Page:The Lusiad (Camões, tr. Mickle, 1791), Volume 2.djvu/80

'Twas your brave sires—and has one languid reign
Fix'd in your tainted souls so deep a stain,
That now degenerate from your noble sires,
The last dim spark of Lusian flame expires?
Though weak Fernando reign'd in war unskill'd,
A godlike king now calls you to the field—
Oh! could like his your mounting valour glow,
Vain were the threatenings of the vaunting foe.
Not proud Castile, oft by your sires o'erthrown,
But every land your dauntless rage should own.
Still if your hands benumb'd by female fear,
Shun the bold war, hark! on my sword I swear,
Myself alone the dreadful war shall wage—
Mine be the fight—and, trembling with the rage
Of valorous fire, his hand half-drawn display'd
The awful terror of his shining blade,—
I and my vassals dare the dreadful shock;
My shoulders never to a foreign yoke
Shall bend; and, by my sovereign's wrath I vow,
And by that loyal faith renounced by you,
My native land unconquer'd shall remain,
And all my monarch's foes shall heap the plain.

The hero paused—'Twas thus the youth of Rome,
The trembling few who 'scaped the bloody doom
That dy'd with slaughter Cannæ's purple field,
Assembled stood, and bow'd their necks to yield;

When