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(From The Exile’s Hymn)
Translated by W. H. Hurlbut
FAIR land of Cuba! on thy shores are seen | |
| Life’s far extremes of noble and of mean, | |
| The world of sense in matchless beauty dressed, | |
| And nameless horrors hid within thy breast. | |
| Ordained of Heaven the fairest flower of earth, | 5 |
| False to thy gifts, and reckless of thy birth! | |
| The tyrant’s clamor, and the slave’s sad cry, | |
| With the sharp lash in insolent reply,— | |
| Such are the sounds that echo on thy plains, | |
| While virtue faints, and vice unblushing reigns. | 10 |
| Rise, and to power a daring heart oppose! | |
| Confront with death these worse than deathlike woes. | |
| Unfailing valor chains the flying fate; | |
| Who dares to die shall win the conqueror’s state. | |
| We, too, can leave a glory and a name | 15 |
| Our children’s children shall not blush to claim; | |
| To the far future let us turn our eyes, | |
| And up to God’s still unpolluted skies. | |
| Better to bare the breast, and, undismayed, | |
| Meet the sharp vengeance of the hostile blade, | 20 |
| Than on the couch of helpless grief to lie, | |
| And in one death a thousand deaths to die. | |
| Fearest thou blood? Oh, better, in the strife, | |
| From patriot wounds to pour the gushing life, | |
| Than let it creep inglorious through the veins | 25 |
| Benumbed by sin and agony and chains! | |
| What hast thou, Cuban? Life itself resign,— | |
| Thy very grave is insecurely thine! | |
| Thy blood, thy treasure, poured like tropic rain | |
| From tyrant hands to feed the soil of Spain. | 30 |
| If it be truth, that nations still must bear | |
| The crushing yoke, the wasting fetters wear,— | |
| If to the people this be Heaven’s decree, | |
| To clasp their shame, nor struggle to be free, | |
| From truth so base my heart indignant turns, | 35 |
| With freedom’s frenzy all my spirit burns,— | |
| That rage which ruled the Roman’s soul of fire, | |
| And filled thy heart, Columbia’s patriot sire! | |
| Cuba! thou still shalt rise, as pure, as bright, | |
| As thy free air,—as full of living light; | 40 |
| Free as the waves that foam around thy strands, | |
| Kissing thy shores, and curling o’er thy sands! | |
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