Through all the changes of the year;
  Wise choice, indeed, they made of me! 
    For when the drought has parched the field,
  The clouds that overcast my heart
    Shall rain in every season yield. 
  O mother Spain! for thy blest shore
    Mine eyes impatient yearn;
  For thy choicest gem is bride of mine,
    And she longs for my return.

  “They took me from the galley’s hold;
    It was by heaven’s all-pitying grace. 
  Yet, even in this garden glade,
    Has fortune turned away her face. 
  Though lighter now my lot of toil,
    Yet is it heavier, since no more
  My tear-dimmed eyes, my heart discern,
    Across the sea, my native shore. 
  O mother Spain! for thy blest shore
    Mine eyes impatient yearn;
  For thy choicest gem is bride of mine,
    And she longs for my return.

  “And you, ye exiles, who afar
    In many a foreign land have strayed;
  And from strange cities o’er the sea
    A second fatherland have made—­
  Degenerate sons of glorious Spain! 
    One thing ye lacked to keep you true,
  The love no stranger land could share;
    The courage that could fate subdue. 
  O mother Spain! for thy blest shore
    Mine eyes impatient yearn;
  For thy choicest gem is bride of mine,
    And she longs for my return.”

THE CAPTIVE’S LAMENT

  Where Andalusia’s plains at length end in the rocky shore,
  And the billows of the Spanish sea against her boundaries roar,
  A thousand ruined castles, that were once the haughty pride
  Of high Cadiz, in days long past, looked down upon the tide. 
  And on the loftiest of them all, in melancholy mood,
  A solitary captive that stormy evening stood. 
  For he had left the battered skiff that near the land wash lay,
  And here he sought to rest his soul, and while his grief away,
      While now, like furies, from the east the gale began to blow,
      And with the crash of thunder the billows broke below.

  Ah, yes, beneath the fierce levant, the wild white horses pranced;
  With rising rage the billows against those walls advanced;
  But stormier were the thoughts that filled his heart with bitter pain,
  As he turned his tearful eyes once more to gaze upon the main. 
  “O hostile sea,” these words at last burst from his heaving breast;
  “I know that I return to die, but death at least is rest. 
  Then let me on my native shore again in freedom roam,
  For here alone is shelter, for here at last is home.” 
      And now, like furies, from the east the gale began to blow,
      And with the crash of thunder the billows broke below.