Hexameters

M ALTA , sovereign isle, the destined seat and asylum
Of chivalry, honour, and arms — the nursing mother of heroes,
Mirror of ancient days, monumental trophy recording
All that of old was felt, or feared, or achieved, or attempted,
When proud Europe's strength, restored with the slumber of ages,
Roused and awoke to behold the triumphant impious empire
Throned in the East, and vaunting aloud with lordly defiance;
When from the Euxine shore to the Caspian and to the southern
Vast Erythrean main to the Gulfs of Ophir and Ormus,
Lydia Syrian Sion and all the dominion eastward,
Which the old Assyrian controlled to the bounds of Imaus,
Bowed to the Sultan's yoke: when slavery bitter and hopeless,
Hopeless and helpless, oppressed the dejected lowly believers.
Thence to the setting sun, where Mauritanian Atlas,
Chilled with eternal snows in a boundless cheerless horizon,
Views the deserted plain where Carthage, briefly triumphant,
(Africa's only boast, the rival of Italy, Carthage,)
Claimed for a while to command the subject world, and accomplish'd
That which destiny doom'd — her dark oblivion's annals
Torn and blotted in hate; her policy, valour, and ancient
Glory reduced to a scoff; with a proverb left to the pedant,
Thence enslaved and adorn'd with the toys of slavery — temples
Palaces, arches, baths — till they, the remorseless, apostate
Infidel enemy came to avenge that gaudy debasement,
Trampling in hate and scorn laws, learning, lazy religion,
Luxury, sumptuous art, antiquity. Woe to the vanquish'd!
Woe to the fields of Spain, to the towers of lordly Toledo,
Wealthy Valencia, proud Castile, and stately Granada!
Woe to the Gascon tribes, to the mountain glens, to the lonely
Pyrenean abodes, to the herdsman and hunter and hermit;
Even amidst your shades, your woody recesses, and inmost
Rocky ravines, shall the armed tide with hideous impulse
Rise and inundate all, pouring, precipitous, headlong,
Forth to the fields of France.
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