O! how he crops youth’s fairest flowers, Or grief o’er life for ever lowers! See there for vengeance strains One arm for one that off is torn, Or when away the head is borne, Erect the trunk remains. But, ah! what fiery column broke There to the wind, and mid dense smoke Then to the abyss down threw Heads, bodies, arms and woods confused, And hands yet with the swords unloosed They for their country drew! Struck by the sound groans Trafalgar; Olympus shakes as in the war The savage Titans waged, When through the waves their forges roll’d Ætna, Vesuvius, and untold Volcanoes burning raged. Trembling the monsters of the deep Against each other beating, sweep Off to the Herculean Strait; In horror heaven is clouded o’er, Lashing the seas the north winds roar, In shame infuriate. Of its own rage, the foaming brine, Is born the tempest, fearful sign Of more disastrous night; Mars at the view restrains his cry; Bark Scylla and Charybdis high, The fiends whom wrecks delight. Swift as a thunderbolt ye come, The unhappy relics to consume Of fire, ye winds and waves! O, Night! who may thy fearfulness, Thy vast amount of woes express, Without the tear it craves! Yield to the cruel element At length the ships, that long unbent Its haughtiest rage defied; Men sink yet living, and for e’er Closes o’er them their sepulchre, The insatiable tide. Save him, Minerva! who around From East to West, the earth’s wide bound, Was happier once thy care! Urania, this thy votary save! O, Love! how many fond hearts crave That one’s last sigh to share! Some to their much-loved country swim, That horror-struck retires, and dim In quicksands seems to fly; Hid by the waves them death unveils, And to the wreck’d-worn seamen’s wails They only fierce reply. Never may Time, in his long flight, Join day more terrible and night: But who in such a strife, Who constant overcame such fate, Where may we danger find so great For dauntless heart in life? O, Clio! where? yet midst that rage, With golden pen and deathless page, Thou lovest the brave to greet; Gravina, Alava, each name Write, and Escanio’s, echoes fame Olympic will repeat. And others, but my voice repels The love that in my memory dwells; O, Cosmo! hard thy lot! O, Muses! him the laurels give, Whose friend is only left to live, And weep him unforgot. Tried adverse fortune to endure, Your valour proved sublime and pure, O, Mariners of Spain! Your life your country’s shield and strength, Defended and avenged at length, She will be yet again.