Scarcely from tumultuous cheering could the galleried
crowd refrain,
For they knew Don Gomersalez and his prowess in the
plain;
But they feared the grizzly despot and his myrmidons in
steel,
So their sympathy descended in the fruitage of Seville.
"Wherefore, monarch, hast thou brought me from the
dungeon dark and drear,
Where these limbs of mine have wasted in confinement
for a year?
Dost thou lead me forth to torture?—Rack and pincers
I defy!
Is it that thy base grotesquos may behold a hero die?"
"Hold thy peace, thou Christian caitiff, and attend to what
I say!
Thou art called the starkest rider of the Spanish cur's array:
If thy courage be undaunted, as they say it was of yore,
Thou mayst yet achieve thy freedom,—yet regain thy
native shore.
"Courses three within this circus 'gainst my warriors shalt
thou run,
Ere yon weltering pasteboard ocean shall receive yon
muslin sun;
Victor—thou shalt have thy freedom; but if stretched
upon the plain,
To thy dark and dreary dungeon they shall hale thee back
again."
"Give me but the armour, monarch, I have worn in many
a field,
Give me but my trusty helmet, give me but my dinted
shield;
And my old steed, Bavieca, swiftest courser in the ring,
And I rather should imagine that I'll do the business, King!"
Then they carried down the armour from the garret where
it lay,
O! but it was red and rusty, and the plumes were shorn
away:
And they led out Bavieca from a foul and filthy van,
For the conqueror had sold him to a Moorish dogs'-meat
man.
When the steed beheld his master, then he whinnied loud
and free,
And, in token of subjection, knelt upon each broken knee;
And a tear of walnut largeness to the warrior's eyelids
rose,
As he fondly picked a bean-straw from his coughing
courser's nose.
"Many a time, O Bavieca, hast thou borne me through
the fray!
Bear me but again as deftly through the listed ring this
day;
Or if thou art worn and feeble, as may well have come to
pass,
Time it is, my trusty charger, both of us were sent to grass!"
Then he seized his lance, and vaulting in the saddle sate
upright;
Marble seemed the noble courser, iron seemed the mailèd
knight;
And a cry of admiration burst from every Moorish lady.
"Five to four on Don Fernando!" cried the sable-bearded
Cadi.
Warriors three from Alcantara burst into the listed space,
Warriors three, all bred in battle, of the proud Alhambra
race:
Trumpets sounded, coursers bounded, and the foremost
straight went down,
Tumbling, like a sack of turnips, just before the jeering
Clown.