[Poems by Fairfield in] The autobiography of Jane Fairfield ::

'Tis the bridal of nature, the season of spring,
When Pleasure flits round on her diamond wing,
And the spirit plays brightly and softly and free,
Like gem-dropping beams on a boundless blue sea,
And the young heart is lit by the beams of love's eye,
Like an altar of perfume by fires of the sky.
'Tis the heart-blooming season of innocent love,
When the green growing mead and the whispering grove,
And the musical stream, as it purls o'er the dale,
And the flowers whose lips zephyr woos in the vale,
Are seen with the spirit of thrilling delight
As visions of beauty too passingly bright,
And heard like the songs that come o'er us in dreams
When the soul's magic light through infinity gleams.
The gay Earth is vestured with verdure and flowers,
And hope sings away the sweet sunny hours,
While bathing in sunbeams, or over the sky
Her star-pinions waving through glories on high.

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The citron groves throw on the wings of the breeze
Their balm-breathing flowers, and the green orange trees
Harp sweetly in airs from the hill and the sea,
Like lyres heard unseen singing joys yet to be.
O Eden of beauty! Lusitania! the sun
Loves to linger a while, when his journey is done,
On the lofty twin Pillars, whose brows in the sky
Gleam bright when the sun-god rides flashingly by,
Which stand in their might 'mid the waves of the sea—
Abyla and Calpe—unconquered and free.
And Cintra's dark forests look smilingly on
Apollo descending from his chariot throne,
While Estrella's lagoon, green Escura receives
Sheen tints of his rays from the wood's gilded leaves,
And Tajo's broad bay like a mirror reposes
'Tween a heaven of light and a garden of roses.

University of Virginia Library

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