Match me, ye climes! which poets love to laud;
Match me, ye harams of the land! where now
I strike my strain, far distant, to applaud
Beauties that even a cynic must avow;
Match me those Houries, whom ye scarce allow
To taste the gale lest Love should ride the wind,
With Spain's dark-glancing daughters-deign to know,

There your wise Prophet's paradise we find,
His black-eyed maids of Heaven, angelically kind.

Oh, thou Parnassus! whom I now survey,
Not in the frenzy of a dreamer's eye,
Not in the fabled landscape of a lay,
But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky,
In the wild pomp of mountain majesty!
What marvel if I thus essay to sing ?
The humblest of thy pilgrims passing by
Would gladly woo thine Echoes with his string,
Though from thy heights no more one Muse will wave her
wing.

LXI.
Oft have I dream’d of Thee! whose glorious name
Who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore :
And now I view thee, 'tis, alas! with shame
That I in feeblest accents must adore.
When I recount thy worshippers of yore
I tremble, and can only bend the knee ;
Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar,

But gaze beneath thy clouded canopy
In silent joy to think at last I look on Thee !

LXII.
Happier in this than mightiest bards have been,
Whose fate to distant homes confined their lot,
Shall I unmoved behold the hallow'd scene,
Which others rave of, though they know it not?
Though here no more Apollo haunts his grot,
And thou, the Muses' seat, art now their grave,
Some gentle spirit still pervades the spot,

Sighs in the gale, keeps silence in the cave,
And glides with glassy foot o'er yon melodious wave.

Of thee hereafter.—Even amidst my strain
I turn’d aside to pay my homage here;
Forgot the land, the sons, the maids of Spain;
Her fate, to every freeborn bosom dear ;
And hail'd thee, not perchance without a tear.
Now to my theme—but from thy holy haunt
Let me some remnant, some memorial bear;

Yield me one leaf of Daphne's deathless plant,
Nor let thy votary's hope be deem'd an idle vaunt.

LXIV. But ne'er didst thou, fair Mount! when Greece was young. See round thy giant base a brighter choir, Nor e’er did Delphi, when her priestess sung The Pythian hymn with more than mortal fire, Behold a train more fitting to inspire The song of love than Andalusia's maids, Nurst in the glowing lap of soft desire :

Ah! that to these were given such peaceful shades As Greece can still bestow, though Glory fly her glade

LXV. Fair is proud Seville ; let her country boast Her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days; But Cadiz, rising on the distant coast, Calls forth a sweeter, though ignoble praise. Ah, Vice! how soft are thy voluptuous ways! While boyish blood is mantling who can ’scape The fascination of thy magic gaze?

A Cherub-hydra round us dost thou gape, And mould to every taste thy dear delusive shape.

When Paphos fell by Time—accursed Time ! The queen who conquers all must yield to theeThe Pleasures. fled, but sought as warm a clime; And Venus, constant to her native sea, To nought else constant, hither deign'd to flee; And fix'd her shrine within these walls of white : Though not to one dome circumscribeth she Her worship, but, devoted to her rite, A thousand altars rise, for ever blazing bright.

LXVII. From morn till night, from night till startled Morn Peeps blushing on the revel's laughing crew, The song is heard, the rosy garland worn, Devices quaint, and frolics ever new, Tread on each other's kibes. A long adieu He bids to sober joy that here sojourns : Nought interrupts the riot, though in lieu

Of true devotion monkish incense burns, And love and prayer unite, or rule the hour by turns.

LXVIII. The Sabbath comes, a day of blessed rest; What hallows it upon this Christian shore? . Lo! it is sacred to a solemn feast: Hark! heard you not the forest-monarch's roar ? Crashing the lance, he snuffs the spouting gore Of man and steed, o’erthrown beneath his horn ; The throng'd arena shakes with shouts for more ;

Yells the mad crowd o’er entrails freshly torn, Nor shrinks the female eye, nor even affects to mou

LXIX.
The seventh day this; the jubilee of man.
London! right well thou know'st the day of prayer:
Then thy spruce citizen, wash'd artisan,
And smug apprentice gulp their weekly air :
Thy coach of Hackney, whiskey, one-horse chair,

And humblest gig through sundry suburbs whirl, · To Hampstead, Brentford, Harrow make repair ;

Till the tired jade the wheel forgets to hurl, Provoking envious gibe from each pedestrian churl.

LXX.
Some o’er thy Thamis row the ribbon'd fair,
Others along the safer turnpike fly;
Some Richmond-hill ascend, some scud to Ware,
And many to the steep of Highgate hie.
Ask ye, Bæotian shades! the reason why?
'Tis to the worship of the solemn Horn,
Grasp'd in the holy hand of Mystery,

In whose dread name both men and maids are sworn, And consecrate the oath with draught, and dance till morn.

LXXI.
All have their fooleries—not alike are thine,
Fair Cadiz, rising o'er the dark blue sea !
Soon as the matin bell proclaimeth nine,
Thy saint adorers count the rosary:
Much is the VIRGIN teased to shrive them free
(Well do I ween the only virgin there)
From crimes as numerous as her beadsmen be;

Then to the crowded circus forth they fare:
Young, old, high, low, at once the same diversion share.