Alas! where now the bands who wont to pour
Their strong deliverance on th' Egyptian shore?
Wing, wing your course, a prostrate world to save,
Triumphant squadrons of Trafalgar's wave.
"And thou, blest star of Europe's darkest hour,
Whose words were wisdom, and whose counsels
power,

Whom earth applauded through her peopled shores!
(Alas! whom earth too early lost deplores ;-)
Young without follies, without rashness bold,
And greatly poor amidst a nation's gold!
In every veering gale of faction true,
Untarnished Chatham's genuine child, adieu!
Unlike our common suns, whose gradual ray
Expands from twilight to intenser day,

Thy blaze broke forth at once in full meridian sway,
O, proved in danger! not the fiercest flame
Of Discord's rage thy constant soul could tame;
Not when, far-striding o'er thy palsied land,
Gigantic Treason took his bolder stand;

Not when wild Zeal, by murderous Faction led,
On Wicklow's hills, her grass-green banner spread;
Or those stern conquerors of the restless wave
Defied the native soil they wont to save.-
Undaunted patriot! in that dreadful hour,
When pride and genius own a sterner power;
When the dimmed eyeball, and the struggling
breath,

And pain, and terror, mark advancing death;-
Still in that breast thy country held her throne,
Thy toil, thy fear, thy prayer were hers alone,
Thy last faint effort hers, and hers thy parting

groan.

"Yes, from those lips while fainting nations drew
Hope ever strong, and courage ever new ;-
Yet, yet, I deemed, by that supporting hand
Propped in her fall might Freedom's ruin stand;
And purged by fire, and stronger from the storm,
Degraded Justice rear her reverend form.
Now, hope, adieu!-adieu the generous care
To shield the weak, and tame the proud in war!
The golden chain of realms, when equal awe
Poised the strong balance of impartial law;
When rival states as federate sisters shone,
Alike, yet various, and though many, one;
And, bright and numerous as the spangled sky,
Beamed each fair star of Europe's galaxy-
All, all are gone, and after-time shall trace
One boundless rule, one undistinguished race;
Twilight of worth, where nought remains to move
The patriot's ardour, or the subject's love.

Behold, e'en now, while every manly lore
And ev'ry muse forsakes my yielding shore;
Faint, vapid fruits of slavery's sickly clime,
Each tinsel art succeeds, and harlot rhyme !
To gild the vase, to bid the purple spread.
In sightly foldings o'er the Grecian bed,
Their mimic guard where sculptured gryphons keep,
And Memphian idols watch o'er beauty's sleep;

To rouse the slumbering sparks of faint desire
With the base tinkling of the Teian lyre;
While youth's enervate glance and gloating age
Hang o'er the mazy waltz, or pageant stage;
Each wayward wish of sickly taste to please,
The nightly revel and the noontide ease-
These, Europe, are thy toils, thy trophies these!

So, when wide-wasting hail, or whelming rain,
Have strewed the bearded hope of golden grain,
From the wet furrow, struggling to the skies,
The tall, rank weeds in barren splendour rise;
And strong, and towering o'er the mildewed ear,
Uncomely flowers and baneful herbs appear;
The swain's rich toils to useless poppies yield,
And Famine stalks along the purple field.

"And thou, the poet's theme, the patriot's
prayer!

Where, France, thy hopes, thy gilded promise
where ;

When o'er Montpelier's vines, and Jura's snows,
All goodly bright, young Freedom's planet rose?
What boots it now, (to our destruction brave,)
How strong thine arm in war? a valiant slave
What boots it now that wide thine eagles sail,
Fanned by the flattering breath of conquest's gale?
What, that, high-piled within yon ample dome,
The blood-bought treasures rest of Greece and
Rome?

Scourge of the highest, bolt in vengeance hurled
By Heaven's dread justice on a shrinking world!
Go, vanquished victor, bend thy proud helm down
Before thy sullen tyrant's steely crown.

For him in Afric's sands, and Poland's snows,
Reared by thy toil the shadowy laurel grows;
And rank in German fields the harvest springs
Of pageant councils and obsequious kings.
Such purple slaves, of glittering fetters vain,
Linked the wide circuit of the Latian chain;
And slaves like these shall every tyrant find,
To gild oppression, and debase mankind.

"Oh! live there yet whose hardy souls and high
Peace bought with shame, and tranquil bonds defy?
Who, driven from every shore, and lords in vain
Of the wide prison of the lonely main,
Cling to their country's rights with freeborn zeal,
More strong from every stroke, and patient of the
steel?

Guiltless of chains, to them has Heaven consigned
Th' entrusted cause of Europe and mankind!
Or hope we yet in Sweden's martial snows
That Freedom's weary foot may find repose?
No;-from yon hermit shade, yon cypress dell,
Where faintly peals the distant matin-bell;
Where bigot kings and tyrant priests had shed
Their sleepy venom o'er his dreadful head;
He wakes, th' avenger-hark! the hills around,
Untamed Austria bids her clarion sound;
And many an ancient rock, and fleecy plain,
And many a valiant heart returns the strain:

plored,

And cursed the deathful point of Ebro's sword.
Now, nerved with hope, their night of slavery past,
Each heart beats high in freedom's buxom blast;
Lo! Conquest calls, and beck'ning from afar,
Uplifts his laurel wreath, and waves them on to

war.

Heard by that shore, where Calpe's armed steep | And weeping France her captive king(17) de-
Flings its long shadow o'er th' Herculean deep,
And Lucian glades, whose hoary poplars wave
In soft, sad murmurs over Inez' grave.(8)
They bless the call who dared the first withstand(9)
The Moslem wasters of their bleeding land,
When firm in faith, and red with slaughtered foes,
Thy spear-encircled crown, Asturia(10) rose,
Nor these alone; as loud the war-notes swell,
La Mancha's shepherd quits his cork-built cell;
Alhama's strength is there, and those who till
(A hardy race!) Morena's scorched hill;
And in rude arms through wide Gallicia's reign,
The swarthy vintage pours her vigorous train.
"Saw ye those tribes? not theirs the plumed
boast,

The sightly trappings of a marshalled host;
No weeping nations curse their deadly skill,
Expert in danger, and inured to kill:

-Wo to th' usurper then, who dares defy
The sturdy wrath of rustic loyalty!
Wo to the hireling bands, foredoomed to feel
How strong in labour's horny hand the steel!(18)
Behold e'en now, beneath yon Boetic skies
Another Pavia bids her trophies rise ;-
E'en now in base disguise and friendly night
Their robber-monarch speeds his secret flight;
And with new zeal the fiery Lusians rear,
(Roused by their neighbour's worth,) the long-ne-
glected spear.

But theirs the kindling eye, the strenuous arm;
Theirs the dark cheek, with patriot ardour warm,
Unblanched by sluggard ease, or slavish fear,
And proud and pure the blood that mantles there.
Theirs from the birth is toil;-o'er granite steep,
And heathy wild, to guard the wandering sheep;
To urge the labouring mule, or bend the spear
'Gainst the night-prowling wolf, or felon bear;
The bull's hoarse rage in dreadful sport to mock,
And meet with single sword his bellowing shock.
Each martial chant they know, each manly rhyme," Spirit," I cried, "dread teacher, yet declare,
Rude, ancient lays of Spain's heroic time.(11)
Of him in Xere's carnage fearless found,(12)

"So when stern winter chills the April showers,
And iron frost forbids the timely flowers;
Oh! deem not thou the vigorous herb below
Is crushed and dead beneath the incumbent snow;
Such tardy suns shall wealthier harvests bring
Than all the early smiles of flattering spring."

Sweet as the martial trumpet's silver swell,
On my charmed sense th' unearthly accents fell;
Me wonder held, and joy chastised by fear,
As one who wished, yet hardly hoped to hear.

In that good fight, shall Albion's arm be there?
Can Albion, brave, and wise, and proud, refrain

(His glittering brows with hostile spear-heads To hail a kindred soul, and link her fate with

bound ;)

Spain?

Of that chaste king whose hardy mountain Too long her sons, estranged from war and toil,

train(13)

O'erthrew the knightly race of Charlemagne ;
And chiefest him who reared his banner tall(14)
(Illustrious exile!) o'er Valencia's wall;
Ungraced by kings, whose Moorish title rose
The toil-earned homage of his wondering foes.
"Yes; every mould'ring tower and haunted
flood,

And the wild murmurs of the waving wood;
Each sandy waste, and orange-scented dell,
And red Buraba's field, and Lugo,(15) tell,

Have loathed the safety of the sea-girt isle;
And chid the waves which pent their fire within,
As the stalled war-horse woos the battle's din.
Oh, by this throbbing heart, this patriot glow,
Which, well I feel, each English breast shall
know;

Say, shall my country, roused from deadly sleep,
Crowd with her hardy sons yon western steep;
And shall once more the star of France grow
pale,

And dim its beams in Roncesvalles' vale?(19) How their brave fathers fought, how thick the in- Or shall foul sloth and timid doubt conspire

To mar our zeal, and waste our manly fire?"

Still as I gazed, his lowering features spread, High rose his form, and darkness veiled his head; Fast from his eyes the ruddy lightning broke,

To heaven he reared his arm, and thus he spoke : 'Wo, trebly wo to their slow zeal who bore Delusive comfort to Iberia's shore!

Who in mid conquest, vaunting, yet dismayed,
Now gave and now withdrew their laggard aid;
Who, when each bosom glowed, each heart beat

high,

Chilled the pure stream of England's energy,

Wondrous in all his ways, unseen, unknown,(24) | Prince Lewis Ferdinand of Prussia, who fell Who treads the wine-press of the world alone; gloriously with almost the whole of his regiment.

Note 6, page 9, col. 2.

By her whose charms, &c.

The Queen of Prussia; beautiful, unfortunate, and unsubdued by the severest reverses.

Note 7, page 9, col. 2.

The covering cherub, &c.

"Thou art the anointed cherub that coverest."Addressed to Tyre, by Ezekiel, xxviii. 14.

Note 8, page 11, col. 1.

Inez' grave.

cording to the Spanish romances, and the graver authority of Mariana, the whole force of Charlemagne and the twelve peers of France at Roncesvalles. Bertrand del Carpio, the son of Alonzo's sister, Ximena, was his general; and according to Don Quixote (no incompetent authority on such a subject) put the celebrated Ordandó to the same death as Hercules inflicted on Antæus. His reason was, that the nephew of Charlemagne was enchanted, and like Achilles only vulnerable in the heel, to guard which he wore always iron shoes. See Mariana, l. vii. c. xi.; Don Quixote,

Inez de Castro, the beloved mistress of the Infant book i. c. l.; and the notes on Mr. Southey's Don Pedro, son of Alphonso IV. King of Portugal, Chronicle of the Cid; a work replete with powerand stabbed by the orders, and, according to Ca-ful description, and knowledge of ancient history moens, in the presence of that monarch. A foun- and manners, and which adds a new wreath to tain near Coimbra, the scene of their loves and one, who "nullum fere scribendi genus intactum misfortunes, is still pointed out by tradition, and reliquit, nullum quod tetigit non ornavit."

called Amores.-De la Clede, Hist. de Portugalle, 4to. tom. i. page 282-7:-and Camoens' Lusiad, canto 3, stanza cxxxv.

Note 9, page 11, col 1.

-Who dared the first withstand

The Moslem waters of their bleeding land. The Asturians, who under Pelagius first opposed the career of Mahometan success.

Note 10, page 11, col. 1.

Thy spear-encircled crown, Asturia.

"La couronne de fer de Dom Pélage,-cette couronne si simple mais si glorieuse, dont chaque fleuron este formé du fer d'une lance arrachée aux Chevaliers Maures que se heros avoit fait tomber sous ses coups."- Roman de Dom Ursino le Navarin, Tressan, tom. ix. 52.

Note 11, page 11, col. 1.

Rude ancient lays of Spain's heroic time.

See the two elegant specimens given by Bishop Percy in his Reliques; and the more accurate translations of Mr. Rodd in his Civil Wars of Grenada.

Note 12, page 11, col. 1.

Him in Xeres' carnage fearless found. The Gothic monarchy in Spain was overthrown by the Mussulmans at the battle of Xeres, the Christian army being defeated with dreadful slaughter, and the death of their King, the unhappy and licentious Roderigo. Pelagius assembled the small band of those fugitives who despised submission, amid the mountains of the Asturias, under the name of King of Oviedo.

Note 13, page, 11, col. 1.

Of that chaste king, &c.

Note 14, page 11, col. 1.

Chiefest him who reared his banner tall, &c.

Rodrigo Diaz, of Bivar, surnamed the Cid by the Moors.-See Mr. Southey's Chronicle

Note 15, page 11, col. 1.

Red Buraba's field, and Lugo

Buraba and Lugo were renowned scenes of Spanish victories over the Moors, in the reigns of Bermudo, or, as his name is Latinized, Veremundus, and Alonso the Chaste. Of Lugo the British have since obtained a melancholy knowledge.

Note 16, page 11, col. 1.

Tlascala.

An extensive district of Mexico; its inhabitants were the first Indians who submitted to the Spaniards under Cortez.

Note 17, page 11, col. 2.
Her captive king.

Francis I. taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia.

Note 18, page 11, col. 2.

Yon Baotic skies.

Andalusia forms a part of the ancient Hispania Boetica.

Note 18, page 11, col. 2.

Roncesvalles' vale.

See the former note on Alonso the Chaste.

Note 20, page 12, col. 1.

The poised balance trembling still with fate.
This line is imitated from one of Mr. Roscoe's

Alonso, surnamed the Chaste, with ample rea-spirited verses on the commencement of the French son, if we believe his historians; who defeated, ac-revolution.

"I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of rivalled by Zaragoza. The author is happy to the people there was none with me, for I will tread refer his readers to the interesting narrative of his them in mine anger, and trample them in my friend Mr. Vaughan. fury."-Isaiah lxiii. 3.

Hymns

WRITTEN FOR THE WEEKLY CHURCH SERVICE

OF THE YEAR.

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