THE EXILE Farewell, Oh! native Spain! Farewell for ever! These banished eyes shall view thy coasts no more; A mournful presage tells my heart, that never Gonzalvo's steps again shall press thy shore.
Hushed are the winds; While soft the Vessel sailing With gentle motion plows the unruffled Main, I feel my bosom's boasted courage failing, And curse the waves which bear me far from Spain.
I see it yet! Beneath yon blue clear Heaven Still do the Spires, so well beloved, appear; From yonder craggy point the gale of Even Still wafts my native accents to mine ear: Propped on some moss-crowned Rock, and gaily singing, There in the Sun his nets the Fisher dries; Oft have I heard the plaintive Ballad, bringing Scenes of past joys before my sorrowing eyes.
Ah! Happy Swain! He waits the accustomed hour, When twilight-gloom obscures the closing sky; Then gladly seeks his loved paternal bower, And shares the feast his native fields supply: Friendship and Love, his Cottage Guests, receive him With honest welcome and with smile sincere; No threatening woes of present joys bereave him, No sigh his bosom owns, his cheek no tear.
Ah! Happy Swain! Such bliss to me denying, Fortune thy lot with envy bids me view; Me, who from home and Spain an Exile flying, Bid all I value, all I love, adieu.
No more mine ear shall list the well-known ditty Sung by some Mountain-Girl, who tends her Goats, Some Village-Swain imploring amorous pity, Or Shepherd chaunting wild his rustic notes: No more my arms a Parent's fond embraces, No more my heart domestic calm, must know; Far from these joys, with sighs which Memory traces, To sultry skies, and distant climes I go.
Where Indian Suns engender new diseases, Where snakes and tigers breed, I bend my way To brave the feverish thirst no art appeases, The yellow plague, and madding blaze of day: But not to feel slow pangs consume my liver, To die by piece-meal in the bloom of age, My boiling blood drank by insatiate fever, And brain delirious with the day-star's rage, Can make me know such grief, as thus to sever With many a bitter sigh, Dear Land, from Thee; To feel this heart must doat on thee for ever, And feel, that all thy joys are torn from me!
Ah me! How oft will Fancy's spells in slumber Recall my native Country to my mind! How oft regret will bid me sadly number Each lost delight and dear Friend left behind!
Wild Murcia's Vales, and loved romantic bowers, The River on whose banks a Child I played, My Castle's antient Halls, its frowning Towers, Each much-regretted wood, and well-known Glade, Dreams of the land where all my wishes centre, Thy scenes, which I am doomed no more to know, Full oft shall Memory trace, my soul's Tormentor, And turn each pleasure past to present woe.