Moorish Literature
Page 17
Some say that his heroic soul pined with a jealous smart,
That disappointment and neglect had broke that mighty heart;
That all his ancient hopes gave way beneath the cloud of grief,
Until his green and youthful years were withered like a leaf;
And he is wept by those he loved, by every faithful friend,
And those who slandered him in life speak evil to the end.
They found within his chamber where his arms of battle hung
A parting message written all in the Moorish tongue:
"Dear friends of mine, if ever in Gelves I should die,
I would not that in foreign soil my buried ashes lie.
But carry me, and dig my grave upon mine own estate,
And raise no monument to me my life to celebrate,
For banishment is not more dire where evil men abound,
Than where home smiles upon you, but the good are never found."
BALLAD OF ALBAYALDOS
Three mortal wounds, three currents red,
The Christian spear
Has oped in head and thigh and head--
Brave Albayaldos feels that death is near.
The master's hand had dealt the blow,
And long had been
And hard the fight; now in his heart's blood low
He wallows, and the pain, the pain is keen.
He raised to heaven his streaming face
And low he said:
"Sweet Jesus, grant me by thy grace,
Unharmed to make this passage to the dead.
"Oh, let me now my sins recount,
And grant at last
Into thy presence I may mount,
And thou, dear mother, think not of my past.
"Let not the fiend with fears affright
My trembling soul;
Though bitter, bitter is the night
Whose darkling clouds this moment round me roll.
"Had I but listened to your plea,
I ne'er had met
Disaster; though this life be lost to me,
Let not your ban upon my soul be set.
"In him, in him alone I trust,
To him I pray,
Who formed this wretched body from the dust.
He will redeem me in the Judgment Day.
"And Muza, one last service will I ask,
Dear friend of mine:
Here, where I died, be it thy pious task
To bury me beneath the tall green pine.
"And o'er my head a scroll indite, to tell
How, on this sod,
Fighting amid my valiant Moors, I fell.
And tell King Chico how I turned to God,
"And longed to be a Christian at the last,
And sought the light,
So that the accursed Koran could not cast
My soul to suffer in eternal night."
THE NIGHT RAID OF REDUAN
Two thousand are the Moorish knights that 'neath the banner stand
Of mighty Reduan, as he starts in ravage thro' the land.
With pillage and with fire he wastes the fields and fruitful farms,
And thro' the startled border-land is heard the call to arms;
By Jaen's towers his host advance and, like a lightning flash,
Ubeda and Andujar can see his horsemen dash,
While in Baeza every bell
Does the appalling tidings tell,
"Arm! Arm!"
Rings on the night the loud alarm.
So silently they gallop, that gallant cavalcade,
The very trumpet's muffled tone has no disturbance made.
It seems to blend with the whispering sound of breezes on their way,
The rattle of their harness and the charger's joyous neigh.
But now from hill and turret high the flaming cressets stream
And watch-fires blaze on every hill and helm and hauberk gleam.
From post to post the signal along the border flies
And the tocsin sounds its summons and the startled burghers rise,
While in Baeza every bell
Does the appalling tidings tell,
"Arm! Arm!"
Rings on the night the loud alarm.
Ah, suddenly that deadly foe has fallen upon the prey,
Yet stoutly rise the Christians and arm them for the foe,
And doughty knights their lances seize and scour their coats of mail,
The soldier with his cross-bow comes and the peasant with his flail.
And Jaen's proud hidalgos, Andujar's yeomen true,
And the lords of towered Ubeda the pagan foes pursue;
And valiantly they meet the foe nor turn their backs in flight,
And worthy do they show themselves of their fathers' deeds of might,
While in Baeza every bell
Does the appalling tidings tell,
"Arm! Arm!"
Rings on the night the loud alarm.
The gates of dawn are opened and sunlight fills the land,
The Christians issuing from the gates in martial order stand,
They close in fight, and paynim host and Christian knights of Spain,
Not half a league from the city gate, are struggling on the plain.
The din of battle rises like thunder to the sky,
From many a crag and forest the thundering echoes fly,
And there is sound of clashing arms, of sword and rattling steel,
Moorish horns, the fife and drum, as the scattering squadrons reel,
And the dying moan and the wounded shriek for the hurt that none can
heal,
While in Baeza every bell
Does the appalling tidings tell,
"Arm! Arm!"
Rings on the night the loud alarm.
SIEGE OF JAEN
Now Reduan gazes from afar on Jaen's ramparts high,
And tho' he smiles in triumph yet fear is in his eye,
And vowed has he, whose courage none charged with a default,
That he would climb the ramparts and take it by assault,
Yet round the town the towers and walls the city's streets impale,
And who of all his squadrons that bastion can scale?
He pauses until one by one his hopes have died away,
And his soul is filled with anguish and his face with deep dismay.
He marks the tall escarpment, he measures with his eye
The soaring towers above them that seem to touch the sky.
Height upon height they mount to heaven, while glittering from afar
Each cresset on the watch-towers burns like to a baleful star.
His eyes and heart are fixed upon the rich and royal town,
And from his eye the tear of grief, a manly tear, flows down.
His bosom heaves with sighs of grief and heavy discontent,
As to the royal city he makes his sad lament:
"Ah, many a champion have I lost, fair Jaen, at thy gate,
Yet lightly did I speak of thee with victory elate,
The prowess of my tongue was more than all that I could do,
And my word outstripped the lance and sword of my squadron strong and true.
And yet I vowed with courage rash thy turrets I would bring
To ruin and thy subjects make the captives of my King.
That in one night my sword of might, before the morrow's sun,
Would do for thy great citadel what centuries have not done.
I pledged my life to that attempt, and vowed that thou shouldest fall,
Yet now I stand in impotence before thy castle tall.
For well I see, before my might shall win thee for my King,
That thou, impregnable, on me wilt rout and ruin bring,
Ah, fatal is the hasty tongue that gives such quick consent,
And he who makes the hasty vow in leisure must repent.
Ah! now too late I mourn the word that sent me on this quest,
For I see that death awaits me here whilst thou livest on at rest,
For I must enter Jaen's gates a conqueror or be sent
Far from Granada's happy hills in hopeless banishment;
But sorest is the thought that I to Lindaraja swore:
If Jaen should repulse me I'd return to her no more;
No more a happy lover would I linger at her side,
Until Granada's warrior host had humbled Jaen's pride."
Then turning to his warriors, the Moorish cavalier
Asks for their counsel and awaits their answer while with fear.
Five thousand warriors tried and true the Moors were standing near,
All armed with leathern buckler, all armed with sword and spear.
"The place," they answer, "is too strong, by walls too high 'tis bound,
Too many are the watch-towers that circle it around.
The knights and proud hidalgos who on the wall are seen,
Their hearts are bold, their arms are strong, their swords and spears are keen.
Disaster will be certain as the rising of the day,
And victory and booty are a slippery prize," they say,
"It would be wise in this emprise the conflict to forego;
Not all the Moors Granada boasts could lay proud Jaen low."
THE DEATH OF REDUAN
He shrank not from his promise, did Reduan the brave,
The promise to Granada's King with daring high he gave;
And when the morning rose and lit the hills with ruddy glow,
He marshalled forth his warriors to strike a final blow.
With shouts they hurry to the walls, ten thousand fighting men--
Resolved to plant the crescent on the bulwarks of Jaen.
The bugle blast upon the air with clarion tone is heard,
The burghers on the city wall reply with scoffing word;
And like the noise of thunder the clattering squadrons haste,
And on his charger fleet he leads his army o'er the waste.
In front of his attendants his march the hero made,
He tarried not for retinue or clattering cavalcade,
And they who blamed the rash assault with weak and coward minds
Deserted him their leader bold or loitered far behind.
And now he stands beneath the wall and sees before him rise
The object of the great campaign, his valor's priceless prize;
He dreams one moment that he holds her subject to his arms,
He dreams that to Granada he flies from war's alarms,
Each battlement he fondly eyes, each bastion grim and tall,
And in fancy sees the crescents rise above the Christian wall.
But suddenly an archer has drawn his bow of might,
And suddenly the bolt descends in its unerring flight,
Straight to the heart of Reduan the fatal arrow flies,
The gallant hero struck to death upon the vega lies.
And as he lies, from his couch of blood, in melancholy tone,
Thus to the heavens the hero stout, though fainting, makes his moan,
And ere his lofty soul in death forth from its prison breaks,
Brave Reduan a last farewell of Lindaraja takes:
"Ah, greater were the glory had it been mine to die,
Not thus among the Christians and hear their joyful cry,
But in that happy city, reclining at thy feet,
Where thou with kind and tender hands hast wove my winding-sheet.
Ah! had it been my fate once more to gaze upon thy face,
And love and pity in those eyes with dying glance to trace,
Altho' a thousand times had death dissolved this mortal frame,
Soon as thy form before me in radiant beauty came,
A thousand times one look of thine had given me back my breath,
And called thy lover to thy side even from the gate of death.
What boots it, Lindaraja, that I, at Jaen's gate,
That unsurrendered city, have met my final fate?
What boots it, that this city proud will ne'er the Soldan own,
For thee and not for Jaen this hour I make my moan;
I weep for Lindaraja, I weep to think that she
May mourn a hostage and a slave in long captivity.
But worse than this that some proud Moor will take thee to his heart,
And all thy thoughts of Reduan new love may bid depart.
And dwelling on thy beauty he will deem it better far,
To win fair Lindaraja than all the spoils of war,
Yet would I pray if Mahomet, whose servant I have been,
Should ever from the throne of God look on this bloody scene,
And deem it right to all my vows requital fit to make,
And for my valor who attacked the town I could not take,
That he would make thy constancy as steadfast as the tower
Of Jaen's mighty fortress, that withstood the Moorish power;
Now as my life be ebbing fast, my spirit is oppressed,
And Reduan the warrior bold is sinking to his rest,
Oh, may my prayers be answered, if so kind heaven allow,
And may the King forgive me for the failure of my vow,
And, Lindaraja, may my soul, when it has taken its flight,
And for the sweet Elysian fields exchange these realms of night,
Contented in the joys and peace of that celestial seat,
Await the happy moment when we once more shall meet."
THE AGED LOVER
'Twas from a lofty balcony Arselia looked down
On golden Tagus' crystal stream that hemmed Toledo's town;
And now she watched the eddies that dimpled in the flood
And now she landward turned her eye to gaze on waste and wood,
But in all that lay around her she sought for rest in vain,
For her heart, her heart was aching, and she could not heal the pain.
'Tis of no courtly gallant the Moorish damsel dreams,
No lordly emir who commands the fort by Tagus' streams,
'Twas on the banks of Tornes stood the haughty towers of note
Where the young alcayde loved by the maid from cities dwelt remote.
And never at Almanzor's court had he for honor sought,
Though he dwelt in high Toledo in fair Arselia's thought;
And now she dreams of love's great gift, of passion's deep delight,
When far away from her palace walls a stranger came in sight.
It was no gallant lovelorn youth she saw approaching fast,
It was the hero Reduan whose vernal years were past.
He rode upon a sorrel horse and swiftly he came nigh,
And stood where the dazzling sun beat down upon her balcony;
And with a thoughtful air upon the maiden turned his eye,
For suddenly the aged knight feels all his heart on fire,
And all the frost of his broken frame is kindling with desire.
And while he fain would hide his pain he paces up and down
Before the palace turrets that Toledo's rampart crown.
With anger glows the maiden's mind, "Now get thee gone," she cries,
"For can it be that love of me in blood like thine can rise?
I sicken at the very thought; thy locks, old man, are gray,
Thy baldness and thy trembling hand a doting age betray.
Ah, little must thou count my years of beauty and of bloom,
If thou wouldst wed them with a life thus tottering to the tomb,
Decrepitude is now thy lot, and wherefore canst thou dare
To ask that youthful charms these vile infirmities should share?"
And Moorish Reduan heard her words, and saw the meaning plain.
Advancing to the balcony he answered her again:
"The sun is king of everything, o'er all he holds his sway,
And thou art like the sun--thy char
ms I own and I obey;
Thy beauty warms my veins again, and in its rays, forsooth,
I feel the blithe, courageous mood of long-forgotten youth;
Sure love of mine can harm thee not, as sunlight is not lost
When its kind radiance dissolves the fetters of the frost."
Then turning round, a parchment did Reduan unfold,
And on it was a writing in characters of gold;
The meaning of the posy at once the maiden caught:
"Since I can venture, I can have; as yet, I am not naught."
He shows upon his shield a sun, circled with burning rays;
And on the rim was written a little verse which says,
"Two suns, one on my shield, and one in beauty's eyes, I trace."
Then at the cold disdain he saw upon her lovely face,
He covered with a gauzy veil the blazon of his shield,
"The sun upon my targe," he cried, "before thy light must yield."
But as the maid still pouted and eyed him with disdain,
"The mimic sun," continued he, "which here is blazoned plain,
Is overcast and hides itself from the true orb of day,
And I by beauty's radiance eclipsed must ride away."
And as he spoke the Moor struck deep the rowels in his steed,
And rode away from Tagus' side across the grassy mead.
The Moorish maiden recked not if he were far or near,
Her thoughts returned to fancies sweet of her absent cavalier.
FICKLENESS REBUKED
While in the foeman's ruddy gore
I waded to the breast,
And for mine own, my native shore
Fought braver than the best,
While the light cloak I laid aside,
And doffed the damask fold,
And donned my shirt of mail, the spoil
Of foeman brave and bold,
Thou, fickle Mooress, puttest on
Thine odorous brocade,
And hand in hand with thy false love
Wert sitting in the shade.
Thus on the scutcheon of thy sires