Hail, Zaragoza! If with Unwet Eye
Hail, Zaragoza! If with Unwet Eye - context Summary
Siege of Zaragoza, Peninsular War
This short poem responds to the Siege of Zaragoza during the Peninsular War, addressing the city’s suffering and heroic endurance. Wordsworth treats the ruined city not with sensational pity but as a moral exemplar: its devastation becomes a trophy of civic courage and steadfastness. The poem compresses wartime horrors—blood, disease, and upheaval—into a witness of communal virtue, suggesting that law and dignity can survive even when hope and help are gone.
Read Complete AnalysesHAIL, Zaragoza! If with unwet eye We can approach, thy sorrow to behold, Yet is the heart not pitiless nor cold; Such spectacle demands not tear or sigh. These desolate remains are trophies high Of more than martial courage in the breast Of peaceful civic virtue: they attest Thy matchless worth to all posterity. Blood flowed before thy sight without remorse; Disease consumed thy vitals; War upheaved The ground beneath thee with volcanic force: Dread trials! yet encountered and sustained Till not a wreck of help or hope remained, And law was from necessity received.
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