Page:Modern poets and poetry of Spain.djvu/200

154 If horror will not you deter. From you,

Your fatal ships first launch'd, the mortal pest,

The poison that now desolates me flew.

As in doom'd plains by ruthless foes oppress'd,

As serpent that incessantly devours,

So ever from your coming, to consume

Has it raged o'er me. See here, how it lowers!

And in the hidden place of death and gloom,

Buries my children and my loves. Affords

Your skill no remedy? O! ye, who call

Yourselves as of America the lords,

Have pity on my agony. See, fall

Beneath your insane fury, not sufficed

One generation, but a hundred slain!

And I expiring, desolate, unprized,

Beseech assistance, and beseech in vain."

Such were the cries that to Olympus rose,

When in the fields of Albion found remote,

Variola's fell havocs to oppose,

Kind Nature show'd the happy antidote.

The docile mother of the herd was found

Enrich'd with this great gift; there stored attent

Where from her copious milky founts around

She gives so many life and aliment.

Jenner to mortals first the gift reveal'd:

Thenceforward mothers to their hearts could press