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How oft has censure to your hearts assigned 

 Ardor too keenly brave and rashly blind ; 

 Eager to dart amid the doubtful fray, 

 Scorning the useful aid of wise delay ? 

 Have we not seen you with contempt oppose, 

 And bend beneath your yoke unnumber'd foes ; 

 Attempt and execute designs so bold, 

 Ye grew immortal as ye heard them told ? 



" Turn I to your people turn a pitying eye, 

 To whom your fears these happy seats deny ? 

 Turn I and survey this fair this fertile land. 

 Whose ready tribute waits your lordly hand ; 

 Survey its pregnant mines, its sands of gold ; 

 Survey the flock now wandering from its fold, 

 Mark how it vainly seeks, in wild despair. 

 The faithless shepherd, who forsakes his care. 

 E'en the dumb creatures of domestick kind. 

 Though not endowed with man's discerning mind, 

 Now shew the semblance of a reasoning soul, 

 And in their master's misery condole ; 

 The stronger animals, of sterner heart. 

 Take in this publick woe a feeling part; 

 Their plaintive roar, that speaks their sense aright, 

 Justly upbraids your ignominious flight. 



" Ye fly from quiet, opulence, and fame, 

 Purchas'd by valour, your acknowledg'd claim ; 

 From these ye fly, to seek a foreign seat, 

 Where dastard fugitives no welcome meet. 

 How deep the shame, an abject life to spend 

 In poor dépendance on a pitying friend Î 

 Turn ! — Let the brave their only choice await, 

 Or honourable life, or instant fate. 



" Return 1 return ! O quit this path of shame Î / 

 Stain not by fear your yet unsullied name j 

 Myself I offer, if our foes advance, i 

 To rush the foremost on the hostile lance ; 

 My actions then shall with my words agree, / 

 And what a woman dares your eyes shall see.** j 

 " Return ! return !" she cried ; but cried in vain ; i 

 Her fire seem'd frenzy to the coward train. | 



The dastardly inhabitants of the city, unmoved by this te* 

 monstrance of the noble Donna Mencia de Nidos, continue their 



