Page:Herrera's Ode from the Spanish.pdf/5

The warrior-men, the invincible, the fam’d,
Who shook the earth with terror and dismay,
Whose spoils were empires?–They, that in their might,
The haughty strength of savage nations tam’d,
And gave the spacious Orient realms of day,
To desolation’s sway,
Making the cities of imperial name
E’en as the desart-place?
Where now the fearless heart, the soul of flame,
Thus hath their glory clos’d its dazzling race
In one brief hour? Is this their valour’s doom,
On distant shores to fall, and find not e’en a tomb?

Once were they, in their splendor and their pride,
As an imperial cedar, on the brow
Of the great Lebanon! it rose, array’d
In its rich pomp of foliage, and of wide,
Majestic branches, leaving far below
All children of the forest. To its shades
The waters tribute paid,
Fostering its beauty. Birds found shelter there,
Whose flight is of the loftiest through the sky,
And the wild mountain-creatures made their lair
Beneath; and nations by its canopy
Were shadow’d o’er. Supreme it stood, and ne’er
Hath earth beheld a tree so excellently fair.

But all elated, on its verdant stem,
Confiding solely in its regal height,
It sour’d presumptuous, as for empire born;
And God for this remov’d its diadem,
And cast it from its regions of delight,
Forth to the spoiler, as a prey and scorn,
By the deep roots up-torn!
And lo! encumbering the proud hills it lay,
Shorn of its leaves, dismantled of its state;
While pale in fear, men hurried far away,
Who in its ample shade had found so late,
Their bower of rest; and Nature’s savage race
’Midst its great ruin, sought their dwelling place.

But thou, base Libya, thou, whose arid sand
Hath been a kingdom’s death-bed, where one fate