Yes, they can meet his eye,

That only beams with patient courage now;
Yes, they can look upon those manly limbs,
Defenceless now and bound.

And that eye did not shrink,
As he beheld the pomp of infamy;

Nor one ungoverned feeling shook those limbs,
When the last moment came.

What though suspended sense

Was by their legal cruelty revived;

What though ingenious vengeance lengthened life To feel protracted death ;

What though the hangman's hand

Grasped in his living breast the heaving heart,

In the last agony,

the last sick pang,

Wallace had comfort still.

He called to mind his deeds

Done for his country in the embattled field;
He thought of that good cause for which he died,
And it was joy in death.

Go, Edward! triumph now!

Cambria is fallen, and Scotland's strength is crushed;
On Wallace, on Llewellyn's mangled limbs,
The fowls of heaven have fed.

Unrivalled, unopposed,

Go, Edward, full of glory, to thy grave!
The weight of patriot-blood upon thy soul,
Go, Edward, to thy God!

WESTBURY, 1798.

THE SPANISH ARMADA.

CLEAR shone the morn, the gale was fair, When from Coruña's crowded port,

With many a cheerful shout and loud acclaim, The huge Armada passed.

To England's shores their streamers point, To England's shores their sails are spread; They go to triumph o'er the sea-girt land, And Rome hath blest their arms.

Along the ocean's echoing verge, Along the mountain range of rocks, The clustering multitudes behold their pomp, And raise the votive prayer.

Commingling with the ocean's roar, Ceaseless and hoarse their murmurs rise; And soon they trust to see the wingèd bark That bears good tidings home.

The watch-tower now in distance sinks And now Galicia's mountain rocks Faint as the far-off clouds of evening lie, And now they fade away.

Each like some moving citadel,

On through the waves they sail sublime; And now the Spaniards see the silvery cliffs, Behold the sea-girt land.

O fools! to think that ever foe

Should triumph o'er that sea-girt land! O fools! to think that ever Britain's sons Should wear the stranger's yoke!

For not in vain hath Nature reared
Around her coast those silvery cliffs;
For not in vain old Ocean spreads his waves
To guard his favorite isle.

On come her gallant mariners!

What now avail Rome's boasted charms? Where are the Spaniard's vaunts of eager wrath, His hopes of conquest now?

And hark! the angry Winds arise,
Old Ocean heaves his angry Waves;

The Winds and Waves against the invaders f

To guard the sea-girt land.

Howling around his palace-towers, The Spanish despot hears the storm; He thinks upon his navies far away, And boding doubts arise.

Long over Biscay's boisterous surge The watchman's aching eye shall strain ; Long shall he gaze, but never winged bark Shall bear good tidings home.

WESTBURY, 1798.

ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY.

THE night is come; no fears disturb
The dreams of innocence;

They trust in kingly faith and kingly oaths;
They sleep, alas! they sleep.

Go to the palace, wouldst thou know ·
How hideous night can be;

Eye is not closed in those accursed walls,
Nor heart at quiet there.

The Monarch from the window leans,

He listens to the night,

And with a horrible and eager hope

Awaits the midnight bell.

Oh! he has hell within him now!

God, always art thou just!
For innocence can never know such pangs

As pierce successful guilt.

He looks abroad, and all is still:

Hark! now the midnight bell

Sounds through the silence of the night alone, And now the signal gun!

Thy hand is on him, righteous God!
He hears the frantic shrieks,

He hears the glorying yells of massacre,

He hears the murderer's savage shout,
He hears the groan of death;

In vain they fly, soldiers defenceless now, Women, old men, and babes.

Righteous and just art thou, O God!
For, at his dying hour,

Those shrieks and groans re-echoed in his ear,
He heard that murderous yell.

They thronged around his midnight couch,
The phantoms of the slain;

It preyed like poison on his powers of life:
Righteous art thou, O God!