[263]
In the cage which her delicate hand has prepared,
The beautiful prisoner nestles unscared,
O'er her fair forehead shining serenely and bright,
In beauty's own bondage revealing its light!
And when the light dance and the revel are done,
She bears it away to her alcove alone,
Where, fed by her hand from the cane that's most choice,
In secret it gleams at the sound of her voice!
O beautiful maiden!
may Heaven accord
Thy care of the captive a fitting reward,
And never may fortune the fetters remove
Of a heart that is thine in the bondage of love!
In his
Dream, a fragment of some length, Placido dwells in a touching manner upon the scenes of his early years.
It is addressed to his brother Florence, who was a slave near
Matanzas, while the author was in the same condition at
Havana.
There is a plaintive and melancholy sweetness in these lines, a natural pathos, which finds its way to the heart:–
Thou knowest, dear Florence, my sufferings of old,
The struggles maintained with oppression for years;
We shared them together, and each was consoled
With the love which was nurtured by sorrow and tears.
But now far apart, the sad pleasure is gone,
We mingle our sighs and our sorrows no more;
The course is a new one which each has to run,
And dreary for each is the pathway before.
But in slumber our spirits at least shall commune,
We will meet as of old in the visions of sleep,
In dreams which call back early days, when at noon
We stole to the shade of the palm-tree to weep!
For solitude pining, in anguish of late
The heights of Quintana I sought for repose;
And there, in the cool and the silence, the weight
Of my cares was forgotten, I felt not my woes.
