Page:Modern poets and poetry of Spain.djvu/174

128 But, ah! what fiery column broke

There to the wind, and mid dense smoke

Then to the abyss down threw

Heads, bodies, arms and woods confused,

And hands yet with the swords unloosed

They for their country drew!

Struck by the sound groans Trafalgar;

Olympus shakes as in the war

The savage Titans waged,

When through the waves their forges roll'd

Ætna, Vesuvius, and untold

Volcanoes burning raged.

Trembling the monsters of the deep

Against each other beating, sweep

Off to the Herculean Strait;

In horror heaven is clouded o'er,

Lashing the seas the north winds roar,

In shame infuriate.

Of its own rage, the foaming brine,

Is born the tempest, fearful sign

Of more disastrous night;

Mars at the view restrains his cry; Bark Scylla and Charybdis high,

The fiends whom wrecks delight.