Some Poems

XXXVI

As that sea-cloud, in size like human hand,
When first from Carmel by the Tishbite seen,
Came slowly overshadowing Israel’s land,
A while, perchance, bedecked with colours sheen,
While yet the sunbeams on its skirts had been,
Limning with purple and with gold its shroud,
Till darker folds obscured the blue serene
And blotted heaven with one broad sable cloud,
Then sheeted rain burst down, and whirlwinds howled aloud: -

XXXVII

Even so, upon that peaceful scene was poured,
Like gathering clouds, full many a foreign band,
And HE, their Leader, wore in sheath his sword,
And offered peaceful front and open hand,
Veiling the perjured treachery he planned,
By friendship’s zeal and honour’s specious guise,
Until he won the passes of the land;
Then burst were honour’s oath and friendship’s ties!
He clutched his vulture grasp, and called fair Spain his prize.

XXXVIII

An iron crown his anxious forehead bore;
And well such diadem his heart became,
Who ne’er his purpose for remorse gave o’er,
Or checked his course for piety or shame;
Who, trained a soldier, deemed a soldier’s fame
Might flourish in the wreath of battles won,
Though neither truth nor honour decked his name;
Who, placed by fortune on a Monarch’s throne,
Recked not of Monarch’s faith, or Mercy’s kingly tone.

XXXIX

From a rude isle his ruder lineage came,
The spark, that, from a suburb-hovel’s hearth
Ascending, wraps some capital in flame,
Hath not a meaner or more sordid birth.
And for the soul that bade him waste the earth -
The sable land-flood from some swamp obscure
That poisons the glad husband-field with dearth,
And by destruction bids its fame endure,
Hath not a source more sullen, stagnant, and impure.

XL

Before that Leader strode a shadowy Form;
Her limbs like mist, her torch like meteor showed,
With which she beckoned him through fight and storm,
And all he crushed that crossed his desperate road,
Nor thought, nor feared, nor looked on what he trode.
Realms could not glut his pride, blood could not slake,
So oft as e’er she shook her torch abroad -
It was AMBITION bade her terrors wake,
Nor deigned she, as of yore, a milder form to take.

XLI

No longer now she spurned at mean revenge,
Or stayed her hand for conquered foeman’s moan;
As when, the fates of aged Rome to change,
By Cæsar’s side she crossed the Rubicon.
Nor joyed she to bestow the spoils she won,
As when the banded powers of Greece were tasked
To war beneath the Youth of Macedon:
No seemly veil her modern minion asked,
He saw her hideous face, and loved the fiend unmasked.

XLII

That Prelate marked his march – On banners blazed
With battles won in many a distant land,
On eagle-standards and on arms he gazed;
“And hopest thou, then,” he said, “thy power shall stand?
Oh! thou hast builded on the shifting sand,
And thou hast tempered it with slaughter’s flood;
And know, fell scourge in the Almighty’s hand,
Gore-moistened trees shall perish in the bud,
And by a bloody death shall die the Man of Blood!”

XLIII

The ruthless Leader beckoned from his train
A wan fraternal Shade, and bade him kneel,
And paled his temples with the crown of Spain,
While trumpets rang, and heralds cried “Castile!”
Not that he loved him – No! – In no man’s weal,
Scarce in his own, e’er joyed that sullen heart;
Yet round that throne he bade his warriors wheel,
That the poor puppet might perform his part,
And be a sceptred slave, at his stern beck to start.

XLIV

But on the Natives of that Land misused,