INDIGNATION OF A HIGH-MINDED SPANIARD, 1810
Reading edition
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 5 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 10 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.