Ā;Es Alienum

HISPANIA! O, Hispania! once my home — How hath thy fall degraded every son Who owns thee for a birth-place. They who walk Thy marbled courts and holy sanctuaries, Or tread thy olive groves, and pluck the grapes That cluster there — or dance the saraband By moonlight, to some Moorish melody — Or whistle with the Muleteer, along Thy goat-climbed rocks and awful precipices; How do the nations scorn them and deride! And they who wander where a Spanish tongue Was never heard, and where a Spanish heart Had never beat before, how poor, how shunned, Avoided, undervalued, and debased, Move they among the foreign multitudes! Once I was bright to the world's eye, and passed Among the nobles of my native land In Spain's armorial bearings, decked and stampt With Royalty's insignia, and I claimed And took the station of my high descent; But the cold world has cut a cantle out From my escutcheon— and now here I am, A poor, depreciated pistareen.