Wrapt in sad musings, by Euphrates’ stream I sat, retracing days for ever flown, While rose thine image on the exile’s dream, O much-loved Salem! and thy glories gone: When they who caused the ceaseless tears I shed, Thus to their captive spoke--“Why sleep thy lays? Sing of thy treasures lost, thy splendour fled, And all thy triumphs in departed days! Know’st thou not Harmony’s resistless charm Can soothe each passion, and each grief disarm? Sing then, and tears will vanish from thine eye.” With sighs I answer’d,--“When the cup of woe Is fill’d, till misery’s bitter draught o’erflow, The mourner’s cure is not to sing--but die.” PART OF ECLOGUE 15. “Se lá no assento da maior alteza.” If in thy glorious home above Thou still recallest earthly love, If yet retain’d a thought may be Of him whose heart hath bled for thee; Remember still how deeply shrined Thine image in his joyless mind: Each well-known scene, each former care, Forgotten--thou alone art there! Remember that thine eye-beam’s light Hath fled for ever from his sight, And, with that vanish’d sunshine, lost Is every hope he cherish’d most. Think that his life, from thee apart, Is all but weariness of heart; Each stream, whose music once was dear, Now murmurs discord to his ear. Through thee, the morn, whose cloudless rays Woke him to joy in other days, Now, in the light of beauty drest, Brings but new sorrows to his breast. Through thee, the heavens are dark to him, The sun’s meridian blaze is dim; And harsh were e’en the bird of eve, But that her song still loves to grieve. All it hath been, his heart forgets, So alter’d by its long regrets; Each wish is changed, each hope is o’er, And joy’s light spirit wakes no more. SONNET 271. “A formosura desta fresca serra.” This mountain-scene with sylvan grandeur crown’d, These chestnut-woods, in summer verdure bright; These founts and rivulets, whose mingling sound Lulls every bosom to serene delight; Soft on these hills the sun’s declining ray; This clime, where all is new; these murmuring seas; Flocks, to the fold that bend their lingering way; Light clouds, contending with the genial breeze; And all that Nature’s lavish hands dispense, In gay luxuriance, charming every sense, Ne’er in thy absence can delight my breast: Nought, without thee, my weary soul beguiles: And joy may beam; yet, midst her brightest smiles, A secret grief is mine, that will not rest. SONNET 186. “Os olhos onde o casto Amor ardia.”