Thus in my youth I saw the tower Of the superb Alhambra lower, Broken, and imminent appal The Douro threatening with its fall. Each rapid moment of my life Hasten’d the term with ruin rife; And of the Alcazar’s sovereign pride, Where once the Moorish power enchain’d Their fame as left to ages wide, Mine eyes may soon not find descried Its ruins ev’n remain’d. As that dark image o’er me glooms, My heart sinks heavy in my breast; I bow myself before the tombs, In tears with grief oppress’d. What is thy magic? what may be The ineffable enchantment found, O, country! O, sweet name, in thee? Ever so dear to man the sound! The sunburnt African will sigh For his parch’d sands and burning sky, Perchance afar, and round the plains However blooming he disdains. Ev’n the rude Laplander, if fate In luckless hour him off has torn From his own soil, disconsolate Will to return there longing mourn; Envying the eternal night’s repose, His icebound shores and endless snows. And I, to whom kind fate assign’d My birth within thy happy fold, Granada! and my growth as kind Within thy blissful bounds to mould, Far from my country, and beset With griefs, how could I thee forget? On Africa’s inhuman shore, To the wreck’d seaman rough and drear, Thy sacred name I o’er and o’er Repeated, which the waves to hear Back to the Spanish regions bore. On the far Pole’s dark furious sea, By the Batavian’s energy Bridled, again thy name was heard: Heard it the Rhone, the foamy Rhine, The Pyrenæan heights the word Repeated with the Apennine, And in Vesuvius’ burning cave Then first the sound the echos gave. EPISTLE TO THE DUQUE DE FRIAS, ON THE DEATH OF THE DUQUESA. From the dark gloomy borders of the Seine, Where with black clouds around the heaven extends, The earth o’erwhelm’d with snow, the heart with pain, Thee thy unhappy friend his greeting sends; To thee still more unhappy! nor deters Him ev’n the fear to touch the wounds unheal’d, Yet bleeding sore, or see thee how it stirs Fresh tears to bathe thine eyes thy sorrows yield. What would he be, if man were not to weep? A thousand times I’ve thank’d our God, who gave The heart to soothe its griefs in tears to steep; As rain we see subdue the raging wave. Weep then, ay, weep! others, and abler friends As faithful, with success may in thine ears Make heard the voice that stoic virtue lends; But I, who in the world my cup of tears Oft to the dregs have drain’d, no cure could find For grief, but what from grief I might derive; When with vain struggling tired, the powerless mind Submissive ceased beneath the weight to strive.