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(Scene I)
“THOU hast not been with a festal throng | |
| At the pouring of the wine; | |
| Men bear not from the hall of song | |
| A mien so dark as thine! | |
| There’s blood upon thy shield, | 5 |
| There’s dust upon thy plume, | |
| Thou hast brought from some disastrous field | |
| That brow of wrath and gloom!” | |
| |
| “And is there blood upon my shield? | |
| Maiden, it well may be! | 10 |
| We have sent the streams from our battle-field | |
| All darken’d to the sea: | |
| We have given the founts a stain, | |
| Midst their woods of ancient pine; | |
| And the ground is wet—but not with rain, | 15 |
| Deep dyed—but not with wine! | |
| |
| “The ground is wet—but not with rain— | |
| We have been in war-array, | |
| And the noblest blood of Christian Spain | |
| Hath bathed her soil to-day. | 20 |
| I have seen the strong man die, | |
| And the stripling meet his fate, | |
| Where the mountain-winds go sounding by | |
| In the Roncesvalles’ Strait. | |
| |
| “In the gloomy Roncesvalles’ Strait | 25 |
| There are helms and lances cleft; | |
| And they that moved at morn elate | |
| On a bed of heath are left! | |
| There’s many a fair young face | |
| Which the war-steed hath gone o’er; | 30 |
| At many a board there is kept a place | |
| For those that come no more!” | |
| |
| “Alas for love, for woman’s breast, | |
| If woe like this must be! | |
| Hast thou seen a youth with an eagle-crest, | 35 |
| And a white plume waving free? | |
| With his proud quick-flashing eye, | |
| And his mien of kingly state? | |
| Doth he come from where the swords flash’d high | |
| In the Roncesvalles’ Strait?” | 40 |
| |
| “In the gloomy Roncesvalles’ Strait | |
| I saw, and mark’d him well: | |
| For nobly on his steed he sate, | |
| When the pride of manhood fell. | |
| But it is not youth which turns | 45 |
| From the field of spears again; | |
| For the boy’s high heart too wildly burns | |
| Till it rests amidst the slain!” | |
| |
| “Thou canst not say that he lies low, | |
| The lovely and the brave: | 50 |
| Oh, none could look on his joyous brow, | |
| And think upon the grave! | |
| Dark, dark perchance the day | |
| Hath been with valour’s fate; | |
| But he is on his homeward way, | 55 |
| From the Roncesvalles’ Strait!” | |
| |
| “There is dust upon his joyous brow | |
| And o’er his graceful head; | |
| And the war-horse will not wake him now, | |
| Though it browse his greensward bed. | 60 |
| I have seen the stripling die, | |
| And the strong man meet his fate, | |
| Where the mountain-winds go sounding by | |
| In the Roncesvalles’ Strait!” | |
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