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Home  »  The Book of the Sonnet  »  Colonel David Humphreys (1753–1818)

Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.

II. Addressed to His Royal Highness, the Prince of Brazil

Colonel David Humphreys (1753–1818)

On Taking Leave of the Court of Lisbon, July, 1797

FAREWELL, ye flowery fields! where Nature’s hand

Profusely sheds her vegetable store,

Nurtured by genial suns and zephyrs bland!

Farewell, thou Tagus! and thy friendly shore:

Long shall my soul thy lost retreats deplore,

Thy haunts where shades of heroes met my eyes.

As oft I mused where Camoens trod before,

I saw the god-like form of Gama rise,

With chiefs renowned beneath your eastern skies.

O, long may peace and glory crown thy scene!

Farewell, just Prince! no sycophantic lay

Insults thy ear. Be what thy sires have been,

Thy great progenitors! who oped the way

Through seas unsailed before to climes of orient day.