Yet be it oft my happier lot,
To meet thee in this rural cot,
To see thee here thy mind unbend,
And quit the Statesman for the Friend? Whilst smiles unbought, and void of art, Spring genuine from the social heart.
Happy the Muse, which here retir'd, By gratitude like mine inspir'd; Dupe to no party, loves to pay To worth like thine, her grateful lay: And in no venal verse commend, The Man of Taste, and Nature's friend.
WHILE you, my Friend, from lowring wintery plains,
Now pale with snows, now black with drizzling rains,
From leafless woodlands, and dishonor'd bowers
Mantled by gloomy mists, or lash'd by showers
Of hollow moan, while not a struggling beam
Steals from the Sun to play on Isis' stream;
While from these scenes by England's winter spread
Swift to the cheerful hearth your steps are led,
Pleas'd from the threatening tempest to retire
And join the circle round the social fire;
In other clime through sun-bask'd scenes I stray,
As the fair landscape leads my thoughtful way,
As upland path, oft winding bids me rove
Where orange bowers invite, or olive grove,
No sullen phantoms brooding o'er my breast,
The genial influence of the clime I taste;
Yet still regardful of my native shore,
In every scene, my roaming eyes explore,
Whate'er its aspect, still, by memory brought,
My fading country rushes on my thought.
While now perhaps the classic page you turn,
And warm'd with honest indignation burn,
'Till hopeless, sicklied by the climate's gloom,
Your generous fears call forth Britannia's doom,
What hostile spears her sacred lawns invade,
By friends deserted, by her chiefs betray'd,
Low fall'n and vanquish'd!-I, with mind serene
As Lisboa's sky, yet pensive as the scene
Around, and pensive seems the scene to me,
From other ills my country's fate foresee.
Not from the hands that wield Iberia's spear, Not from the hands that Gaul's proud thunders bear, Nor those that turn on Albion's breast the sword Beat down of late by Albion when it gored Their own, who impious doom their parent's fall Beneath the world's great foe th' insidious Gaul; Yes, not from these the immedicable wound Of Albion-Other is the bane profound Destined alone to touch her mortal part; Herself is sick and poisoned at the heart.
O'er Tago's banks where'er I roll mine eyes,
The gallant deeds of antient days arise;
The scenes the Lusian Muses fond display'd
Before me oft, as oft at eve I stray'd
By Isis' hallowed stream.
Where Gama march'd his death-devoted band,
While Lisboa awed with horror saw him spread
The daring sails that first to India led;
And oft Almada's castled steep inspires
The pensive Muse's visionary fires;
Almada Hill to English Memory dear,
While shades of English heroes wander here!
To ancient English valor sacred still Remains, and ever shall, Almada Hill; The hill and lawns to English valor given What time the Arab Moons from Spain were driven, Before the banners of the Cross subdued, When Lisboa's towers were bathed in Moorish blood By Gloster's lance. - Romantic days that yield Of gallant deeds a wide luxuriant field Dear to the Muse that loves the fairy plains Where ancient honor wild and ardent reigns.
Where high o'er Tago's flood Almada lowers,
Amid the solemn pomp of mouldering towers
Supinely seated, wide and far around
My eye delighted wanders.-Here the bound
Of fair Europa o'er the Ocean rears
Its western edge; where dimly disappears
The Atlantic wave, the slow descending day
Mild beaming pours serene the gentle ray
Of Lusitania's winter, silvering o'er
The tower-like summits of the mountain shore;
Dappling the lofty cliffs that coldly throw
Their sable horrors o'er the vales below.
Far round the stately-shoulder'd river bends
Its giant arms, and sea-like wide extends
Its midland bays, with fertile islands crown'd,
And lawns for English valor still renown'd:
Given to Cornwallia's gallant sons of yore,
Cornwallia's name the smiling pastures bore;
And still their Lord his English lineage boasts
From Rolland famous in the Croisade Hosts.
Where sea-ward narrower rolls the shining tide
Through hills by hills embosom'd on each side,
Monastic walls in every glen arise
In coldest white fair glistening to the skies
Amid the brown-brow'd rocks; and, far as sight,
Proud domes and villages array'd in white
Climb o'er the steeps, and thro' the dusky green
Of olive groves, and orange bowers between,
Speckled with glowing red, unnumber'd gleam-
And Lisboa towering o'er the lordly stream
Her marble palaces and temples spreads
Wildly magnific o'er the loaded heads
Of bending hills, along whose high-piled base
The port capacious, in a moon'd embrace,
Throws her mast-forest, waving on the gale
The vanes of every shore that hoists the sail.
Here while the Sun from Europe's breast retires, Let Fancy, roaming as the scene inspires,
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