XVIII.
Poor, paltry slaves! yet born 'midst noblest scenes—
Why, Nature, waste thy wonders on such men?
Lo! Cintra's glorious Eden intervenes[45]
In variegated maze of mount and glen.
Ah, me! what hand can pencil guide, or pen,
To follow half on which the eye dilates
Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken[ay]
Than those whereof such things the Bard relates,
Who to the awe-struck world unlocked Elysium's gates.
XIX.
The horrid crags, by toppling convent crowned,[az]
The cork-trees hoar that clothe the shaggy steep,
The mountain-moss by scorching skies imbrowned,
The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must weep,
The tender azure[46] of the unruffled deep,
The orange tints that gild the greenest bough,
The torrents that from cliff to valley leap,[ba]
The vine on high, the willow branch below,
Mixed in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow.
XX.
Then slowly climb the many-winding way,
And frequent turn to linger as you go,
From loftier rocks new loveliness survey,
And rest ye at "Our Lady's house of Woe;"[47] [2.B.]
Where frugal monks their little relics show,
And sundry legends to the stranger tell:
Here impious men have punished been, and lo!
Deep in yon cave Honorius long did dwell,
In hope to merit Heaven by making earth a Hell.
XXI.
And here and there, as up the crags you spring,
Mark many rude-carved crosses near the path:[48]
Yet deem not these Devotion's offering—
These are memorials frail of murderous wrath:
For wheresoe'er the shrieking victim hath
Pour'd forth his blood beneath the assassin's knife,
Some hand erects a cross of mouldering lath;
And grove and glen with thousand such are rife
Throughout this purple land, where Law secures not life. [3.B.]