Page:Translations from Camoens; and Other Poets.pdf/90



All smiled around thee—Youth, and Love, and Praise, Hearts all devotion and all truth were thine! On thee was rivetted a nation's gaze, As on some radiant and unsullied shrine. Heiress of empires! thou art passed away, Like some fair vision, that arose to throw, O'er one brief hour of life, a fleeting ray, Then leave the rest to solitude and wo! Oh! who shall dare to woo such dreams again! Who hath not wept to know, that tears for thee were vain?

Yet there is one who loved thee—and whose soul With mild affections nature formed to melt; His mind hath bowed beneath the stern control Of many a grief—but this shall be unfelt! Years have gone by—and given his honoured head A diadem of snow—his eye is dim— Around him Heaven a solemn cloud hath spread, The past, the future, are a dream to him! Yet, in the darkness of his fate, alone He dwells on earth, while thou, in life's full pride, art gone!