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| PALACE of beauty! where the Moorish lord, | |
| King of the bow, the bridle, and the sword, | |
| Sat like a genie in the diamond’s blaze. | |
| O, to have seen thee in the ancient days, | |
| When at thy morning gates the coursers stood. | 5 |
| The “thousand” milk-white, Yemen’s fiery blood, | |
| In pearl and ruby harnessed for the king; | |
| And through thy portals poured the gorgeous flood | |
| Of jewelled sheik and emir, hastening, | |
| Before the sky the dawning purple showed, | 10 |
| Their turbans at the caliph’s feet to fling. | |
| Lovely thy morn, thy evening lovelier still | |
| When at the waking of the first blue star | |
| That trembled on the Atalaya hill, | |
| The splendors of the trumpet’s voice arose, | 15 |
| Brilliant and bold, and yet no sound of war; | |
| But summoning thy beauty from repose, | |
| The shaded slumber of the burning noon. | |
| Then in the slant sun all thy fountains shone, | |
| Shooting the sparkling column from the vase | 20 |
| Of crystal cool, and falling in a haze | |
| Of rainbow hues on floors of porphyry, | |
| And the rich bordering beds of every bloom | |
| That breathes to African or Indian sky, | |
| Carnation, tuberose, thick anemone; | 25 |
| Then was the harping of the minstrels heard, | |
| In the deep arbors, or the regal hall, | |
| Hushing the tumult of the festival, | |
| When the pale bard his kindling eyeball reared, | |
| And told of Eastern glories, silken hosts, | 30 |
| Towered elephants, and chiefs in topaz armed; | |
| Or of the myriads from the cloudy coasts | |
| Of the far Western sea, the sons of blood, | |
| The iron men of tournament and feud, | |
| That round the bulwarks of their fathers swarmed, | 35 |
| Doomed by the Moslem scimitar to fall; | |
| Till the Red Cross was hurled from Salem’s wall. | |
| Where are thy pomps, Alhambra, earthly sun | |
| That had no rival, and no second?—gone! | |
| Thy glory down the arch of time has rolled, | 40 |
| Like the great day-star to the ocean dim, | |
| The billows of the ages o’er thee swim, | |
| Gloomy and fathomless; thy tale is told. | |
| Where is thy horn of battle, that but blown | |
| Brought every chief of Afric from his throne, | 45 |
| Brought every spear of Afric from the wall, | |
| Brought every charger barded from the stall, | |
| Till all its tribes sat mounted on the shore, | |
| Waiting the waving of thy torch to pour | |
| The living deluge on the fields of Spain? | 50 |
| Queen of earth’s loveliness, there was a stain | |
| Upon thy brow,—the stain of guilt and gore; | |
| Thy course was bright, bold, treacherous, and ’t is o’er. | |
| The spear and diadem are from thee gone; | |
| Silence is now sole monarch of thy throne! | 55 |
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