Her horns, these purveyors shall become the prey, And ye on Moorish not on Christian flesh
Wearying your beaks, shall clog your scaly feet With foreign gore. Soon will ye learn to know, Followers and harbingers of blood, the flag Of Leon where it bids you to your feast! Terror and flight shall with that flag go forth, And Havoc and the Dogs of War and Death. Thou Covadonga with the tainted stream Of Deva, and this now rejoicing vale, Soon its primitial triumphs wilt behold! Nor shall the glories of the noon be less Than such miraculous promise of the dawn: Witness Calvijo, where the dreadful cry Of Santiago, then first heard, o'erpowered The Akbar, and that holier name blasphemed By misbelieving lips! Simancas, thou Be witness! And do ye your record bear, Tolosan mountains, where the Almohade Beheld his myriads scattered and destroyed, Like locusts swept before the stormy North! Thou too, Salado, on that later day
When Africa received her final foil,
And thy swoln stream incarnadined, rolled back The invaders to the deep,.. there shall they toss Till on their native Mauritanian shore
The waves shall cast their bones to whiten there.
WHEN all had been performed, the royal Goth Looked up toward the chamber in the tower,
Where, gazing on the multitude below, Alone Rusilla stood. He met her eye,
For it was singling him amid the crowd; Obeying then the hand which beckoned him, He went with heart prepared, nor shrinking now, But arm'd with self-approving thoughts that hour. Entering in tremulous haste, he closed the door, And turned to clasp her knees; but lo, she spread Her arms, and catching him in close embrace, Fell on his neck, and cried, My Son, my Son!... Ere long, controlling that first agony, With effort of strong will, backward she bent, And gazing on his head now shorn and grey, And on his furrowed countenance, exclaimed,
Still, still, my Roderick! the same noble mind! The same heroic heart! Still, still, my Son!... Changed, . . yet not wholly fall'n,.. not wholly lost, He cried,..not wholly in the sight of Heaven Unworthy, O my Mother, nor in thine!
She locked her arms again around his neck, Saying, Lord let me now depart in peace! And bowed her head again, and silently Gave way to tears.
When that first force was past, And passion in exhaustment found relief, . . I knew thee, said Rusilla, when the dog Rose from my feet, and licked his master's hand. All flashed upon me then; the instinctive sense That goes unerringly where reason fails, ..
The voice, the eye,..amother's thoughts are quick;.. Miraculous as it seemed,.. Siverian's tale, ..
Each strengthening each, and all confirming all, Revealed thee, O my Son! but I restrained
My heart, and yielded to thy holier will
The thoughts which rose to tempt a soul not yet Weaned wholly from the world.
Roderick. That I might see thee yet again Such as thou wert, she answered; not alone To Heaven and me restored, but to thyself,.. Thy Crown,.. thy Country,.. all within thy reach; Heaven so disposing all things, that the means Which wrought the ill, might work the remedy. Methought I saw thee once again the hope, .. The strength,.. the pride of Spain! The miracle Which I beheld made all things possible.
I know the inconstant people, how their mind, With every breath of good or ill report, Fluctuates, like summer corn before the breeze:
Quick in their hatred, quicker in their love, Generous and hasty, soon would they redress All wrongs of former obloquy... I thought Of happiness restored,.. the broken heart Healed,.. and Count Julian, for his daughter's sake, Turning in thy behalf against the Moors
His powerful sword:.. all possibilities
That could be found or fancied, built a dream Before me; such as easiest might illude
A lofty spirit trained in palaces,
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