Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 2.djvu/81

CANTO I.] And drove at last the spoilers to their shore?

Red gleamed the Cross, and waned the Crescent pale,

While Afric's echoes thrilled with Moorish matrons' wail.

XXXVI.

Teems not each ditty with the glorious tale?

Ah! such, alas! the hero's amplest fate!

When granite moulders and when records fail,

A peasant's plaint prolongs his dubious date.

Pride! bend thine eye from Heaven to thine estate,

See how the Mighty shrink into a song!

Can Volume, Pillar, Pile preserve thee great?

Or must thou trust Tradition's simple tongue,

When Flattery sleeps with thee, and History does thee wrong?

XXXVII.

Awake, ye Sons of Spain! awake! advance!

Lo! Chivalry, your ancient Goddess, cries,

But wields not, as of old, her thirsty lance,

Nor shakes her crimson plumage in the skies:

Now on the smoke of blazing bolts she flies,

And speaks in thunder through yon engine's roar: