BRAVE men who at the Trocadero fell, | |
| Beside your cannons conquered not, though slain, | |
| There is a victory in dying well | |
| For Freedom,—and ye have not died in vain; | |
| For, come what may, there shall be hearts in Spain | 5 |
| To honor, ay, embrace your martyred lot, | |
| Cursing the bigot’s and the Bourbon’s chain, | |
| And looking on your graves, though trophied not, | |
| As holier hallowed ground than priests could make the spot! | |
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| What though your cause be baffled,—freemen cast | 10 |
| In dungeons, dragged to death, or forced to flee,— | |
| Hope is not withered in affliction’s blast,— | |
| The patriot’s blood ’s the seed of Freedom’s tree; | |
| And short your orgies of revenge shall be, | |
| Cowled demons of the Inquisitorial cell! | 15 |
| Earth shudders at your victory, for ye | |
| Are worse than common fiends from Heaven that fell, | |
| The baser, ranker sprung, autochthones of Hell! | |
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| Go to your bloody rites again,—bring back | |
| The hall of horrors, and the assessor’s pen, | 20 |
| Recording answers shrieked upon the rack; | |
| Smile o’er the gaspings of spine-broken men; | |
| Preach, perpetrate damnation in your den;— | |
| Then let your altars, ye blasphemers! peal | |
| With thanks to Heaven, that let you loose again, | 25 |
| To practise deeds with torturing fire and steel | |
| No eye may search, no tongue may challenge or reveal! | |
| |
| Yet laugh not in your carnival of crime | |
| Too proudly, ye oppressors!—Spain was free, | |
| Her soil has felt the footprints, and her clime | 30 |
| Been winnowed by the wings of Liberty; | |
| And these even parting scatter as they flee | |
| Thoughts, influences, to live in hearts unborn, | |
| Opinions that shall wrench the prison-key | |
| From Persecution, show her mask off-torn, | 35 |
| And tramp her bloated head beneath the foot of Scorn. | |
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| Glory to them that die in this great cause; | |
| Kings, bigots, can inflict no brand of shame, | |
| Or shape of death, to shroud them from applause: | |
| No! manglers of the martyr’s earthly frame! | 40 |
| Your hangman fingers cannot touch his fame! | |
| Still in your prostrate land there shall be some | |
| Proud hearts, the shrines of Freedom’s vestal flame. | |
| Long trains of ill may pass unheeded, dumb, | |
| But vengeance is behind, and justice is to come. | 45 |
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