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(From The Grief of the Moriscoes)
Translated by Edward Churton
FROM noble Seville, loyal town, as clerks the sum have told, | |
| Have gone some thirty thousand souls, men, women, young and old; | |
| The age-worn sire and little child, the rich ones and the poor: | |
| A mighty solitude it makes, this clearance of the Moor. | |
| From Aljarafe’s olive-yards five thousand twenty-three; | 5 |
| The gazer’s heart it pierced with pain the piteous sight to see. | |
| For why, they looked like Christian folk, and spoke with bitter moan, | |
| “Alas! dear land! what cruel fate debars us from our own? | |
| Alas! but wherefore ask? our sins have brought this penal day.” | |
| So passed they on with lingering looks of anguish and dismay. | 10 |
| Then came the Moorish women sad: their lily hands they wrung; | |
| They raised their tear-swoln eyes to heaven; and wailing filled each tongue: | |
| “Alas! dear Seville! fatherland! alas! dear steeples all, | |
| Marina’s, Mark’s, and Andrew’s kirk, Saint Julian, and Saint Paul.” | |
| For there they went to shrift and mass in happier days, I ween, | 15 |
| If not to pray as Christians pray, to see and to be seen. | |
| And some Morisco men there were, who mournfully surveyed | |
| With genuine grief the streets and marts, where late they drove their trade, | |
| And muttered many a well-known name, the Butcher-Row, the Strand, | |
| The Oil-Mart, where their oily cakes must now be contraband; | 20 |
| The Vintry, where hard Fate had dashed the beverage from their lips, | |
| The Sun-Gate, where the sun to them henceforth is in eclipse. | |
| But others called for help at need with voices loud and high, | |
| And prayed Our Lady of her grace to hear their parting cry. | |
| Young infants borne in arms partook their mothers’ woes and fears, | 25 |
| At their sad breasts all scantly fed, instead of milk, with tears. | |
| And of devotion’s inward grace some shewed the tokens fair, | |
| White comely cloaks, which Christian wives at kirk are wont to wear. | |
| Their strings of beads full oft they told; their rosaries counted o’er; | |
| And high above their mourning bands a crucifix they bore: | 30 |
| On this they gazed, as on they moved; and some rich offerings gave | |
| To churches which they named before they crossed the ocean-wave. | |
| A merchant of St. Julian’s ward four thousand ducats paid | |
| To our dear Lady of the Palm, and humble vows he made: | |
| And others left their gifts and alms, that masses might ascend, | 35 |
| And memory might be kept in prayer of some departed friend. * * * * * | |
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