"Nay, more, what most obligeth me, in fine, is that no leasing in my tale may dwell; for of such Feats whatever boast be mine, when most is told, remaineth much to tell: But that due order wait on the design, e'en as desirest thou to learn full well, the wide-spread Continent first I'll briefly trace, then the fierce bloody wars that waged my race. * * * * * "Lo! here her presence showeth noble Spain, of Europe's body corporal the head; o'er whose home-rule, and glorious foreign reign, the fatal Wheel so many a whirl hath made; Yet ne'er her Past or force or fraud shall stain, nor restless Fortune shall her name degrade; no bonds her bellic offspring bind so tight but it shall burst them with its force of sprite. "There, facing Tingitania's shore, she seemeth to block and bar the Med'iterranean wave, where the known Strait its name ennobled deemeth by the last labour of the Theban Brave. Big with the burthen of her tribes she teemeth, circled by whelming waves that rage and rave; all noble races of such valiant breast, that each may justly boast itself the best. "Hers the Tarragonese who, famed in war, made aye-perturbed Parthenopé obey; the twain Asturias, and the haught Navarre twin Christian bulwarks on the Moslem way: Hers the Gallego canny, and the rare Castilian, whom his star raised high to sway Spain as her saviour, and his seign'iory feel Bætis, Leon, Granada, and Castile. "See, the head-crowning coronet is she of general Europe, Lusitania's reign, where endeth land and where beginneth sea, and Phoebus sinks to rest upon the main. Willed her the Heavens with all-just decree by wars to mar th' ignoble Mauritan, to cast him from herself: nor there consent he rule in peace the Fiery Continent. "This is my happy land, my home, my pride; where, if the Heav'ens but grant the pray'er I pray for glad return and every risk defied, there may my life-light fail and fade away. This was the Lusitania, name applied by Lusus or by Lysa, sons, they say, of antient Bacchus, or his boon compeers, eke the first dwellers of her eldest years. "Here sprang the Shepherd,[6] in whose name we see forecast of virile might, of virtuous meed; whose fame no force shall ever hold in fee, since fame of mighty Rome ne'er did the deed. This, by light Heaven's volatile decree, that antient Scyther, who devours his seed, made puissant pow'er in many a part to claim, assuming regal rank; and thus it came:-- "A King there was in Spain, Afonso hight, who waged such warfare with the Saracen, that by his 'sanguined arms, and arts, and might, he spoiled the lands and lives of many men. When from Hercùlean Calpè winged her flight his fame to Caucasus Mount and Caspian glen, many a knight, who noblesse coveteth, comes offering service to such King and Death.