O my lost lamb, Thy master all forgetting, Whither dost erring go? Behold how now divided From me, thou partest from thy life! In my tender kindness, Thou seest how always loving I guard thee watchfully, I free thee of all danger, And that I give my life for thee. Behold how that my beauty Is of all things beloved, And is of all things sought, And by all creatures praised. Still dost thou choose from me to go astray. I go to seek thee yet, Although thou art as lost; But for thee now my life I cannot still lay down That once I wished to lose to find my sheep. Do worthier than thou Ask these my benefits, The rivers flowing fair, The pastures and green glades Wherein my loving-kindness feedeth thee. Within a barren field, In desert land afar, I found thee, ere the wolf Had all thy life despoiled, And prized thee as the apple of mine eye. I led thee to the verdure Of my most peaceful ways, Where thou hast fed at will Upon the honey sweet And oil that flowed to thee from out the rock. With generous crops of grain, With marrowy substances, I have sustained thy life, Made thee most savory food, And given to thee the juice of fragrant grapes. Thou seekest other fields With them that did not know Thy fathers, honored not Thy elders, and in this Thou dost excite my own displeasure grave. And for that thou hast sinned I'll hide from thee my face, Before whose light the sun Its feeble glory pales; From thee, ingrate, perverse, and most unfaithful one. Shall my displeasure's scourge Thy verdant fields destroy, The herb that gives thee food; And shall my fires lay waste, Even from the top of highest mountains old. My lightning arrows shall Be drawn, and hunger sharp Shall cut the threads of life, And evil birds of prey And fiercest beasts shall lie in wait for thee. Shall grovelling serpents show The venom of their rage, By different ways of death My rigors shall be wrought; Without thee by the sword, within thee by thy fears. Behold I am thy Sovereign, And there is none more strong; That I am life and death, That I can slay and save, And nothing can escape from out my hand. Our last quotation from Sister Juana's poems will be one of those tributes which, in verse or prose, she so often paid to the Blessed Virgin. It is a song taken from her villancicos, or rhymes for festivals. The literary manners of her time seem to have obscured the native excellence of her thought, but the buoyant style of the following lines meets with little objection from her modern Mexican critic: