Agriculture of the Torrid Zone

Agriculture of the Torrid Zone An Electronic Edition Andrés Bello 1781-1865 Header creation by Ralph Bauer Encoded by Ralph Bauer 8.5 KB bello_agriculture.xml Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH)

University of Maryland College Park

October 28, 2002

Hispanic Anthology Collected and Arranged by Thomas Walsh. New York: G. P. Putnam's Son, 1920, 390-394.

The text of the document was originally published in 1826.

The text of the present edition was prepared from and proofed against Hispanic Anthology. Collected and Arranged by Thomas Walsh (New York: G. P. Putnam's Son, 1920), 390-394. All preliminaries and notes have been omitted except those for which the author is responsible. All editorial notes have been omitted except those that indicate significant textual variations. Line and paragraph numbers contained in the source text have been retained. In cases where the source text displays no numbers, numbers are automatically generated. In the header, personal names have been regularized according to the Library of Congress authority files as "Last Name, First Name" for the REG attribute and "First Name Last Name" for the element value. Names have not been regularized in the body of the text.

English Poetry English Spanish 1800-1850 Spanish_America verse Georgic agriculture landscapes The Agriculture of the Torrid Zone Hail to thee, fertile zone,– Where the enamored sun in daily round Enfolds thee, where beneath thy kisses shows All that each various climate grows, Brought forth from out thy ground!– In spring thou bindst her garlands of the ears Of richest corn; thou giv'st the grape Unto the sopping casé; no form nor shape Of purple, red or yellow flower appears Unknown to thy soft bowers; The odors of thy thousand flowers The wind's delight afford; Across thy pasture sward The countless flocks go grazing from the plain Whose only boundary the horizon sets, Unto the surging mountains, where Lifting the snows into the inaccessible air They hold their parapets. Thou givest, too, the beauty of the cane Where honey sweet is stored That leaves the beehive in disdain; Thou in thy coral urns bring'st forth the bean Which soon in chocolate in the cup is poured; With blaze of scarlet are thy nopals seen Such as the Tyrian sea-shell never knew; Thy plant of indigo such hues afford As ne'er from out the sapphire's heart looked through Thine is the wine the piercéd agave stores To glad Anahuac's joyous sons; and thine The fragrant leaf whose gentle steaming pours With solace when their hearts aweary pine. Thy jasmines clothe the Arab brush, Whose perfumes rare the savage rage refine And cool the Bacchic flush; And for the children of thy land The stately palm-tree's fronds are far displayed And the ambrosial pineapple's shade. The yucca-tree holds forth its snowy breads; And ruddy glow the broad potato beds; The cotton bush to greet the lightest airs Its rose of gold and snowy fleece prepares. .... Within thy hand the passiflower blooms In branches of far-showing green And thy sarmentum's twining fronds afford Nectarean globes and stripéd flowers' perfumes. For thee the maize, the haughty lord Of all thy ripened harvests, high is seen; For thee the rich banana's heavy tree Displays its sweetest store – The proud banana, richest treasury That Providence in bounteousness could pour With gracious hand on Ecuador! It asks no human culture for its aid, Ere its first fruits are displayed, Nor with the pruning-knife nor plough it shares The honorable harvest that it bears. Not even the slightest care it needs Of pious hands about it shed, And to its ripeness so it speeds That hardly is it harvested, Ere a new crop is ripened in its stead. .... Oh, youngest of the nations, lift your brow Crowned with new laurels in the marveling West! Give honor to the fields, the simple life endow, And hold the plains and modest farmer blest! So that among you evermore shall reign Fair Liberty enshrined, Ambition modified, and Law composed, Thy people's paths immortal there to find Not fickle nor in vain!– So emulous Time shall see disclosed New generations and new names of might, Blazing in highest light Beside your heroes old! "These are my sons! Behold!"– (You shall declare amain)– Sons of the fathers who did climb The Andes' peaks in years agone,– Of those who great Boyaca's sands upon,– In Maipu and in Junin sublime,– On Apurima's glorious plain, Did triumph o'er the lion of old Spain –Thomas Walsh