A BRIGHTER DAY.

Harness the impatient Years,

O Time! and yoke them to the imperial car;

For, through a mist of tears,

The brighter day appears,

Whose early blushes tinge the hills afar.

A brighter day for thee,

O realm! whose glorious fields are spread between

The dark-blue Midland Sea

And that immensity

Of Western waters which once hailed thee queen!

The fiery coursers fling

Their necks aloft, and snuff the morning wind,

Till the fleet moments bring

The expected sign to spring

Along their path, and leave these glooms behind.

Yoke them, and yield the reins

To Spain, and lead her to the lofty seat;

But, ere she mount, the chains

Whose cruel strength constrains

Her limbs must fall in fragments at her feet.

A tyrant brood have wound

About her helpless limbs the steely braid,

And toward a gulf profound

They drag her, gagged and bound,

Down among dead men's bones, and frost and shade.

O Spain! thou wert of yore

The wonder of the realms; in prouder years

Thy haughty forehead wore,

What it shall wear no more,

The diadem of both the hemispheres.

To thee the ancient Deep

Revealed his pleasant, undiscovered lands;

From mines where jewels sleep,

Tilled plain and vine-clad steep,

Earth's richest spoil was offered to thy hands.

Yet thou, when land and sea

Sent thee their tribute with each rolling wave,

And kingdoms crouched to thee,

Wert false to Liberty,

And therefore art thou now a shackled slave.

Wilt thou not, yet again,

Put forth the sleeping strength that in thee lies,

And snap the shameful chain,

And force that tyrant train

To flee before the anger in thine eyes?

Then shall the harnessed Years

Sweep onward with thee to that glorious height

Which even now appears

Bright through the mist of tears,

The dwelling-place of Liberty and Light.