter-house itself the professional bull-fighter gave pubile lessons; and such was the force of depraved custom, that ladies of the highest rank were not ashamed to appear anudst the filth and horror of the shambles. The Spaniards I received this sport from the Moors, among whom it was celebrated with great pomp and splendor.-See various Notes to Mr. Lockhart's Collection of Ancient Spanish Ballads. 1822.]

23

TO INEZ.

1.

NAY, smile not at my sullen brow;
Alas! I cannot smile again:
Yet Heaven avert that ever thou
Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain.

2.

And dost thou ask, what secret wo

I bear, corroding joy and youth?
And wilt thou vainly seek to know

A pang, e'en thou must fail to sooth?

3.

It is not love, it is not hate,

Nor low Ambition's honors lost,
That bids me loathe my present state,
And fly from all I prized the most:

4.

It is that weariness which springs

From all I meet, or hear, or see:
To me no pleasure Beauty brings;

Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me.