Iberia Won 55

Iberia Won 55

XXXVII.

 

But from the Hermitage terrific rocks

Come bounding fierce, of such enormous size,

That seemeth each of those succeeding shocks

Enough to sink a column ne’er to rise!

Not Valour’s self can with unmovéd eyes

That horrid task of Sisyphus survey.

Appalled and unadvancing the allies

With distant fire along the mountain way

The foe in vain assail, withheld by dire dismay.

 

 

XXXVIII.

 

But saw great Arthur now with Lyncean ken,

Though Rhune was there impregnable, a side

Which might a pathway open to his men,

And give their arms of Gaul to tame the pride.

O’er Sarre the ascent arose more fair and wide,

And strongly there concentred the brigades

Assail the rocks that long approach defied.

The rocks are won--the Gaulish valour fades,--

And won a height intrenched their camp at Sarre which shades.

 

 

XXXIX.

 

From Echallar on Barbe our men descend,

And win the fort with British shouts of power.

The camp of Sarre’s outflanked, Clausel doth end

Resistance there, retiring in that hour.

He dreads his rear cut off, resigns his tower

Of strength--the greater Rhune, and takes his stand

Upon the lesser height. But soon the flower

Of Britain’s rifles crown the mountain grand,

And from the Hermitage the lower heights command.

 

 

XL.

 

And while the garrison was swift retiring

From that strong ground, their path young Nial crost

With six poor rifles not a shot e’en firing,

When forth the gallant stept, and from his post,

“Lay down your arms!” he shouted to the host--

Three hundred men! His mandate they obeyed,

Scared by that voice of power, and deeming lost

All means of ’scape. Resistance none they made,

And Nial at their head regained his bold brigade.

 

 

XLI.

 

And when the eye of England’s glorious Chief,

Great Arthur, fell with favour on the youth,

And praise he spoke in stirring words though brief,

Such as with thought impregnate all and truth

It was his wont to utter, Envy’s tooth

Of calumny to silence proudly shaming,

Beat Nial’s heart, and soldiers all uncouth

Felt tears well nigh to flow, the stripling naming

So loved by all, their hearts with gentlest Valour taming.

 

 

XLII.

 

And Nial thought upon his Isabel,

For all his proudest feelings centred there,

Prophetic that the maid he loved so well

The praise would echo sweetly, smiling fair;

And while his brow a loftier plume doth wear

Through glory for that day’s achievements done,

With her he thought the joyous fruits to share,

With her to feel the glow of Victory’s sun,

For still for her and Spain was Freedom’s battle won.

 

 

XLIII.

 

Now our’s the Bidasóa, our’s the Rhune,

And Bayonnette, and Commissari too.

Oh France! thy fields shall now be entered soon,

For at our feet the fair Nivelle doth flow.

Saint Jean de Luz, thy vesper-lights below

O’erhang the Gascon gulf. Invasion’s tread

Hath passed thy border, yet no sound of wo

Shall rend thy sky, thy homes shall mourn no dead,

For Justice now humane with Britain’s arms is wed.

 

 

XLIV.

 

The wail of San Sebastian reached thy heart,

Great Arthur, and provoked the stern command,

Which none may dare dispute. The conqueror’s part

Shall Mercy temper in the Gaulish land.

Now on Pyrene’s farthest summit stand

Thy legions bolder than e’er Cæsar’s arm

To victory marshalled. Every crag was manned

By arméd foes, yet quelled is War’s alarm

Through Spain, such Valour’s power, such godlike Freedom’s charm!

 

 

XLV.

 

But mourn the brave who nobly fighting fell

Upon Pyrene’s mountains, mourn the brave

Whose breasts were pierced, where strove those bosoms well,

And, ah, too oft have found not e’en a grave!

For o’er those pathless solitudes the wave

Of War hath rolled, and ’mid those regions vast

Full many a wounded man, with none to save,

Hath sighed his aidless death-groan to the blast,

And vultures strip the bones which Heaven will clothe at last!

 

 

 

 

HISTORICAL AND ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES TO CANTO X.

 

 

The Passage of the Bidasoa, with the military movements which

immediately ensued, completing that operation and establishing the

left wing of our army on the soil of France, occupies the entire of

this Canto. The events with which it deals will be found very fully

and satisfactorily recorded in Napier’s _History_, book xxii. chap.

4. The thunder-storm which rolled over the district on the eventful

morning chosen by Wellington for this remarkable strategical

evolution is by no means exaggerated in the text. It is in the

Pyrenees that thunder is witnessed to perfection. The exploits

which in this Canto I attribute to Nial have all their foundation

in the genuine history of the campaign.

 

General Alten had the command of the Light Division, and the Rifle

corps, to which I suppose Nial to have belonged, was under the

immediate guidance of the gallant Colborne.

 

Captain Batty’s description of the Passage of the Bidasoa, with

which operation, the first in which he shared, he commences

his _Campaign of the Western Pyrenees_, is very animated, and

illustrated by spirited etchings of the event of the Passage and of

Pyrenean scenery. His view of Fuenterrabia and of the mountain of

Jaizquibel is particularly deserving of praise. It is impossible

to describe the effect upon my feelings of going over this heroic

mountain ground from Andaye to the Louis Quatorze, from Bildox and

Mandale to the Bayonnette and Commissari, and from thence to the

greater Rhune.

 

The allusion in the commencement of this Canto to the Vale of

Baigorri refers to the rescue of an enormous amount of forage by

Mina’s Guerrilla from the French, including 2,000 sheep.

 

The pastoral habits, to which large districts in Spain are still

addicted, cause the people to occupy five times the extent of land,

which with agricultural pursuits would be sufficient for their

maintenance. The pastoral institution of the _mesta_ encourages the

feeding of sheep, and the enormous migratory flocks of Estremadura

and elsewhere move every year some hundreds of miles, devastating

the tracts over which they pass. “By the increase of pasture,”

says Sir Thomas More, “your sheep, that are naturally mild, may

be said now to devour men, and unpeople, not only villages, but

towns.”--_Utopia_, book i. The invaders found their account in this

primitive system, and their entire subsistence was derived from

ready plunder. The French in their Peninsular prowlings resembled

in one other respect, as well as in their Republican and Heathen

names, the Lacedæmonians, who held a grand hunt annually, in which

the agricultural peasantry were pursued and destroyed like wild

beasts--a fact which, though Müller questions the testimony that

supports it, is as well authenticated as any other incident in the

Dorian history. The argument, taken from the improbable inhumanity

of the fact, is refuted by the modern practices of the French in

Spain and Portugal, and in their Algerian Razzias to this hour.

They differ from the Lacedæmonians, it would seem, in this, that

the Spartans perpetrated the enormity only once a year, while the

French perform it weekly. I have seen with my own eyes the ravages

which they have left in the Peninsula, the glorious monuments of

antiquity which they have disfigured and defaced, the desecration

which they have brought upon shrine and tomb. And, much as I may

be disposed to forget and forgive, it is not easy to suppress

one’s choler amidst the mutilated glories of Burgos, Alcobaça, and

Batalha.

 

 

II. “The Fuéntarábian waters poured between.”

 

When Charlemagne with all his peerage fell

By Fontarabia.

Milt. _Par. Lost_, i. 586.

 

In this name, I have departed slightly from the Spanish

orthography, a corruption of the Latin _Fons rapidus_, and made

“_errabia_” “_arabia;_” in deference to the example of Milton, and

for the sake of the excellent musical effect in connection with one

of the finest names in romance.

 

 

V. “When first beheld by Vimieiro’s wall.”

 

Vimieiro is merely a village about 35 miles N.N.W. of Lisbon, where

the accommodations are so miserable that it was with difficulty I

could procure a _calda de gallinha_ (boiled fowl served up with

its broth) the only thing in the shape of comfortable nourishment

which is to be had in the country parts of Portugal. The walls

referred to are therefore, as may be supposed, not turret-crowned

like Berecynthian Cybele. For the allusion to the effect produced

on the French by the sight of our Highlanders first met by them in

this battle, see Southey, _Hist. Penins. War_, and Campbell, _Ode

for the Highland Society_.

 

 

VI. “Where Bidasoa’s stream impetuous runs.”

 

The Passage of the Bidasoa took place on the 7th October, a month

after the fall of San Sebastian. The morning was heavy and louring,

and the day’s work was ushered in by a thunder-storm (already

referred to) which caused the early British operations to be

happily unperceived.

 

 

VII. “To lynx-eyed vigilance their soundings yield.”

 

“By the help of Spanish fishermen he had secretly discovered three

fords, practicable at low water, between the bridge of Behobia and

the sea.” Napier, _Hist. War in the Penins._ book xxii. chap. 4.