Saved from the perils of the stormy wave, And faint with toil, the wanderer of the main, But just escaped from shipwreck’s billowy grave, Trembles to hear its horrors named again. How warm his vow, that Ocean’s fairest mien No more shall lure him from the smiles of home! Yet soon, forgetting each terrific scene, Once more he turns, o’er boundless deeps to roam. Lady! thus I, who vainly oft in flight Seek refuge from the dangers of thy sight, Make the firm vow to shim thee and be free: But my fond heart, devoted to its chain, Still draws me back where countless perils reign, And grief and ruin spread their snares for me. SONNET 239. FROM PSALM CXXXVII. “Em Babylonia sobre os rios, quando.” Beside the streams of Babylon, in tears Of vain desire, we sat; remembering thee, O hallow’d Sion! and the vanish’d years, When Israel’s chosen sons were blest and free: Our harps, neglected and untuned, we hung Mute on the willows of the stranger’s land; When songs, like those that in thy fanes we sung, Our foes demanded from their captive band. “How shall our voices, on a foreign shore,” (We answer’d those whose chains the exile wore,) “The songs of God, our sacred songs, renew? If I forget, midst grief and wasting toil, Thee, O Jerusalem! my native soil! _May my right hand forget its cunning too!_” SONNET 128. “Huma admiravel herva se conhece.” There blooms a plant, whose gaze from hour to hour Still to the sun with fond devotion turns, Wakes when Creation hails his dawning power, And most expands when most her idol burns: But when he seeks the bosom of the deep, His faithful plant’s reflected charms decay; Then fade her flowers, her leaves discolour’d weep, Still fondly pining for the vanish’d ray. Thou whom I love, the day-star of my sight! When thy dear presence wakes me to delight, Joy in my soul unfolds her fairest flower: But in thy heaven of smiles alone it blooms, And, of their light deprived, in grief consumes, Born but to live within thine eye-beam’s power. “Polomeu apartamento.” Amidst the bitter tears that fell In anguish at my last farewell, Oh! who would dream that joy could dwell, To make that moment bright? Yet be my judge, each heart! and say, Which then could most my bosom sway, Affliction or delight? It was when Hope, oppress’d with woes, Seem’d her dim eyes in death to close, That rapture’s brightest beam arose In sorrow’s darkest night. Thus, if my soul survive that hour, ’Tis that my fate o’ercame the power Of anguish with delight.