BUT, when the eve came on, | |
| How did the lovely landscape fill my heart! | |
| The near ascent arose with little rocks | |
| Varied, and trees: the vale was wooded well | |
| With oaks now cheerful in their wintry leaves, | 5 |
| And ancient cork-trees through their wrinkled barks | |
| Bursting, and the rich olive underneath | |
| Whose blessed shade the green herb greener grows | |
| And fuller is the harvest: many a stream | |
| That from the neighboring hill descended clear | 10 |
| Wound vocal through the valley: the church tower, | |
| Marking the haven near of that day’s toil, | |
| Rose o’er the wood. But still the charmed eye | |
| Dwelt lingering o’er Plasencia’s fertile plain, | |
| And loved to mark the bordering mountain’s snow | 15 |
| Pale-purpled as the evening dim decayed. | |
| The murmurs of the goat-herd’s scattered flock | |
| Died on the quiet air, and sailing slow | |
| The heavy stork sought on the church-tower top | |
| His fancy-hallowed nest. O pleasant scenes! | 20 |
| With deep delight I saw you, yet my heart | |
| Sunk in me as the frequent thought would rise | |
| That here was none to love me. Often still | |
| I think of you, and Memory’s mystic power | |
| Bids me re-live the past; and I have traced | 25 |
| The fleeting visions ere her mystic power | |
| Wax weak, and on the feeble eye of age | |
| The faint-formed scenes decay. Befits me now | |
| Fix on futurity the steady ken, | |
| And tread with steady step the onward road. | 30 |
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