Long had the crimes of Spain cried out to Heaven;

At length the measure of offence was full.

Count Julian call’d the invaders; not because

Inhuman priests with unoffending blood

Had stain’d their country; not because a yoke

Of iron servitude oppress’d and gall’d

The children of the soil; a private wrong

Roused the remorseless Baron. Mad to wreak

His vengeance for his violated child

On Roderick’s head, in evil hour for Spain,

For that unhappy daughter and himself,

Desperate apostate ... on the Moors he call’d;

And like a cloud of locusts, whom the South

Wafts from the plains of wasted Africa,

The Musselmen upon Iberia’s shore

Descend. A countless multitude they came,

Syrian, Moor, Saracen, Greek renegade,

Persian and Copt and Tatar, in one bond

Of erring faith conjoin’d, ... strong in the youth

And heat of zeal, ... a dreadful brotherhood,

In whom all turbulent vices were let loose;

While Conscience, with their impious creed accurst

Drunk as with wine, had sanctified to them

All bloody, all abominable things.

Thou, Calpe, saw’st their coming; ancient Rock

Renown’d, no longer now shalt thou be call’d

From Gods and Heroes of the years of yore,

Kronos, or hundred-handed Briareus,

Bacchus or Hercules; but doom’d to bear

The name of thy new conqueror, and thenceforth

To stand his everlasting monument.

Thou saw’st the dark-blue waters flash before

Their ominous way, and whiten round their keels;

Their swarthy myriads darkening o’er thy sands.

There on the beach the Misbelievers spread

Their banners, flaunting to the sun and breeze;

Fair shone the sun upon their proud array,

White turbans, glittering armour, shields engrail’d

With gold, and scymitars of Syrian steel;

And gently did the breezes, as in sport,

Curl their long flags outrolling, and display

The blazon’d scrolls of blasphemy. Too soon

The gales of Spain from that unhappy land

Wafted, as from an open charnel-house,

The taint of death; and that bright sun, from fields,

Of slaughter, with the morning dew drew up

Corruption through the infected atmosphere.

Then fell the kingdom of the Goths; their hour

Was come, and Vengeance, long withheld, went loose.

Famine and Pestilence had wasted them,

And Treason, like an old and eating sore,

Consumed the bones and sinews of their strength;

And worst of enemies, their Sins were arm’d

Against them. Yet the sceptre from their hands

Pass’d not away inglorious, nor was shame

Left for their children’s lasting heritage;

Eight summer days, from morn till latest eve,

The fatal fight endured, till perfidy

Prevailing to their overthrow, they sunk

Defeated, not dishonour’d. On the banks

Of Chrysus, Roderick’s royal car was found,

His battle-horse Orelio, and that helm

Whose horns, amid the thickest of the fray

Eminent, had mark’d his presence. Did the stream

Receive him with the undistinguish’d dead,

Christian and Moor, who clogg’d its course that day?

So thought the Conqueror, and from that day forth,

Memorial of his perfect victory,

He bade the river bear the name of Joy.

So thought the Goths; they said no prayer for him,

For him no service sung, nor mourning made,

But charged their crimes upon his head, and curs’d

His memory.

Bravely in that eight-days fight

The King had striven, ... for victory first, while hope

Remain’d, then desperately in search of death.

The arrows pass’d him by to right and left,

The spear-point pierced him not, the scymitar

Glanced from his helmet. Is the shield of Heaven,

Wretch that I am, extended over me?

Cried Roderick; and he dropt Orelio’s reins,

And threw his hands aloft in frantic prayer, ...

Death is the only mercy that I crave,

Death soon and short, death and forgetfulness!

Aloud he cried; but in his inmost heart

There answer’d him a secret voice, that spake

Of righteousness and judgement after death,

And God’s redeeming love, which fain would save

The guilty soul alive. ’Twas agony,

And yet ’twas hope; ... a momentary light,

That flash’d through utter darkness on the Cross

To point salvation, then left all within

Dark as before. Fear, never felt till then,

Sudden and irresistible as stroke

Of lightning, smote him. From his horse he dropt,

Whether with human impulse, or by Heaven

Struck down, he knew not; loosen’d from his wrist

The sword-chain, and let fall the sword, whose hilt

Clung to his palm a moment ere it fell,

Glued there with Moorish gore. His royal robe,

His horned helmet and enamell’d mail,

He cast aside, and taking from the dead

A peasant’s garment, in those weeds involved

Stole like a thief in darkness from the field.

Evening closed round to favour him. All night

He fled, the sound of battle in his ear

Ringing, and sights of death before his eyes,

With forms more horrible of eager fiends

That seem’d to hover round, and gulphs of fire

Opening beneath his feet. At times the groan

Of some poor fugitive, who, bearing with him

His mortal hurt, had fallen beside the way,

Roused him from these dread visions, and he call’d

In answering groans on his Redeemer’s name,

That word the only prayer that pass’d his lips

Or rose within his heart. Then would he see

The Cross whereon a bleeding Saviour hung,

Who call’d on him to come and cleanse his soul

In those all-healing streams, which from his wounds,

As from perpetual springs, for ever flow’d.

No hart e’er panted for the water-brooks

As Roderick thirsted there to drink and live:

But Hell was interposed; and worse than Hell ...

Yea to his eyes more dreadful than the fiends

Who flock’d like hungry ravens round his head, ...

Florinda stood between, and warn’d him off

With her abhorrent hands, ... that agony

Still in her face, which, when the deed was done,

Inflicted on her ravisher the curse

That it invoked from Heaven.... Oh what a night

Of waking horrors! Nor when morning came

Did the realities of light and day

Bring aught of comfort; wheresoe’er he went

The tidings of defeat had gone before;

And leaving their defenceless homes to seek

What shelter walls and battlements might yield,

Old men with feeble feet, and tottering babes,

And widows with their infants in their arms,

Hurried along. Nor royal festival,

Nor sacred pageant, with like multitudes

E’er fill’d the public way. All whom the sword

Had spared were here; bed-rid infirmity

Alone was left behind; the cripple plied

His crutches, with her child of yesterday

The mother fled, and she whose hour was come

Fell by the road.

Less dreadful than this view

Of outward suffering which the day disclosed,

Had night and darkness seem’d to Roderick’s heart,

With all their dread creations. From the throng

He turn’d aside, unable to endure

This burthen of the general woe; nor walls,

Nor towers, nor mountain fastnesses he sought,

A firmer hold his spirit yearn’d to find,

A rock of surer strength. Unknowing where,

Straight through the wild he hasten’d on all day

And with unslacken’d speed was travelling still

When evening gather’d round. Seven days from morn

Till night he travell’d thus; the forest oaks,

The fig-grove by the fearful husbandman

Forsaken to the spoiler, and the vines,

Where fox and household dog together now

Fed on the vintage, gave him food; the hand

Of Heaven was on him, and the agony

Which wrought within, supplied a strength beyond

All natural force of man.

When the eighth eve

Was come, he found himself on Ana’s banks,

Fast by the Caulian Schools. It was the hour

Of vespers, but no vesper bell was heard,

Nor other sound, than of the passing stream,

Or stork, who flapping with wide wing the air,

Sought her broad nest upon the silent tower.

Brethren and pupils thence alike had fled

To save themselves within the embattled walls

Of neighbouring Merida. One aged Monk

Alone was left behind; he would not leave

The sacred spot beloved, for having served

There from his childhood up to ripe old age

God’s holy altar, it became him now,

He thought, before that altar to await

The merciless misbelievers, and lay down

His life, a willing martyr. So he staid

When all were gone, and duly fed the lamps,

And kept devotedly the altar drest,

And duly offer’d up the sacrifice.

Four days and nights he thus had pass’d alone,

In such high mood of saintly fortitude,

That hope of Heaven became a heavenly joy;

And now at evening to the gate he went

If he might spy the Moors, ... for it seem’d long

To tarry for his crown.

Before the Cross

Roderick had thrown himself; his body raised,

Half kneeling, half at length he lay; his arms

Embraced its foot, and from his lifted face

Tears streaming down bedew’d the senseless stone.

He had not wept till now, and at the gush

Of these first tears, it seem’d as if his heart,

From a long winter’s icey thrall let loose,

Had open’d to the genial influences

Of Heaven. In attitude, but not in act

Of prayer he lay; an agony of tears

Was all his soul could offer. When the Monk

Beheld him suffering thus, he raised him up,

And took him by the arm, and led him in;

And there before the altar, in the name

Of Him whose bleeding image there was hung,

Spake comfort, and adjured him in that name

There to lay down the burthen of his sins.

Lo! said Romano, I am waiting here

The coming of the Moors, that from their hands

My spirit may receive the purple robe

Of martyrdom, and rise to claim its crown.

That God who willeth not the sinner’s death

Hath led thee hither. Threescore years and five,

Even from the hour when I, a five-years child,

Enter’d the schools, have I continued here

And served the altar: not in all those years

Hath such a contrite and a broken heart

Appear’d before me. O my brother, Heaven

Hath sent thee for thy comfort, and for mine,

That my last earthly act may reconcile

A sinner to his God.

Then Roderick knelt

Before the holy man, and strove to speak.

Thou seest, he cried, ... thou seest, ... but memory

And suffocating thoughts repress’d the word,

And shudderings like an ague fit, from head

To foot convulsed him; till at length, subduing

His nature to the effort, he exclaim’d,

Spreading his hands and lifting up his face,

As if resolved in penitence to bear

A human eye upon his shame, ... Thou seest

Roderick the Goth! That name would have sufficed

To tell its whole abhorred history:

He not the less pursued, ... the ravisher,

The cause of all this ruin! Having said,

In the same posture motionless he knelt,

Arms straighten’d down, and hands outspread, and eyes

Raised to the Monk, like one who from his voice

Awaited life or death.

All night the old man

Pray’d with his penitent, and minister’d

Unto the wounded soul, till he infused

A healing hope of mercy that allay’d

Its heat of anguish. But Romano saw

What strong temptations of despair beset,

And how he needed in this second birth,

Even like a yearling child, a fosterer’s care.

Father in Heaven, he cried, thy will be done!

Surely I hoped that I this day should sing

Hosannahs at thy throne; but thou hast yet

Work for thy servant here. He girt his loins,

And from her altar took with reverent hands

Our Lady’s image down: In this, quoth he,

We have our guide and guard and comforter,

The best provision for our perilous way.

Fear not but we shall find a resting place,

The Almighty’s hand is on us.

They went forth,

They cross’d the stream, and when Romano turn’d

For his last look toward the Caulian towers,

Far off the Moorish standards in the light

Of morn were glittering, where the miscreant host

Toward the Lusitanian capital

To lay their siege advanced; the eastern breeze

Bore to the fearful travellers far away

The sound of horn and tambour o’er the plain.

All day they hasten’d, and when evening fell

Sped toward the setting sun, as if its line

Of glory came from Heaven to point their course.

But feeble were the feet of that old man

For such a weary length of way; and now

Being pass’d the danger (for in Merida

Sacaru long in resolute defence

Withstood the tide of war,) with easier pace

The wanderers journey’d on; till having cross’d

Rich Tagus, and the rapid Zezere,

They from Albardos’ hoary height beheld

Pine-forest, fruitful vale, and that fair lake

Where Alcoa, mingled there with Baza’s stream,

Rests on its passage to the western sea,

That sea the aim and boundary of their toil.

The fourth week of their painful pilgrimage

Was full, when they arrived where from the land

A rocky hill, rising with steep ascent,

O’erhung the glittering beach; there on the top

A little lowly hermitage they found,

And a rude Cross, and at its foot a grave,

Bearing no name, nor other monument.

Where better could they rest than here, where faith

And secret penitence and happiest death

Had bless’d the spot, and brought good Angels down,

And open’d as it were a way to Heaven?

Behind them was the desert, offering fruit

And water for their need: on either side

The white sand sparkling to the sun; in front,

Great Ocean with its everlasting voice,

As in perpetual jubilee, proclaim’d

The wonders of the Almighty, filling thus

The pauses of their fervent orisons.

Where better could the wanderers rest than here?