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X.

But high in amphitheatre above,

His arms the everlasting aloes threw :
Breath'd but an air of heav'n, and all the grove
As if with instinct living spirit grew,

Rolling its verdant gulphs of every hue ;
And now suspended was the pleasing din,
Now from a murmur faint it swell'd anew,
Like the first note of organ heard within
Cathedral aisles,-ere yet its symphony begin.

XI.

It was in this lone valley she would charm

The ling'ring noon, where flow'rs a couch had strewn; Her cheek reclining, and her snowy arm

On hillock by the palm-tree half o'ergrown :

And aye that volume on her lap is thrown,
Which every heart of human mould endears;

With Shakespeare's self she speaks and smiles alone,
And no intruding visitation fears,

To shame th' unconscious laugh, or stop her sweetest

tears.

XII.

And nought within the grove was heard or seen
But stock-doves plaining through its gloom profound,
Or winglet of the fairy humming bird,

Like atoms of the rainbow fluttering round;
When lo! there enter'd to its inmost ground
A youth, the stranger of a distant land;
He was, to weet, for eastern mountains bound;
But late th' equator suns his cheek had tann'd,
And California's gales his roving bosom fann❜d.

XIII.

A steed, whose rein hung loosely o'er his arm,
He led dismounted; ere his leisure pace,
Amid the brown leaves, could her ear alarm,
Close he had come, and worshipp'd for a space
Those downcast features:-she her lovely face
Uplift on one, whose lineaments and frame
Were youth and manhood's intermingled grace:
Iberian seem'd his boot-his robe the same,

And well the Spanish plume his lofty looks became.

XIV.

For Albert's home he sought-her finger fair

Has pointed where the father's mansion stood.
Returning from the copse he soon was there;
And soon has Gertrude hied from dark green

wood;

Nor joyless, by the converse, understood
Between the man of age and pilgrim young,

That gay congeniality of mood,

And early liking from acquaintance sprung;

Full fluently convers'd their guest in England's

tongue.

XV.

And well could he his pilgrimage of taste

Unfold, and much they lov'd his fervid strain,
While he each fair variety re-trac'd

Of climes, and manners, o'er the eastern main.
Now happy Switzer's hills,-romantic Spain,-
Gay lilied fields of France,-or, more refin'd,
The soft Ausonia's monumental reign;

Nor less each rural image he design'd

Than all the city's pomp and home of human

kind.

XVI.

Anon some wilder portraiture he draws;
Of Nature's savage glories he would speak,—
The loneliness of earth that overawes,-

Where, resting by some tomb of old Cacique,
The lama-driver on Peruvia's peak,

Nor living voice nor motion marks around;
But storks that to the boundless forest shriek,
Or wild-cane arch high flung o'er gulph profound,'
That fluctuates when the storms of El Dorado sound.-

XVII.

Pleas'd with his guest, the good man still would ply
Each earnest question, and his converse court ;
But Gertrude, as she ey'd him, knew not why
A strange and troubling wonder stopt her short.
In England thou hast been,—and, by report,
'An orphan's name (quoth Albert) may'st have known:
Sad tale! - when latest fell our frontier fort,-

'One innocent-one soldier's child -alone

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Was spar'd, and brought to me, who lov'd him as my own.

11 The bridges over narrow streams in many parts of Spanish America are said to be built of cane, which, however strong to support the passenger, are yet waved in the agitation of the storm, and frequently add to the effect of a mountainous and picturesque scenery.

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