lt, the vengeance of their country's law.
Their sea-green isle, their guilt-won Paradise,
No more could shield their Virtue or their Vice: 40
Their better feelings, if such were, were thrown
Back on themselves,--their sins remained alone.
Proscribed even in their second country, they
Were lost; in vain the World before them lay;
All outlets seemed secured. Their new allies
Had fought and bled in mutual sacrifice;
But what availed the club and spear, and arm
Of Hercules, against the sulphury charm,
The magic of the thunder, which destroyed
The warrior ere his strength could be employed? 50
Dug, like a spreading pestilence, the grave
No less of human bravery than the brave![400]
Their own scant numbers acted all the few
Against the many oft will dare and do;
But though the choice seems native to die free,
Even Greece can boast but one Thermopylae,
Till _now_, when she has forged her broken chain
Back to a sword, and dies and lives again!

III.

Beside the jutting rock the few appeared,
Like the last remnant of the red-deer's herd; 60
Their eyes were feverish, and their aspect worn,
But still the hunter's blood was on their horn.
A little stream came tumbling from the height,
And straggling into ocean as it might,
Its bounding crystal frolicked in the ray,
And gushed from cliff to crag with saltless spray;
Close on the wild, wide ocean, yet as pure
And fresh as Innocence, and more secure,
Its silver torrent glittered o'er the deep,
As the shy chamois' eye o'erlooks the steep, 70
While far below the vast and sullen swell
Of Ocean's alpine azure rose and fell.
To this young spring they rushed,--all feelings first
Absorbed in Passion's and in Nature's thirst,--
Drank as they do who drink their last, and threw
Their arms aside to revel in its dew;
Cooled their scorched throats, and washed the gory stains
From wounds whose only bandage might be chains;
Then, when their drought was quenched, looked sadly round,
As wondering how so many still were found 80
Alive and fetterless:--but silent all,
Each sought his fellow's eyes, as if to call
On him for language which his lips denied,
As though their voices wi