Iberia Won 29

Iberia Won 29

XVII.

 

Within the trenches many an eager eye

With fevered gaze doth watch the sinking tide,

Whose ebb will give to conquer or to die--

Oh, cruel use of Man’s unerring guide,

Which Nature’s hand hath stretched so fair and wide,

The throbbing pulse of Ocean! Father Time

Seems heavily on leaden wing to ride,

And hours seem days, and hour-like minutes climb

I’ the anxious nervous pause of that suspense sublime.

 

 

XVIII.

 

And words are few and brief. It seemeth waste

Of breath in idle converse to dilate,

When hundreds momently to Judgment haste;--

And sight usurps all functions! Mouths of Fate

Prophetic line the wall, where batteries wait

The onset, slowly turned the breach to flank,

And bayonets bristle ’neath the parapet,

_For them_ prepared! The heart’s of interest blank,

That hath not waited thus in Battle’s foremost rank.

 

 

XIX.

 

The hour is come! The signal, “On, men, on!”

Sends from the trenches hundreds tow’rds the town.

Like greyhounds straining on the slips, they are gone,

While grape and shell in showers come pouring down,

To where the grisly bastion-breach doth frown.

Away, away, o’er slippery tidal shore,

O’er seaweed dank and shell-incrusted stone.

None stoops to pick, though strewn the seabeach o’er,

Save those whom other shells make stoop to rise no more!

 

 

XX.

 

Loud, louder still the batteries poured their fire,

And softer rippled wavelets o’er the strand.

’Twixt Man and Nature, oh, what contrast dire!

The clattering death-tubes scarce a zephyr fanned.

Is Ocean awed to silence by the land,

Or is’t amazed at human hate and rage?

The eye ferocious, and the red right hand

That writes its name renowned in History’s page?

Nature, I ween, is shocked, and beasts themselves more sage!

 

 

XXI.

 

Ah better far on Albion’s soil to tread

The verdurous meadow or the breezy hill,

For peaceful toil or sportful wandering spread,

In pastoral loveliness unrivalled still;

Where blend sweet lane and slope with murmuring rill,

Hedgerow, and vocal grove, and village green,

And gardens fair and homesteads bright which fill

True household gods and beauty,--there, I ween,

Alone ’neath tempering clouds in full perfection seen.

 

 

XXII.

 

Ah, better ’twere beneath this radiant sky,

This sparkling sunlight shimmering o’er the plain,

To give to tender thoughts the melting eye,

And yield the heart to Love’s delicious pain.

The genius bland, the balmy air of Spain,

More fit the lute than dire artillery’s roar.

Ah, better far to sing such sweet refrain

Some dark-eyed Andaluzan’s bower before,

As thus might ease the shaft that quivers in the core:--

 

 

La Sebillana

 

 

1.

 

My Enriqueta’s eyelids

Are as soft as dews that fall

From the moonlit jasper fountain

In Alhambra’s silent hall.

No star that, through its casement,

At the midnight hour you spy,

Hath the light,

Streaming bright,

Of my Enriqueta’s eye!

 

 

2.

 

It hath the Southern darkness,

And the Southern depth as well;

Touches, too, of Moorish wildness

In its rapid glances dwell.

’Tis broad-cut like an almond,

With a long and silken lash;

When her mind

Is to be kind,

How she veils its lightning flash!

 

 

3.

 

Her step is light and buoyant,

As if borne upon the air;

Short and danceful are her movements,

Like a pheasant’s young and fair.

Stately-paced _piafadora_,[C]

Waving gently to and fro,

Do I hear

No music near,

While so gracefully you go?

 

 

4.

 

Her head she carries finely,

And her bearing’s wondrous proud,

And her voice, like silver lute strings,

Thrills the heart--but never loud!

’Tis a voice the brain to wilder;

Oh, I glory to be near,

As she strolls,

Witching souls,

By the blue Guadalquivír!

 

 

XXIII.

 

The hour is come! The stream of valour doomed

Pours through the openings of the huge seawall.

Death reaps even now his harvest. Deep entombed

I’ the earth full twoscore men like raindrops fall,

By premature mine that else had swallowed all!

Unchecked the rush of that tremendous crowd,

And far beyond the Hope Forlorn appal

The bristling ramparts, as with daring proud

They fly to the horrid breach,--tho’ Hell should yawn, uncowed!

 

 

XXIV.

 

Who leads the van? Green Erin’s son, Mac Iar,

Fleet as the roebuck on his native hills;

Dauntless as Brian’s sword, through showering fire,

He boundeth o’er the seabeach rocks and rills,

Impetuous. How his manly figure fills

The eyes of thousands! How his dancing plume

Of streaming snow enchains his followers’ wills,

Doubling their speed, while copes i’ the front with doom

That gallant form that seems defiant of the tomb!

 

 

XXV.

 

Alcides’ arm--the eye that Python slew,

The limbs and shoulder of the Delian God!

Now ’neath the breach that form triumphant view,

Now see it stretched supine upon the sod!

Ay, instant struck, as strikes Heaven’s fire the rod

That points from loftiest pinnacle. No dirge

Shall wail that fall, no cypress o’er it nod.

’Tis War’s repast! Their course the stormers urge,

And o’er the Hero’s corse go sweeping like a surge!

 

 

XXVI.

 

And Morton now, and Nial by his side,

In peril’s front the impetuous stormers lead;

Nor less their beauty nor their valour’s pride

Than his whose doom was first that day to bleed.

In generous rivalry, like mettled steed,

They strain to win the breach, their grisly goal.

Their flashing swords, athirst for Glory’s meed,

Their tossing plumes, the advancing crowd controul,--

And daring like to their’s inspires each warrior soul.

 

 

XXVII.

 

On, on they rush, their line with dead bestrewing,

While Mont ’Orgullo and Santelmo pour

Both shot and shell, the living brave renewing

The venturous rank where heroes fall before.

Up, up the breach they climb, swift mounting o’er

Bastion and parapet in fragments hurled--

Titanic ruins strewn along the shore--

While nearer now the culverin smoke is curled,

And deadly grapeshot paves the path to a new world.