Beneath its influence bent, and all its flames
In one long lightning-flash concentrating,
Darted and blasted Hamuel,.. him alone.
Hark!.. what a fearful scream the multitude
Pour forth!.. and yet more miracles! the stake
Branches and buds, and, spreading its green leaves,
Embowers and canopies the innocent Maid
Who there stands glorified; and Roses, then
First seen on earth since Paradise was lost,
Profusely blossom round her, white and red
In all their rich variety of hues;
And fragrance such as our first parents breath.
In Eden she inhales, vouchsafed to her
A presage sure of Paradise regain’d.
Westbury, 1798.
THE LOVER’S ROCK.
THE Maiden through the favouring night
From Granada took her flight,
She bade her father’s house farewell,
And fled away with Manuel.
No Moorish maid might hope to vie
With Laila’s cheek or Laila’s eye,
No maiden loved with purer truth,
Or ever loved a lovelier youth.
In fear they fled across the plain,
The father’s wrath, the captive’s chain;
In hope to Seville on they flee,
To peace, and love, and liberty.
Chiuna they have left, and now,
Beneath a precipice s brow,
Where Guadalhorce winds its way,
There in the shade awhile they lay;
For now the sun was near its height.
And she was weary with her flight;
She laid her head on Manuel’s breast,
And pleasant was the maiden’s rest.
While thus the lovely Laila slept,
A fearful watch young Manuel kept,
Alas! her Father and his train
He sees come speeding o’er the plain.
The Maiden started from her sleep,
They sought for refuge up the steep,
To scale the precipice’s brow
Their only hope of safety now.
But them the angry Father sees,
With voice and arm he menaces,
And now the Moors approach the steep,
Loud are his curses, loud and deep.
Then Manuel’s heart grew wild with woe,
He loosen’d stones and roll’d below,
He loosen’d crags, for Manuel strove
For life, and liberty, and love.
The ascent was perilous and high,
The Moors they durst not venture nigh,
The fugitives stood safely there,
They stood in safety and despair.
The Moorish chief unmoved could see
His daughter bend her suppliant knee;
He heard his child for pardon plead,
And swore the offenders both should bleed.
He bade the archers bend the bow,
And make the Christian fall below;
He bade the archers aim the dart,
And pierce the Maid’s apostate heart.
The archers aim’d their arrows there,
She clasp’d young Manuel in despair,
“Death, Manuel, shall set us free I
Then leap below and die with me.”
He clasp’d her close and cried farewell,
In one another’s arms they fell;
And falling o’er the rock’s steep side,
In one another’s arms they died.
And side by side they there are laid,
The Christian youth and Moorish maid;
But never Cross was planted there,
Because they perish’d for despair.
Yet every Moorish maid can tell
Where Laila lies who loved so well,
And every youth who passes there,
Says for Manuel’s soul a prayer.
Westbury, 1798.
GARCI FERRANDEZ.
This story, which later historians have taken some pains disprove, may be found in the Coronica General de Espana
PART I.
1.
IN an evil day and an hour of woe
Did Garci Ferrandez wed!
He wedded the Lady Argentine,
As ancient stories tell,
He loved the Lady Argentine,
Alas! for what befell!
The Lady Argentine hath fled;
In an evil day and an hour of woe
She hath left the husband who loved her well,
To go to Count Aymerique’s bed.
2.
Garci Ferrandez was brave and young,
The comeliest of the land;
There was never a knight of Leon in fight
Who could meet the force of his matchless might
There was never a foe in the infidel band
Who against his dreadful sword could stand;
And yet Count Garci’s strong right hand
Was shapely, and soft, and white;
As white and as soft as a lady’s hand
Was the hand of the beautiful knight.
3.
In an evil day and an hour of woe
To Garci’s Hall did Count Aymerique go;
In an evil hour and a luckless night
From Garci’s Hall did he take his flight,
And bear with him that lady bright,
That lady false, his bale and bane.
There was feasting and joy in Count Aymerique’s bower,
When he with triumph, and pomp, and pride,
Brought home the adultress like a bride:
His daughter only sate in her tower,
She sate in her lonely tower alone,
And for her dead mother she made her moan;
“Methinks,” said she, “my father for me
Might have brought a bridegroom home.
A stepmother he brings hither instead,
Count Aymerique will not his daughter should wed,
But he brings home a leman for his own bed.”
So thoughts of good and thoughts of ill
Were working thus in Abba’s will;
And Argentine with evil intent
Ever to work her woe was bent;
That with a fiendish hue would overcast
His faint and lying smile. Nor vain her fear,
For Hamuel vow’d revenge, and laid a plot
Against her virgin fame. He spread abroad
Whispers that travel fast, and ill reports
That soon obtain belief; how Zillah’s eye,
When in the temple heaven-ward it was raised,
Did swim with rapturous zeal, but there were those
Who had beheld the enthusiast’s melting glance
With other feelings fill’d;.. that ‘t was a task
Of easy sort to play the saint by day
Before the public eye, but that all eyes
Were closed at night;...that Zillah’s life was foul,
Yea, forfeit to the law.
Shame.. shame to man,
That he should trust so easily the tongue
Which stabs another’s fame! The ill report
Was heard, repeated, and believed,.. and soon,
For Hamuel by his well-schemed villainy
Produced such semblances of guilt,.. the Maid
Was to the fire condemn’d.
Without the walls,
There was a barren field; a place abhorr’d,
For it was there where wretched criminals
Receiv’d their death; and there they fix’d the stake,
And piled the fuel round, which should consume
The injured Maid, abandon’d, as it seem’d,
By God and Man. The assembled Bethlemites
Beheld the scene, and when they saw the Maid
Bound to the stake, with what calm holiness
She lifted up her patient looks to Heaven,<
br />
They doubted of her guilt. With other thoughts
Stood Hamuel near the pile; him savage joy
Led thitherward, but now within his heart
Unwonted feelings stirr’d, and the first pangs
Of wakening guilt, anticipant of Hell.
The eye of Zillah as it glanced around
Fell on the slanderer once, and rested there
A moment; like a dagger did it pierce,
And struck into his soul a cureless wound.
Conscience! thou God within us! not in the hour
Of triumph dost thou spare the guilty wretch,
Not in the hour of infamy and death
Forsake the virtuous! They draw near the stake,..
They bring the torch!... hold, hold your erring hands!
Yet quench the rising flames!.. they rise! They spread!
They reach the suffering Maid! oh God protect
The innocent one!
They rose, they spread, they raged;...
The breath of God went forth; the ascending fire
Beneath its influence bent, and all its flames
In one long lightning-flash concentrating,
Darted and blasted Hamuel,.. him alone.
Hark!.. what a fearful scream the multitude
Pour forth!.. and yet more miracles! the stake
Branches and buds, and, spreading its green leaves,
Embowers and canopies the innocent Maid
Who there stands glorified; and Roses, then
First seen on earth since Paradise was lost,
Profusely blossom round her, white and red
PART II.
1.
‘T is the hour of noon,
The bell of the convent hath done,
And the Sexts are begun;
The Count and his leman are gone to their meat.
They look to their pages, and lo they see
Where Abba, a stranger so long before,
The ewer, and bason, and napkin bore;
She came and knelt on her bended knee,
And first to her father minister’d she;
Count Aymerique look’d on his daughter down,
He look’d on her then without a frown.
2.
And next to the Lady Argentine
Humbly she went and knelt;
The Lady Argentine the while
A haughty wonder felt;
Her face put on an evil smile;
“I little thought that I should see
The Lady Abba kneel to me
In service of love and courtesy!
Count Aymerique,” the leman cried,
“Is she weary of her solitude,
Or hath she quell’d her pride?”
Abba no angry word replied,
She only raised her eyes and cried,
€t Let not the Lady Argentine
Be wroth at ministry of mine!”
She look’d at Aymerique and sigh’d;
“My father will not frown, I ween,
That Abba again at his board should be seen!
Then Aymerique raised her from her knee,
And kiss’d her eyes, and bade her be
The daughter she was wont to be.
3.
The wine hath warm’d Count Aymerique,
That mood his crafty daughter knew;
She came and kiss’d her father’s cheek,
And stroked his beard with gentle hand,
And winning eye and action bland,
As she in childhood used to do.
“A boon! Count Aymerique,” quoth she;
“If I have found favour in thy sight,
Let me sleep at my father’s feet to-night.
Grant this,” quoth she, “so I shall see
That you will let your Abba be
The daughter she was wont to be.”
With asking eye did Abba speak,
Her voice was soft and sweet;
The wine had warm’d Count Aymerique,
And when the hour of rest was come,
She lay at her father’s feet.
4.
In Aymerique’s arms the adult’ress lay,
Their talk was of the distant day,
How they from Garci fled away
In the silent hour of night;
And then amid their wanton play
They mock’d the beautiful Knight
Far, far away his castle lay,
The weary road of many a day;
, “And travel long,” they said, “to him,
It seem’d, was small delight;
And he belike was loth with blood
To stain his hands so white.”
They little thought that Garci then
Heard every scornful word!
They little thought the avenging hand
Was on the avenging sword!
Fearless, unpenitent, unblest,
Without a prayer they sunk to rest,
The adulterer on the leman’s breast.
5.
Then Abba, listening still in fear,
To hear the breathing long and slow,
At length the appointed signal gave,
And Garci rose and struck the blow.
One blow sufficed for Aymerique,..
He made no moan, he utter’d no groan;
But his death-start waken’d Argentine,
And by the chamber-lamp she saw
The bloody falchion shine!
She raised for help her in-drawn breath,
But her shriek of fear was her shriek of death.
6.
In an evil day and an hour of woe
Did Garci Ferrandez wed!
One wicked wife he has sent to her grave,
He hath taken a worse to his bed.
Bristol, 1801.
KING RAMIRO.
1.
GREEN grow the alder-trees, and close
To the water-side by St. Joam da Foz.
From the castle of Gaya the Warden sees
The water and the alder-trees;
And only these the Warden sees,
No danger near doth Gaya fear,
No danger nigh doth the Warden spy;
He sees not where the gallies lie
Under the alders silently;
For the gallies with green are cover’d o’er,
They have crept by night along the shore,
And they lie at anchor, now it is morn,
Awaiting the sound of Ramiro’s horn.
2.
In traveller’s weeds Ramiro sate
By the fountain at the castle-gate;
But under the weeds was his breast-plate,
And the sword he had tried in so many fights
And the horn whose sound would ring around
And be known so well by his knights.
3.
From the gate Aldonza’s damsel came
To fill her pitcher at the spring,
And she saw, but she knew not, her master the K
In the Moorish tongue Ramiro spake,
And begg’d a draught for mercy’s sake,
That he his burning thirst might slake;
For worn by a long malady,
Not strength enow, he said, had he
To lift it from the spring.
4.
She gave her pitcher to the King,
And from his mouth he dropt a ring
Which he had with Aldonza broken;
So in the water from the spring
Queen Aldonza found the token.
With that she bade her damsel bring
Secretly the stranger in.
5.
“What brings thee hither, Ramiro? “ she cried:
“The love of you,” the King replied.
“Nay! nay I it is not so!” quoth she,
“Ramiro, say not this to me!
I know your Moorish concubine
Hath now the love which once was mine.
If yo
u had loved me as you say,
You would never have stolen Ortiga away;
If you had never loved another,
I had not been here in Gaya to-day
The wife of Ortiga’s brother I
But hide thee here,.. a step I hear,.,
King Alboazar draweth near.”
6.
In her alcove she bade him hide:
“King Alboazar, my lord,” she cried,
“What wouldst thou do, if at this hour
King Ramiro were in thy power?”
“This I would do,” the Moor replied,
“I would hew him limb from limb,
As he, I know, would deal by me,
So I would deal by him.”
“Alboazar!” Queen Aldonza said,
“Lo! here I give him to thy will;
In yon alcove thou hast thy foe,
Now thy vengeance then fulfil!”
7.
With that up spake the Christian king:
“O Alboazar, deal by me
As I would surely deal with thee,
If I were you, and you were me!
Like a friend you guested me many a day,
Like a foe I stole your sister away;
The sin was great, and I felt its weight,
All joy by day the thought opprest,
And all night long it troubled my rest;
Till I could not bear the burthen of care,
But told my Confessor in despair.
And he, my sinful soul to save,
This penance for atonement gave;
. That I before you should appear
And yield myself your prisoner here,’
If my repentance was sincere,
That I might by a public death
Breathe shamefully out my latest breath.
8.
“King Alboazar, this I would do,
If you were I, and I were you;
That no one should say you were meanly fed,
I would give you a roasted capon first,
And a good ring loaf of wheaten bread,
And a skinful of wine to quench your thirst;
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 119