But you, ye heroes of that well-fought day, How shall a bard, unknowing and unknown, His meed to each victorious leader pay, Or bind on every brow the laurels won? Yet fain my harp would wake its boldest tone, O’er the wide sea to hail CADOGAN brave; And he, perchance, the minstrel-note might own, Mindful of meeting brief that Fortune gave ’Mid yon far western isles that hear the Atlantic rave. XIII. Yes! hard the task, when Britons wield the sword, To give each Chief and every field its fame: Hark! Albuera thunders BERESFORD, And Red Barosa shouts for dauntless GRÆME! O for a verse of tumult and of flame, Bold as the bursting of their cannon sound, To bid the world re-echo to their fame! For never, upon gory battle-ground, With conquest’s well-bought wreath were braver victors crowned! XIV. O who shall grudge him Albuera’s bays, Who brought a race regenerate to the field, Roused them to emulate their fathers’ praise, Tempered their headlong rage, their courage steeled, And raised fair Lusitania’s fallen shield, And gave new edge to Lusitania’s sword, And taught her sons forgotten arms to wield— Shivered my harp, and burst its every chord, If it forget thy worth, victorious BERESFORD! XV. Not on that bloody field of battle won, Though Gaul’s proud legions rolled like mist away, Was half his self-devoted valour shown,— He gaged but life on that illustrious day; But when he toiled those squadrons to array, Who fought like Britons in the bloody game, Sharper than Polish pike or assagay, He braved the shafts of censure and of shame, And, dearer far than life, he pledged a soldier’s fame. XVI. Nor be his praise o’erpast who strove to hide Beneath the warrior’s vest affection’s wound, Whose wish Heaven for his country’s weal denied; Danger and fate he sought, but glory found. From clime to clime, where’er war’s trumpets sound, The wanderer went; yet Caledonia! still Thine was his thought in march and tented ground; He dreamed ’mid Alpine cliffs of Athole’s hill, And heard in Ebro’s roar his Lyndoch’s lovely rill. XVII.