What caftans blue and scarlet, what turbans pleach’d of green;
What waving of their crescents, and plumages between;
What buskins and what stirrups, what rowels chased in gold,
What handsome gentlemen, what buoyant hearts and bold!
Reduan had registered a rash vow to take the city of Jaen so that he might win the daughter of the Moorish king. The ninth verse is full of a grateful music, not too often found in the poetry of the Britain of 1823:
But since in hasty cheer I did my promise plight,
(What well might cost a year) to win thee in a night,
The pledge demands the paying, I would my soldiers brave
Were half as sure of Jaen as I am of my grave;
although, I confess, the internal rhyming of “paying” and “Jaen” detracts from the melody of the whole. And this is the besetting sin of Lockhart, that he mars his happiest efforts by crudities which he evidently confounded with the simplicity of the ballad form. In all British balladry, if memory serves me, there is no such vulgarism as this.