Poems. Victor Hugo

           To Juana ever gay,

           Sultan Achmet spoke one day

             "Lo, the realms that kneel to own

             Homage to my sword and crown

           All I'd freely cast away,

             Maiden dear, for thee alone."

           "Be a Christian, noble king!

           For it were a grievous thing:

             Love to seek and find too well

             In the arms of infidel.

           Spain with cry of shame would ring,

             If from honor faithful fell."

           "By these pearls whose spotless chain,

           Oh, my gentle sovereign,

             Clasps thy neck of ivory,

             Aught thou askest I will be,

           If that necklace pure of stain

             Thou wilt give for rosary."

           Unto the chase Rodrigo's gone,

             With neither lance nor buckler;

           A baleful light his eyes outshone —

             To pity he's no truckler.

           He follows not the royal stag,

             But, full of fiery hating,

           Beside the way one sees him lag,

             Impatient at the waiting.

           He longs his nephew's blood to spill,

             Who 'scaped (the young Mudarra)

           That trap he made and laid to kill

             The seven sons of Lara.

           Along the road – at last, no balk —

             A youth looms on a jennet;

           He rises like a sparrow-hawk

             About to seize a linnet.

           "What ho!" "Who calls?" "Art Christian knight,

             Or basely born and boorish,

           Or yet that thing I still more slight —

             The spawn of some dog Moorish?

           "I seek the by-born spawn of one

             I e'er renounce as brother —

           Who chose to make his latest son

             Caress a Moor as mother.

           "I've sought that cub in every hole,

             'Midland, and coast, and islet,

           For he's the thief who came and stole

             Our sheathless jewelled stilet."

           "If you well know the poniard worn

             Without edge-dulling cover —

           Look on it now – here, plain, upborne!

             And further be no rover.

           "Tis I – as sure as you're abhorred

             Rodrigo – cruel slayer,

           'Tis I am Vengeance, and your lord,

             Who bids you crouch in prayer!

           "I shall not grant the least delay —

             Use what you have, defending,

           I'll send you on that darksome way

             Your victims late were wending.

           "And if I wore this, with its crest —

             Our seal with gems enwreathing —

           In open air – 'twas in your breast

             To seek its fated sheathing!"

           While bright but scentless azure stars

             Be-gem the golden corn,

           And spangle with their skyey tint

             The furrows not yet shorn;

           While still the pure white tufts of May

             Ape each a snowy ball, —

           Away, ye merry maids, and haste

             To gather ere they fall!

           Nowhere the sun of Spain outshines

             Upon a fairer town

           Than Peñafiel, or endows

             More richly farming clown;

           Nowhere a broader square reflects

             Such brilliant mansions, tall, —

           Away, ye merry maids, etc.

           Nowhere a statelier abbey rears

             Dome huger o'er a shrine,

           Though seek ye from old Rome itself