"Mirror of patience" (Spanish: Espejo de paciencia) is an epic poem written in 1608 by Silvestre de Balboa.^[1] It is considered the first literature piece written in Cuba. It was occult until the year 1838 when was published in El Plantel, a nineteenth-century magazine. Before, the writer José Antonio Echevarría found it between the shelves of the library of the "Society of Friends of the Country".

The poem is about a true story that occurred in the port of Manzanillo in 1604, when the bishop of the Island of Cuba, Don Juan de las Cabezas Altamirano, in a travel to visit the farms in Yara, was kidnapped by the French corsair Gilberto Girón, with the intent to make the town pay a huge ransom. Then a group of neighbors from Bayamo prepare to fight against the corsairs. In combat, a black slave named Golomón defeats Gilberto Girón and cuts off his head. The bishop is rescued and the people celebrate.

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