if tears and trembling limbs With such celestial natures might consist. Embraced by all, in turn embracing each, The husband and the father for awhile Forgot his country and all things beside: Life hath few moments of such pure delight, Such foretaste of the perfect joy of Heaven. And when the thought recurr’d of sufferings past, Perils which threaten’d still, and arduous toil Yet to be undergone, remember’d griefs Heighten’d the present happiness; and hope Upon the shadows of futurity Shone like the sun upon the morning mists, When driven before his rising rays they roll, And melt and leave the prospect bright and clear. When now Pelayo’s eyes had drank their fill Of love from those dear faces, he went up To view the hiding place. Spacious it was As that Sicilian cavern in the hill Wherein earth-shaking Neptune’s giant son Duly at eve was wont to fold his flock, Ere the wise Ithacan, over that brute force By wiles prevailing, for a life-long night Seel’d his broad eye. The healthful air had here Free entrance, and the cheerful light of heaven; But at the end, an opening in the floor Of rock disclosed a wider vault below, Which never sun-beam visited, nor breath Of vivifying morning came to cheer. No light was there but that which from above In dim reflection fell, or found its way, Broken and quivering, through the glassy stream, Where through the rock it gush’d. That shadowy light Sufficed to show, where from their secret bed The waters issued; with whose rapid course, And with whose everlasting cataracts Such motion to the chill damp atmosphere Was given, as if the solid walls of rock Were shaken with the sound. Glad to respire The upper air, Pelayo hasten’d back From that drear den. Look! Hermesind exclaim’d, Taking her father’s hand, thou hast not seen My chamber: ... See!... did ever ring-dove chuse In so secure a nook her hiding-place, Or build a warmer nest? ’Tis fragrant too, As warm, and not more sweet than soft; for thyme And myrtle with the elastic heath are laid, And, over all, this dry and pillowy moss ... Smiling she spake. Pelayo kiss’d the child, And, sighing, said within himself, I trust In Heaven, whene’er thy May of life is come, Sweet bird, that thou shalt have a blither bower! Fitlier, he thought, such chamber might beseem Some hermit of Hilarion’s school austere, Or old Antonius, he who from the hell Of his bewilder’d phantasy saw fiends In actual vision, a foul throng grotesque Of all horrific shapes and forms obscene Crowd in broad day before his open eyes. That feeling cast a momentary shade Of sadness o’er his soul. But deeper thoughts, If he might have foreseen the things to come, Would there have fill’d him; for within that cave His own remains were one day doom’d to find Their final place of rest; and in that spot,