From his watch-fire 'midst the mountains,
Lo! to thee the shepherd cries!

Yet, when thus full hearts find voices,
If o'erburden'd souls there be,
Dark and silent in their anguish,
Aid those captives! set them free!

Touch them, every fount unsealing,
Where the frozen tears lie deep;
Thou, the Mother of all sorrows,
Aid, oh! aid to pray and weep!

VI.-BIRD, THAT ART SINGING ON EBRO'S SIDE.

BIRD, that art singing on Ebro's side!

Where myrtle shadows make dim the tide,

Doth sorrow dwell 'midst the leaves with thee?

Doth song avail thy full heart to free?

-Bird of the midnight's purple sky!

Teach me the spell of thy melody.

Bird! is it blighted affection's pain,

Whence the sad sweetness flows through thy strain?

And is the wound of that arrow still'd,

When thy lone music the leaves hath fill'd?

-Bird of the midnight's purple sky!

Teach me the spell of thy melody.

VII.-MOORISH GATHERING SONG.

ZORZICO.

*

CHAINS on the cities! gloom in the air!
Come to the hills! fresh breezes are there.
Silence and fear in the rich orange bowers!
Come to the rocks where freedom hath towers.

Come from the Darro !-changed is its tone;
Come where the streams no bondage have known;
Wildly and proudly foaming they leap,
Singing of freedom from steep to steep.

Come from Alhambra! garden and grove
Now may not shelter beauty or love.

Blood on the waters, death 'midst the flowers!
-Only the
spear and the rock are ours.

VIII. THE SONG OF MINA'S SOLDIERS.

WE heard thy name, O Mina!

Far through our hills it rang;
A sound more strong than tempests,
More keen than armour's clang.

The peasant left his vintage,

The shepherd grasp'd the spear-
We heard thy name, O Mina!

The mountain bands are here.

* The Zorzico is an extremely wild and singular antique Moorish melody.

As eagles to the dayspring,
As torrents to the sea,
From every dark sierra

So rush'd our hearts to thee.

Thy spirit is our banner,
Thine eye our beacon-sign,
Thy name our trumpet, Mina!

The mountain bands are thine.

IX.-MOTHER, OH! SING ME TO REST.

A CANCION.

MOTHER! oh, sing me to rest

As in my bright days departed: Sing to thy child, the sick-hearted, Songs for a spirit oppress'd.

Lay this tired head on thy breast!
Flowers from the night-dew are closing
Pilgrims and mourners reposing-

-Mother, oh, sing me to rest!

Take back thy bird to its nest!
Weary is young life when blighted,
Heavy this love unrequited ;-
-Mother, oh! sing me to rest!

THERE ARE SOUNDS IN THE DARK RONCESVALLES. 31

X. THERE ARE SOUNDS IN THE DARK
RONCESVALLES.

THERE are sounds in the dark Roncesvalles,
There are echoes on Biscay's wild shore ;
There are murmurs-but not of the torrent,
Nor the wind, nor the pine-forest's roar.

'Tis a day of the spear and the banner,
Of armings and hurried farewells;
Rise, rise on your mountains, ye Spaniards;
Or start from your old battle-dells.

There are streams of unconquer'd Asturias,
That have roll'd with your father's free blood:
Oh! leave on the graves of the mighty,

Proud marks where their children have stood!

THE CURFEW-SONG OF ENGLAND.

HARK! from the dim church tower,
The deep slow curfew's chime!
-A heavy sound unto hall and bower
In England's olden time!

Sadly 'twas heard by him who came

From the fields of his toil at night,

And who might not see his own hearth-flame
In his children's eyes make light.

Sternly and sadly heard,

As it quench'd the wood-fire's glow,

Which had cheer'd the board with the mirthful word,

And the red wine's foaming flow!
Until that sullen boding knell

Flung out from every fane,
On harp, and lip, and spirit, fell,
With a weight and with a chain.

Woe for the pilgrim then,

In the wild deer's forest far!
No cottage-lamp, to the haunts of men,
Might guide him, as a star.

And woe for him whose wakeful soul,
With lone aspirings fill'd,

Would have lived o'er some immortal scroll,
While the sounds of earth were still'd!

And yet a deeper woe

For the watcher by the bed,

Where the fondly loved in pain lay low,

In pain and sleepless dread!

For the mother, doom'd unseen to keep
By the dying babe, her place,

And to feel its flitting pulse, and weep,
Yet not behold its face!

Darkness in chieftain's hall!

Darkness in peasant's cot!

While freedom, under that shadowy pall,

Sat mourning o'er her lot.