VII.

But not alone within the hoariest clime Where Freedom dates her birth with that of Time, And not alone where, plunged in night, a crowd Of Incas darken to a dubious cloud[eb], The dawn revives: renowned, romantic Spain Holds back the invader from her soil again. Not now the Roman tribe nor Punic horde[ec] 320 Demands her fields as lists to prove the sword; Not now the Vandal or the Visigoth Pollute the plains, alike abhorring both[ed]; Nor old Pelayo[303] on his mountain rears The warlike fathers of a thousand years. That seed is sown and reaped, as oft the Moor Sighs to remember on his dusky shore. Long in the peasant's song or poet's page Has dwelt the memory of Abencerrage; The Zegri[304], and the captive victors, flung 330 Back to the barbarous realm from whence they sprung. 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!