SPANISH GUERILLAS, 1811
Reading edition
Composed 1811.—Published 1815
Classed among the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty."—Ed.
They seek, are sought; to daily battle led, Shrink not, though far outnumbered by their Foes, For they have learnt to open and to close The ridges of grim war;[A] and at their head Are captains such as erst their country bred 5 Or fostered, self-supported chiefs,—like those Whom hardy Rome was fearful to oppose; Whose desperate shock the Carthaginian fled. In One who lived unknown a shepherd's life Redoubted Viriatus breathes again;[B] 10 And Mina, nourished in the studious shade,[C] With that great Leader[D] vies, who, sick of strife And bloodshed, longed in quiet to be laid In some green island of the western main.
FOOTNOTES:
Notes in this chapter
Note 1 · Compare Paradise Lost, book vi. ll. 235-36— and when to close
The ridges of grim war.Ed.Note 2 · Viriatus, for eight or fourteen years leader of the Lusitanians in the war with the Romans in the middle of the second century B.C. He defeaNote 3 · "Whilst the chief force of the French was occupied in Portugal and Andalusia, and there remained in the interior of Spain only a few weak coNote 4 · Sertorius.—W. W. 1827. See note to The Prelude book i. vol. iii. p. 138.—Ed.