Iberia Won 24

Iberia Won 24

IBERIA WON.

 

Canto IV.

 

 

I.

 

There is one earthly Love, and one alone,

Which free from penalty all, all may share;

A passion pure, sublime, of loftiest tone,

In whose proud service Man may blameless dare

All that the heart inspires which scorns to wear

A chain--’tis Love of Country! This the power

That levels all distinctions--’midst despair

Upraising prostrate nations to a tower,--

The flame that kindles men to Gods in peril’s hour!

 

 

II.

 

Who’s noble? He that bears a scutcheon? He

Whose lineage can be traced to mailéd Knights,

That with the Bastard came from Normandy?

He that in lacqueys and in hounds delights?

Whose fathers jousted in Plantagenet fights?--

Have not all battled with the roaring Flood?

Noble is he who honours, Man, thy rights,

Sustains thy dignity, is truthful, good;

Kings have I known more base than bondsman e’er hath stood!

 

 

III.

 

Hath not the humblest hands, eyes, feeling, thought

Like your’s, strength, weakness, tears and laughter’s dower?

The bruted serf hath Poland’s serfdom wrought;

For when to strike for Freedom comes the hour,

He strikes his lords! At home let Tyrants cower

In field, or factory, mountain, mine, or glen.

Where’er the weak are crushed by ruffian power,

Where’er the poor are slighted, where the pen

Can reach Oppression, there shall pierce the rights of Men!

 

 

IV.

 

And Labour shall have Justice. Peasant arms,

The implements of peace or war that wield,

Shall not, of Fame defrauded and its charms,

Of Right be too defrauded and the shield

Of Liberty! In ploughed or battle field,

His hire shall be the guerdon, not the mite

Flung by proud scorn! His wrongs shall yet be healed.

Who Badajoz, Ciudád, Sebastian’s height

Could scale shall have his share of glory and of right!

 

 

V.

 

What were thy mural crowns, bellipotent Rome,

Thy gold-beat turrets for the daring head,

Thy vallar circlets given for mounted dome

And rampart, wreaths obsidional that shed

Their grass-green light than gold more coveted?

What thy triumphal bays for glory’s brow,

Thy oval myrtle where no Roman bled,

Thy civic garland of the oaken bough?

Their sound one City filled--the World beholds us now!

 

 

VI.

 

Not Spain, not Spain doth tamely bear the yoke,

Her sturdy peasants the Guerrillas swell,

And, see, where gather ’neath Guerníca’s oak

Her passionate sons to list the tuneful shell

Which ’neath its shade a maiden strikes so well.

One hand alone the loud guitarra wakes

So potently: ’tis Blanca gives the spell!

Through every pause the Basque pandéro breaks,

And Blanca thus i’ th’ crowd each nerve and fibre shakes:--

 

 

VII.

 

“Biscayan bondsmen!--for ’tis bonds ye wear,

While stalks the proud invader o’er your soil;

Methinks, ’tis said Cantabrian blood ye share,

Methinks, ’tis said that vain was Roman toil

To bend your stubborn hearts within its coil!

But this, forsooth, was thousand years ago.

Were your’s Cantabrian blood, ’twould surely boil,

To see Cantabria’s glory laid so low.

Why yes, the Frenchman, sure, excels the Roman foe!

 

 

VIII.

 

“Biscayan bondsmen! patience is your cure

For all their slights and scoffs--by Heaven’s behest.

Lives there a bustard on your hills to endure

A foreign vulture in its cuckoo nest?

Perchance your nests are warmer--ye know best!

Not bustards dwell upon each mountain peak,

But royal eagles none may dare molest,

For piercing are their talons, sharp their beak--

’Tis Biscay’s men alone are pliable and meek!

 

 

IX.

 

“’Tis said and sung--but History doubtless lies--

That great Fernando here and Isabel,

Beneath this aged oak, these mountain skies,

Swore to maintain Biscaya’s rights full well.

’Tis said that those who lived where now ye dwell--

I did not say your fathers--with their swords

Won and preserved their fuéros from the fell

Assaults of native tyrants--idle words!

Ye know the fuéros melt i’ th’ breath of foreign lords.

 

 

X.

 

“’Tis said Biscaya’s lawgivers of old

Beneath this venerable Druid shade,

Ancestral lord, and priest, and peasant bold,

Met in due time and firmest fuéros made.

’Tis said--but chronicling’s a lying trade--

That hearts of oak beneath this oak did meet

To guard the old Basque freedom. Undecayed

The oak is still, and hark what voices sweet,

As from Dodona’s, bid the Basque his deeds repeat!

 

 

XI.

 

“’Tis said this Spanish soil once men did rear,

Whom Rome and Carthage trembled to oppose.

Sagunthus, and Numance, and Bilbil here

Terrific bulwarks in their pathway rose,

Ere yielding crushed by self-destroying blows!

’Tis said Viriatus the Guerrilla storm

Poured from the mountains first ’gainst Roman foes,

And Sylla and Pompey smote Sertorius warm,

Till treachery triumphed. Gaul’s complacent slaves _ye_ form!

 

 

XII.

 

“’Tis said Bernardo with resistless lance

At Roncesvalles Roland’s prowess crushed,

When Carlomain for this same haughty France

Claimed Leon’s crown, and down Pyrene rushed.

There Roland’s blood with many a Peer’s, too, gushed!

’Tis said that more than this e’en Spaniards did,

When bold Ruy Diaz on Bavieca, flushed

With victory, led the Oca hills amid

Five Moorish Kings who long paid tribute to the Cid!

 

 

XIII.

 

“I see the warrior-boy on gallant steed

Spur to the battle proudly o’er the plain,

His eye resolved to make the Moslem bleed,--

His bounding bosom scorns to wear a chain!

His lance in rest, his armour without stain,

He panteth for the mêlée hand to hand;

Enough his guerdon that he strikes for Spain.

Wo to the hostile ranks that dare to stand

Before that fiery Chief’s dread lance and lightning brand!

 

 

XIV.

 

“Such Spaniards were--in days long past away--

Who drove the Invader forth, nor asked for aid.