Nor yet Graham’s thunder ceases. Volleying rolls The red artillery, on each lightning-flash Dismay is borne to the defenders’ souls, Destruction’s bolts against the ramparts dash, And ruin strews the battlements. As lash The stormy billows Achill’s rock-bound shore With all the Atlantic’s force, thus many a gash That fiery torrent opes the bulwarks o’er, And still at verge of death they madly strain the more!
And they are mad, or more than madness seems Thy glow, enthusiast Courage! Many a boy Sees Valour’s guerdon shine with starry beams, And Danger, made a mockery, seems a joy! Yet swiftly hostile fires their ranks destroy, Nor yet to San Sebastian entrance gained. Already grief their glory ’gins to alloy, Lest ’neath that wall their glittering arms be stained. Ere comes defeat be, Graham, thy death-fire two-fold rained!
Resistance chafes their spirits, stirs their blood. Excitement fires their minds beyond controul; Till lightning runs through all the arterial flood, And lion-daring grows the warrior-soul. Full many a gentle bosom ’neath that roll Of musketry and cannon feels transformed-- Spurred like a race-horse bounding to the goal, Till death’s a sport to venturers conflict-warmed, And not by men but fiends seems San Sebastian stormed.
Oh, sleepless eyes and aching foreheads tell In homes far distant how those lives are prized, Which now are diced away, though loved so well-- On Glory’s shadowy altar sacrificed! The heart-wrung sob at parting undisguised, The silent hall and the deserted bower, The tender charge of Beauty idolized, And curléd babes, forgot in this wild hour,-- To Gorgons grim consigned is Manhood’s chosen flower!
What terrible explosion rends the sky? What fierce combustion wraps in flame the air? Traverse and curtain tall to ruin fly, And sulphurous fires the bastioned bulwarks tear Like rags asunder! Cries of deep despair Burst from the pale defenders; grenadiers, Unmoved as rocks till then, in hundreds share The ramparts’ doom which form their blackened biers; And rush the stormers in with lustiest British cheers.
Of volumed smoke at length the eddying wave Falls o’er the battlement and clears the ground. Still would the sons of France the fortress save, Amazed amid the ruin spread around; But onward to their breasts the assailants bound, And momently the baffled foemen scare. They rally--I ween none there hath quarter found; They stand--and desperate valour all doth dare. In vain--the stormers rush like lightning to their lair.