Classic Poem

H ISPANIA ! oh, 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-climb'd 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 before, how poor, how shunn'd,
Avoided, undervalued, and debased,
Move they among the foreign multitudes!
Once I was bright to the world's eye, and pass'd
Among the nobles of my native land
In Spain's armorial bearings, deck'd 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.