From living man no comfort reaches me: From me the dearest and most faithful friend Would fly beyond the earth's remotest end, So not to share my hopeless misery! And my sad eyes, where'er I turn my sight, Are strangers to the light. No man that comes anear, My name did ever hear-- So I myself almost myself forget! Nor know if what I was, so am I yet-- Nor why to me this misery befell: Nor can I knowledge get; For none to me the horrid tale will tell. * * * * * * Wreck'd is my vessel on a shoreless sea, Where there is none to help me in my fear, Where none can stretch a friendly saving hand! I call on men--but there are none to hear; In the wide world there's no man thinks of me; My failing voice can never reach the land! But, while I fearful stand, A blessed, heaven-sent thought, By bitter suffering brought, Bids me, O Virgin! trust to thee alone. Thou never turn'st away from those who cry, Nor wilt thou let thy son, O piteous Mother! miserably die. My mother died as soon as I was born; And I was dedicate to thee, a little child, Bequeath'd by my poor mother's dying prayer; A second parent thou, O Virgin mild!-- Father and mother to the babe forlorn! For my own father made me not his care:-- And, Lady, canst thou bear A child of thine thus lost, And in such danger tost? To other sorrows art thou not so blind: They waken pity in thy gentle mind, Thou givest aid to every other, To me be also kind; Listen, and save thy son, O piteous Mother! It could not be, however, but that a heart so truly pious would find relief in prayer, and feel at intervals strong animating confidence in heaven. Thus, in contrast with these laments, we have a description of another mood of mind, which he gives in an epistle to a friend on his liberation. "Cut off," he writes, "not only from the conversation and society of men, but even from seeing them, I remained for five years shut up in darkness and a dungeon. I then enjoyed a peace and joy of mind that I often miss, now that I am restored to light, and the society of my friends." He was at length liberated. Sedano tells us, that "at last his trial being over, in virtue of the proofs and exculpations which he was enabled to bring in support of his innocence, he was set at liberty at the end of the year 1576, and restored to all his honours and employments." It is some consolation to find that his imprisonment caused great scandal and outcry, and that his liberation was hailed with exultation and delight. The university had, from respect, never filled the professor's chair, vacated during his imprisonment; and, on his return to Salamanca, the most distinguished persons of the town met him on his way, and conducted him thither in triumph.