Nor unatoned, where Freedom’s foes prevail,
Remained their savage waste. With blade and brand
By day the Invaders ravaged hill and dale,
But, with the darkness, the Guerilla band
Came like night’s tempest, and avenged the land,
And claimed for blood the retribution due,
Probed the hard heart, and lopped the murd’rous hand;
And Dawn, when o’er the scene her beams she threw
’Midst ruins they had made, the spoilers’ corpses knew.
L.
What minstrel verse may sing, or tongue may tell,
Amid the visioned strife from sea to sea,
How oft the Patriot banners rose or fell,
Still honoured in defeat as victory!
For that sad pageant of events to be
Showed every form of fight by field and flood;
Slaughter and Ruin, shouting forth their glee,
Beheld, while riding on the tempest scud,
The waters choked with slain, the earth bedrenched with blood!
Then Zaragoza—blighted be the tongue
That names thy name without the honour due!
For never hath the harp of Minstrel rung,
Of faith so felly proved, so firmly true!
Mine, sap, and bomb thy shattered ruins knew,
Each art of war’s extremity had room,
Twice from thy half-sacked streets the foe withdrew,
And when at length stern fate decreed thy doom,
They won not Zaragoza, but her children’s bloody tomb.
LII.
Yet raise thy head, sad city! Though in chains,
Enthralled thou canst not be! Arise, and claim
Reverence from every heart where Freedom reigns,
For what thou worshippest!—thy sainted dame,
She of the Column, honoured be her name
By all, whate’er their creed, who honour love!
And like the sacred relics of the flame,
That gave some martyr to the blessed above,
To every loyal heart may thy sad embers prove!
LIII.
Nor thine alone such wreck. Gerona fair!
Faithful to death thy heroes shall be sung,
Manning the towers, while o’er their heads the air
Swart as the smoke from raging furnace hung;
Now thicker darkening where the mine was sprung,
Now briefly lightened by the cannon’s flare,
Now arched with fire-sparks as the bomb was flung,
And reddening now with conflagration’s glare,
While by the fatal light the foes for storm prepare.