Indignation Of A High-Minded Spaniard, 1810

Composed 1810.--Published 1815

We can endure that He should waste our lands, Despoil our temples, and by sword and flame Return us to the dust from which we came; Such food a Tyrant's appetite demands: And we can brook the thought that by his hands Spain may be overpowered, and he possess, For his delight, a solemn wilderness Where all the brave lie dead. But, when of bands Which he will break for us he dares to speak, Of benefits, and of a future day When our enlightened minds shall bless his sway; Then, the strained heart of fortitude proves weak; Our groans, our blushes, our pale cheeks declare That he has power to inflict what we lack strength to bear.

Compare the two sonnets On a Celebrated Event in Ancient History (pp. 242-44). The following note to the last line of this sonnet occurs in Professor Reed's American edition of the Poems:--"The student of English poetry will call to mind Cowley's impassioned expression of the indignation of a Briton under the depression of disasters somewhat similar.

Let rather Roman come again, Or Saxon, Norman, or the Dane: In all the bonds we ever bore, We grieved, we sighed, we wept, we never blushed before."

See Cowley's Discourse on the Government of Oliver Cromwell.--ED.