Richmond Enquirer

BY LORD BYRON.

[Continued.]

Oh heavens! of which he was the dread and hope, the shield and scourge of nations; whose unharnessed energies on earth
So many a realm had ranked with all it gave
The seven-fold sweep of the seven-fold wave.
He loved the world that hated him: the tear
That dropped upon his infant's dying bed,
He lived again, and died again; and here,
The loudest echo from his desert grave,
Is that which asks thee, England, for the wave
That wafted thee to empire; on whose breast
That wave was cradled, and whose caverns made
The source of all thy wealth, so oft the prey
Of thine ungenerous spoilers, and betrayed
By those who were thy children: yet even these
Stood by thee, when the world was dark with storms,
And all thy little islands were the tomb
Of those who perished in the cause of Rome.
Is it the fever of the heart that asks
How far a single step may lead us? Ask
Of him who saw the vision of the world,
And learned the lesson which experience taught,
That this is not the land of his desire,
And that the grave which covers him is not
His monument alone. In this the fire
That filled his breast consumed him; and the heart
That beat as warmly once, was cold as art
Could make it. But the spirit of the dead,
Who died for freedom, is not dead; the seed
Of that immortal plant, the tree of life,
Which bears the fruit of death, the bread of strife,
Springs from the soil where he was slain, and grows
To shadow distant nations, and enclose
In one wide field their strife and peace; the rose
Which bloomed upon his ruin, and the thorn
Which pierced his heart, still blossom as they bore
The crown of suffering, and the cross of scorn.

Where the red cross sweeps the soft Aegean foam,
Shall Greece, so long and loudly mourned, find home?
When viewless isles shall hold their latest blast,
And Fortuned's crescent on the sky be past,
But she shall soar again, and on the wind
Her song shall wake the nations, till mankind
Forget the chain which bound them, and the rod
Which bruised them; and the voice of freedom, shod
With sandals winged, shall mock the tempest's roar,
And bid the elements be chains no more.

Thus, Freedom! 'tis a name divine to me,
Nor is it aught of earth's or heaven's decree,
Which, like the wind, comes, and like the wave,
Goes, and returns; nor is the soil its grave.
Where once 'twas kindled, it shall bloom again,
And where its martyrs fell, their dust shall gain
A growth more glorious than the last; the seed
Dies not, but sleeps, and wakes to new-born need.

The swarthy Spaniard feels his former glow;
The same high spirit which beat back the Moor
Through eight long ages of alternate gore
Revives—and where? in that avenging clime
Where Spain was once synonymous with crime,
Where Cortes and Pizarro's banner flew,
The infant world redeems her name of "New."
'Tis the old aspiration breathed afresh,
To kindle souls within degraded flesh,
Such as repulsed the Persian from the shore
Where Greece was—No! she still is Greece once more.
One common cause makes myriads of one breast,
Slaves of the East, or Helots of the West:
On Andes' and on Athos' peaks unfurled,
The self-same standard streams o'er either world:
The Athenian wears again Harmodius' sword;
The Chili chief adjures his foreign lord;
The Spartan knows himself once more a Greek;
Young Freedom plumes the crest of each Cacique;
Debating despots, hemmed on either shore,
Shrink vainly from the roused Atlantic's roar.

Through Calpe's strait the rolling tides advance,
Sweep lightly by the half-tamed land of France,
Dash o'er the old Spaniard's cradle, and would fain
Unite Ausonia to the mighty main:
But driven from thence awhile, yet not for aye,
Break o'er the desart, and o'erwhelm the way
To where the waves arise, that not to fall
By tyrant victories, but to rise withal.

Lost, lest, abandoned in their utmost need
By Christians, unto whom they gave their creed,
The desolated lands, the ravaged isle,
The foster'd feud encouraged to beguile,
The aid evaded, and the cold delay,
Prolonged but in the hope to make a prey;
These, these shall tell the tale, and Greece can show
The false friend worse than the infuriate foe.

But this is well: Greeks only should free Greece,
Not the barbarian, with his mask of peace.
How should the Autocrat of all the Russ
Be soft to Turkey, and its tiara's fuss?
The king of serfs, and set the nations free?
Better still serve the haughty Mussulman,
Than swell the Cossaque's proud caravan;
Better still toil for masters, than await,
The slave of slaves, before a Russian gate,-
Numbered by hordes, a human capital,
A live estate, existing but for thrall,
Enlisted by thousands, as a meet reward
For the first Cossack in the Czar's regard.
While their immediate owner never tastes
His sleep, sans dreaming of Siberia's wastes.

Better to wear the fetters than await
And die in the half life of patient state;
And better, ere the poison close the eyes,
To mew among the dead, than view the skies
In that unholy union—lords and slaves.

But not alone within the pearly clime,
Where Freedom still dares to assert her time,
And yet alane, where, plunged in night, a crowd
Of Incas darken to a dubious shroud,
The dawn revives: renowned, romantic Spain
With her thirteen kingdoms, and her twice six chain,
No more the Hondo to Gaul's horde shall bow,
Degraded her fillet by his lictor's brow.
No, no! the Vendee on the Visigoth
Pollute no plain alike disastrous both:
Nor in Peru's proud mountain tear
The weary father's of a thousand years.
That seed now sown, to reap revenge, as oft
The Moor signalled another on his dusty slot.

I sing the pen, not sword; the poet's page,
His date to memory's page, the sage's rage;
The Leg and the slave writ, Dr. —
Jack to the varished frame from whence they sprung,
Pathese are genius in faith, their war is, their sway
Yet left more American than less than these
The stern or feeble sovereign, one or both
By turns, the haughtiness where pride was sloth
The long degenerate noble's trade no'th leia el
Hidalgo, and the peasant less disgraced
But not degraded the experienced realm
The rite proud nave which forgot the helm
The once fair virtues phalanx dis arrayed,
The idle lange these from Toanios itaode
The fo ei a we lth tht fleted onesery shrpe,
Save hers vlo earnrdi with tie natives gorei
The very langange, wlrichLoight vie wih Home's,
Antmce ws kmrwat nstions Ihe their bome's,
Negleed or ftgolicn-sueh wae spin
Bat snch she ty nat, Dor shall Le sgatn.
The se worst (hose hons Juv aders, felf asd feel
The bev Naemntine soul of oli Castile.
I reir ite reader to the fiost altressof P amethegs ie
chy loe, whrn br: in Irlt afone by his nttrrdnubs, aad be-
: ie oiriraiur the Cborue ui din rymphs-,

By. up Rzan , undahntedlaurfior!
The bull of Phalaris renews his roar?
Mionot, chivalrous Hidalgo! not in vain
Revive the ery-" Iago: and cluse Spain!"
Yes, close her with your armed bosons round,
And form the barrier which Napoleoo found-
The extermninating war, the desart plain;
The streets witbout a tonaut, save the slain;
The wlld Sierra with its wilder troop
Of vujrure-plumed Guerillas, on the stoop
For their incessant prey; the desperate wall
Of Saragossa, mighi-st in her fall;
The man nerved t.h spirit, and the maid
Waving her more than Amazonian blade;
The knife of Arragon Toledo's steel;
The famous lance of chivalrous Castile;
The unerriog rille of the Catalan;
The Andalusian courser in the van;
The torch to make a Mo cow of Madrid;
And in each heart the spirit of the Cid:-
Such bave been, suck shall be, such are. Advance,
Aud win-uot Spain, but thine own freedom, France!

[To be continued.]

St. Iago! and close Spain " the old Spanish war-cry.
The Arragonians are peculiarly dextrous in the use of
this weapon, and displayed it particularly in former French
wars.