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Translated by Edward Churton
A WORD with thee, grand Tagus;— | |
| Say why, in wrath and pride, | |
| Thy stream rolls down, to plague us, | |
| This deluge wild and wide? | |
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| What moves thy spleen at princes? | 5 |
| Thy work is with the clown, | |
| Watering his groves of quinces | |
| By old Toledo town. | |
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| Thy boast is in the wonder | |
| Of Rome’s imperial sway, | 10 |
| Where flow thy deep waves under | |
| That high o’erarching way, | |
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| Where might in age reposes, | |
| By Spaniards noised as far | |
| As trumpet-sounds of noses | 15 |
| In winter’s hoarse catarrh. | |
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| Long live that strength and beauty, | |
| By poets vaunted higher | |
| Than chimes in Sunday duty | |
| Hung out from belfry spire. | 20 |
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| For thee the vocal Muses | |
| More hue and cry have made | |
| Than market-beadle uses | |
| For cattle stolen or strayed. | |
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| By Nature thou art gifted, | 25 |
| They say, with sands of gold: | |
| But let those sands be sifted, | |
| And truth may then be told. | |
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| They call thee sacred river: | |
| I grant the reason why, | 30 |
| Because thy course is ever | |
| In Spain’s Archbishop’s eye. | |
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| But from hard Cuenca’s mountain | |
| Thy rills first rise to day, | |
| From dribbling stony fountain | 35 |
| Forth trickling as they may. | |
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| And year by year, in guerdon | |
| Of thy young sins, a load | |
| Of pines, a growing burden, | |
| Weighs down thy shoulders broad. | 40 |
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| Remembering this, be modest; | |
| For ’t is a monstrous thing, | |
| When wastefully thou floodest | |
| The gardens of Spain’s King. | |
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| So may men’s eyes with wonder | 45 |
| Gaze, where thy waters fall | |
| With arrowy speed, whose thunder | |
| Shakes rock and castle wall; | |
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| Or where in peace delaying | |
| They spread like lakes at rest, | 50 |
| And snow-white swans are playing | |
| Upon thy tranquil breast; | |
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| Or where in highland forest | |
| The dun deer drink thy spray, | |
| Where thou thy rills outpourest | 55 |
| As wild and free as they. | |
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