VARIOUS POEMSCAPE CODThe low sandy beach and the thin scrub pine,The wide reach of bay and the long sky line,—O, I am far from home!The salt, salt smell of the thick sea air,And the smooth round stones that the ebbtides wear,—When will the good ship come?The wretched stumps all charred and burned,And the deep soft rut where the cartwheel turned,—Why is the world so old?The lapping wave, and the broad gray skyWhere the cawing crows and the slow gulls fly,—Where are the dead untold?The thin, slant willows by the flooded bog,The huge stranded hulk and the floating log,—Sorrow with life began!And among the dark pines, and along the flat shore,O the wind, and the wind, for evermore!What will become of man?A TOASTSee this bowl of purple wine,Life-blood of the lusty vine!All the warmth of summer sunsIn the vintage liquid runs,All the glow of winter nightsPlays about its jewel lights,Thoughts of time when love was youngLurk its ruby drops among,And its deepest depths are dyedWith delight of friendship tried.Worthy offering, I ween,For a god or for a queen,Is the draught I pour to thee,—Comfort of all misery,Single friend of the forlorn,Haven of all beings born,Hope when trouble wakes at night,And when naught delights, delight.Holy Death, I drink to thee;Do not part my friends and me.Take this gift, which for a nightPuts dull leaden care to flight,Thou who takest grief awayFor a night and for a day.PREMONITIONThe muffled syllables that Nature speaksFill us with deeper longing for her word;She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks,She makes a sweeter music than is heard.A hidden light illumines all our seeing,An unknown love enchants our solitude.We feel and know that from the depths of beingExhales an infinite, a perfect good.Though the heart wear the garment of its sorrowAnd be not happy like a naked star,Yet from the thought of peace some peace we borrow,Some rapture from the rapture felt afar.Our heart strings are too coarse for Nature's fingersDeftly to quicken as she pulses on,And the harsh tremor that among them lingersWill into sweeter silence die anon.We catch the broken prelude and suggestionOf things unuttered, needing to be sung;We know the burden of them, and their questionLies heavy on the heart, nor finds a tongue.Till haply, lightning through the storm of ages,Our sullen secret flash from sky to sky,Glowing in some diviner poet's pagesAnd swelling into rapture from this sigh.SOLIPSISMI could believe that I am here alone,And all the world my dream;The passion of the scene is all my own,And things that seem but seem.Perchance an exhalation of my sorrowHath raised this vaporous show,For whence but from my soul should all things borrowSo deep a tinge of woe?I keep the secret doubt within my breastTo be the gods' defence,To ease the heart by too much ruth oppressedAnd drive the horror hence.O sorrow that the patient brute should cowerAnd die, not having sinned!O pity that the wild and fragile flowerShould shiver in the wind!Then were I dreaming dreams I know not of,For that is part of meThat feels the piercing pang of grief and loveAnd doubts eternally.But whether all to me the vision comeOr break in many beams,The pageant ever shifts, and being's sumIs but the sum of dreams.SYBARISLap, ripple, lap, Icarian wave, the sandAlong the ruins of this piteous land;Murmur the praises of a lost delight,And soothe the aching of my starved sightWith sheen of mirrored beauties, caught aright.Here stood enchanted palaces of old,All veined porphyry and burnished gold;Here matrons and slight maidens sat aloofBeneath cool porches, rich with Tyrian woofHung from the carven rafters of the roof.Here in a mart a swarthy turbaned braveShowed the wrought blade or praised the naked slave."Touch with your finger-tips this edge of steel,"Quoth he, "and see this lad, from head to heelLike a bronze Cupid. Feel, my masters, feel."Here Aphrodite filled with frenzied loveThe dark recesses of her murmurous grove.The doves that haunted it, the winds that sighed,Were souls of youths that in her coverts died,And hopes of heroes strewed her garden wide.Under her shades a narrow brazen gateLed to the courts of Ares and of Fate.Who entered breathed the unutterable prayerOf cruel hearts, and death was worshipped there,And men went thence enfranchised by despair.Here the proud athlete in the baths delayed,While a cool fountain on his shoulders played,Then in fine linen swathed his breast and thighs,And silent, myrtle crowned, with serious eyes,Stepped forth to list the wranglings of the wise.A sage stalked by, his ragged mantle boundAbout his brows; his eyes perused the ground;He conned the number of the cube and squareOf the moon's orb; his horny feet and bareTrampled the lilies carpeting the stair.A jasper terrace hung above the seaWhere the King supped with his beloved three:The Libyan chanted of her native landIn raucous melody, the Indian fanned,And the huge mastiff licked his master's hand.Below, alone, despairing of the gale,A crouching sailor furled the saffron sail;Then rose, breathed deep, and plunged in the lagoon.A mermaid spied his glistening limbs: her croonEnticed him down; her cold arms choked him soon.And the King laughed, filled full his jewelled bowl,And drinking mused: "What know we of the soul?What magic, perfecting her harmony,Have these red drops that so attune her key,Or those of brine that set the wretched free?"If death should change me, as old fables feign,Into some slave or beast, to purge with painMy lordly pleasures, let my torment beStill to behold thee, Sybaris, and seeThe sacred horror of thy loves and thee."Be thou my hell, my dumb eternal grief,But spare thy King the madness of belief,The brutish faith of ignorant desireThat strives and wanders. Let the visible fireOf beauty torture me. That doom is higher."I wear the crown of life. The rose and gemTwine with the pale gold of my diadem.Nature, long secret, hath unveiled to meAnd proved her vile. Her wanton bosoms beMy pillow now. I know her, I am free."He spoke, and smiling stretched a languid hand,And music burst in mighty chords and blandOf harp and flute and cymbal.—When betweenTwo cypresses the large moon rose, her sheenSilvered the nymphs' feet, tripping o'er the green.AVILAAgain my feet are on the fragrant moorAmid the purple uplands of Castile,Realm proudly desolate and nobly poor,Scorched by the sky's inexorable zeal.Wide desert where a diadem of towersAbove Adaja hems a silent town,And locks, unmindful of the mocking hours,Her twenty temples in a granite crown.The shafts of fervid light are in the sky,And in my heart the mysteries of yore.Here the sad trophies of my spirit lie:These dead fulfilled my destiny before.Like huge primeval stones that strew this plain,Their nameless sorrows sink upon my breast,And like this ardent sky their cancelled painSmiles at my grief and quiets my unrest.For here hath mortal life from age to ageEndured the silent hand that makes and mars,And, sighing, taken up its heritageBeneath the smiling and inhuman stars.Still o'er this town the crested castle stands,A nest for storks, as once for haughty souls,Still from the abbey, where the vale expands,The curfew for the long departed tolls,Wafting some ghostly blessing to the heartFrom prayer of nun or silent Capuchin,To heal with balm of Golgotha the smartOf weary labour and distracted sin.What fate has cast me on a tide of timeCareless of joy and covetous of gold,What force compelled to weave the pensive rhymeWhen loves are mean, and faith and honour old,When riches crown in vain men's sordid lives,And learning chokes a mind of base degree?What winged spirit rises from their hives?What heart, revolting, ventures to be free?Their pride will sink and more ignobly fadeWithout memorial of its hectic fire.What altars shall survive them, where they prayed?What lovely deities? What riven lyre?Tarry not, pilgrim, but with inward gazePass daily, musing, where their prisons are,And o'er the ocean of their babble raiseThy voice in greeting to thy changeless star.Abroad a tumult, and a ruin here;Nor world nor desert hath a home for thee.Out of the sorrows of the barren yearBuild thou thy dwelling in eternity.Let patience, faith's wise sister, be thy heaven,And with high thoughts necessity alloy.Love is enough, and love is ever given,While fleeting days bring gift of fleeting joy.The little pleasures that to catch the sunBubble a moment up from being's deep,The glittering sands of passion as they run,The merry laughter and the happy sleep,—These are the gems that, like the stars on fire,Encrust with glory all our heaven's zones;Each shining atom, in itself entire,Brightens the galaxy of sister stones,Dust of a world that crumbled when God's dreamTo throbbing pulses broke the life of things,And mingled with the void the scattered gleamOf many orbs that move in many rings,Perchance at last into the parent sunTo fall again and reunite their rays,When God awakes and gathers into oneThe light of all his loves and all his days.KING'S COLLEGE CHAPELThe buttress frowns, the gorgeous windows blaze,The vaults hang wonderful with woven fans,The four stone sentinels to heaven raiseTheir heads, in a more constant faith than man's.The College gathers, and the courtly prayerIs answered still by hymn and organ-groan;The beauty and the mystery are there,The Virgin and Saint Nicholas are gone.Not oneOra pro nobisbids them pauseIn their far flight, to hear this anthem roll;No heart, of all that the King's relic awes,SingsRequiescatto his mournful soul.No grain of incense thrown upon the embersOf their cold hearth, no lamp in witness hungBefore their image. One alone remembers;Only the stranger knows their mother tongue.Long rows of tapers light the people's places;The little choristers may read, and markThe rhythmic fall; I see their wondering faces;Only the altar—like the soul—is dark.Ye floating voices through these arches ringingWith measured music, subtle, sweet, and strong,Feel ye the inmost reason of your singing?Know ye the ancient burden of your song?The twilight deepens, and the blood-dyed gloriesOf all these fiery blazonings are dim.Oh, they are jumbled, sad, forgotten stories!Why should ye read them, children? Chant your hymn.But I must con them while the rays of evenKindle aloft some fading jewel-gleamAnd the vast windows glow a peopled heaven,Rich with the gathering pageant of my dream.Eden I see, where from the leafy coverThe green-eyed snake begins to uncoil his lengthAnd whispers to the woman and her lover,As they lie musing, large, in peaceful strength.I see their children, bent with toil and terror,Lurking in caves, or heaping madly onThe stones of Babel, or the endless errorOf Sodom, Nineveh, and Babylon.Here the Egyptian, wedding life with death,Flies from the sun into his painted tomb,And winds the secret of his antique faithTight in his shroud, and seals in sterile gloom.There the bold prophets of the heart's desireHail the new Zion God shall build for them,And rapt Isaiah strikes the heavenly lyre,And Jeremiah mourns Jerusalem.Here David's daughter, full of grace and truth,Kneels in the temple, waiting for the Lord;With the firstAvecomes the winged youth,Bringing the lily ere he bring the sword.There, to behold the Mother and the Child,The sturdy shepherds down the mountain plod,And angels sing, with voices sweet and wildAnd wide lips parted: "Glory be to God."Here, mounted on an ass, the twain departTo hallowed Egypt, safe from Herod's wrong;And Mary ponders all things in her heart,And pensive Joseph sadly walks along.There with the Twelve, before his blood is shed,Christ blesses bread and breaks it with his hands,"This is my body." Thomas shakes his head,They marvel all, and no one understands,Save John, whom Jesus loved above the rest.He marvels too, but, seeking naught beside,Leans, as his wont is, on his Master's breast.Ah! the Lord's body also should abide.There Golgotha is dark against the blueIn the broad east, above the painted crowd,And many look upon the sign, but fewRead the hard lesson of the cross aloud.And from this altar, now an empty tomb,The Lord is risen. Lo! he is not here.No shining angel sitteth in the gloom,No Magdalen in anguish draweth near.All pure in heart, or all in aspect pure,The seemly Christians, kneeling, line the choir,And drop their eyelids, tender and demure,As the low lingering harmonies expire.In thatAmenare the last echoes blendedOf all the ghostly world. The shades departInto the sacred night. In peace is endedThe long delirious fever of the heart.Then I go forth into the open woldAnd breathe the vigour of the freshening wind,And with the piling drift of cloud I holdA worship sweeter to the homeless mind,Where the squat willows with their osiers crownedBorder the humble reaches of the Cam,And the deep meadows stretching far aroundMake me forget the exile that I am,—Exile not only from the wind-swept moorWhere Guadarrama lifts his purple crest,But from the spirit's realm, celestial, sureGoal of all hope and vision of the best.They also will go forth, these gentle youths,Strong in the virtues of their manful isle,Till one the pathway of the forest smooths,And one the Ganges rules, and one the Nile;And to whatever wilderness they chooseTheir hearts will bear the sanctities of home,The perfect ardours of the Grecian Muse,The mighty labour of the arms of Rome;But, ah! how little of these storied wallsBeneath whose shadow all their nurture was!No, not one passing memory recallsThe Blessed Mary and Saint Nicholas.Unhappy King, look not upon these towers,Remember not thine only work that grew.The moving world that feeds thy gift devours,And the same hand that finished overthrew.ON AN UNFINISHED STATUEBY MICHAEL ANGELO IN THE BARGELLO, CALLED ANAPOLLO OR A DAVIDWhat beauteous form beneath a marble veilAwaited in this block the Master's hand?Could not the magic of his art availTo unseal that beauty's tomb and bid it stand?Alas! the torpid and unwilling massMisknew the sweetness of the mind's control,And the quick shifting of the winds, alas!Denied a body to that flickering soul.Fair homeless spirit, harbinger of bliss,It wooed dead matter that they both might live,But dreamful earth still slumbered through the kissAnd missed the blessing heaven stooped to give,As when Endymion, locked in dullard sleep,Endured the gaze of Dian, till she turnedStung with immortal wrath and doomed to weepHer maiden passion ignorantly spurned.How should the vision stay to guide the hand,How should the holy thought and ardour stay,When the false deeps of all the soul are sandAnd the loose rivets of the spirit clay?What chisel shaking in the pulse of lustShall find the perfect line, immortal, pure?What fancy blown by every random gustShall mount the breathless heavens and endure?Vain was the trance through which a thrill of joyPassed for the nonce, when a vague hand, unled,Half shaped the image of this lovely boyAnd caught the angel's garment as he fled.Leave, leave, distracted hand, the baffling stone,And on that clay, thy fickle heart, begin.Mould first some steadfast virtue of thine ownOut of the sodden substance of thy sin.They who wrought wonders by the Nile of old,Bequeathing their immortal part to us,Cast their own spirit first into the mouldAnd were themselves the rock they fashioned thus.Ever their docile and unwearied eyeTraced the same ancient pageant to the grave,And awe made rich their spirit's husbandryWith the perpetual refluence of its wave,Till 'twixt the desert and the constant NileSphinx, pyramid, and awful temple grew,And the vast gods, self-knowing, learned to smileBeneath the sky's unalterable blue.Long, long ere first the rapt Arcadian swainHeard Pan's wild music pulsing through the grove,His people's shepherds held paternal reignBeneath the large benignity of Jove.Long mused the Delphic sibyl in her caveEre mid his laurels she beheld the god,And Beauty rose a virgin from the waveIn lands the foot of Heracles had trod.Athena reared her consecrated wall,Poseidon laid its rocky basement sure,When Theseus had the monstrous race in thrallAnd made the worship of his people pure.Long had the stripling stood in silence, veiled,Hearing the heroes' legend o'er and o'er,Long in the keen palaestra striven, nor quailedTo tame the body to the task it bore,Ere soul and body, shaped by patient art,Walked linked with the gods, like friend with friend,And reason, mirrored in the sage's heart,Beheld her purpose and confessed her end.Mould, then, thyself and let the marble be.Look not to frailty for immortal themes,Nor mock the travail of mortalityWith barren husks and harvesting of dreams.MIDNIGHTThe dank earth reeks with three days' rain,The phantom trees are dark and still,Above the darkness and the hillThe tardy moon shines out again.O heavy lethargy of pain!O shadows of forgotten ill!My parrot lips, when I was young,To prove and to disprove were bold.The mighty world has tied my tongue,And in dull custom growing oldI leave the burning truth untoldAnd the heart's anguish all unsung.Youth dies in man's benumbed soul,Maid bows to woman's broken life,A thousand leagues of silence rollBetween the husband and the wife.The spirit faints with inward strifeAnd lonely gazing at the pole.But how should reptiles pine for wingsOr a parched desert know its dearth?Immortal is the soul that singsThe sorrow of her mortal birth.O cruel beauty of the earth!O love's unutterable stings!IN GRANTCHESTER MEADOWSON FIRST HEARING A SKYLARK SINGToo late, thou tender songster of the skyTrilling unseen, by things unseen inspired,I list thy far-heard cryThat poets oft to kindred song hath fired,As floating through the purple veils of airThy soul is poured on high,A little joy in an immense despair.Too late thou biddest me escape the earth,In ignorance of wrongTo spin a little slender thread of song;On yet unwearied wingTo rise and soar and sing,Not knowing death or birthOr any true unhappy human thing.To dwell 'twixt field and cloud,By river-willow and the murmurous sedge,Be thy sweet privilege,To thee and to thy happy lords allowed.My native valley higher mountains hedge'Neath starlit skies and proud,And sadder music in my soul is loud.Yet have I loved thy voice,Frail echo of some ancient sacred joy.Ah, who might not rejoiceHere to have wandered, a fair English boy,And breathed with life thy rapture and thy restWhere woven meadow-grasses fold thy nest?But whose life is his choice?And he who chooseth not hath chosen best.SPAIN IN AMERICAWRITTEN AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SPANISHFLEET IN THE BATTLE OF SANTIAGO, IN 1898IWhen scarce the echoes of Manila Bay,Circling each slumbering billowy hemisphere,Had met where Spain's forlorn Armada layLocked amid hostile hills, and whispered nearThe double omen of that groan and cheer—Haste to do now what must be done anonOr some mad hope of selling triumph dearDrove the ships forth: soon wasTeresagone,Furor, Pluton, Vizcaya, Oquendo, andColon.And when the second morning dawned sereneO'er vivid waves and foam-fringed mountains, dressedLike Nessus in their robe's envenomed sheen,Scarce by some fiery fleck the place was guessedWhere each hulk smouldered; while from crest to crestLeapt through the North the news of victory,Victory tarnished by a boorish jest[1]Yet touched with pity, lest the unkindly seaShould too much aid the strong and leave no enemy.As the anguished soul, that gasped for difficult breath,Passes to silence from its house of pain,So from those wrecks, in fumes of lurid death,Passed into peace the heavy pride of Spain,Passed from that aching tenement, half fain,Back to her castled hills and windy moors,No longer tossed upon the treacherous mainOnce boasted hers, which with its watery luresToo long enticed her sons to unhallowed sepultures.IIWhy went Columbus to that highland race,Frugal and pensive, prone to love and ire,Despising kingdoms for a woman's face,For honour riches, and for faith desire?On Spain's own breast was snow, within it fire;In her own eyes and subtle tongue was mirth;The eternal brooded in her skies, whence nigherThe trebled starry host admonished earthTo shame away her grief and mock her baubles' worth.Ah! when the crafty Tyrian came to SpainTo barter for her gold his motley wares,Treading her beaches he forgot his gain.The Semite became noble unawares.Her passion breathed Hamilcar's cruel prayers;Her fiery winds taught Hannibal his vows;Out of her tribulations and despairsThey wove a sterile garland for their brows.To her sad ports they fled before the Roman prows.And the Greek coming too forgot his art,And that large temperance which made him wise.The wonder of her mountains choked his heart,The languor of her gardens veiled his eyes;He dreamed, he doubted; in her deeper skiesHe read unfathomed oracles of woe,And stubborn to the onward destinies,Like some dumb brute before a human foe,Sank in Saguntum's flames and deemed them brighter so.The mighty Roman also when he came,Bringing his gods, his justice, and his tongue,Put off his greatness for a sadder fame,And what a Caesar wrought a Lucan sung.Nor was the pomp of his proud music, wrungFrom Latin numbers, half so stern and dire,Nor the sad majesties he moved amongHalf so divine, as her unbreathed desire.Shall longing break the heart and not untune the lyre?When after many conquerors came Christ,The only conqueror of Spain indeed,Not Bethlehem nor Golgotha sufficedTo show him forth, but every shrine must bleedAnd every shepherd in his watches heedThe angels' matins sung at heaven's gate.Nor seemed the Virgin Mother wholly freedFrom taint of ill if born in frail estate,But shone the seraphs' queen and soared immaculate.And when the Arab from his burning sandsSwept o'er the waters like a heavenly flail,He took her lute into his conquering hands,And in her midnight turned to nightingale.With woven lattices and pillars frailHe screened the pleasant secrets of his bower,Yet little could his subtler arts availAgainst the brutal onset of the Giaour.The rose passed from his courts, the muezzin from his tower.Only one image of his wisdom stayed,One only relic of his magic lore,—Allah the Great, whom silent fate obeyed,More than Jehovah calm and hidden more,Allah remained in her heart's kindred coreHigh witness of these terrene shifts of wrong.Into his ancient silence she could pourHer passions' frailty—He alone is strong—And chant with lingering wail the burden of her song.Seizing at Covadonga the rude crossPelayo raised amid his mountaineers,She bore it to Granada, one day's lossRansomed with battles of a thousand years.A nation born in harness, fed on tears,Christened in blood, and schooled in sacrifice,All for a sweeter music in the spheres,All for a painted heaven—at a priceShould she forsake her loves and sail to Ind for spice?Had Genoa in her merchant palacesNo welcome for a heaven-guided son?Had Venice, mistress of the inland seas,No ships for bolder venture? Pisa none?Was sated Rome content? Her mission done?Saw Lusitania in her seaward dreamsNo floating premonition, beckoning onTo vast horizons, gilded yet with gleamsOf old Atlantis, whelmed beneath the bubbling streams?Or if some torpor lay upon the South,Tranced by the might of memories divine,Dwelt no shrewd princeling by the marshy mouthOf Scheldt, or by the many mouths of Rhine?Rode Albion not at anchor in the brineWhose throne but now the thrifty Tudor stoleChanging a noble for a crafty line?Swarmed not the Norsemen yet about the pole,Seeking through endless mists new havens for the soul?These should have been thy mates, Columbus, thesePatrons and partners of thy enterprise,Sad lovers of immeasurable seas,Bound to no hallowed earth, no peopled skies.No ray should reach them of their ladies' eyesIn western deserts: no pure minstrel's rhyme,Echoing in forest solitudes, surpriseTheir heart with longing for a sweeter clime.These, these should found a world who drag no chains of time.In sooth it had seemed folly, to revealTo stubborn Aragon and evil-eyedThese perilous hopes, folly to dull CastileMoated in jealous faith and walled in pride,Save that those thoughts, to Spain's fresh deeds allied,Painted new Christian conquests, and her handItched for that sword, now dangling at her side,Which drove the Moslem forth and purged the land.And then she dreamed a dream her heart could understand.IIIThree caravels, a cross upon the prow,A broad cross on the banner and the sail,The liquid fields of Hesperus should ploughBorne by the leaping waters and the gale.Before that sign all hellish powers should quailTroubling the deep: no dragon's obscene crest,No serpent's slimy coils should aught avail,Till ivory cities looming in the westShould gleam from high Cathay or Araby the Blest.Then, as with noble mien and debonairThe captains from the galleys leapt to land,Or down the temple's alabaster stairOr by the river's marge of silvery sand,Proud Sultans should descend with outstretched handGreeting the strangers, and by them apprisedOf Christ's redemption and the Queen's command,Being with joy and gratitude baptized,Should lavish gifts of price by rarest art devised.Or if (since churls there be) they should demurTo some least point of fealty or faith,A champion, clad in arms from crest to spur,Should challenge the proud caitiffs to their deathAnd, singly felling them, from their last breathExtort confession that the Lord is lord,And India's Catholic queen, Elizabeth.Whereat yon turbaned tribes, with one accord,Should beat their heathen breasts and ope their treasures' hoard.Or, if the worst should chance and high debatesShould end in insult and outrageous deed,And, many Christians rudely slain, their matesShould summon heaven to their direful need,Suddenly from the clouds a snow-white steedBearing a dazzling rider clad in flamesShould plunge into the fray: with instant speedRout all the foe at once, while mid acclaimsThe slaughtered braves should rise, crying,Saint James! Saint James!Then, the day won, and its bright arbiterVanished, save for peace he left behind,Each in his private bosom should bestirHis dearest dream: as that perchance there pinedSome lovely maiden of angelic mindIn those dark towers, awaiting out of SpainTwo Saviours that her horoscope divinedShould thence arrive. She (womanlike) were fainNot to be wholly free, but wear a chosen chain.That should be youth's adventure. Riper daysWould crave the guerdon of a prouder powerAnd pluck their nuggets from an earthly mazeFor rule and dignity and children's dower.And age that thought to near the fatal hourShould to a magic fount descend instead,Whose waters with the fruit revive the flowerAnd deck in all its bloom the ashen head,Where a green heaven spreads, not peopled of the dead.IVBy such false meteors did those helmsmen steer,Such phantoms filled their vain and vaulting soulsWith divers ardours, while this brooding sphereSwung yet ungirdled on her silent poles.All journeys took them farther from their goals,All battles won defeated their desire,Barred from one India by the other's shoals,Each sighted star extinguishing its fire,Cape doubled after cape, and never haven nigher.How many galleons sailed to sail no more,How many battles and how many slain,Since first Columbus touched the Cuban shore,Till Araucania felt the yoke of Spain!What mounting miseries! What dwindling gain!To till those solitudes, soon swept of gold,And bear that ardent sun, across the mainSlaves must come writhing in the festering holdOf galleys.—Poison works, though men be brave and bold.That slothful planter, once the buccaneer,Lord of his bastards and his mongrel clan,Ignorant, harsh, what could he list or hearOf Europe and the heritage of man?No petty schemer sees the larger plan,No privy tyrant brooks the mightier law,But lash in hand rides forth a partisanOf freedom: base, without the touch of awe,He poisoned first the blood his poniard was to draw.By sloth and lust and mindlessness and pelfSpain sank in sadness and dishonour down,Each in his service serving but himself,Each in his passion striking at her crown.Not that these treasons blotted her renownEmblazoned higher than such hands can reach:There where she reaped but sorrow she has sownThe balm of sorrow; all she had to teachShe taught the younger world—her faith and heart and speech.And now within her sea-girt walls withdrawnShe waits in silence for the healing years,While where her sun has set a second dawnComes from the north, with other hopes and fears.Spain's daughters stand, half ceasing from their tears,And watch the skies from Cuba to the Horn."What is this dove or eagle that appears,"They seem to cry, "what herald of what mornHovers o'er Andes' peaks in love or guile or scorn?""O brooding Spirit, fledgling of the North,Winged for the levels of its shifting light,Child of a labouring ocean and an earthShrouded in vapours, fear the southward flight,Dread waveless waters and their warm delight,Beware of peaks that cleave the cloudless blueAnd hold communion with the naked night.The souls went never back that hither flew,But sighing fell to earth or broke the heavens through."Haunt still thy storm-swept islands, and endureThe shimmering forest where thy visions live.Then if we love thee—for thy heart is pure—Thou shalt have something worthy love to give.Thrust not thy prophets on us, nor believeThy sorry riches in our eyes are fair.Thy unctuous sophists never will deceiveA mortal pang, or charm away despair.Not for the stranger's fee we plait our lustrous hair."But of thy lingering twilight bring some gleam,Memorial of the immaterial fireLighting thy heart, and to a wider dreamWaken the music of our plaintive lyre.Check our rash word, hush, hush our base desire.Hang paler clouds of reverence aboutOur garish skies: laborious hope inspireThat uncomplaining walks the paths of doubt,A wistful heart within, a mailed breast without."Gold found is dross, but long Promethean artTransmutes to gold the unprofitable ore.Bring labour's joy, yet spare that better partOur mother, Spain, bequeathed to all she bore,For who shall covet if he once adore?Leave in our skies, strange Spirit passing there,No less of vision but of courage more,And of our worship take thy equal share,Thou who would'st teach us hope, with her who taught us prayer."