The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches-3 [91]
feel our iron in her inmost soul. Who shall bid the torrent stay? Who shall bar the lightning's way? Who arrest the advancing van Of the fiery Ottoman? As the curling smoke-wreaths fly When fresh breezes clear the sky, Passed away each swelling boast Of the misbelieving host. From the Hebrus rolling far Came the murky cloud of war, And in shower and tempest dread Burst on Austria's fenceless head. But not for vaunt or threat Didst Thou, O Lord, forget The flock so dearly bought, and loved so well. Even in the very hour Of guilty pride and power Full on the circumcised Thy vengeance fell. Then the fields were heaped with dead, Then the streams with gore were red, And every bird of prey, and every beast, From wood and cavern thronged to Thy great feast. What terror seized the fiends obscene of Nile! How wildly, in his place of doom beneath, Arabia's lying prophet gnashed his teeth, And cursed his blighted hopes and wasted guile! When, at the bidding of Thy sovereign might, Flew on their destined path Thy messages of wrath, Riding on storms and wrapped in deepest night. The Phthian mountains saw, And quaked with mystic awe: The proud Sultana of the Straits bowed down Her jewelled neck and her embattled crown. The miscreants, as they raised their eyes Glaring defiance on Thy skies, Saw adverse winds and clouds display The terrors of their black array;-- Saw each portentous star Whose fiery aspect turned of yore to flight The iron chariots of the Canaanite Gird its bright harness for a deadlier war. Beneath Thy withering look Their limbs with palsy shook; Scattered on earth the crescent banners lay; Trembled with panic fear Sabre and targe and spear, Through the proud armies of the rising day. Faint was each heart, unnerved each hand; And, if they strove to charge or stand Their efforts were as vain As his who, scared in feverish sleep By evil dreams, essays to leap, Then backward falls again. With a crash of wild dismay, Their ten thousand ranks gave way; Fast they broke, and fast they fled; Trampled, mangled, dying, dead, Horse and horsemen mingled lay; Till the mountains of the slain Raised the valleys to the plain. Be all the glory to Thy name divine! The swords were our's; the arm, O Lord, was Thine. Therefore to Thee, beneath whose footstool wait The powers which erring man calls Chance and Fate, To Thee who hast laid low The pride of Europe's foe, And taught Byzantium's sullen lords to fear, I pour my spirit out In a triumphant shout, And call all ages and all lands to hear. Thou who evermore endurest, Loftiest, mightiest, wisest, purest, Thou whose will destroys or saves, Dread of tyrants, hope of slaves, The wreath of glory is from Thee, And the red sword of victory. There where exulting Danube's flood Runs stained with Islam's noblest blood From that tremendous field, There where in mosque the tyrants met, And from the crier's minaret Unholy summons pealed, Pure shrines and temples now shall be Decked for a worship worthy Thee. To Thee thy whole creation pays With mystic sympathy its praise, The air, the earth, the seas: The day shines forth with livelier beam; There is a smile upon the stream, An anthem on the breeze. Glory, they cry, to Him whose might Hath turned the barbarous foe to flight, Whose arm protects with power divine The city of his favoured line. The caves, the woods, the rocks, repeat the sound; The everlasting hills roll the long echoes round. But, if Thy rescued church may dare Still to besiege Thy throne with prayer, Sheathe not, we implore Thee, Lord, Sheathe not Thy victorious sword. Still Panonia pines away, Vassal of a double sway: Still Thy servants groan in chains, Still the race which hates Thee reigns: Part the living from the dead: Join the members to the head: Snatch Thine own sheep from yon fell monster's hold; Let one kind shepherd rule one undivided fold. He is the victor, only he Who reaps the fruits of victory. We conquered once in vain, When foamed the Ionian waves with gore, And heaped Lepanto's stormy shore With wrecks and Moslem slain. Yet wretched Cyprus never broke The Syrian