Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland: Vols. XIV–XV. 1876–79.

Spain: Badajoz

Carolina Coronado

By Martha Perry Lowe (1829–1902)

THE WALLS of Badajoz looked down

Upon a gifted maid, who rose

Within that old, beleaguered town,

And startled Spain from her repose.

Her eyes were beaming with the fire

Of poet youth beneath her dark

And shining locks. She struck her lyre;

And, lo! the land of Spain did hark.

She calmed her deep, impassioned breast

With love to all the solitudes,

And hid beside the wild-bird’s nest

Her verses in the rocks and woods.

She hung enraptured on the sweet

Young meadow rose, and lingered near

The turtle-dove, who did repeat

“Love, love,” forever in her ear.

Unto the stars she told her tale,

Weeping her tears melodiously

At evening with the nightingale,

Or with the palm communing high.

Her genius moved not straight within

The prunéd walks of classic time,

But ran abroad, and revelled in

New laws that rose from out her rhyme.

She poured a tide of passion through

The sordid flats of Life’s dull sea;

And, last, she dared to speak unto

Her nation that word,—Liberty!

Yes, she—the fearless girl—did make

The slavish priesthood tremble at

The burning words of truth she spake,

And poets at her footstool sat.

At length the laurel wreath they set

Upon her in the royal dome;

But most she loves the coronet

Of wife and mother in her home!