Pictures of life in Mexico/Volume 2/Chapter 32
CHAPTER XXXII.
A SONG TO THE VIRGIN.
An Englishman perhaps of all people is the least likely to be satisfied with the life and institutions he may encounter in foreign countries; and for the very sufficient reason that he has more cause than any one else to be satisfied with his own.
Many a discontented Briton, wearied with the conventionalities of home, and anxious for a change, has packed up his trunk and set out on his travels, in search of Utopias and bowers of Paradise. But as those white cliffs he was so anxious to leave behind really begin to fade in the distance, he feels a sadness of the heart creeping over him; and when they are completely lost to his sight, he finds the brilliancy which illumed imaginary prospects, gathers in greater refulgence around the well-remembered scenes he has for a time forsaken. In absence, his own country becomes doubly dear to him; and he becomes a somewhat severe critic on the strange usages by which he is soon surrounded. As the circle of his experience widens, though some of his national prejudices may be effaced, his expectations are commonly disappointed: he finds "nothing new under the sun," and feels, emphatically, that "there is no place like home."
Yet the traveller may indulge himself, especially in such a country as Mexico, with the most pleasing prospects and illusions. He will see sublimity in the wild mountain-passes, where all is vast and solemn, and nothing human or transient intervenes between himself and his Creator; where everlasting hills rear their heads against the expanse of heaven, and aged pine-trees cast their sombre shadows; where volcanic layers and fissures remind him of by-gone ages, and of nature's strong convulsions; and huge, rough-cleft rocks and sudden precipices at once assert themselves as the work of an All-powerful hand: in such scenes the way-farer feels himself separated from the worldly strife without; even his natural voice sounds drear and changed and the very herbage beneath his feet appears age-stricken and unearthly.
Then how delightful to linger on the borders of a fair tropical grove or forest, where the orange and pomegranate trees shed a luscious and appetizing fragrance upon the air; where the palm and myrtle flourish together, and the huge banana affords a cooling shade; there, too, the citron and mezquite luxuriate, the cotton-tree and agave vie with one another, the tulip-tree spreads its branches, and a hundred delicious fruit-trees bend beneath their juicy load. Birds of brilliant plumage scream and fan themselves from bough to bough; rich painted butterflies flutter about the scene; gorgeous flowers cluster, and honeyed trailing-shrubs spring up, and the air is filled with a hum of music, and all is sunshine and beauty.
One may wander beside a lake or river, noting how the watery expanse spreads out from the lucid foreground, forming a bright flashing mirror midway, and melting into a hazy distance; the waterfowl skim and quaver upon the surface and leaves and rushes wave in the open breeze; how the trees and bushes are reflected clearly, the ripples burst into life against the stones, and the extremes of motion and repose meet together.
Perhaps a lonely valley may entice him, where belts of landscape, of different kinds, mount one above another; and miles of corn-growing uplands and lines of verdant fields, clumps of dark foliage and beds of ruddy rocks, sugar plantations and country haciendas, chilé plots and cochineal allotments, agricultural watch-towers and rural hamlets, may be reviewed in turn, as they rise in due gradations to the hills on the horizon.
A shady retreat, beside a spacious alameda, or public walk, is also characteristic of the country, where, from a rustic seat, secure from interruption, one may note the gay groups of cavalleros and donzellas, advancing through the avenues of trees, on their evening promenade; the fashionable and the luxurious driving along in their lumbering coaches; and the tradesman and his customers strolling alike at the close of day. Where staid processions are marshalled past, and stately officials solace themselves after the fatigues of duty; where children play and hide themselves, and mothers and nurses live over again the days of infancy; while the sick and drooping breathe the pure air at stated seasons, or lovers' vows ascend in sweet cadences on the air, at twilight.
I have sat under the trees skirting such a scene as the last, until the gray tints of evening have deepened into darkness; enjoying the coolness of the retirement, the luxuriance of the spreading branches, the vista views in the changing atmosphere, the sight of the cheerful homeward-bound figures, and the sound of merry voices as they swept by. Sometimes the love-lorn lute of a languishing swain would become tenderly audible, or the murmured song of a soliloquizing cavalier; and, more frequently still, would a hymn to the Virgin—tuned in her honour by some loitering devotees—strike musically on the growing stillness of the night.
These songs to the Virgin are, for the most part, ludicrously childish things: a few rhymes loosely put together, with nothing to recommend them but their pious intention. The subjoined stanzas, however, are imitated from what struck the writer as one of the best of these performances; though it is not a song to the Virgin strictly speaking, but should rather be called—
Our Lady's Message from Heaven.
Once ere the Angel of Death descended
To our world of woe,
At the throne of the Virgin he attended,
Her pleasure to know,
"Are there any among the maidens bright,
The daughters of men,
Who are worthy to grace my bower of light?"
Said our lady then;
"For I would that the pure and beautiful
My glory should see;
And the good, and the tender, and truthful,
Come hither to me.
"Then in whispers soft tell the young and fair,
What my pleasure is,—
That they flee the false joys of earth, and share
My abode of bliss.
"Of earth's sweetest flowers shall my handmaidens be;
And transplanted here,
They shall bloom in the light of eternity,
My bright throne near."
So now we know when the fair ones we love.
Are summoned away;
They are gone to attend on the Virgin above,
In glory for aye!