XIII

England yet sleeps: was she not called of old?

Spain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunder

Vesuvius wakens Aetna, and the cold

Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder:

O'er the lit waves every Aeolian isle

From Pithecusa to Pelorus

Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus:

They cry, 'Be dim; ye lamps of Heaven suspended o'er us!'

Her chains are threads of gold, she need but smile

And they dissolve; but Spain's were links of steel,

Till bit to dust by virtue's keenest file.

Twins of a single destiny! appeal

To the eternal years enthroned before us

In the dim West: impress us from a seal,

All ye have thought and done! Time cannot dare conceal.