No More Learning

But these are gone--their faith, their swords, their sway,
Yet left more anti-christian foes than they[ee];
The bigot monarch, and the butcher priest[305],
The Inquisition, with her burning feast,
The Faith's red "Auto," fed with human fuel,
While sate the catholic Moloch, calmly cruel,
Enjoying, with inexorable eye,[ef]
That fiery festival of Agony!
The stern or feeble sovereign, one or both 340
By turns; the haughtiness whose pride was sloth;
The long degenerate noble; the debased
Hidalgo, and the peasant less disgraced,
But more degraded; the unpeopled realm;
The once proud navy which forgot the helm;
The once impervious phalanx disarrayed;
The idle forge that formed Toledo's blade;
The foreign wealth that flowed on every shore,
Save hers who earned it with the native's gore;
The very language which might vie with Rome's, 350
And once was known to nations like their homes,
Neglected or forgotten:--such _was_ Spain;
But such she is not, nor shall be again.
These worst, these _home_ invaders, felt and feel
The new Numantine soul of old Castile[eg],
Up! up again! undaunted Tauridor!
The bull of Phalaris renews his roar[eh];
Mount, chivalrous Hidalgo! not in vain
Revive the cry--"Iago! and close Spain! "[306]
Yes, close her with your armed bosoms round, 360
And form the barrier which Napoleon found,--
The exterminating war, the desert plain,
The streets without a tenant, save the slain;
The wild Sierra, with its wilder troop[ei]
Of vulture-plumed Guerrillas, on the stoop[ej]
For their incessant prey; the desperate wall
Of Saragossa, mightiest in her fall;
The Man nerved to a spirit, and the Maid
Waving her more than Amazonian blade[307];
The knife of Arragon, Toledo's steel; 370
The famous lance of chivalrous Castile[308];
The unerring rifle of the Catalan;
The Andalusian courser in the van;
The torch to make a Moscow of Madrid;
And in each heart the spirit of the Cid:--
Such have been, such shall be, such are. Advance,
And win--not Spain! but thine own freedom, France!


VIII.

But lo! a Congress[309]! What!
that hallowed name
Which freed the Atlantic! May we hope the same
For outworn Europe? With the sound arise, 380
Like Samuel's shade to Saul's monarchic eyes,
The prophets of young Freedom, summoned far
From climes of Washington and Bolivar;
Henry, the forest-born Demosthenes,
Whose thunder shook the Philip of the seas[310];
And stoic Franklin's energetic shade,
Robed in the lightnings which his hand allayed;
And Washington, the tyrant-tamer, wake,
To bid us blush for these old chains, or break.
But _who_ compose this Senate of the few 390
That should redeem the many? _Who_ renew
This consecrated name, till now assigned
To councils held to benefit mankind?
Who now assemble at the holy call?
The blest Alliance, which says three are all!
An earthly Trinity! which wears the shape
Of Heaven's, as man is mimicked by the ape.
A pious Unity! in purpose one--
To melt three fools to a Napoleon[ek].
Why, Egypt's Gods were rational to these; 400
Their dogs and oxen knew their own degrees,
And, quiet in their kennel or their shed,
Cared little, so that they were duly fed;
But these, more hungry, must have something more--
The power to bark and bite, to toss and gore.
Ah, how much happier were good AEsop's frogs
Than we! for ours are animated logs,
With ponderous malice swaying to and fro,
And crushing nations with a stupid blow;
All dully anxious to leave little work 410
Unto the revolutionary stork.


IX.

Thrice blest Verona!