Heredia, who has been called the Byron of Spanish literature, and who is claimed by Spain as one of the glories of her letters, is known in Cuba largely by his patriotic poems, and his poems on nature. In the United States, where because of his exile from Cuba his poems were first printed, he is chiefly known by three great compositions, two of which were translated into English by William Cullen Bryant. These are his "Ode to Niagara," Which ranks among the greatest poems ever written by any poet on that theme; his "Ode to the Hurricane"; and a sonnet addressed to his wife. It is with his political and patriotic poems, however, that we are now most concerned, and of them it may be said that seldom have the aspirations of a people for freedom been expressed with more passionate eloquence. His first important poem, "The Star of Cuba," written while he was yet in his teens, expressed a readiness to die, if need be, for Cuba, leaving his head upon the scaffold as a token of the brutality of Spain. Years afterward, in exile, he apostrophized Cuba as the "land of light and beauty," and then thus prophesied: My Cuba! Thou shalt one day rise From 'neath the despot's hand, Free as the air beneath thy skies Or waves which kiss thy strand. In vain the traitor's noxious plots, The tyrant's wrath is vain; Since roll the surges of the sea Between thy shores and Spain! [Illustration: FELIX VARELA] FELIX VARELA One of Cuba's greatest philosophers and churchmen, Felix Varela, was born in Havana on November 20, 1788, was educated at San Carlos, and became a priest and teacher. After several years of service at San Carlos as Professor of Philosophy, in 1823 he was compelled to flee to New York as a political exile. In that city he spent the rest of his life, editing several periodicals, translating many works, and writing much on religious and philosophical subjects. He became rector of the Church of the Transfiguration, and in 1845 was chosen Vicar-General of New York. A few years later he went to Florida on account of his health, and died at St. Augustine in 1853. Though Heredia took little active part in the physical revolt of Cuba against Spain, his poems exerted during his lifetime a potent influence in aid of revolution, and that influence steadily increased until, nearly three score years after his death, his prophecy of Cuban freedom was splendidly fulfilled. He was the first great voice of Cuban freedom, the first great pioneer in that extraordinary intellectual development which made Cuban history memorable in the Nineteenth Century. Truly did the Spanish critic Menendez say of him that if his political activity did not equal that of other conspirators against Spain, and though he took no part in armed struggles, his intellectual influence was constant and supremely effective, since he surpassed in talents all his countrymen.