The Missionary. Introduction

When o'er the Atlantic wild, rocked by the blast,     Sad Lusitania's exiled sovereign passed,     Reft of her pomp, from her paternal throne     Cast forth, and wandering to a clime unknown,     To seek a refuge on that distant shore,     That once her country's legions dyed with gore;     Sudden, methought, high towering o'er the flood,     Hesperian world! thy mighty genius stood;     Where spread, from cape to cape, from bay to bay,     Serenely blue, the vast Pacific lay;     And the huge Cordilleras to the skies     With all their burning summits seemed to rise.     Then the stern spirit spoke, and to his voice     The waves and woods replied: Mountains, rejoice!     Thou solitary sea, whose billows sweep     The margin of my forests, dark and deep,     Rejoice! the hour is come: the mortal blow,     That smote the golden shrines of Mexico,     In Europe is avenged; and thou, proud Spain,     Now hostile hosts insult thy own domain;     Now Fate, vindictive, rolls, with refluent flood,     Back on thy shores the tide of human blood,     Think of my murdered millions! of the cries     That once I heard from all my kingdoms rise;     Of Famine's feeble plaint, of Slavery's tear;     Think, too, if Valour, Freedom, Fame, be dear,     How my Antarctic sons, undaunted, stood,     Exacting groan for groan, and blood for blood;     And shouted, (may the sounds be hailed by thee!)     Tyrants, the virtuous and the brave are free!