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“Que era, decidme, la nación que un día

Reina del mundo proclamó el destino?...”

Quintana—Oda a España.

WHERE now that Nation proud which Destiny

Once did proclaim this world’s all conquering queen?

Where now that sceptre, that bright blazon seen

That mark’d her mistress over land and sea?

A lost emprise, a shattered galleon she,

Sails rent and hull agape that once have been

World-powerful; her rotting masts careen

With each dark surge of long-pent enmity.

On through sea’s salty wastes the tempests spurn,

The waves rebuff her; lights no more there gleam

Nor vergies wave on her high carven beam.

Stilled is the sailor’s jest, the skipper’s song;

In swirling fogs of night she drives along

With Helmsman Death stark-frozen at the stern!...

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VIRGIN art thou and pure, amid a throng

Of such sweet hallowed names as all men praise.

(Grown all too scant in these our latter days!)

To holy hours of old dost thou belong;

Saint Agnès then had heard thine even-song,