When even on the mountain's breast He framed this rude but solemn strain. I. Here will I make my home--for here at least I see, Upon this wild Sierra's side, the steps of Liberty; Where the locust chirps unscared beneath the unpruned lime, And the merry bee doth hide from man the spoil of the mountain thyme ; Where the pure winds come and go, and the wild vine gads at will, An outcast from the haunts of men, she dwells with Nature still. II. I see the valleys, Spain! where thy mighty rivers run, And the hills that lift thy harvests and vineyards to the sun, And the flocks that drink thy brooks and sprinkle all the green, Where lie thy plains, with sheep-walks seamed, and olive shades between : I see thy fig-trees bask, with the fair pomegranate near, And the fragrance of thy lemon-groves can almost reach me here. Fair-fair-but fallen Spain! 'tis with a swelling heart, That I think on all thou might'st have been, and look at what thou art; But the strife is over now—and all the good and brave, grave. Thy fleeces are for monks, thy grapes for the convent feast, And the wealth of all thy harvest-fields for the pampered lord and priest. IV. But I shall see the day-it will come before I die— I shall see it in my silver hairs, and with an age-dimined eye; When the spirit of the land to liberty shall bound, As yonder fountain leaps away from the darkness of the ground; And, to my mountain cell, the voices of the free Shall rise, as from the beaten shore the thunders of the sea. 9* MONUMENT MOUNTAIN. THOU who wouldst see the lovely and the wild Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget And streams, that with their bordering thickets strive MONUMENT MOUNTAIN. To separate its nations, and thrown down When the flood drowned them. To the north, a path Steep is the western side, shaggy and wild Is lovely round; a beautiful river there Wanders amid the fresh and fertile meads, The fields swell upward to the hills; beyond, The mighty columns with which earth props There is a tale about these gray old rocks, A sad tradition of unhappy love, And sorrows borne and ended, long ago, When over these fair vales the savage sought heaven. 103 104 MONUMENT MOUNTAIN. There was a maid, His game in the thick woods. She loved her cousin; such a love was deemed, Incestuous, and she struggled hard and long Upon the Winter of their age. Το weep where no eye saw, She went and was not found When all the merry girls were met to dance, Would whisper to each other, as they saw One day into the bosom of a friend, A playmate of her young and innocent years, |