AND is it among rude untutored Dales,
There, and there only, that the heart is true?
And, rising to repel or to subdue,

Is it by rocks and woods that man prevails?
Ah no! though Nature's dread protection fails,
There is a bulwark in the soul. This knew
Iberian Burghers when the sword they drew
In Zaragoza, naked to the gales

O'ER THE WIDE EARTH, ON MOUNTAIN AND ON PLAIN.

The truth was felt

Of fiercely-breathing war.
By Palafox, and many a brave compeer,
Like him of noble birth and noble mind;
By ladies, meek-eyed women without fear;
And wanderers of the street, to whom is dealt
The bread which without industry they find.

221

Palafox-y-Melzi, Don Joseph (1780-1847), immortalized by his heroic defence of Saragossa in 1808-9. He was of an old Arragon family, and entered the Spanish army at an early age. In 1808, when twenty-nine years of age, he was appointed governor of Saragossa, by the people of the town, who were menaced by the French armies. He defended it with a few men, against immense odds, and compelled the French to abandon the siege, after sixty-one days attack, and the loss of thousands. Saragossa, however, was too important to lose, and Marshals Mortier and Moncy renewed the siege with a large army. Palafox (twice defeated outside) retired to the fortress as before, where the men, women, and children fought in defence, till the city was almost a heap of ruins. Typhus attacked the garrison within, while the French army assailed it from without. Palafox, smitten by the fever, had to give up the command to another, who signed a capitulation next day. He was sent a prisoner to Vincennes, and kept there for nearly five years, till the restoration of Ferdinand VII., when he was sent back on a secret mission to Madrid. In 1814 he was appointed Captain-General of Arragon; but for about thirty years-till his death in 1847-he took no part in public affairs.-ED.

O'ER the wide earth, on mountain and on plain,
Dwells in the affections and the soul of man

A Godhead, like the universal PAN ;

But more exalted, with a brighter train:
And shall his bounty be dispensed in vain,
Showered equally on city and on field,
And neither hope nor steadfast promise yield
In these usurping times of fear and pain?

Such doom' awaits us. Nay, forbid it, Heaven!
We know the arduous strife, the eternal laws
To which the triumph of all good is given,
High sacrifice, and labour without pause,

Even to the death:-else wherefore should the eye
Of man converse with immortality?

HAIL, Zaragoza! If with unwet eye
We can approach, thy sorrow to behold,
Yet is the heart not pitiless nor cold;
Such spectacle demands not tear or sigh.
These desolate remains are trophies high
Of more than martial courage in the breast
Of peaceful civic virtue: they attest
Thy matchless worth to all posterity.
Blood flowed before thy sight without remorse :
Disease consumed thy vitals; War upheaved
The ground beneath thee with volcanic force:
Dread trials! yet encountered and sustained
Till not a wreck of help or hope remained,
And law was from necessity received.*

See note to sonnet (p. 221). Saragossa surrendered February 20, 1809, after a heroic defence, which may recal the sieges of Numantia or Saguntum. Every street, almost every house, had been hotly contested; the monks, and even the women, had taken a conspicuous share in the defence; more than 40,000 bodies of both sexes and every age testified to the obstinate courage of the besieged. (See Dyer's History of Modern Europe, Vol. IV. p. 496.)-ED.

* The beginning is imitated from an Italian sonnet. 1815.

SAY, what is Honour ?-Tis the finest sense.
Of justice which the human mind can frame,
Intent each lurking frailty to disclaim,

And guard the way of life from all offence
Suffered or done. When lawless violence
Invades a Realm, so pressed that in the scale1
Of perilous war her weightiest armies fail,
Honour is hopeful elevation,-whence
Glory, and triumph. Yet with politic skill
Endangered States may yield to terms unjust;
Stoop their proud heads, but not unto the dust-
A Foe's most favourite purpose to fulfil :
Happy occasions oft by self-mistrust
Are forfeited; but infamy doth kill.

BRAVE Schill! by death delivered, take thy flight
From Prussia's timid region. Go and rest
With heroes, 'mid the islands of the Blest,
Or in the fields of empyrean light.

2

A meteor wert thou crossing a dark night:
Yet shall thy name, conspicuous and sublime,
Stand in the spacious firmament of time,
Fixed as a star: such glory is thy right.

Alas! it may not be: for earthly fame

Is Fortune's frail dependant; yet there lives
A Judge who, as man claims by merit, gives;
To whose all-pondering mind a noble aim,
Faithfully kept, is as a noble deed;

In whose pure sight all virtue doth succeed.

Ferdinand von Schill, a distinguished Prussian officer, born 1773, entered the army 1789, was seriously wounded in the battle of Jena, but took the field again at the head of a free corps. Indignant at the subjection of his country to Bonaparte, he resolved to make a great effort for the liberation of Germany, collected a small body of troops, and commenced operations on the Elbe; but after a few successes was overpowered and slain at Stralsund, in May 1809.-Ed.

CALL not the royal Swede unfortunate,
Who never did to Fortune bend the knee;
Who slighted fear; rejected steadfastly
Temptation; and whose kingly name and state
Have perished by his choice, and not his fate!
Hence lives He, to his inner self endeared;

And hence, wherever virtue is revered,

He sits a more exalted Potentate,

Throned in the hearts of men. Should Heaven ordain

That this great Servant of a righteous cause

Must still have sad or vexing thoughts to endure,

Yet may a sympathizing spirit pause,

Admonished by these truths, and quench all pain
In thankful joy and gratulation pure.

The royal Swede, "who never did to fortune bend the knee," was Gustavus IV. He abdicated in 1809, and came to London at the close of the year 1810. See note to another sonnet on the same King of Sweden, beginning

The Voice of song from distant lands shall call.

(Vol. II. p. 294.)