Long had the crimes of Spain cried out to Heaven; At length the measure of offence was full. Count Julian call’d the invaders; not because Inhuman priests with unoffending blood Had stain’d their country; not because a yoke Of iron servitude oppress’d and gall’d The children of the soil; a private wrong Roused the remorseless Baron. Mad to wreak His vengeance for his violated child On Roderick’s head, in evil hour for Spain, For that unhappy daughter and himself, Desperate apostate ... on the Moors he call’d; And like a cloud of locusts, whom the South Wafts from the plains of wasted Africa, The Musselmen upon Iberia’s shore Descend. A countless multitude they came, Syrian, Moor, Saracen, Greek renegade, Persian and Copt and Tatar, in one bond Of erring faith conjoin’d, ... strong in the youth And heat of zeal, ... a dreadful brotherhood, In whom all turbulent vices were let loose; While Conscience, with their impious creed accurst Drunk as with wine, had sanctified to them All bloody, all abominable things. Thou, Calpe, saw’st their coming; ancient Rock Renown’d, no longer now shalt thou be call’d From Gods and Heroes of the years of yore, Kronos, or hundred-handed Briareus, Bacchus or Hercules; but doom’d to bear The name of thy new conqueror, and thenceforth To stand his everlasting monument. Thou saw’st the dark-blue waters flash before Their ominous way, and whiten round their keels; Their swarthy myriads darkening o’er thy sands. There on the beach the Misbelievers spread Their banners, flaunting to the sun and breeze; Fair shone the sun upon their proud array, White turbans, glittering armour, shields engrail’d With gold, and scymitars of Syrian steel; And gently did the breezes, as in sport, Curl their long flags outrolling, and display The blazon’d scrolls of blasphemy. Too soon The gales of Spain from that unhappy land Wafted, as from an open charnel-house, The taint of death; and that bright sun, from fields, Of slaughter, with the morning dew drew up Corruption through the infected atmosphere.