“Non ti scordar di me!”

The Emperor there, in his box of state,

Looked grave, as if he had just then seen

The red flag wave from the city gate,

Where his eagles in bronze had been.

There was something in the voice of the singer which caused the Emperor’s mind to see the red flag standing where “his eagles in bronze had been.”

The Empress, too, had a tear in her eye.

You’d have said that her fancy had gone back again

For one moment under the old blue sky

To the old, glad life in Spain.