Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland: Vols. XIV–XV. 1876–79. | | | | Spain: Saint Just (San Yuste), the Convent | | Charles the Fifth before the Convent of St. Just, 1556 | | August von Platen-Hallermünde (1796–1835) |
| | Translated by R. C. Trench
’T IS night, and storms continually roar, | |
| Ye monks of Spain, now open me the door. | |
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| Here in unbroken quiet let me fare, | |
| Save when the loud bell startles you to prayer. | |
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| Make ready for me what your house has meet, | 5 |
| A friar’s habit and a winding-sheet. | |
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| A little cell unto my use assign; | |
| More than the half of all this world was mine. | |
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| The head that stoops unto the scissors now, | |
| Under the weight of many crowns did bow. | 10 |
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| The shoulders on which now the cowl is flung,— | |
| On them the ermine of the Cæsars hung. | |
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| I living now as dead myself behold, | |
| And fall in ruins like this kingdom old. | | | | |
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