POETRY.

SPANISH SCENERY,

From Mr. Southey's Poem of Don Roderick the Last of the Goths.

WELVE weary days with unremitted speed,
Shunning frequented tracts, the travellers

Pursued their way; the mountain path they chose,
The forest or the lonely heath wide spread,
Where cistus shrubs sole-seen exhaled at noon
Their fine balsamic odour all around,
Strew'd with their blossoms, frail as beautiful,
The thirsty soil at eve; and when the sun
Relumed the gladdened earth, opening anew
Their stores exuberant, prodigal as frail,
Whitened again the wilderness. They left
The dark sierra's skirts behind, and crost
The wilds where Ana in her native hills
Collects her sister springs, and hurries on
Her course melodious amid loveliest glens,
With forest and with fruitage overbower'd,
These scenes profusely blest by Heaven they left,
Where o'er the hazel and the quince the vine

Wide mantling spreads; and clinging round the cork
And ilex, hangs amid their dusky leaves
Garlands of brightest hue, with reddening fruit
Pendant, or clusters cool of glassy green.
So holding on o'er mountain and o'er vale,
Tagus they crost where midland on his way
The King of Rivers rolls his stately stream;
And rude Alverches' wide and stony bed;
And Duro distant far; and many a stream
And many a field obscure, in future war
For bloody theatre of famous deeds

Fore doomed; and deserts where in years to come
Shall populous towns arise, and crested towers
And stately temples rear their heads on high.

Cautious.

POETRY.

SPANISH SCENERY,

From Mr. Southey's Poem of Don Roderick the Last of the Goths.

WELVE weary days with unremitted speed,

Pursued their way; the mountain path they chose,
The forest or the lonely heath wide spread,
Where cistus shrubs sole-seen exhaled at noon
Their fine balsamic odour all around,
Strew'd with their blossoms, frail as beautiful,
The thirsty soil at eve; and when the sun
Relumed the gladdened earth, opening anew
Their stores exuberant, prodigal as frail,
Whitened again the wilderness. They left
The dark sierra's skirts behind, and crost
The wilds where Ana in her native hills
Collects her sister springs, and hurries on
Her course melodious amid loveliest glens,
With forest and with fruitage overbower'd.
These scenes profusely blest by Heaven they left,
Where o'er the hazel and the quince the vine

Wide mantling spreads; and clinging round the cork
And ilex, hangs amid their dusky leaves
Garlands of brightest hue, with reddening fruit
Pendant, or clusters cool of glassy green.
So holding on o'er mountain and o'er vale,
Tagus they crost where midland on his way
The King of Rivers rolls his stately stream;
And rude Alverches' wide and stony bed;
And Duro distant far; and many a stream
And many a field obscure, in future war
For bloody theatre of famous deeds

Fore doomed; and deserts where in years to come
Shall populous towns arise, and crested towers
And stately temples rear their heads on high,

Cautious.

Cautious with course circuitous they shunn'd
The embattled city which in oldest time
Thrice greatest Hermes built, so fables say,
Now subjugate, but fated to behold

Ere long the heroic Prince (who passing now
Unknown and silently the dangerous track,
Turns thither his regardant eye) come down
Victorious from the heights, and bear abroad
Her banner'd Lion, symbol to the Moor

Of rout and death through many an age of blood.
Lo there the Asturian hills! far in the west,
Huge Rabanal and Foncebadon huge,
Pre-eminent, their giant bulk display,
Darkening with earliest shade the distant vales
Of Leon and with evening premature.
Far in Cantabria eastward, the long line
Extends beyond the reach of eagle's eye,
When buoyant in mid-heaven the bird of Jove
Soars at his loftiest pitch. In the north, before
The travellers the Erbasian mountains rise,
Bounding the land beloved, their native land.

How calmly gliding through the dark blue sky
The midnight moon ascends; her placid beams,
Through thinly scattered leaves and boughs grotesque,
Mottle with mazy shades the orchard slope;
Here, o'er the chesnut's fretted foliage grey
And massy, motionless they spread; here shine
Upon the crags, deepening with blacker night
Their chasms; and there the glittering argentry
Ripples and glances on the confluent streams,
A lovelier, purer light than that of day
Rests on the hills; and oh how awfully
Into that deep and tranquil firmament
The summits of Auseva rise serene!
The watchman on the battlements partakes
The stillness of the solemn hour: he feels
The silence of the earth, the endless sound
Of flowing water soothes him, and the stars

Which in that brightest moon-light well-nigh quench'd,
Scarce visible, as in the utmost depth

Of yonder sapphire infinite, are seen,

Draw on with elevating influence

Towards eternity the attemper'd mind.

Musing on worlds beyond the grave he stands,

And to the Virgin Mother silently

Breathes forth her hymn of praise,

The

The mountaineers

Before the castle, round their mouldering fires,
Lie on the heath out-stretch'd. Pelayo's hall
Is full, and he upon his careful couch

Hears all around the deep and long-drawn breath
Of sleep; for gentle night had brought to these
Perfect and undisturbed repose, alike

Of corporal powers and inward faculty.
Wakeful the while he lay.

A mountain rivulet,

Now calm and lovely in its summer course,

Held by those huts its everlasting way

Towards Pionia. They whose flocks and herds
Drink of its waters call it Deva.

Here

Pelayo southward up the ruder vale

Traced it, his guide unerring. Amid heaps
Of mountain wreck, on either side thrown high,
The wide-spread traces of its wintry might,
The tortuous channel wound; o'er beds of sand
Here silently it flows; here, from the rock
Rebutted, curls and eddies; plunges here
Precipitate; here, roaring among crags,
It leaps and foams and whirls and hurries on.
Grey alders here and bushy hazels hid

The mossy side: their wreathed and knotted feet
Bared by the current, now against its force
Repaying the support they found, upheld
The bank secure. Here bending to the stream,
The birch fantastic stretch'd its rugged trunk,
Tall and erect, from whence as from their base
Each like a tree its silver branches grew.
The cherry here hung for the birds of heaven
Its rosy fruit on high. The elder there
Its purple berries o'er the water bent,
Heavily hanging. Here amid the brook,
Grey as the stone to which they clung, half root
Half trunk, the young ash rises from the rock;
And there its parent lifts a lofty head,

And spreads its graceful boughs; the passing wind
With twinkling motion lifts the silent leaves,
And shakes its rattling tufts.

Soon had the Prince

Behind him left the farthest dwelling place
Of man; no fields of waving corn were here,
Nor wicker storehouse for the autumnal grain,
Vineyard, nor bowery fig, nor fruitful grove;
Only the rockey vale, the mountain stream,

Incumbent