And vigilant against the wolves, who there, If entrance might be won, would straight beset The dying stranger, and with merciless zeal Bay the death-bed! In every family
Throughout his fold was he the welcome guest, Alike to every generation dear,
The children's favourite, and the grandsire's friend, Tried, trusted and beloved.
In secret alms, even to his utmost means,
That they who served him, and who saw in part The channels where his constant bounty ran, Maugre their own uncharitable faith,
Believed him, for his works, secure of Heaven.
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 gathered 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 compleat,
(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 bewailed,..
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 detained thee thus,
That trance is over. Thou
Art entered 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 desembogues,
A sea-like stream; and northward in a world Of forests, where huge Orellana clips His thousand islands with his thousand arms.
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