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,
Waiting for death.
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.
THIS book originated in the train of thought described in the introductory pages, and was begun at the time there specified. For the form which it has taken I am indebted to Boethius; an obligation which perhaps few readers would have suspected, but which I am not the less bound to acknowledge. Farther than this it is only necessary to say, that recent circumstances have produced no change in the author concerning the Roman Catholic Question; no one however can more sincerely wish that timid counsels may be proved by the event to have been wise ones; that government
may gain strength by yielding to menaces;
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