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SCENE IV.
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SCENE IV.

DON JUAN DE PADILLA, solus.
Don Juan.
This day decides, and gives the world to Charles,
And plunges Spain in darkness and despair;
Enwraps the mind in superstition's veil,
While freedom dies on his all conquering sword;
Or spreads victorious her expanded wing,
And shrouds the rights which reason lends to man.

140

I give my life a cheerful sacrifice;
'Tis a just debt my country may demand.
And if I fall in such a glorious cause,
I'll boast my lot;—let future pens record
Don Juan's arm once shook a tyrant's throne.
'Twas on the spot, where now Toledo stands
Our ancestors defeated Pompey's troops;
And in the height of Rome's exalted fame,
Numantia's plains have smok'd with Roman blood.
E'en in the zenith of republic pride,
The virtuous Scipio found it no mean task,
To subjugate Numantia's warlike sons;
Nor does our blood so cold and languid run,
That we have not the courage to be free.
The loan of life I only hold a boon,
When freedom lights to glory and to fame;
But when she sits beneath a naked shrine,
With moss grown tresses o'er her furrow'd brow,
And lays her laurels at a tyrant's feet,
Let vulgar souls embrace the servile chains,
And adulation bask in courtly smiles,
'Till liberty herself expires in tears.—
My spirit's unsubdu'd—I'll ne'er submit:
I yet must play a noble, glorious game,
That shakes the sceptre, or secures a grave.

[Tumult, and noise of battle, without.
[Exit.