IV.

Ye far amidst the southern flowers lie sleeping,
Your graves all smiling in the sunshine clear,
Save one !—a blue, lone, distant main is sweeping
High o'er one gentle head-ye rest not here!—
'Tis not the olive, with a whisper swaying,

Not thy low ripplings, glassy water, playing

Through my own chesnut groves, which fill mine ear;
But the faint echoes in my breast that dwell,

And for their birth-place moan, as moans the ocean-shell 2.

V.

Peace! I will dash these fond regrets to earth,

Ev'n as an eagle shakes the cumbering rain

From his strong pinion. Thou that gav'st me birth,
And lineage, and once home,-my native Spain !
My own bright land-my father's land-my child's!
What hath thy son brought from thee to the wilds?
He hath brought marks of torture and the chain,
Traces of things which pass not as a breeze,

A blighted name, dark thoughts, wrath, woe-thy gifts are these.

VI.

A blighted name!I hear the winds of morn-
Their sounds are not of this!-I hear the shiver
Of the green reeds, and all the rustlings, borne
From the high forest, when the light leaves quiver:
Their sounds are not of this!-the cedars, waving,

Lend it no tone: His wide savannahs laving,

It is not murmur'd by the joyous river!

What part hath mortal name, where God alone

Speaks to the mighty waste, and through its heart is known?

VII.

Is it not much that I may worship Him, With nought my spirit's breathings to control, And feel His presence in the vast, and dim, And whispery woods, where dying thunders roll From the far cataracts?-Shall I not rejoice That I have learn'd at last to know His voice From man's?--I will rejoice!-my soaring soul Now hath redeem'd her birth-right of the day, And won, through clouds, to Him, her own unfetter'd way!

VIII.

And thou, my boy! that silent at my knee
Dost lift to mine thy soft, dark, earnest eyes,
Fill'd with the love of childhood, which I see

Pure through its depths, a thing without disguise ;
Thou that hast breath'd in slumber on my breast,
When I have check'd its throbs to give thee rest,
Mine own! whose young thoughts fresh before me rise!
Is it not much that I may guide thy prayer,

And circle thy glad soul with free and healthful air?

IX.

Why should I weep on thy bright head, my boy?
Within thy fathers' halls thou wilt not dwell,
Nor lift their banner, with a warrior's joy,
Amidst the sons of mountain chiefs, who fell
For Spain of old.-Yet what if rolling waves
Have borne us far from our ancestral graves?
Thou shalt not feel thy bursting heart rebel

As mine hath done; nor bear what I have borne,

Casting in falsehood's mould th' indignant brow of scorn.

This shall not be thy lot, my

X.

blessed child!

I have not sorrow'd, struggled, liv'd in vain-
Hear me! magnificent and ancient wild;
And mighty rivers, ye that meet the main,

As deep meets deep; and forests, whose dim shade

The flood's voice, and the wind's, by swells pervade;

Hear me !-'tis well to die, and not complain,

Yet there are hours when the charg'd heart must speak, Ev'n in the desert's ear to pour itself, or break!

XI.

I see an oak before me3, it hath been

The crown'd one of the woods; and might have flung

Its hundred arms to Heaven, still freshly green,

But a wild vine around the stem hath clung,

From branch to branch close wreaths of bondage throwing,

Till the proud tree, before no tempest bowing,

Hath shrunk and died, those serpent-folds among.

Alas! alas!-what is it that I see?

An image of man's mind, land of my sires, with thee!

XII.

Yet art thou lovely!-Song is on thy hills-
Oh sweet and mournful melodies of Spain,
That lull'd my boyhood, how your memory thrills
The exile's heart with sudden-wakening pain!—
Your sounds are on the rocks-that I might hear
Once more the music of the mountaineer!-
And from the sunny vales the shepherd's strain
Floats out, and fills the solitary place

With the old tuneful names of Spain's heroic race.

XIII.

But there was silence one bright, golden day,

Through my own pine-hung mountains. Clear, yet lone,
In the rich autumn light the vineyards lay,

And from the fields the peasant's voice was gone;
And the red grapes untrodden strew'd the ground,
And the free flocks untended roam'd around:

Where was the pastor?-where the pipe's wild tone?
Music and mirth were hush'd the hills among,

While to the city's gates each hamlet pour'd its throng.