DON QUIXOTE
On receiving a bottle of Sherry Wine of the same name
What "blushing Hippocrene" is here! what fire
Of the "warm South" with magic of old Spain!—
Through which again I seem to view the train
Of all Cervantes' dreams, his heart's desire:
The melancholy Knight, in gaunt attire
Of steel rides by upon the windmill-plain
With Sancho Panza by his side again,
While, heard afar, a swineherd from a byre
Winds a hoarse horn.
And all at once I see
The glory of that soul who rode upon
Impossible quests,—following a deathless dream
Of righted wrongs, that never were to be,—
Like many another champion who has gone
Questing a cause that perished like a dream.
THE WOMAN
With her fair face she made my heaven,
Beneath whose stars and moon and sun
I worshiped, praying, having striven,
For wealth through which she might be won.
And yet she had no soul: A woman
As fair and cruel as a god;
Who played with hearts as nothing human,
And tossed them by and on them trod.
She killed a soul; she did it nightly;
Luring it forth from peace and prayer,
To strangle it, and laughing lightly,
Cast it into the gutter there.