The strength and pride of Austria, this way turn'd | To this poor hamlet, were distain’d with blood,
His single thought and undivided power,
Retreating hither the great General came ;
And proud Massena, when the boastful chief
Of plundered Lisbon dreamt, here found himself
Stopp'd suddenly in his presumptuous course.
From Ericeyra on the western sea,
By Mafra's princely convent, and the heights
Of Montichique, and Bucellas famed
For generous vines, the formidable works
Extending, rested on the guarded shores
Of Tagus, that rich river who received
Into his ample and rejoicing port
The harvests and the wealth of distant lands,
Secure, insulting with the glad display
The robber's greedy sight. Five months the foe
Beheld these lines, made inexpugnable
By perfect skill, and patriotic feelings here
With discipline conjoin'd, courageous hands,
True spirits, and one comprehensive mind
All overseeing and pervading all.
Five months, tormenting still his heart with hope,
He saw his projects frustrated; the power
Of the blaspheming tyrant whom he served
Fail in the proof; his thousands disappear,
In silent and inglorious war consumed;
Till hence retreating, madden'd with despite,
Here did the self-styled Son of Victory leave,
Never to be redeem'd, that vaunted name.
FOUR months Massena had his quarters here,
When by those lines deterr'd where Wellington
Defied the power of France, but loath to leave
Rich Lisbon yet unsack'd, he kept his ground,
Till from impending famine, and the force
Array'd in front, and that consuming war
Which still the faithful nation, day and night,
And at all hours, was waging on his rear,
He saw no safety, save in swift retreat.
Then of his purpose frustrated, this child
Of Hell - so fitlier than of Victory call'd-
What time Massena, driven from Portugal
By national virtue in endurance proved,
And England's faithful aid, against the land
Not long delivered, desperately made
His last fierce effort here. That day, bestreak'd
With slaughter Coa and Agueda ran,
So deeply had the open veins of war
Purpled their mountain feeders. Strong in means,
With rest, and stores, and numbers reënforced,
Came the ferocious enemy, and ween'd
Beneath their formidable cavalry
To trample down resistance. But there fought
Against them here, with Britons side by side,
The children of regenerate Portugal,
And their own crimes, and all-beholding Heaven.
Beaten, and hopeless thenceforth of success,
The inhuman Marshal, never to be named
By Lusitanian lips without a curse
Of clinging infamy, withdrew and left
These Fountains famous for his overthrow.
THOUGH the four quarters of the world have seen
The British valor proved triumphantly
Upon the French, in many a field far-famed,
Yet may the noble Island in her rolls
Of glory write Barrosa's name.
Not by the issue of deliberate plans
Consulted well, was the fierce conflict won,
Nor by the leader's eye intuitive,
Nor force of either arm of war, nor art
Of skill'd artillerist, nor the discipline
Of troops to absolute obedience train'd;
But by the spring and impulse of the heart,
Brought fairly to the trial, when all else
Seem'd, like a wrestler's garment, thrown aside;
By individual courage and the sense
More to enhance their praise, the day was fought
Against all circumstance; a painful march,
Through twenty hours of night and day prolong'd,
Forespent the British troops; and hope delay'd
Had left their spirits pall'd. But when the word
Was given to turn, and charge, and win the
heights,
The welcome order came to them, like rain
Upon a traveller in the thirsty sands.
Rejoicing, up the ascent, and in the front
Of danger, they with steady step advanced,
And with the insupportable bayonet
In England born; but leaving friends beloved,
And all allurements of that happy land,
His ardent spirit to the field of war
Impell'd him. Fair was his career.
The perils of that memorable day,
When through the iron shower and fiery storm
Of death, the dauntless host of Britain made
Their landing at Aboukir; then not less
Illustrated, than when great Nelson's hand,
As if insulted Heaven, with its own wrath,
Had arm'd him, smote the miscreant Frenchmen's
fleet,
Drove down the foe. The vanquished Victor saw And with its wreck wide-floating many a league, And thought of Talavera, and deplored
His eagle lost. But England saw, well-pleased,
Her old ascendency that day sustained;
And Scotland, shouting over all her hills,
Among her worthies rank'd another Graham.
FOR A MONUMENT AT ALBUHERA.
Strew'd the rejoicing shores. What then his youth Held forth of promise, amply was confirmed When Wellesley, upon Talavera's plain,
On the mock monarch won his coronet :
There, when the trophies of the field were reap'd,
Was he for gallant bearing eminent
When all did bravely. But his valor's orb
Shone brightest at its setting. On the field
Of Albuhera he the fusileers
Led to regain the heights, and promised them
A glorious day; a glorious day was given;
The heights were gained, the victory was achieved,
SEVEN thousand men lay bleeding on these And Myers received from death his deathless
When Beresford in strenuous conflict strove Against a foe whom all the accidents
Of battle favored, and who knew full well To seize all offers that occasion gave.
Here to Valverde was he borne, and here
His faithful men, amid this olive grove,
The olive emblem here of endless peace, Laid him to rest. Spaniard or Portuguese,
Wounded or dead, seven thousand here were In your good cause the British soldier fell;
And on the plain around a myriad more,
Spaniard, and Briton, and true Portuguese,
Alike approved that day; and in the cause
Of France, with her flagitious sons compelled,
Pole and Italian, German, Hollander,
Men of all climes and countries, hither brought,
Doing and suffering for the work of war.
This point, by her superior cavalry,
France from the Spaniard won, the elements
Aiding her powerful efforts; here awhile
She seemed to rule the conflict; and from hence
The British and the Lusitanian arm
Dislodged with irresistible assault
The enemy, even when he deem'd the day
Was written for his own. But not for Soult,
But not for France was that day in the rolls
Of war to be inscribed by Victory's hand,
Not for the inhuman chief, and cause unjust;
She wrote for after-times, in blood, the names
Of Spain and England, Blake and Beresford.
Tread reverently upon his honor'd grave.
STEEP is the soldier's path; nor are the heights
Of glory to be won without long toil
And arduous efforts of enduring hope,
Save when Death takes the aspirant by the hand,
And, cutting short the work of years, at once
Lifts him to that conspicuous eminence.
Such fate was mine. - The standard of the Buffs
I bore at Albuhera, on that day
When, covered by a shower, and fatally
For friends misdeem'd, the Polish lancers fell
Upon our rear. Surrounding me, they claimed
My precious charge.-"Not but with life!" I
And life was given for immortality.
The flag which to my heart I held, when wet
With that heart's blood, was soon victoriously
Regain'd on that great day. In former times,
Marlborough beheld it borne at Ramilies;
TO THE MEMORY OF SIR WILLIAM For Brunswick and for liberty it waved
SPANIARD or Portuguese! tread reverently Upon a soldier's grave; no common heart Lies mingled with the clod beneath thy feet. To honors and to ample wealth was Myers
Triumphant at Culloden; and hath seen
The lilies on the Caribbean shores
Abased before it. Then, too, in the front
Of battle did it flap exultingly,
When Douro, with its wide stream interposed,
Saved not the French invaders from attack,
Discomfiture, and ignominious rout.
My name is Thomas: undisgraced have I
Transmitted it. He who in days to come
May bear the honor'd banner to the field,
Will think of Albuhera, and of me.
Drew his descent, but upon English ground
An English mother bore him. Dauphiny
Beheld the blossom of his opening years;
For hoping in that genial clime to save
A child of feebler frame, his parents there
Awhile their sojourn fix'd: and thus it chanced
That in that generous season, when the heart
Yet from the world is pure and undefiled,
Napoleon Bonaparté was his friend.
The adventurous Corsican, like Henry, then
Young, and a stranger in the land of France,
Their frequent and their favor'd guest became,
FOR THE WALLS OF CIUDAD RODRIGO. Finding a cheerful welcome at all hours,
HERE Craufurd fell, victorious, in the breach,
Leading his countrymen in that assault
Kindness, esteem, and in the English youth
Quick sympathy of apprehensive mind
And lofty thought heroic. On the way
Which won from haughty France these rescued Of life they parted, not to meet again.
And here entomb'd, far from his native land
And kindred dust, his honor'd relics rest.
Well was he versed in war, in the Orient train'd
Beneath Cornwallis; then, for many a year,
Following through arduous and ill-fated fields
The Austrian banners; on the sea-like shores
Of Plata next, still by malignant stars
Pursued; and in that miserable retreat,
For which Coruña witness'd on her hills
Each follow'd war, but, oh! how differently
Did the two spirits, which till now had grown
Like two fair plants, it seem'd, of kindred seed,
Develop in that awful element!
For never had benignant nature shower'd
More bounteously than on Mackinnon's head
Her choicest gifts. Form, features, intellect,
Were such as might at once command and win
All hearts. In all relationships approved,
Son, brother, husband, father, friend, his life
The pledge of vengeance given. At length he Was beautiful; and when in tented fields,
Long woo'd and well-deserved, the brighter face
Of Fortune, upon Coa's banks vouchsafed,
Before Almeida, when Massena found
The fourfold vantage of his numbers foil'd,
Before the Briton, and the Portugal,
There vindicating first his old renown,
And Craufurd's mind that day presiding there.
Again was her auspicious countenance
Upon Busaco's holy heights reveal'd;
And when by Torres Vedras, Wellington,
Wisely secure, defied the boastful French,
With all their power; and when Onoro's springs
Beheld that execrable enemy
Again chastised beneath the avenging arm.
Too early here his honorable course
He closed, and won his noble sepulchre.
Where should the soldier rest so worthily
As where he fell? Be thou his monument,
O City of Rodrigo, yea, be thou,
To latest time, his trophy and his tomb!
Sultans, or Pharaohs of the elder world,
Lie not in Mosque or Pyramid enshrined
Thus gloriously, nor in so proud a grave.
TO THE MEMORY OF MAJOR-GENERAL
MACKINNON.
SON of an old and honorable house,
Henry Mackinnon from the Hebrides
Such as the soldier should be, in the sight
Of God and man, was he. Poor praise it were
To speak his worth evinced upon the banks
Of Douro, Talavera's trophied plain,
Busaco's summit, and what other days,
Many and glorious all, illustrated
His bright career. Worthier of him to say
That in the midst of camps his manly breast
Retain'd its youthful virtue; that he walk'd
Through blood and evil uncontaminate,
And that the stern necessity of war
But nurtured with its painful discipline
Thoughtful compassion in that gentle soul,
And feelings such as man should cherish still
For all of woman born. He met his death
When at Rodrigo on the breach he stood
Triumphant; to a soldier's wish it came
Instant, and in the hour of victory.
Mothers and maids of Portugal, oh bring
Your garlands here, and strew his grave with
And lead the children to his monument,
Gray-headed sires, for it is holy ground!
For tenderness and valor in his heart,
As in your own Nunalures, had made
Their habitation; for a dearer life
Never in battle hath been offered up,
Since in like cause, and in unhappy day,
By Zutphen's walls the peerless Sydney fell.
'Tis said that Bonaparté, when he heard
How thus among the multitude, whose blood
Cries out to Heaven upon his guilty head,
His early friend had fallen, was touch'd with grief.
If aught it may avail him, be that thought,
That brief recurrence of humanity
In his hard heart, remember'd in his hour.
Might in its wisest prayer have ask'd of Heaven;
An intellect that, choosing for itself
The better part, went forth into the fields
FOR THE AFFAIR AT ARROYO MOLI- Of knowledge, and with never-sated thirst
He who may chronicle Spain's arduous strife
Against the Intruder, hath to speak of fields
Profuselier fed with blood, and victories
Borne wider on the wings of glad report;
Drank of the living springs; a judgment calm
And clear; a heart affectionate; a soul
Within whose quiet sphere no vanities
Or low desires had place. Nor were the seeds
Of excellence thus largely given, and left
To struggle with impediment of clime
Yet shall this town, which from the mill-stream takes Austere, or niggard soil; all circumstance
Its humble name, be storied as the spot
Where the vain Frenchman, insolent too long
Of power and of success, first saw the strength
Of England in prompt enterprise essayed,
And felt his fortunes ebb, from that day forth
Swept back upon the refluent tide of war.
Girard lay here, who late from Caceres,
Far as his active cavalry could scour,
Had pillaged and oppress'd the country round;
The Spaniard and the Portuguese he scorn'd,
And deem'd the British soldiers all too slow
To seize occasion, unalert in war,
Of happy fortune was to him vouchsafed;
His
way of life was as through garden-walks
Wherein no thorns are seen, save such as grow,
Types of our human state, with fruits and flowers.
In all things favored thus auspiciously,
But in his father most. An intercourse
So beautiful no former record shows
In such relationship displayed, where through
Familiar friendship's perfect confidence,
The father's ever-watchful tenderness
Meets ever in the son's entire respect
Its due return devout, and playful love
Mingles with every thing, and sheds o'er all
A sunshine of its own. Should we then say
The parents purchased at too dear a cost
This deep delight, the deepest, purest joy [saw
Which Heaven hath here assign'd us, when they
Their child of hope, just in the May of life,
Beneath a slow and cankering malady,
With irremediable decay consumed,
And therefore brave in vain. In such belief
Secure at night he laid him down to sleep,
Nor dreamt that these disparaged enemies
With drum and trumpet should in martial charge
Sound his reveille. All day their march severe
They held through wind and drenching rain; all
The autumnal tempest unabating raged,
While in their comfortless and open camp
They cheer'd themselves with patient hope: the Sink to the untimely grave? Oh, think not thus!
Was their ally, and moving in the mist,
When morning open'd, on the astonish'd foe
They burst. Soon routed horse and foot, the
French,
On all sides scattering, fled, on every side
Beset, and every where pursued, with loss
Of half their numbers captured, their whole stores,
And all their gathered plunder. 'Twas a day
Of surest omen, such as fill'd with joy
True English hearts. No happier peals have e'er
Been roll'd abroad from town and village tower
Than gladden'd then with their exultant sound
Salopian vales; and flowing cups were brimm'd
All round the Wrekin to Sir Rowland's name.
WRITTEN IN AN UNPUBLISHED VOL-
UME OF LETTERS AND MISCELLA-
NEOUS PAPERS, BY BARRÉ CHARLES
ROBERTS.
NoT often hath the cold, insensate earth
Closed over such fair hopes, as when the grave
Received young Barré's perishable part;
Nor death destroyed so sweet a dream of life.
Nature, who sometimes lavisheth her gifts
With fatal bounty, had conferred on him
Even such endowments as parental love
Nor deem that such long anguish, and the grief
Which in the inmost soul doth strike its roots
There to abide through time, can overweigh
The blessings which have been, and yet shall be '
Think not that He in whom we live, doth mock
Our dearest aspirations! Think not love,
Genius, and virtue should inhere alone
In mere mortality, and Earth put out
The sparks which are of Heaven! We are not left
In darkness, nor devoid of hope. The Light
Of Faith hath risen to us: the vanquish'd Grave
To us the great consolatory truth
Proclaim'd that He who wounds will heal; and
Death
Opening the gates of Immortality,
The spirits whom it hath dissevered here,
In everlasting union reunite.
TIME and the world, whose magnitude and weight
Bear on us in this Now, and hold us here
To earth enthrall'd,- what are they in the Past?
And in the prospect of the immortal Soul
How poor a speck! Not here her resting-place,
Her portion is not here; and happiest they
Who, gathering early all that Earth can give,
Shake off its mortal coil, and speed for Heaven.
Such fate had he whose relics moulder here.
Few were his years, but yet enough to teach
Love, duty, generous feelings, high desires,
Faith, hope, devotion: and what more could length
Of days have brought him? What, but vanity,
Joys frailer even than health or human life;
Temptation, sin and sorrow, both too sure,
Evils that wound, and cares that fret the heart.
Repine not, therefore, ye who love the dead.
SOME there will be to whom, as here they read,
While yet these lines are from the chisel sharp,
The name of Clement Francis, will recall
His countenance benign; and some who knew
What stores of knowledge and what humble
thoughts,
What wise desires, what cheerful piety,
In happy union form'd the character
Which faithfully impress'd his aspect meek.
And others too there are, who in their hearts
Will bear the memory of his worth enshrined,
For tender and for reverential thoughts,
When grief hath had its course, a life-long theme.
A little while, and these, who to the truth
Of this poor tributary strain could bear
Their witness, will themselves have past away,
And this cold marble monument present
Words which can then within no living mind
Create the ideal form they once evoked;
This, then, the sole memorial of the dead.
So be it. Only that which was of earth
Hath perish'd; only that which was infirm,
Mortal, corruptible, and brought with it
The seed connate of death. A place in Time
Is given us, only that we may prepare
Our portion for Eternity: the Soul
Possesseth there what treasures for itself,
Wise to salvation, it laid up in Heaven.
O Man, take thou this lesson from the Grave!
There too all true affections shall revive,
To fade no more; all losses be restored,
All griefs be heal'd, all holy hopes fulfill'd.
Through wilds impervious else, an easy path,
Along the shore of rivers and of lakes,
In line continuous, whence the waters flow
Dividing east and west. Thus had they held
For untold centuries their perpetual course
Unprofited, till in the Georgian age
This mighty work was plann'd, which should unite
The lakes, control the innavigable streams,
And through the bowels of the land deduce
A way, where vessels which must else have braved
The formidable Cape, and have essayed
The perils of the Hyperborean Sea,
Might from the Baltic to the Atlantic deep
Pass and repass at will. So when the storm
Careers abroad, may they securely here,
Through birchen groves, green fields, and pastoral
Pursue their voyage home. Humanity
May boast this proud expenditure, begun
By Britain in a time of arduous war;
Through all the efforts and emergencies
Of that long strife continued, and achieved
After her triumph, even at the time
When national burdens bearing on the state
Were felt with heaviest pressure. Such expense
Is best economy. In growing wealth,
Comfort, and spreading industry, behold
The fruits immediate! And, in days to come,
Fitly shall this great British work be named
With whatsoe'er of most magnificence
For public use, Rome in her plenitude
Of power effected, or all-glorious Greece,
Or Egypt, mother-land of all the arts.
THOU who hast reach'd this level where the glede,
Wheeling between the mountains in mild air,
Eastward or westward, as his gyre inclines,
Descries the German or the Atlantic Sea,
Pause here; and, as thou seest the ship pursue
Her easy way serene, call thou to mind
By what exertions of victorious art
The way was open'd. Fourteen times upheaved,
The vessel hath ascended, since she changed
The salt sea water for the highland lymph;
As oft in imperceptible descent
Must, step by step, be lower'd, before she woo
The ocean breeze again. Thou hast beheld
INSCRIPTIONS FOR THE CALEDO- What basins, most capacious of their kind,
ATHWART the island here, from sea to sea,
Enclose her, while the obedient element
Lifts or depones its burden. Thou hast seen
The torrent, hurrying from its native hills,
Pass underneath the broad canal inhumed,
Then issue harmless thence; the rivulet,
Admitted by its intake peaceably,
Forthwith by gentle overfall discharged:
And haply too thou hast observed the herds
Frequent their vaulted path, unconscious they
Between these mountain barriers, the Great Glen That the wide waters on the long, low arch
Of Scotland offers to the traveller,
Above them lie sustained. What other works
|