and would teach their young people to sing,
dessert would be the best time for a little
agreeable unostentatious cosy natural music.

                              CINTRA.

             A WINDY DAY IN THE SOUTH.

               IN the brake are creaking
                  The tufted cranes;
               And the wind is streaking
                  With sullen strains
The welkin chill'd by the wandering rains.

               In the Quinta, under
                  My garden wall,
               The lemon-trees yonder
                  By fits let fall
Now an emerald leaf, now a pale gold ball,

               On the black earth, studded
                  With drops so bright
               From the fruit-trees, budded
                  Some pink, some white,
And now overflooded with wan yellow light,

               As the sun from a chasm
                  O'er the cloudy hill,
               With the jubilant spasm
                  Of a sudden will
Leaps, and stands, for a moment, still.

               But the wind bewilders
                  The dizzy weather,
               And those sky-builders
                  That put together
The crumbling walls of the cloud-piled ether

               From the mountains hasten,
                  In pale displeasure,
               To mortice and fasten
                  The bright embrasure
Of his lattice, lit from the innermost azure.

               Over freckled furrows
                  To where, in the sides
               Of the hills it burrows
                  (As a reptile hides)
The long-back'd many-legg'd aqueduct strides.

               To the dim plain, mottled
                  With farms and crops
               From the far folds, wattled
                  On the mountain tops
Faint music of bells and of bleatings drops.

               By glimmering lanes
                  Down the slopes below,
               The cumbrous wains,
                  In a creaking row,
Drawn by the dun quiet oxen, go

               With fruits and casks
                  To the sea-side land,
               Where Colares basks
                  In the sunlight bland
Over yellow leagues of pine-scented sand

               The mule-bells jangle
                  In the mist down there:
               The dew-drops spangle
                  The aloes up here.
Hark, to that sound, as of hosts drawing near!

               'Tis the turbulent beat
                  On their craggy beach
               Of the thousand feet
                  (Each trampling each)
Of the wild sea-horses, far out of reach.

               When that sound you hear,
                  As you hear it now,
               So hollow and clear,
                  You may surely know
Foul weather's at hand, tho' no wind should blow.

               But the oakwood is sighing,
                   And cannot find rest
               On the next hill. Flying
                  Around her black nest,
The raven hath brought to her young ones a feast.

               The sierra is sullen:
                  Penalva moans:
               The torrents are swollen:
                  The granite bones
Of Cruzalta crackle with split pine cones.

               But a moment past,
                  On the green zig-zag
               Of the Pena, fast
                  To the piney crag
Stood castle, and turret, and spire, and flag.

               Look up! In what seems
                  To be empty air
               They are gone—like dreams;
                  And the sharp peak, bare
As a beardless chin, is upslanted there!

               Can mason'd court,
                  And keep, and tower,
               Be carried in sport
                  By the cloud and shower
Away, like the leaves of a shatter'd flower?

               These are the acts
                  Of the wizard wind.
               What was solid departs
                  And dissolves. You find
Mere fluid and film, in its stead, combined.

               But safe from the weather
                  (Like cloister'd maids)
               Calm, and together,
                  Down resinous glades,
Which only the hermit bee invades,

               The primroses yet
                  Are alive, I know.
               And no rain can wet,
                  In the thicks below,
Last year's dried things, that have fallen thro'

               To those tangled roots
                  Where the haresfoot cleaves,
               And the ivy shoots,
                  And winds, and weaves
Her own with wild sarsaparilla leaves.

               Yon smoke, that twines,
                  As from tapers snuff'd,
               Straight over the pines
                  Till—caught and rebuffd
At the edge of the cliff, where the wind has luff'd–