| |
| WITH 1 tearful eyes and swelling hearts they leave Granada’s gate, | |
| And the wind blows fair to waft their barks across the narrow strait; | |
| They have hoisted sail, and they are gone,—the last of all the Moors, | |
| Whom bigot zeal hath banish’d from their much-loved Spanish shores. | |
| |
| The remnants of those warlike tribes, who trode on Spanish necks, | 5 |
| Whom, name you to Castilian ears, if you delight to vex; | |
| Now broken, not by sword and spear, but papal racks alone, | |
| They go, to found, where Dido reign’d, another Moslem throne. | |
| |
| There stood upon the deck, a Moor, who had to Mecca been, | |
| Whose hoary hair proclaim’d his years beyond three score and ten. | 10 |
| He had tasted of the water of Zemzeim’s holy well, | |
| And could read the monarch’s magic ring, and speak the direful spell. | |
| |
| And there he watch’d, that aged man, till they had Calpe past, | |
| And saw, with eye of boding gloom, the land receding fast. | |
| “Blow, blow ye winds, and waft us from Xeres’ glorious plain, | 15 |
| Then be ye calm, while I pronounce a Moor’s curse on Spain. | |
| |
| “Thou didst bow, Spain, for ages, beneath a Moorish yoke, | |
| And save Asturia’s mountain sons, there were none to strike a stroke; | |
| On mountain top and lowland plain, thy fate was still the same, | |
| Thy soldiers drew dull scymitars, and the crescent overcame. | 20 |
| |
| “The days, which saw our martial deeds, are fled to come no more; | |
| A warrior monarch rules thee now, and we give the battle o’er; | |
| Abencerrage wakes not, when the battle trumpets call, | |
| And Abderame sleeps in death, beside th’ Alhambra’s wall. | |
| |
| “I leave to thee, my curse, proud Spain! a curse upon thy clime; | 25 |
| Thou shalt be the land of dastard souls, a nursery of crime; | |
| And yet, as if to mock her sons, and make their dark doom worse, | |
| No land shall boast more glorious skies, than the lovely land I curse. | |
| |
| “Thy kings shall wear no royal type, save a diadem alone, | |
| And their sovereignty by cruelty and a withering eye be known. | 30 |
| ’T were waste of time to speak my curse; for, Spain, thy sons shall see, | |
| That magic can invoke no fiend, worse than thy kings will be. | |
| |
| “And that blind faith, thou holdest from the Prophet of the Cross, | |
| A faith thy children have profaned, and its better doctrines lost; | |
| By the lords that faith shall give thee, not less shalt thou be gored, | 35 |
| Because they grasp a crucifix, instead of spear and sword. | |
| |
| “Bright eyes are in thy land, Spain, and thy virgins want no charms, | |
| But thou art cursed to know no truth in either heart or arms; | |
| Their bosoms shall no pillow be, for aught is kind or brave, | |
| But lull in mere illicit love, the sensual priest and slave. | 40 |
| |
| “Thy sway shall reach to distant lands, shall yield thee gold and gem, | |
| But a burning and a bloody sword, shall thy sceptre be o’er them, | |
| Till vengeance meet the murderous bands, from thine accursed shore, | |
| And give them of the land they seek,—a grave of clotted gore.” | |
| |
| The Guadalquivir’s banks shall be divested of their pride, | 45 |
| The castles of our valiant race deck no more the mountain side, | |
| And Ruin’s mouldering hand shall sweep to Spain’s remotest shore, | |
| And all her fertile regions weep the exile of the Moor. | |
