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(From The Lusiad, Book III)
Translated by William Julius Mickle
PROUD o’er the rest, with splendid wealth arrayed, | |
| As crown to this wide empire, Europe’s head, | |
| Fair Lusitania smiles, the western bound, | |
| Whose verdant breast the rolling waves surround, | |
| Where gentle evening pours her lambent ray, | 5 |
| To them in vain the injured Muse bewails: | |
| The last pale gleaming of departing day: | |
| This, this, O mighty king, the sacred earth, | |
| This the loved parent-soil that gave me birth. | |
| And O, would bounteous Heaven my prayer regard, | 10 |
| And fair success my perilous toils reward, | |
| May that dear land my latest breath receive, | |
| And give my weary bones a peaceful grave. | |
| Sublime the honors of my native land, | |
| And high in Heaven’s regard her heroes stand: | 15 |
| By Heaven’s decree ’t was theirs the first to quell | |
| The Moorish tyrants, and from Spain expel; | |
| Nor could their burning wilds conceal their flight, | |
| Their burning wilds confessed the Lusian might. | |
| From Lusus famed, whose honored name we bear, | 20 |
| (The son of Bacchus or the bold compeer,) | |
| The glorious name of Lusitania rose, | |
| A name tremendous to the Roman foes, | |
| When her bold troops the valiant shepherd led, | |
| And foul with rout the Roman eagles fled; | 25 |
| When haughty Rome achieved the treacherous blow, | |
| That owned her terror of the matchless foe. | |
| But when no more her Viriatus fought, | |
| Age after age her deeper thraldom brought; | |
| Her broken sons by ruthless tyrants spurned, | 30 |
| Her vineyards languished, and her pastures mourned; | |
| Till time, revolving, raised her drooping head, | |
| And o’er the wandering world her conquests spread. | |
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