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| HE who may chronicle Spain’s arduous strife | |
| Against the Intruder, hath to speak of fields | |
| Profuselier fed with blood, and victories | |
| Borne wider on the wings of glad report; | |
| Yet shall this town, which from the mill-stream takes | 5 |
| Its humble name, be storied as the spot | |
| Where the vain Frenchman, insolent too long | |
| Of power and of success, first saw the strength | |
| Of England in prompt enterprise essayed, | |
| And felt his fortunes ebb, from that day forth | 10 |
| Swept back upon the refluent tide of war. | |
| Girard lay here, who late from Caceres, | |
| Far as his active cavalry could scour, | |
| Had pillaged and oppressed the country round: | |
| The Spaniard and the Portuguese he scorned, | 15 |
| And deemed the British soldiers all too slow | |
| To seize occasion, unalert in war, | |
| And therefore brave in vain. In such belief, | |
| Secure at night he laid him down to sleep, | |
| Nor dreamt that these disparaged enemies | 20 |
| With drum and trumpet should in martial charge | |
| Sound his reveille. All day their march severe | |
| They held through wind and drenching rain; all night | |
| The autumnal tempest unabating raged, | |
| While in their comfortless and open camp | 25 |
| They cheered themselves with patient hope: the storm | |
| Was their ally; and moving in the mist, | |
| When morning opened, on the astonished foe | |
| They burst. Soon routed horse and foot, the French, | |
| On all sides scattering, fled, on every side | 30 |
| Beset, and every where pursued, with loss | |
| Of half their numbers captured, their whole stores, | |
| And all their gathered plunder. ’T was a day | |
| Of surest omen, such as filled with joy | |
| True English hearts. No happier peals have e’er | 35 |
| Been rolled abroad from town and village tower | |
| Than gladdened then with their exultant sound | |
| Salopian vales; and flowing cups were brimmed | |
| All round the Wrekin to Sir Rowland’s name. | |
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