lady." And, in a slightly mock-heroic tone, she began to recite it:

Maiden, the sunshine of thine eye,
Flashing my joyous waves along,
The magic of thy soul-lit smile,
Have waked my murmuring voice to song.

Winding through Hispania's mountains,
Watering her sunburnt plains,
I, from earliest time, have gladdened
Dwellers on these wide domains.

I have watched succeeding races,
Peopling my fertile strand,
Marked each varying lovely model,
Moulded by Nature's plastic hand.

Striving still to reach perfection,
Ruthless, she broke each beauteous mould;
Some blemish still deformed her creature,
Some alloy still defiled her gold.

The Iberian girl has often bathed,
Her limbs in my delighted flood,
And no Acteon came to startle
This very Dian of the wood.

The stately Roman maid has loitered,
Pensive, upon my flowering shore,
Shedding some pearly drops to think,