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Translated by M. E. M.
I. RUINED and black, deserted and forgot, | |
| Half sunk mid sands around her gathering fast, | |
| Toledo lies,—a world-abandoned spot, | |
| Smote by the storm-wind, shattered by the blast. | |
| Now in the mantle that her dead kings wore | 5 |
| Scant clad, her wasting brow to sight revealed, | |
| A slave that arms and laws can boast no more, | |
| She slumbering rests beside her ancient shield. | |
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| What hath she left her now?—an empty name, | |
| A parody wherewith her shame to hide, | 10 |
| Wherefrom may men divine her former fame; | |
| Toledo! Once a queen in wealth and pride, | |
| What hath she left?—a temple, bridges twain, | |
| An old Alcazar that doth frown on high, | |
| Where wrecks and scutcheons of the past remain,— | 15 |
| Beneath, inert, her soulless people lie. | |
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| At times above the dark and louring night | |
| Of that vast heap of dust and memories | |
| Amid the shadows streams a pallid light, | |
| And sweetest music floats upon the breeze, | 20 |
| Above the moan of winds, the voice of prayer, | |
| Then loudly sounds the organ’s rolling tone; | |
| An hour hath passed,—then what remaineth there? | |
| A cross, an altar, a sepulchral stone. | |
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| There, when the moonlight steals with tardy beam, | 25 |
| Through painted panes of gorgeous blazonry, | |
| Scarce can it see the small lamp’s feeble gleam | |
| That by the altar glimmers soon to die. | |
| Through opened window peeping, that dim ray | |
| Shows that some being suffers, watches, weeps, | 30 |
| While a dull race that knows not yesterday, | |
| Nor heeds to-morrow, in supineness sleeps. | |
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II. And as the moon in silent flight | |
| The dark blue skies moves nightly o’er, | |
| She whitens with her silver light | 35 |
| The spoils of myriads now no more: | |
| Those pages, without date or name, | |
| The ciphers of an age unknown, | |
| Wrought by man’s hand to be the shame | |
| Of man, in feebler ages shown. | 40 |
| That vast cathedral,—sacred pile! | |
| Whose capitals and columns gray, | |
| Whose fretted vault and pillared aisle, | |
| Whose painted windows’ rich display, | |
| Whose cloisters, solemn, dim, and old | 45 |
| (Where silence reigns so deep and dread), | |
| Need for their pavement but the cold | |
| Sepulchral stones that hide the dead. | |
| And o’er those stones the living sing | |
| In loud-voiced choir their hymns to heaven; | 50 |
| And with the golden censer’s swing | |
| The hallowed myrrh’s sweet breath is given. | |
| At midnight hour, mid storm and rain, | |
| There sounds mysterious harmony; | |
| A deep-toned, sad, and awful strain, | 55 |
| That pleads for one about to die,— | |
| The Miserere,—solemn sound! | |
| It fills the dome; and on the air | |
| Forth bursting, unto all around | |
| Tells that Religion’s voice is there. | 60 |
| Then the loud peal of tolling bell, | |
| That emulates the psalmody, | |
| O’erpowers the dying music’s knell | |
| With chime of hour that ’s fleeted by. | |
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III. Sleep, then, sleep, Toledo! by the turbid river | 65 |
| That with hollow murmurs past thy feet doth glide! | |
| While its yellow current wastes and wears forever | |
| The walls that cast their shadows inglorious o’er the tide. | |
| Ah! for thee ashamed, thy stain the river weepeth; | |
| Mourning thy lost treasures, thy pride, thy beauty fled; | 70 |
| But telleth not the nations (its pity silence keepeth), | |
| That all thy crests and blazons are buried in its bed. | |
| Sleep, then, sleep, Toledo, mid the mimicked glory | |
| Of thy once wealthy masters in their palmy day: | |
| Thy treasures all have vanished, existing but in story; | 75 |
| Thy golden crown lies hidden deep in the sordid clay. * * * * * | |
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