It would have been a grief for me to think
The features, which so perfectly express'd
That excellent mind, should irretrievably
From earth have past away, existing now
Only in some few faithful memories
Insoul'd, and not by any limner's skill
To be imbodied thence.

A blessing then

On him, in whose prophetic counterfeit

Preserved, the children now, who were the crown
Of his old age, may see their father's face,
Here to the very life pourtray'd, as when
Spain's mountain passes, and her ilex woods,
And fragrant wildernesses, side by side,
With him I traversed, in my morn of youth,
And gather'd knowledge from his full discourse.
Often in former years I pointed out,
Well-pleased, the casual portrait, which so well
Assorted in all points; and haply since,
While lingering o'er this meditative work,
Sometimes that likeness, not unconsciously,

Hath tinged the strain; and therefore, for the sake
Of this resemblance, are these volumes now
Thus to his memory properly inscribed.

O friend! O more than father! whom I found
Forbearing alway, alway kind; to whom

No gratitude can speak the debt I owe;

Far on their earthly pilgrimage advanced

Are they who knew thee when we drew the breath
Of that delicious clime! The most are gone;
And whoso yet survive of those who then
Were in their summer season, on the tree

Of life hang here and there like wintry leaves, Which the first breeze will from the bough bring

down.

I, too, am in the sear, the yellow leaf.

And yet, (no wish is nearer to my heart,)
One arduous labour more, as unto thee
In duty bound, full fain would I complete,
(So Heaven permit,) recording faithfully
The heroic rise, the glories, the decline,
Of that fallen country, dear to us, wherein
The better portion of thy days was past;
And, where, in fruitful intercourse with thee,
My intellectual life received betimes
The bias it hath kept. Poor Portugal,
In us thou harbouredst no ungrateful guests!
We loved thee well; Mother magnanimous
Of mighty intellects and faithful hearts, . .
For such in other times thou wert, nor yet
To be despair'd of, for not yet, methinks,
Degenerate wholly,.. yes, we loved thee well!
And in thy moving story, (so but life
Be given me to mature the gathered store
Of thirty years,) poet and politick,
And Christian sage, (only philosopher
Who from the Well of living water drinks
Never to thirst again,) shall find, I ween,
For fancy, and for profitable thought,

Abundant food.

Alas! should this be given,

Such consummation of my work will now

Be but a mournful close, the one being gone,

Whom to have satisfied was still to me

A pure reward, outweighing far all breath
Of public praise. O friend revered, O guide
And fellow-labourer in this ample field,

How large a portion of myself hath past

With thee, from earth to Heaven!.. Thus they who reach

Grey hairs die piecemeal. But in good old age
Thou hast departed; not to be bewail'd,..
Oh no! The promise on the Mount vouchsafed,
Nor abrogate by any later law

Reveal'd to man,.. that promise, as by thee
Full piously deserved, was faithfully

In thee fulfill'd, and in the land thy days
Were long. I would not, as I saw thee last,
For a king's ransom, have detain'd thee here,..
Bent, like the antique, sculptor's limbless trunk,
By chronic pain, yet with thine eye unquench'd,
The ear undimm'd, the mind retentive still,
The heart unchanged, the intellectual lamp
Burning in its corporeal sepulchre.

No; not if human wishes had had power
To have suspended Nature's constant work,

Would they who loved thee have detain'd thee thus,
Waiting for death.

That trance is over. Thou

Art enter'd on thy heavenly heritage;

And I, whose dial of mortality

Points to the eleventh hour, shall follow soon.
Meantime, with dutiful and patient hope,
I labour that our names conjoin'd may long
Survive, in honour one day to be held
Where old Lisboa from her hills o'erlooks

Expanded Tagus, with its populous shores
And pine woods, to Palmella's crested height:
Nor there alone; but in those rising realms
Where now the offsets of the Lusian tree

Push forth their vigorous shoots,.. from central

plains,

Whence rivers flow divergent, to the gulph

Southward, where wild Parana disembogues
A sea-like stream; and northward, in a world
Of forests, where huge Orellana clips

His thousand islands with his thousand arms.

CARMEN TRIUMPHALE,

FOR THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE YEAR

1814.

Illi justitiam confirmavere triumphi,

Præsentes docuere Deos.

CLAUDIAN.