XVI.

I GRACED Don Pedro's revelry,
All drest in fire and feather,
When Loveliness and Chivalry

Were met to feast together;
He flung the slave who moved the lid
A purse of maravedis,-

And this that gallant Spaniard did
For me, and for the Ladies.

He vowed a vow, that noble Knight, Before he went to table,

To make his only sport the fight,

His only couch the stable,
Till he had dragged, as he was bid,

Five score of Turks to Cadiz,—
And this that gallant Spaniard did
For me, and for the Ladies.

First

To ride through mountains, where my

A banquet would be reckoned,—

Through deserts where, to quench their thirst,

Men vainly turn my Second ;— To leave the gates of fair Madrid, To dare the gates of Hades,And this that gallant Spaniard did, For me, and for the Ladies.

XVII.

He talked of daggers and of darts,
Of passions and of pains,

Of weeping eyes and wounded hearts,

Of kisses and of chains

;

He said though Love was kin to Grief
She was not born to grieve;

He said though many rued belief
She safely might believe.

But still the Lady shook her head,
And swore by yea and nay

My Whole was all that he had said,
And all that he could say.

He said my First, whose silent car
Was slowly wandering by,
Veiled in a vapour, faint and far,

Through the unfathomed sky,
Was like the smile whose rosy light
Across her young lips past,

Yet oh! it was not half so bright,
It changed not half so fast.

But still the Lady shook her head, And swore by yea and nay

My Whole was all that he had said, And all that he could say.

And then he set a cypress wreath
Upon his raven hair,

And drew his rapier from its sheath,
Which made the Lady stare;
And said, his life-blood's purple flow
My Second there should dim
If she he served and worshipped so
Would weep one tear for him.-
But still the Lady shook her head,
And swore by yea and nay

My Whole was all that he had said,
And all that he could say.

XVIII.

UNCOUTH Was I of face and form,
But strong to blast and blight,
By pestilence and thunderstorm,
By famine and by fight;
I pierced the rivets of the mail,
I maimed the war-steed's hoof,
I bade the yellow harvest fail,
And sent the blast to rend the sail
And the bolt to rend the roof.

Within my Second's dark recess
In silent pomp I dwelt,

Before the mouth in lowliness

My rude adorers knelt ;

'Twas a fearful place; a pile of stones Stood for its stately door;

Its music was of sighs and groans,

And the torch light fell on human bones

Unburied on the floor!