The Seraph forms are fair, In Heav’nly chorus swelling, But thine as well in prayer Becomes its earthly dwelling. Thou look’st a clouded Moon, When veiled for solemn duty; If thou’rt refused a boon, Why give thee so much beauty? XXI. Oh glorious race, indomitably fierce! Earth’s peasant-lords, triumphant o’er each shock; No, not more vain Antæus’ self to pierce, For sprung, too, from thy soil new strength to mock Thy foes, like Afric’s giant whom enlock The arms of Hercules; or liker him, The Achaian marsh heaved upward like a rock, Whose hissing heads struck off, still heads more grim Rose terrible to tear the Invader limb from limb! XXII. Five deadly hours that conflict fell did last, And o’er the scarp now streams the flood of War; But many a barricade must still be past, Where dauntless Rey disputes ’gainst Victory’s star, With feeble garrison that yields each bar, O’erpowered by numbers though they battled well. And, vanquished soon by Fate, entrenched they are In Mont’ Orgullo, where both shot and shell Pours on the brave resolved their lives to dearly sell. XXIII. Now Slaughter stalks triumphantly alone, And silent is the fierce artillery’s roar; But shriek and shout and yell, cry, curse, and groan, Make music dire to rend the bosom’s core, And louder than Man’s thunder rolled before Comes Heaven’s artillery from the mountains down, Dark, stormy, terrible: leap lightnings o’er The murky cope to mark the Almighty’s frown For deeds of carnage done in that devoted town. XXIV. What careth Man red-handed for His wrath? What bellowing beast so terrible as he, When boundless passions master him? His path Is more destructive than the stormy sea. His nostril is a furnace. Ominously Doth glare his bloodshot eye. Nor Beauty saves The virgin, nor grey hairs and tottering knee The reverend sire. Lust, rapine, murder waves A pirate flag o’er all, and hearths are turned to graves! XXV. Oh, meek-eyed Pity! Tenderness of Soul! Oh, sacred source of sympathetic tears! Say, hast thou fled the Earth, whose tottering pole Can ill sustain its weight of grief and fears? Is dried your fountain, choked by crimson biers? Oh, human anguish! Yet, by man’s accord, The day shall come, when he who as in years Gone by shall dare produce thee--King or Lord-- A Pariah-brand shall wear, than Demons more abhorred! XXVI.