Come, cannon and musquet, Rain grapeshot and mortar! We laugh at the rattling, We ask for no quarter. By the breach shall we climb To yon turret-clad town, And the tricolor tear From the cavalier down! 5. On the death-dealing fort Shall we plant our proud standard. Was red-coat e’er seen, Who to cowardice pandered? Each traverse we’ll cross With invincible steel. Then swift to your knees, Or the bayonet feel! 6. See, see the breach strewn With our corses all gory. ’Tis but the first crop In the harvest of glory! Sebastian is our’s, Though it rain shot and shell. Where a Briton resolved, Could a Gaul ever quell? XXXIII. What stream is poured afresh? new Volunteers! They come, impetuous as the Pampas steed, Dash o’er the strand and trample craven fears, Fly up the breach where thick-strewn heroes bleed. They reach the crest. In vain! Snapt like a reed Is many an oak of war. The valorous surge Is spent in its vain fury, like seaweed Each quivering corse depositing. Yet urge The living on, though fire their ranks incessant scourge. XXXIV. Thus swarm i’ the summer ray o’er parchéd ground Unnumbered emmets toiling onward straight. Vain is the wrath that slays and strews around; Unslack’d their zeal, uncheck’d their war with fate. New myriads crowd each instant, even while wait Unpitying feet to tread them into dust, Indomitable. To small thus likened great, Men swarm to the breach, and glut the gory lust Of sternest foe, yet stand, true to their country’s trust. XXXV. And all--must all be slaughtered? Lord of Hosts! Must this great valour be a Holocaust? Must men like oxen perish at their posts, And all the guerdon of their daring lost? Still do they mount and slow receding, crost Their dream of triumph, totter, sink, and fall. Even won the prize, how terrible the cost! The victory-flag to thousands were a pall. Oh Lord of Hosts, arise, or butchery smites them all! XXXVI. With blood-red arms see Carnage, screaming hag, Gloat o’er each gash that lets the life away, Plash through the crimson stream, and curse if lag The shower of death-bolts darkening bright mid-day. See sopt her hands in gore, see ’mid the fray Where burst her eyes from forth her grisly head, In rapture that such numbers slaughtered lay: While reek her tangled tresses, see her fed On dying groans, astride like Nightmare on the dead! HISTORICAL AND ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES TO CANTO V.