Page:The Lusiad (Camões, tr. Mickle, 1791), Volume 2.djvu/17

Here too the heroes who command the plain
By Betis water'd; here the pride of Spain,
The brave Castilian pauses o'er his sword,
His country's dread deliverer and lord.
Proud o'er the rest, with splendid wealth array'd,
As crown to this wide empire, Europe's head,
Fair Lusitania smiles, the western bound,
Whose verdant breast the rolling waves surround,
Where gentle evening pours her lambent ray,
The last pale gleaming of departing day:
This, this, O mighty king, the sacred earth,
This the lov'd parent-soil that gave me birth.
And oh, would bounteous heaven my prayer regard,
And fair success my perilous toils reward,
May that dear land my latest breath receive,
And give my weary bones a peaceful grave.

Sublime the honours of my native land,
And high in heaven's regard her heroes stand;
By heaven's decree 'twas theirs the first to quell
The Moorish tyrants, and from Spain expel;
Nor could their burning wilds conceal their flight,
Their burning wilds confest the Lusian might.
From Lusus famed, whose honour'd name we bear,
(The son of Bacchus or the bold compeer,)

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