FROM “THE LUSIAD.”

With graceful pride three hills of softest green

Rear their fair bosoms o’er the sylvan scene;

Their sides embroider’d boast the rich array

Of flowery shrubs in all the pride of May;

The purple lotus and the snowy thorn,

And yellow pod-flowers every slope adorn.

From the green summits of the leafy hills

Descend with murmuring lapse three limpid rills;

Beneath the rose-trees loitering slow they glide,

Now tumbles o’er some rock their crystal pride;

Sonorous now they roll adown the glade,

Now plaintive tinkle in the secret shade;

Now from the darkling grove, beneath the beam

Of ruddy morn, like melted silver stream,

Edging the painted margins of the bowers,

And breathing liquid freshness on the flowers.

Here bright reflected in the pool below

The vermil apples tremble on the bough;

Where o’er the yellow sands the waters sleep,

The primrosed banks inverted, dew-drops weep;

Where murmuring o’er the pebbles purls the stream,

The silver trouts in playful curvings gleam.

Long thus and various every riv’let strays,

Till closing now their long meand’ring maze,

Where in a sinking vale the mountains end,

Form’d in a crystal lake the waters blend;

Fring’d was the border with a woodland shade,

In every leaf of various green array’d,

Each yellow-ting’d, each mingling tint between

The dark ash verdure and the silvery green.

The trees now bending forward, slowly shake

Their lofty honors o’er the crystal lake;

Now from the flood the graceful boughs retire,

With coy reserve, and now again admire

Their various liveries by the summer dress’d,

Smooth-gloss’d and soften’d in the mirror’s breast.

So by her glass the wishful virgin strays,

And oft retiring steals the lingering gaze.

* * * * *

Wild forest-trees the mountain sides array’d:

With curling foliage and romantic shade;

Here spreads the poplar, to Alcides dear;

And dear to Phœbus, ever verdant here,

The laurel joins the bowers for ever green,

The myrtle bowers belov’d of beauty’s queen.

To Jove the oak his wide-spread branches rears;

And high to heaven the fragrant cedar bears;

Where through the glades appear the cavern’d rocks,

The lofty pine-tree waves her sable locks;

Sacred to Cybele, the whispering pine

Loves the wild grottoes where the white cliffs shine;

Here towers the cypress, preacher to the wise,

Less’ning, from earth, her spiral honors rise,

Till, as a spear-point rear’d, the topmost spray

Points to the Eden of eternal day.

Translation of W. J. Mickle. Luis de Camoens, 1517–1579.