XLVIII.

   How carols now the lusty muleteer? 
   Of love, romance, devotion is his lay,
   As whilome he was wont the leagues to cheer,
   His quick bells wildly jingling on the way? 
   No! as he speeds, he chants ‘Viva el Rey!’
   And checks his song to execrate Godoy,
   The royal wittol Charles, and curse the day
   When first Spain’s queen beheld the black-eyed boy,
And gore-faced Treason sprung from her adulterate joy.

XLIX.

   On yon long level plain, at distance crowned
   With crags, whereon those Moorish turrets rest,
   Wide scattered hoof-marks dint the wounded ground;
   And, scathed by fire, the greensward’s darkened vest
   Tells that the foe was Andalusia’s guest: 
   Here was the camp, the watch-flame, and the host,
   Here the brave peasant stormed the dragon’s nest;
   Still does he mark it with triumphant boast,
And points to yonder cliffs, which oft were won and lost.

L.

   And whomsoe’er along the path you meet
   Bears in his cap the badge of crimson hue,
   Which tells you whom to shun and whom to greet: 
   Woe to the man that walks in public view
   Without of loyalty this token true: 
   Sharp is the knife, and sudden is the stroke;
   And sorely would the Gallic foemen rue,
   If subtle poniards, wrapt beneath the cloak,
Could blunt the sabre’s edge, or clear the cannon’s smoke.

LI.

   At every turn Morena’s dusky height
   Sustains aloft the battery’s iron load;
   And, far as mortal eye can compass sight,
   The mountain-howitzer, the broken road,
   The bristling palisade, the fosse o’erflowed,
   The stationed bands, the never-vacant watch,
   The magazine in rocky durance stowed,
   The holstered steed beneath the shed of thatch,
The ball-piled pyramid, the ever-blazing match,

LII.

   Portend the deeds to come:  —­but he whose nod
   Has tumbled feebler despots from their sway,
   A moment pauseth ere he lifts the rod;
   A little moment deigneth to delay: 
   Soon will his legions sweep through these the way;
   The West must own the Scourger of the world. 
   Ah, Spain! how sad will be thy reckoning day,
   When soars Gaul’s Vulture, with his wings unfurled,
And thou shalt view thy sons in crowds to Hades hurled.

LIII.

   And must they fall—­the young, the proud, the brave —
   To swell one bloated chief’s unwholesome reign? 
   No step between submission and a grave? 
   The rise of rapine and the fall of Spain? 
   And doth the Power that man adores