I—would pay him, now I’m old!
“Hush, child! this is not the language
Worthy a Castilian maid,
One too promised to the altar,
Convent’s gloom, and cloister’s shade.
For thou’rt given to St. Cecil,
To her holy shrine thou’rt sold;—
Will not my sweet one read her missal?”
“Yes!—I’ll pay him now I’m old!”
Grave commentators on this ballad suggest, that if the cavalier had not been a superbly dressed cavalier, the little maiden would have forgotten her vow; and in the south of Spain, when a man is inclined to become heedless of external adornment, he is warned of the peril of losing the three kisses of St. Cecilia’s Nun.