XXXIX.

From a rude isle his ruder lineage came :

The spark, that, from a suburb hovel's hearth

Ascending, wraps some capital in flame,

Hath not a meaner or more sordid birth.

And for the soul that bade him waste the earth

The sable land-flood from some swamp obscure, That poisons the glad husband-field with dearth,

And by destruction bids its fame endure,

Hath not a source more sullen, stagnant, and impure.

XL.

Before that Leader strode a shadowy Form:

Her limbs like mist, her torch like meteor shew'd, With which she beckoned him through fight and storm,

And all he crushed that crossed his desperate road,

Nor thought, nor feared, nor looked on what he trode;

Realms could not glut his pride, blood could not slake, So oft as e'er she shook her torch abroad

It was AMBITION bade his terrors wake,
Nor deigned she, as of yore, a milder form to take.

XLI.

No longer now she spurned at mean revenge,

Or staid her hand for conquered foeman's moan,

As when, the fates of aged Rome to change,

By Cæsar's side she crossed the Rubicon ;

Nor joyed she to bestow the spoils she won,

As when the banded powers of Greece were tasked

To war beneath the Youth of Macedon:

No seemly veil her modern minion asked,

He saw her hideous face, and loved the fiend unmasqued.

XLII.

That Prelate marked his march-On banners blazed

With battles won in many a distant land,

On eagle-standards and on arms he gazed;

"And hopest thou, then," he said, "thy power

shall stand?

O thou hast builded on the shifting sand,

And thou hast temper'd it with slaughter's flood; And know, fell scourge in the Almighty's hand!

Gore-moistened trees shall perish in the bud, And, by a bloody death, shall die the Man of Blood!"

XLIII.

The ruthless Leader beckoned from his train

A wan fraternal Shade, and bade him kneel,

And paled his temples with the crown of Spain, While trumpets rang, and heralds cried, "Castile!"

F

Not that he loved him-No!--in no man's weal,

Scarce in his own, e'er joyed that sullen heart; Yet round that throne he bade his warriors wheel,

That the poor puppet might perform his part, And be a sceptred slave, at his stern beck to start.

XLIV.

But on the Natives of that Land misused,

Not long the silence of amazement hung, Nor brooked they long their friendly faith abused ; For, with a common shriek, the general tongue Exclaim'd, "To arms!" and fast to arms they sprung. And VALOUR woke, that Genius of the land! Pleasure, and ease, and sloth, aside he flung,

As burst the awakening Nazarite his band,

When 'gainst his treacherous foes he clenched his dreadful

hand.

XLV.

That mimic Monarch now cast anxious eye

Upon the Satraps that begirt him round, Now doffed his royal robe in act to fly,

And from his brow the diadem unbound.

So oft, so near, the Patriot bugle wound,

From Tarik's walls to Bilboa's mountains blown,

These martial satellites hard labour found,

To guard awhile his substituted throne—

Light recking of his cause, but battling for their own.

XLVI.

From Alpuhara's peak that bugle rung,
And it was echoed from Corunna's wall;
Stately Seville responsive war-shout flung,
Grenada caught it in her Moorish hall;