Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Oceanica: Vol. XXXI. 1876–79. | | | | Various Islands: Canary Islands | | Dirge on Guillen Peraza | | From the Spanish |
| | Governor of the Canaries, Who Fell in Attempting the Conquest of the Island Palma, Soon after the Year 1814
Translated by John Leyden |
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PERAZA, virgins fair and chaste | |
| Wail, as you wish for heaven to smile! | |
| That flower of youth has faded fast, | |
| That lovely flower, too fair to last, | |
| Lies withered in wild Palma’s Isle. | 5 |
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| The Palm no more shalt thou be styled, | |
| Thou scene of dire disgrace and shame! | |
| Thy name shall be the Bramble wild, | |
| The Cypress sad by death defiled, | |
| That sunk so dear a chieftain’s fame! | 10 |
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| May dire volcanoes waste thy plains, | |
| Pleasures desert thy guilty land, | |
| Be haunted still by woes and pains, | |
| And still, for spring’s reviving rains, | |
| Thy flowery fields o’erwhelmed with sand! | 15 |
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| Peraza! where is now thy shield? | |
| Peraza! where is now thy spear? | |
| No more his lance the chief shall wield, | |
| His broken weapons strew the field: | |
| Alas, for victory bought so dear! | 20 | | |
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