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CANTO THE SECONDXI
Fresh with the nerve the new-born impulse strung,
The first success to Lara`s numbers clung:
But that vain victory hath ruin`d all;
They form no longer to their leader`s call:
In blind confusion on the foe they press,
And think to snatch is to secure success.
The lust of booty, and the thirst of hate,
Lure on the broken brigands to their fate:
In vain he doth whate`er a chief may do,
To check the headlong fury of that crew,
In vain their stubborn ardour he would tame,
The hand that kindles cannot quench the flame.
The wary foe alone hath turn`d their mood,
And shewn their rashness to that erring brood:
The feign`d retreat, the nightly ambuscade,
The daily harass, and the fight delay`d,
The long privation of the hoped supply,
The tentless rest beneath the humid sky,
The stubborn wall that mocks the leaguer`s art,
And palls the patience of his baffled heart,
Of these they had not deem`d: the battle-day
They could encounter as a veteran may;
But more preferr`d the fury of the strife,
And present death, to hourly suffering life:
And famine wrings, and fever sweeps away
His numbers melting fast from their array;
Intemperate triumph fades to discontent,
And Lara`s soul alone seems still unbent:
But few remain to aid his voice and hand,
And thousands dwindled to a scanty band:
Desperate, though few, the last and best remain`d
To mourn the discipline they late disdain`d.
One hope survives, the frontier is not far,
And thence they may escape from native war;
And bear within them to the neighbouring state
An exile`s sorrows, or an outlaw`s hate:
Hard is the task their fatherland to quit,
But harder still to perish or submit.
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