As through the streets I guided his dark steps,
Roll mournfully toward the noon-day sun
His blank and senseless eye-balls? Spain saw this
And suffer’d it!... I seek not to excuse
The sin of Roderick. Jesu, who beholds
The burning tears I shed in solitude,
Knows how I plead for him in midnight prayer.
But if, when he victoriously revenged
The wrongs of Chindasuintho’s house, his sword
Had not for mercy turn’d aside its edge,