And what to say when he comes back, alas! I cannot tell.”
The lady resolves in the end to do the best thing she can—that is, to tell the truth. There is a sequence of romances about this Muça, who seems to have been a Saracen of worth, and the same must be remarked about Celin or Selim, his successor in the collections of Lockhart and Depping. Had Lockhart been well advised, he would have substituted the ringing and patriotic “Las soberbias torres mira,” which is certainly difficult of translation, for the very sombre “Lamentation for the Death of Celin,” fine though it is. Anything in the nature of a ceremony or a procession seems to have attracted him like a child. But let us have a verse of the first poem. Even should we not know Spanish its music could not fail to haunt and hold us.
Las soberbias torres mira
Y los lejos las almenas
De su patria dulce y cara
Celin, que el rey le destierra;
Y perdida la esperanza
De jamás volver a vella
Con suspiros tristes dice:
“Del cielo luciente estrella,