Mosada: A dramatic poem

Reprinted from the DUBLIN UNIVERSITY REVIEW.
DUBLIN:
PRINTED BY SEALY, BRYERS, AND WALKER, 94, 95 and 96 Middle Abbey Street.
1886.

And my Lord Cardinal hath had strange days in his youth.
Extract from a Memoir of the Fifteenth Century.
A Little Moorish Room in the Village of Azubia. In the centre of the room a chafing dish.
How merry all these are Among the fruit. But yon, lame Cola crouches Away from all the others. Now the sun— A-shining on the little crucifix Of silver hanging round lame Cola's neck— Sinks down at last with yonder minaret Of the Alhambra black athwart his disk; And Cola seeing, knows the sign and comes. Thus do I burn these precious herbs whose smoke Pours up and floats in fragrance o'er my head In coil on coil of azure.
Cola. Mosada, it is then so much the worse. I will not share your sin.
Mosada. It is no sin That you shall see on yonder glowing cloud Pictured, where wander the beloved feet Whose footfall I have longed for, three sad summers— Why these new fears?
Cola. The servant of the Lord, The dark still man, has come, and says 'tis sin.