Walter Scott

“ While kindling nations buckle on their mail,
And Fame, with clarion-blast and wings unfurled,
To Freedom and Revenge awakes an injured World!
p. 161LXIII.
O vain, though anxious, is the glance I cast,
Since Fate has marked futurity her own:
Yet Fate resigns to worth the glorious past,
The deeds recorded, and the laurels won.
Then, though the Vault of Destiny be gone,
King, Prelate, all the phantasms of my brain,
Melted away like mist-wreaths in the sun,
Yet grant for faith, for valour, and for Spain,
One note of pride and fire, a Patriot’s parting strain! ”

“ In which old Albion’s heart and tongue unite,
Whene’er her soul is up, and pulse beats high,
Whether it hail the wine-cup or the fight,
And bid each arm be strong, or bid each heart be light.
LV.
Don Roderick turned him as the shout grew loud—
A varied scene the changeful vision showed,
For, where the ocean mingled with the cloud,
A gallant navy stemmed the billows broad. ”

“ May worthier conquest be thy lot
Than yet thy life has known;
p. 179Conquest, unbought by blood or harm,
That needs nor foreign aid nor arm,
A triumph all thine own.
Such waits thee when thou shalt control
Those passions wild, that stubborn soul,
That marred thy prosperous scene:—
Hear this—from no unmovéd heart,
Which sighs, comparing what THOU ART
With what thou MIGHT’ST HAVE BEEN!
XIX.
Thou, too, whose deeds of fame renewed
Bankrupt a nation’s gratitude,
To thine own noble heart must owe
More than the meed she can bestow. ”

“ And, foremost still where Valour’s sons are met,
First started to his gun each fiery Miquelet.
XLVII.
But unappalled, and burning for the fight,
The Invaders march, of victory secure;
Skilful their force to sever or unite,
And trained alike to vanquish or endure.
Nor skilful less, cheap conquest to ensure,
Discord to breathe, and jealousy to sow,
To quell by boasting, and by bribes to lure;
While nought against them bring the unpractised foe,
Save hearts for Freedom’s cause, and hands for Freedom’s blow. ”

“ Now on the scene Vimeira should be shown,
On Talavera’s fight should Roderick gaze,
And hear Corunna wail her battle won,
And see Busaco’s crest with lightning blaze:—
But shall fond fable mix with heroes’ praise?
Hath Fiction’s stage for Truth’s long triumphs room?
And dare her wild flowers mingle with the bays
That claim a long eternity to bloom
Around the warrior’s crest, and o’er the warrior’s tomb! ”

“ For War a new and dreadful language spoke,
Never by ancient warrior heard or known;
Lightning and smoke her breath, and thunder was her tone.
XXVII.
From the dim landscape rolled the clouds away—
The Christians have regained their heritage;
Before the Cross has waned the Crescent’s ray,
And many a monastery decks the stage,
p. 149And lofty church, and low-browed hermitage.
The land obeys a Hermit and a Knight,—
The Genii those of Spain for many an age;
This clad in sackcloth, that in armour bright,
And that was Valour named, this Bigotry was hight. ”

“ At last King Don Rodrigo, led on by his evil fortune and unlucky destiny, opened the Tower; and some bold attendants whom he had brought with him entered, although agitated with fear. Having proceeded a good way, they fled back to the entrance, terrified with a frightful vision which they had beheld. The King was greatly moved, and ordered many torches, so contrived that the tempest in the cave could not extinguish them, to be lighted. Then the King entered, not without fear, before all the others. He discovered, by degrees, a splendid hall, apparently built in a very sumptuous manner ”

“ Nor blaze yon fires where meets the manly fight;
Beacons of infamy, they light the way
Where cowardice and cruelty unite
To damn with double shame their ignominious flight.
VI.
O triumph for the Fiends of Lust and Wrath!
Ne’er to be told, yet ne’er to be forgot,
What wanton horrors marked their wreckful path!
The peasant butchered in his ruined cot,
The hoary priest even at the altar shot,
Childhood and age given o’er to sword and flame,
Woman to infamy;—no crime forgot,
By which inventive demons might proclaim
Immortal hate to man, and scorn of God’s great name! ”

“ And Field of Waterloo!
p. 182CONCLUSION. Stern tide of human Time! that know’st not rest,
But, sweeping from the cradle to the tomb,
Bear’st ever downward on thy dusky breast
Successive generations to their doom;
While thy capacious stream has equal room
For the gay bark where Pleasure’s steamers sport,
And for the prison-ship of guilt and gloom,
The fisher-skiff, and barge that bears a court,
Still wafting onward all to one dark silent port;—
Stern tide of Time! through what mysterious change
Of hope and fear have our frail barks been driven! ”

“ From cannon-roar and trumpet-bray,
From charging squadrons’ wild hurra,
From the wild clang that marked their way,—
Down to the dying groan,
And the last sob of life’s decay,
When breath was all but flown.
p. 172VIII.
Feast on, stern foe of mortal life,
Feast on!—but think not that a strife,
With such promiscuous carnage rife,
Protracted space may last;
The deadly tug of war at length
Must limits find in human strength,
And cease when these are past. ”

“ The cause, but think on Waterloo!
XXI.
Period of honour as of woes,
What bright careers ’twas thine to close!—
Marked on thy roll of blood what names
To Britain’s memory, and to Fame’s,
Laid there their last immortal claims! ”

“ For yonder rude ungraceful shrine,
And disproportioned spire, are thine,
Immortal Waterloo!
III.
Fear not the heat, though full and high
The sun has scorched the autumn sky,
And scarce a forest straggler now
To shade us spreads a greenwood bough ”

“ Thou givest our lyres a theme, that might engage
Those that could send thy name o’er sea and land,
While sea and land shall last; for Homer’s rage
A theme; a theme for Milton’s mighty hand—
How much unmeet for us, a faint degenerate band!
IV.
Ye mountains stern! within whose rugged breast
The friends of Scottish freedom found repose;
Ye torrents! whose hoarse sounds have soothed their rest,
Returning from the field of vanquished foes ”

“ All is not as it seems—the female train
Know by their bearing to disguise their mood:”
But Conscience here, as if in high disdain,
Sent to the Monarch’s cheek the burning blood—
He stayed his speech abrupt—and up the Prelate stood.
IX.
“O hardened offspring of an iron race!
What of thy crimes, Don Roderick, shall I say?
What alms, or prayers, or penance can efface
Murder’s dark spot, wash treason’s stain away!
p. 143For the foul ravisher how shall I pray,
Who, scarce repentant, makes his crime his boast? ”

“ Nor one campaign—thy martial fame,
Thy empire, dynasty, and name
Have felt the final stroke;
p. 178And now, o’er thy devoted head
The last stern vial’s wrath is shed,
The last dread seal is broke.
XVII.
Since live thou wilt—refuse not now
Before these demagogues to bow,
Late objects of thy scorn and hate,
Who shall thy once imperial fate
Make wordy theme of vain debate.—
Or shall we say, thou stoop’st less low
In seeking refuge from the foe,
Against whose heart, in prosperous life,
Thine hand hath ever held the knife? ”

“ Go, baffled boaster! teach thy haughty mood
To plead at thine imperious master’s throne,
Say, thou hast left his legions in their blood,
Deceived his hopes, and frustrated thine own;
p. 165Say, that thine utmost skill and valour shown,
By British skill and valour were outvied;
Last say, thy conqueror was Wellington!
And if he chafe, be his own fortune tried—
God and our cause to friend, the venture we’ll abide. ”

“ I have presumed to prolong the Vision of the Revolutions of Spain down to the present eventful crisis of the Peninsula, and to divide it, by a supposed change of scene, into, Three Periods. The First of these represents the Invasion of the Moors, the Defeat and Death of Roderick, and closes with the peaceful occupation of the country by the victors. The Second Period embraces the state of the Peninsula when the conquests of the Spaniards and Portuguese in the East and West Indies had raised to the highest pitch the renown of their arms ”

“ The Legend of Don Roderick will be given in the next volume of our “Companion Poets,” for Robert Southey founded upon it a Romantic Tale in Verse, which is one of the best tales of the kind in the English language. Southey’s tale of Roderick himself was written at the same time when Walter Savage Landor was writing a play upon the subject, and Scott was, in the piece here reprinted, making it the starting-point of a vision of the war in the Peninsula. The fatal palace of Don Roderick may have been a fable connected with the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre. ”

“ Where, faithful to his noble vow, his war-cry filled the air,
“Be honoured aye the bravest knight, beloved the fairest fair.”
p. 190They owed the conquest to his arm, and then his Liege-Lord said,
“The heart that has for honour beat by bliss must be repaid.—
My daughter Isabel and thou shall be a wedded pair,
For thou art bravest of the brave, she fairest of the fair.”
And then they bound the holy knot before Saint Mary’s shrine,
That makes a paradise on earth, if hearts and hands combine ”

“ Fast as they land the red-cross ranks unite,
Legions on legions bright’ning all the shores.
Then banners rise, and cannon-signal roars,
Then peals the warlike thunder of the drum,
Thrills the loud fife, the trumpet-flourish pours,
And patriot hopes awake, and doubts are dumb,
For, bold in Freedom’s cause, the bands of Ocean come! ”

“ Where lives the desperate foe that for such onset stayed!
p. 160LX.
Hark! from yon stately ranks what laughter rings,
Mingling wild mirth with war’s stern minstrelsy,
His jest while each blithe comrade round him flings,
And moves to death with military glee:
Boast, Erin, boast them! tameless, frank, and free,
In kindness warm, and fierce in danger known,
Rough Nature’s children, humorous as she:
And He, yon Chieftain—strike the proudest tone
Of thy bold harp, green Isle!—the Hero is thine own. ”

“ Then kindled the dark tyrant in his mood,
And to his brow returned its dauntless gloom;
“And welcome then,” he cried, “be blood for blood,
For treason treachery, for dishonour doom!
Yet will I know whence come they, or by whom.
Show, for thou canst—give forth the fated key,
And guide me, Priest, to that mysterious room,
Where, if aught true in old tradition be,
His nation’s future fates a Spanish King shall see.”
XI.
“Ill-fated Prince! recall the desperate word,
Or pause ere yet the omen thou obey!
Bethink, yon spell-bound portal would afford
Never to former Monarch entrance-way ”

“ Nor with less zeal shall Britain’s peaceful son
Exult the debt of sympathy to pay;
Riches nor poverty the tax shall shun,
Nor prince nor peer, the wealthy nor the gay,
Nor the poor peasant’s mite, nor bard’s more worthless lay. ”

“ Are themes for minstrelsy more high than thine;
Of strange tradition many a mystic trace,
Legend and vision, prophecy and sign;
Where wonders wild of Arabesque combine
With Gothic imagery of darker shade,
Forming a model meet for minstrel line.
Go, seek such theme!”—the Mountain Spirit said.
With filial awe I heard—I heard, and I obeyed.
p. 140THE VISION OF DON RODERICK. I.
Rearing their crests amid the cloudless skies,
And darkly clustering in the pale moonlight,
Toledo’s holy towers and spires arise,
As from a trembling lake of silver white. ”

“ Ne’er sheathed unless with victory!”
XX.
Look forth, once more, with softened heart,
Ere from the field of fame we part;
Triumph and Sorrow border near,
And joy oft melts into a tear.
Alas! what links of love that morn
Has War’s rude hand asunder torn!
For ne’er was field so sternly fought,
And ne’er was conquest dearer bought,
Here piled in common slaughter sleep
Those whom affection long shall weep
Here rests the sire, that ne’er shall strain
His orphans to his heart again;
p. 180The son, whom, on his native shore,
The parent’s voice shall bless no more ”

“ The fable, as translated by Scott from a Spanish History of King Roderick, was this:—
“One mile on the east side of the city of Toledo, among some rocks, was situated an ancient Tower of magnificent structure, though much dilapidated by time, which consumes all: four estadoes (i.e., four times a man’s height) below it, there was a Cave with a very narrow entrance, and a gate cut out of the solid rock, lined with a strong covering of iron, and fastened with many locks ”

“ Thus there is over all this volume a thin haze of battle through which we see only the finer feelings and the nobler hopes of man. The day is to come when war shall be no more, but wars have been and may again be necessary to bring on that day; p. xand it is of such war, not untinged with the light of heaven, that we have passing shadows in this little book.
“The Vision of Don Roderick; a Poem, by Walter Scott, Esq.,” was printed at Edinburgh by James Ballantyne & Co. ”

“ Scott’s poem on the Field of Waterloo was written to assist the Waterloo subscription.
H. M.
p. 133THE VISION OF DON RODERICK. PREFACE.
The following Poem is founded upon a Spanish Tradition, bearing, in general, that Don Roderick, the last Gothic King of Spain, when the invasion of the Moors was depending, had the temerity to descend into an ancient vault, near Toledo, the opening of which had been denounced as fatal to the Spanish Monarchy. ”

“ Such sounds as when, for silvan dance prepared,
Gay Xeres summons forth her vintage band;
p. 151When for the light bolero ready stand
The mozo blithe, with gay muchacha met,
He conscious of his broidered cap and band,
She of her netted locks and light corsette,
Each tiptoe perched to spring, and shake the castanet.
XXXIV.
And well such strains the opening scene became;
For Valour had relaxed his ardent look,
And at a lady’s feet, like lion tame,
Lay stretched, full loath the weight of arms to brook ”