A thing all heavenly!-cleared from that which hung
As a dim cloud between us, heart and mind!
Loosed from the fear, the grief, whose tendrils flung
A chain so darkly with its growth entwined.
This is my hope !-though when the sunset fades,
When forests rock the midnight on their shades,
When tones of wail are in the rising wind,
Across my spirit some faint doubt may sigh;
For the strong hours will sway this frail mortality!
We have been wanderers since those days of woe,
Thy boy and I! As wild birds tend their young,
So have I tended him-my bounding roe!
The high Peruvian solitudes among;
And o'er the Andes' torrents borne his form,
Where our frail bridge had quivered 'midst the storm.
But there the war-notes of my country rung,
And, smitten deep of heaven and man, I fled
To hide in shades unpierced a marked and weary head.
But he went on in gladness-that fair child!
Save when at times his bright eye seemed to dream,
And his young lips, which then no longer smiled,
Asked of his mother! That was but a gleam
Of memory, fleeting fast; and then his play
Through the wild Llanos cheered again our way,
And by the mighty Oronoco stream,
On whose lone margin we have heard at morn,
From the mysterious rocks, the sunrise-music borne:
So like a spirit's voice! a harping tone,
Lovely, yet ominous to mortal ear
Such as might reach us from a world unknown,
Troubling man's heart with thrills of joy and fear !
'Twas sweet!-yet those deep southern shades oppressed My soul with stillness, like the calms that rest
On melancholy waves: I sighed to hear
Once more earth's breezy sounds, her foliage fanned, And turned to seek the wilds of the red hunter's land.
And we have won a bower of refuge now,
In this fresh waste, the breath of whose repose
Hath cooled, like dew, the fever of my brow,
And whose green oaks and cedars round me close
As temple walls and pillars, that exclude
Earth's haunted dreams from their free solitude;
All, save the image and the thought of those
Before us gone-our loved of early years,
Gone where affection's cup hath lost the taste of tears.
I see a star-eve's first-born!-in whose train
Past scenes, words, looks, come back. The arrowy spire
Of the lone cypress, as of wood-girt fane,
Rests dark and still amidst a heaven of fire;
The pine gives forth its odours, and the lake
Gleams like one ruby, and the soft winds wake,
Till every string of nature's solemn lyre
Is touched to answer; its most secret tone
Drawn from each tree, for each hath whispers all its own.
And hark! another murmur on the air,
Not of the hidden rills or quivering shades!—
That is the cataract's, which the breezes bear,
Filling the leafy twilight of the glades
With hollow surge-like sounds, as from the bed
Of the blue, mournful seas, that keep the dead:
But they are far! The low sun here pervades
Dim forest arches, bathing with red gold
Their stems, till each is made a marvel to behold,—
Gorgeous, yet full of gloom! In such an hour,
The vesper-melody of dying bells
Wanders through Spain, from each grey convent's tower
O'er shining rivers poured and olive dells,
By every peasant heard, and muleteer,
And hamlet, round my home: and I am here,
Living again through all my life's farewells,
In these vast woods, where farewell ne'er was spoken, And sole I lift to heaven a sad heart-yet unbroken!
In such an hour are told the hermit's beads;
With the white sail the seaman's hymn floats by:
Peace be with all! whate'er their varying creeds,
With all that send up holy thoughts on high!
Come to me, boy! by Guadalquiver's vines,
By every stream of Spain, as day declines,
Man's prayers are mingled in the rosy sky.
We, too, will pray; nor yet unheard, my child!
Of Him whose voice we hear at eve amidst the wild.
At eve? Oh, through all hours! From dark dreams oft Awakening, I look forth, and learn the might
Of solitude, while thou art breathing soft, And low, my loved one! on the breast of night. I look forth on the stars-the shadowy sleep Of forests-and the lake whose gloomy deep Sends up red sparkles to the fire-flies' light: A lonely world!-even fearful to man's thought, But for His presence felt, whom here my soul hath sought.
[The events with which the following tale is interwoven are related in the Historia de las Guerras Civiles de Granada. They occurred in the reign of Abo Abdeli, or Abdali, the last Moorish king of that city, called by the Spaniards El Rey Chico. The conquest of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella is said by some historians to have been greatly facilitated by the Abencerrages, whose defection was the result of the repeated injuries they had received from the king, at the instigation of the Zegris. One of the most beautiful halls of the Alhambra is pointed out as the scene where so many of the former celebrated tribe were massacred; and it still retains their name, being called the "Sala de los Abencerrages." Many of the most interesting old Spanish ballads relate to the events of this chivalrous and romantic period.]
"Le Maure ne se venge pas parce que sa colère dure encore, mais parce que la vengeance seule peut écarter de sa tête le poids d'infamie dont il est accablé. -Il se venge, parce qu'à ses yeux il n'y a qu'une âme basse qui puisse pardonner les affronts; et il nourrit sa rancune, parce que s'il la sentoit s'éteindre, il croiroit avec elle, avoir perdu une vertu.' SISMONDI.
LONELY and still are now thy marble halls,
Thou fair Alhambra! there the feast is o'er;
And with the murmur of thy fountain-falls,
Blend the wild tones of minstrelsy no more.
Hushed are the voices that in years gone by
Have mourned, exulted, menaced, through thy towers,
Within thy pillared courts the grass waves high,
And all uncultured bloom thy fairy bowers.
Unheeded there the flowering myrtle blows,
Through tall arcades unmarked the sunbeam smiles,
And many a tint of softened brilliance throws
O'er fretted walls and shining peristyles.
And well might Fancy deem thy fabrics lone,
So vast, so silent, and so wildly fair,
Some charmed abode of beings all unknown,
Powerful and viewless, children of the air.
For there no footstep treads the enchanted ground,
There not a sound the deep repose pervades,
Save winds and founts, diffusing freshness round,
Through the light domes and graceful colonnades.
Far other tones have swelled those courts along,
In days romance yet fondly loves to trace ;
The clash of arms, the voice of choral song,
The revels, combats, of a vanished race.
And yet awhile, at Fancy's potent call,
Shall rise that race, the chivalrous, the bold;
Peopling once more each fair, forsaken hall,
With stately forms, the knights and chiefs of old.
-The sun declines-upon Nevada's height
There dwells a mellow flush of rosy light;
Each soaring pinnacle of mountain snow
Smiles in the richness of that parting glow,
And Darro's wave reflects each passing dye
That melts and mingles in the empurpled sky.
Fragrance, exhaled from rose and citron bower,
Blends with the dewy freshness of the hour:
Hushed are the winds, and Nature seems to sleep
In light and stillness; wood, and tower, and steep,
Are dyed with tints of glory, only given
To the rich evening of a southern heaven;
Tints of the sun, whose bright farewell is fraught
With all that art hath dreamt, but never caught.
-Yes, Nature sleeps; but not with her at rest
The fiery passions of the human breast.
Hark! from the Alhambra's towers what stormy sound,
Each moment deepening, wildly swells around?
Those are no tumults of a festal throng,
Not the light zambra, nor the choral song:
The combat rages-'tis the shout of war,
'Tis the loud clash of shield and scimitar.
Within the Hall of Lions, where the rays
Of eve, yet lingering, on the fountain blaze;
There, girt and guarded by his Zegri bands,
And stern in wrath, the Moorish monarch stands:
There the strife centres-swords around him wave;
There bleed the fallen, there contend the brave,
While echoing domes return the battle-cry,
"Revenge and freedom! let the tyrant die!"
And onward rushing, and prevailing still,
Court, hall, and tower, the fierce avengers fill.
But first the bravest of that gallant train,
Where foes are mightiest, charging ne'er in vain;
In his red hand the sabre glancing bright,
His dark eye flashing with a fiercer light,
Ardent, untired, scarce conscious that he bleeds,
His Aben-Zurrahs there young Hamet leads;
While swells his voice that wild acclaim on high,
"Revenge and freedom! let the tyrant die!"
Yes! trace the footsteps of the warrior's wrath
By helm and corslet shattered in his path,
|