Thou hast called me oft the flower of all Grenada's maids,
Thou hast said that by the side of me the first and fairest fades;
And they thought thy heart was mine, and it seemed to every one
That what thou didst to win my love, from love of me was done.
Alas! if they but knew thee, as 'mine it is to know,
They well might see another mark to which thine arrows go;
But thou giv'st me little heed-for I speak to one who knows
That she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he goes.
It wearies me, mine enemy, that I must weep and bear
What fills my heart with triumph, and fills my own with care.
Thou art leagued with those that hate me, and ah! thou know'st I feel That cruel words as surely kill as sharpest blades of steel.
"Twas the doubt that thou wert false, that wrung my heart with pain;
But now
ow I know thy perfidy, I shall be well again:
I would proclaim thee as thou art-but every maiden knows
That she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he goes.
Thus Fatima complained to the valiant Baduan,
Where underneath the myrtles Alhambra's fountains ran :
The Moor was inly moved, and blameless as he was,
He took her white hand in his own, and pleaded thus his cause:
Oh, lady, dry those star-like eyes--their dimness does me wrong;
my heart be made of flint, at least 'twill keep thy image long:
Thou hast uttered cruel words-but I grieve the less for those,
Since she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he goes."
'Tis not with gilded sabres
That gleams in baldricks blue,
Nor nodding plumes in caps of Fez,
Of gay and gaudy hue-
But, habited in mourning weeds,
Come marching from afar,
By four and four, the valiant men
Who fought with Aliatar.
All mournfully and slowly
The afflicted warriors come,
To the deep wail of the trumpet,
And beat of muffled drum.
The banner of the Phenix,
The flag that loved the sky,
That scarce the wind dared wanton with,
It flew so proud and high—
Now leaves its place in battle field,
And sweeps the ground in grief;
The bearer drags its glorious folds
Behind the fallen chief.
As mournfully and slowly
The afflicted warriors come, To the deep wail of the trumpet, And beat of muffled drum.
Brave Aliatar led forward
A hundred Moors to go
To where his brother held Motril
Against the leaguering foe.
On horseback went the gallant Moor,
That gallant band to lead;
And now his bier is at the gate,
From whence he pricked his steed.
While mournfully and slowly
The afflicted warriors come,
To the deep wail of the trumpet,
And beat of muffled drum.
The knights of the Grand Master
In crowded ambush lay:
They rushed upon him where the reeds
Were thick beside the way;
They smote the valiant Aliatar,
They smote him till he died,
And broken, but not beaten, were
The brave ones by his side.
Now mournfully and slowly
The afflicted warriors come,
To the deep wail of the trumpet,
And beat of muffled drum.
Oh! what was Zayda's sorrow,
How passionate her cries!
Her lover's wounds streamed not more free Than that poor maiden's eyes.
Stay, Love-for thou didst see her tears:
Oh, no! he drew more tight
The blinding fillet o'er his lids,
To spare his eyes the sight.
While mournfully and slowly
The afflicted warriors come,
To the deep wail of the trumpet,
And beat of muffled drum.
Nor Zayda weeps him only,
But all that dwell between
The great Alhambra's palace walls
And waves of Albaicin.
The ladies weep the flower of knights, ́.
The brave the bravest here;
The people weep a champion,
The Alcaydes a noble peer.
While mournfully and slowly
The afflicted warriors come,
To the deep wail of the trumpet,
And beat of the muffled drum."
To the town of Atienza, Molina's brave Alcayde
The courteous and the valorous, led forth his bold brigade,
The Moor came back in triumph, he came without a wound,
With many a Christian standard, and Christian captive bound.
He passed the city portals, with swelling heart and vain,
And toward his lady's dwelling, he rode with slackened rein,
Two circuits on his charger he took, and at the third,
From the door of her balcony Zelinda's voice was heard.
'Now if thou wert not shameless,' said the lady to the Moor,
'Thou would'st neither pass my dwelling, nor stop before my door.
Alas for poor Zelinda, and for her wayward mood,
That one in love with peace, should have loved a man of blood!
Since not that thou wert noble I chose thee for my knight,
But that my sword was dreaded in tourney and in fight.
Ah, thoughtless and unhappy! that I should fail to see
How ill the stubborn flint and the yielding wax agree.
Boast not thy love for me, while the shrieking of the fife
Can change thy mood of mildness to fury and to strife
Say not my voice is magic-thy pleasure is to hear
The bursting of the carbine, and shivering of the spear.
Well, follow thou thy choice-to the battle field away,
To thy triumphs and thy trophies, since I am less than they.
Thrust thy arm into thy buckler, gird on thy crooked brand,
Aud call upon thy trusty squire to bring thy spears in hand.
Lead forth thy band to skirmish, by mountain and by mead,
On that dappled Moorish barb, or thy fleeter border steed.
Go, waste the Christian hamlets, and sweep away their flocks,
From Almazan's broad meadows to Siguenza's rocks.
Leave Zelinda altogether, whom thou leavest oft and long,
And in the life thou lovest forget whom thou dost wrong.
These eyes shall not recall thee, though they meet no where thy own,
Though they weep that thou art absent, and that I am all alone.'
She ceased and turning from him her flushed and angry cheek,
Shut the door of her balcony, before the Moor could speak."
We subjoin the following specimen of an original composition of Mr. Bryant's in the same style.
Where olive leaves were twinkling in every wind that blew,
There sat beneath the pleasant shade a damsel of Peru,
Betwixt the slender boughs, as they opened to the air,
Came glimpses of her ivory neck and of her glossy hair;
And sweetly rang her silver voice, within that shady nook,
As from the shrubby glen is heard the sound of hidden brook.
"Tis a song
of love and valor, in the noble Spanish tongue,
That once upon the sunny plains of Old Castile was sung;
When, from their mountain holds, on the Moorish rout below,
Had rushed the Christians like a flood, and swept away the foe.
Awhile that melody is still, and then breaks forth anew,
A wilder rhyme, a livelier note, of freedom and Peru.
A white hand parts the branches, a lovely face looks forth,
And bright dark eyes gaze steadfastly and sadly towards the north.
Thou look'st in vain, sweet maiden, the sharpest sight would fail,
To spy a sign of human life abroad in all the vale;
For the noon is coming on, and the sunbeams fiercely beat,
And the silent hills and forest tops seem reeling in the heat.
That white hand is withdrawn, that fair sad face is gone,
But the music of that silver voice is flowing sweetly on,
Not as of late, in cheerful tones, but mournfully and low,-
A ballad of a tender maid heart broken long ago,
Of him who died in battle, the youthful and the brave,
And her who died of sorrow, upon his early grave.
But see, along that mountain's slope, a fiery horseman ride;
Mark his torn plume, his tarnished belt, the sabre at his side.
His spurs are buried rowel deep, he rides with loosened rein,
There's blood upon his charger's flank and foam upon his mane,
He speeds toward the olive grove, along that shaded hill,—
God shield the helpless maiden there, if he should mean her ill!
And suddenly that song has ceased, and suddenly I hear
A shriek sent up amid the shade, a shriek-but not of fear.
For tender accents follow, and tenderer pauses speak
The overflow of gladness, when words are all too weak:
I lay my good sword at thy feet, for now Peru is free,
And I am come to dwell beside the olive grove with thee'."
The poems that aim at solemnity and grandeur, and those of a sadder and darker mood, do not strike us as equal to the foregoing. Still some of them possess no ordinary merit, and
same of our readers may think that we underrate such verses
And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord; and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of the harvest. in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest.
And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until the water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest upon them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night. II. Samuel xxi, 10.
Hear what the desolate Rizpah said,
As on Gibeah's rocks she watched the dead.
The sons of Michal before her lay,
And her own fair children, dearer than they :
By a death of shame they all had died,
And were stretched on the bare rock, side by side.
And Rizpah, once the loveliest of all
That bloomed and smiled in the court of Saul,
All wasted with watching and famine now,
And scorched by the sun her haggard brow,
Sat, mournfully guarding their corpses there,
And murmured a strange and solemn air;
The low, heart-broken, and wailing strain
Of a mother that mourns her children slain.
I have made the crags my home, and spread
On their desert backs my sackcloth bed;
I have eaten the bitter herb of the rocks,
And drank the midnight dew in my locks;
I have wept till I could not weep, and the pain
Of my burning eyeballs went to my brain.
Seven blackened corpses before me lie,
In the blaze of the sun and the winds of the sky.
I have watched them through the burning day,
And driven the vulture and raven away;
And the cormorant wheeled in circles round,
Yet feared to light on the guarded ground.
And when the shadows of twilight caine,
I have seen the hyena's eys of flame,
And heard at my side his stealthy tread,
But aye at my shout the savage fled:
And I threw the lighted brand, to fright
The jackal and wolf that yelled in the night.
Ye were foully murdered, my hapless sons,
By the hands of wicked and cruel ones;
Ye fell, in your fresh and blooming prime,
All innocent, for your father's crime.
VOL. VIII.NO. 16.
|