| |
| NOT less delighted do I call to mind, | |
| Land of romance! thy wild and lovely scenes, | |
| Than I beheld them first. Pleased I retrace | |
| With Memory’s eye the placid Minho’s course, | |
| And catch its winding waters gleaming bright | 5 |
| Amid the broken distance. I review | |
| Leon’s wide wastes, and heights precipitous, | |
| Seen with a pleasure not unmixed with dread, | |
| As the sagacious mules along the brink | |
| Wound patiently and slow their way secure; | 10 |
| And rude Galicia’s hovels, and huge rocks | |
| And mountains, where, when all beside was dim, | |
| Dark and broad-headed the tall pines erect | |
| Rose on the farthest eminence distinct, | |
Cresting the evening sky.
Rain now falls thick, | 15 |
| And damp and heavy is the unwholesome air; | |
| I by this friendly hearth remember Spain, | |
| And tread in fancy once again the road, | |
| Where twelve months since I held my way, and thought | |
| Of England, and of all my heart held dear, | 20 |
And wished this day were come.
The morning mist, | |
| Well I remember, hovered o’er the heath, | |
| When with the earliest dawn of day we left | |
| The solitary Venta. Soon the sun | |
| Rose in his glory; scattered by the breeze, | 25 |
| The thin fog rolled away, and now emerged | |
| We saw where Oropesa’s castled hill | |
| Towered dark, and dimly seen; and now we passed | |
| Torvalva’s quiet huts, and on our way | |
| Paused frequently, looked back, and gazed around, | 30 |
| Then journeyed on, yet turned and gazed again, | |
| So lovely was the scene. That ducal pile | |
| Of the Toledos now with all its towers | |
| Shone in the sunlight. Half-way up the hill, | |
| Embowered in olives, like the abode of Peace, | 35 |
| Lay Lagartina; and the cool, fresh gale, | |
| Bending the young corn on the gradual slope, | |
| Played o’er its varying verdure. I beheld | |
| A convent near, and could almost have thought | |
| The dwellers there must needs be holy men; | 40 |
| For, as they looked around them, all they saw | |
Was good.
But, when the purple eve came on, | |
| How did the lovely landscape fill my heart! | |
| Trees, scattered among peering rocks, adorned | |
| The near ascent; the vale was overspread | 45 |
| With ilex in its wintry foliage gay, | |
| Old cork-trees through their soft and swelling bark | |
| Bursting, and glaucous olives, underneath | |
| Whose fertilizing influence the green herb | |
| Grows greener, and, with heavier ears enriched, | 50 |
| The healthful harvest bends. Pellucid streams | |
| Through many a vocal channel from the hills | |
| Wound through the valley their melodious way, | |
| And, o’er the intermediate woods descried, | |
| Naval-Moral’s church-tower announced to us | 55 |
| Our resting-place that night,—a welcome mark; | |
| Though willingly we loitered to behold | |
| In long expanse Plasencia’s fertile plain, | |
| And the high mountain-range which bounded it, | |
| Now losing fast the roseate hue that eve | 60 |
| Shed o’er its summit and its snowy breast; | |
| For eve was closing now. Faint and more faint | |
| The murmurs of the goatherd’s scattered flock | |
| Were borne upon the air; and, sailing slow, | |
| The broad-winged stork sought on the church-tower top | 65 |
| His consecrated nest. O lovely scenes! | |
| I gazed upon you with intense delight, | |
| And yet with thoughts that weigh the spirit down. | |
| I was a stranger in a foreign land; | |
| And, knowing that these eyes should nevermore | 70 |
| Behold that glorious prospect, Earth itself | |
| Appeared the place of pilgrimage it is. | |
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