His Indian Love to Diogo Alvarez



ON HIS DEPARTURE FROM BAHIA

When thou stoodst amidst thy countrymen
   Our captive and our foe,
What voice of pity was it then
   That check'd the fatal blow?

When the name of the mighty 'Man of Fire'
    Re-echoed to the sky,
And our chiefs forgot their deadly ire—
    Who hail'd thy victory?

What voice like the softest, sweetest note
That rings from the slender white bird's throat,
    Has soothed thee so oft to rest?
And thou hast said, so tenderly,
That to sit among willow isles with me
    Was to be ever blest!

Oh! have we not wander'd in silent night
   When the thick dews fell from the weeping bough;
And then these eyes, like the stars, were bright—
  But are wet like those mournful branches now.

       Like the leafless plant that twines around
           The forest tree so fair and high,
       And when in that withering clasp 'tis bound,
            Leaves the blighted trunk to die,—
       Thy vows round my trusting heart have bound,
            And now thou leav'st me to misery!
                                       
                                         

        Thou wilt not return—thy words are vain!
            Thou wilt cross the deep blue sea;
        And some dark-eyed maid of thy native Spain
             Will hold thee far from me.

        The summer will come, and our willow shore
             Will hear the merman sing;
         But thou wilt list to his song no more
              When the rocks with his music ring:

           He will murmur thy falsehood to every cave—
           Or will tell of thy death on the stormy wave.
           Ah! no; ah! no; 'tis of mine he'll tell—
           I will weep no more—farewell!—farewell!

           Look from thy bark, how I follow afar;
           How I scorn the winds' and the billows' war;—
           I sink! the waves ring loudly my knell;
           My sorrows are passing—farewell!—farewell!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:30 min read
112

Quick analysis:

Scheme X XAXA XBXC DDECCE FGFG HBHBHC ICIC JKJK LLMM XJMM
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,881
Words 294
Stanzas 10
Stanza Lengths 1, 4, 4, 6, 4, 6, 4, 4, 4, 4

Louisa Stuart Costello

Louisa Stuart Costello was a writer on travel and French history. Costello was born in Ireland or Sussex. She resided in Paris, France, near the Seine River. She had no true home, but wandered place to place staying with friends and acquaintances. With her brother Dudley Costello, also a well known for his travel writing, they promoted the copying of illuminated manuscript. She wrote over 100 texts, articles, poems, songs and knew such people as Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, Lord Byron, Thomas Moore. She was a poet, historian, journalist, painter and novelist. Her father was Colonel James Francis Costello, who died in April 1814 while fighting Napoleon. Costello published Memoirs of Eminent Englishwomen, which included her illustrations, and several other popular works of poetry and travel. Her collection Songs of a Stranger was dedicated to William Lisle Bowles. She did not return to France until after her mother sent for her in 1815/18 and then lived chiefly in Paris, where she was a miniature-painter. In 1815 she published The Maid of the Cyprus Isle, etc. She also wrote books of travel, which were very popular, as were her novels, chiefly founded on French history. Another work, published in 1835, is Specimens of the Early Poetry of France. She died in Boulogne sur Mer, France of mouth cancer. more…

All Louisa Stuart Costello poems | Louisa Stuart Costello Books

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