Old towns, whose history lies hid In monkish chronicle or rhyme, Burgos, the birthplace of the Cid, Zamora and Valladolid, Toledo, built and walled amid The wars of Wamba's time;The long, straight line of the high-way, The distant town that seems so near, The peasants in the fields, that stay Their toil to cross themselves and pray, When from the belfry at midday The Angelus they hear;White crosses in the mountain pass, Mules gay with tassels, the loud din Of muleteers, the tethered ass That crops the dusty wayside grass, And cavaliers with spurs of brass Alighting at the inn;White hamlets hidden in fields of wheat, White cities slumbering by the sea, White sunshine flooding square and street, Dark mountain-ranges, at whose feet The river-beds are dry with heat,--All was a dream to me.
Yet something sombre and severe O'er the enchanted landscape reigned;A terror in the atmosphere As if King Philip listened near, Or Torquemada, the austere, His ghostly sway maintained.
The softer Andalusian skies Dispelled the sadness and the gloom;There Cadiz by the seaside lies, And Seville's orange-orchards rise, Making the land a paradise Of beauty and of bloom.
There Cordova is hidden among The palm, the olive, and the vine;Gem of the South, by poets sung, And in whose Mosque Ahmanzor hung As lamps the bells that once had rung At Compostella's shrine.
But over all the rest supreme, The star of stars, the cynosure, The artist's and the poet's theme, The young man's vision, the old man's dream,--Granada by its winding stream, The city of the Moor!
And there the Alhambra still recalls Aladdin's palace of delight;Allah il Allah! through its halls Whispers the fountain as it falls, The Darro darts beneath its walls, The hills with snow are white.
Ah yes, the hills are white with snow, And cold with blasts that bite and freeze;But in the happy vale below The orange and pomegranate grow, And wafts of air toss to and fro The blossoming almond-trees.
The Vega cleft by the Xenil, The fascination and allure Of the sweet landscape chains the will;The traveller lingers on the hill, His parted lips are breathing still The last sigh of the Moor.
How like a ruin overgrown With flower's that hide the rents of time, Stands now the Past that I have known, Castles in Spain, not built of stone But of white summer clouds, and blown Into this little mist of rhyme!
VITTORIA COLONNA.
VITTORIA COLONNA, on the death of her hushand, the Marchese di Pescara, retired to her castle at Ischia (Inarime), and there wrote the Ode upon his death, which gained her the title of Divine.
Once more, once more, Inarime, I see thy purple hills!--once more I hear the billows of the bay Wash the white pebbles on thy shore.
High o'er the sea-surge and the sands, Like a great galleon wrecked and cast Ashore by storms, thy castle stands, A mouldering landmark of the Past.
Upon its terrace-walk I see A phantom gliding to and fro;It is Colonna,--it is she Who lived and loved so long ago.
Pescara's beautiful young wife, The type of perfect womanhood, Whose life was love, the life of life, That time and change and death withstood.
For death, that breaks the marriage band In others, only closer pressed The wedding-ring upon her hand And closer locked and barred her breast.
She knew the life-long martyrdom, The weariness, the endless pain Of waiting for some one to come Who nevermore would come again.
The shadows of the chestnut-trees, The odor of the orange blooms, The song of birds, and, more than these, The silence of deserted rooms;The respiration of the sea, The soft caresses of the air, All things in nature seemed to be But ministers of her despair;Till the o'erburdened heart, so long Imprisoned in itself, found vent And voice in one impassioned song Of inconsolable lament.
Then as the sun, though hidden from sight, Transmutes to gold the leaden mist, Her life was interfused with light, From realms that, though unseen, exist,Inarime! Inarime!
Thy castle on the crags above In dust shall crumble and decay, But not the memory of her love.
THE REVENGE OF RAIN-IN-THE-FACE
In that desolate land and lone, Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone Roar down their mountain path, By their fires the Sioux Chiefs Muttered their woes and griefs And the menace of their wrath.
"Revenge!" cried Rain-in-the-Face, "Revenue upon all the race Of the White Chief with yellow hair!"And the mountains dark and high From their crags re-echoed the cry Of his anger and despair.
In the meadow, spreading wide By woodland and riverside The Indian village stood;All was silent as a dream, Save the rushing a of the stream And the blue-jay in the wood.
In his war paint and his beads, Like a bison among the reeds, In ambush the Sitting Bull Lay with three thousand braves Crouched in the clefts and caves, Savage, unmerciful!
Into the fatal snare The White Chief with yellow hair And his three hundred men Dashed headlong, sword in hand;But of that gallant band Not one returned again.
The sudden darkness of death Overwhelmed them like the breath And smoke of a furnace fire:
By the river's bank, and between The rocks of the ravine, They lay in their bloody attire.
But the foemen fled in the night, And Rain-in-the-Face, in his flight Uplifted high in air As a ghastly trophy, bore The brave heart, that beat no more, Of the White Chief with yellow hair.
Whose was the right and the wrong?
Sing it, O funeral song, With a voice that is full of tears, And say that our broken faith Wrought all this ruin and scathe, In the Year of a Hundred Years.
TO THE RIVER YVETTE
O lovely river of Yvette!
O darling river! like a bride, Some dimpled, bashful, fair Lisette, Thou goest to wed the Orge's tide.
Maincourt, and lordly Dampierre, See and salute thee on thy way, And, with a blessing and a prayer, Ring the sweet bells of St.Forget.
The valley of Chevreuse in vain Would hold thee in its fond embrace;Thou glidest from its arms again And hurriest on with swifter pace.