SPANISH PATRIOT’S SONG.
How rings each sparkling Spanish brand,
There’s music in its rattle;
And gay, as for a saraband,
We gird us for the battle.
Follow, follow!
To the glorious revelry,
When the sabres bristle,
And the death-shots whistle.
Of rights for which our swords outspring,
Shall Angoulême bereave us?
We’ve plucked a bird of nobler wing—
The eagle could not brave us.
Follow, follow!
Shake the Spanish blade, and sing—
France shall ne’er enslave us:
Tyrants shall not brave us.
Shall yonder rag, the Bourbon’s flag,
White emblem of his liver,
For Spain the proud be Freedom’s shroud?
Oh, never, never, never.
Follow, follow!
Follow to the fight, and sing—
Liberty for ever:
Ever, ever, ever.
Thrice welcome hero of the hilt,
We laugh to see his standard;
Here let his miscreant blood be spilt
Where braver men’s was squandered.
Follow, follow!
If the laureled tricolor
Durst not over-flaunt us,
Shall yon lily daunt us?
No! ere they quell our valour’s veins,
They’ll upward to their fountains
Turn back the rivers on our plains,
And trample flat our mountains.
Follow, follow!
Shake the Spanish blade, and sing—
France shall ne’er enslave us:
Tyrants shall not brave us.
VERSES
ON
MARIE ANTOINETTE.[85]
Behold where Gallia’s captive queen,
With steady eye and look serene,
In life’s last awful—awful scene,
Slow leaves her sad captivity.
Hark! the shrill horn that rends the sky
Bespeaks thy ready murder nigh,
The long parade of death I spy,
And leave my lone captivity.
Farewell, ye mansions of despair,
Scenes of my sad sequestered care.
The balm of bleeding war is near.
Adieu, my lone captivity.
To purer mansions in the sky,
Fair Hope directs my grief-worn eye,
Where sorrow’s child no more shall sigh
Amid her lone captivity.
Adieu, ye babes whose infant bloom
Beneath oppression’s lawless doom,
Pines in the solitary gloom
Of undeserved captivity.
O Power benign that rul’st on high,
Cast down, cast down a pitying eye;
Shed consolation from the sky,
To soothe their sad captivity.
Now virtue’s sure reward to prove,
I seek empyreal realms above,
To meet my long-departed love;
Adieu my lone captivity.
[85] These lines were published in a leading Glasgow newspaper in 1792.