Seven gentler boys, nor braver, were never nursed in Spain,
And blood of Moors, God rest your souls, ye shed on her like rain.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
He took their heads up one by one,—he kiss’d them o’er and o’er,
And aye ye saw the tears run down—I wot that grief was sore.
He closed the lids on their dead eyes, all with his fingers frail,
And handled all their bloody curls, and kissed their lips so pale.
“O had ye died all by my side upon some famous day,
My fair young men, no weak tears then had washed your blood away.
The trumpet of Castile had drowned the misbeliever’s horn,