Hath not the humblest hands, eyes, feeling, thought Like your’s, strength, weakness, tears and laughter’s dower? The bruted serf hath Poland’s serfdom wrought; For when to strike for Freedom comes the hour, He strikes his lords! At home let Tyrants cower In field, or factory, mountain, mine, or glen. Where’er the weak are crushed by ruffian power, Where’er the poor are slighted, where the pen Can reach Oppression, there shall pierce the rights of Men! IV. And Labour shall have Justice. Peasant arms, The implements of peace or war that wield, Shall not, of Fame defrauded and its charms, Of Right be too defrauded and the shield Of Liberty! In ploughed or battle field, His hire shall be the guerdon, not the mite Flung by proud scorn! His wrongs shall yet be healed. Who Badajoz, Ciudád, Sebastian’s height Could scale shall have his share of glory and of right! V. What were thy mural crowns, bellipotent Rome, Thy gold-beat turrets for the daring head, Thy vallar circlets given for mounted dome And rampart, wreaths obsidional that shed Their grass-green light than gold more coveted? What thy triumphal bays for glory’s brow, Thy oval myrtle where no Roman bled, Thy civic garland of the oaken bough? Their sound one City filled--the World beholds us now! VI. Not Spain, not Spain doth tamely bear the yoke, Her sturdy peasants the Guerrillas swell, And, see, where gather ’neath Guerníca’s oak Her passionate sons to list the tuneful shell Which ’neath its shade a maiden strikes so well. One hand alone the loud guitarra wakes So potently: ’tis Blanca gives the spell! Through every pause the Basque pandéro breaks, And Blanca thus i’ th’ crowd each nerve and fibre shakes:-- VII. “Biscayan bondsmen!--for ’tis bonds ye wear, While stalks the proud invader o’er your soil; Methinks, ’tis said Cantabrian blood ye share, Methinks, ’tis said that vain was Roman toil To bend your stubborn hearts within its coil! But this, forsooth, was thousand years ago. Were your’s Cantabrian blood, ’twould surely boil, To see Cantabria’s glory laid so low. Why yes, the Frenchman, sure, excels the Roman foe! VIII. “Biscayan bondsmen! patience is your cure For all their slights and scoffs--by Heaven’s behest. Lives there a bustard on your hills to endure A foreign vulture in its cuckoo nest? Perchance your nests are warmer--ye know best! Not bustards dwell upon each mountain peak, But royal eagles none may dare molest, For piercing are their talons, sharp their beak-- ’Tis Biscay’s men alone are pliable and meek! IX.