The fellows of this country clown
Are scattered (fool beyond belief!),
All blown away like thistledown,
Except a harlot and a thief.
And shall he shatter fates with these?
(He that would neither strive nor cry)
Or thunder through the Seven Seas?
Or shake the stars down from the sky?
Have mercy and humility
Become unconquerable swords,
That Caiaphas must tremblingly
Kneel with the world’s imperial lords
Before this crazy carpenter—
This body writhing on a rod—
And worship in that bloody hair
The dreadful foolishness of God?
A shout of laughter and of scorn,
A million jeering lips and eyes—
And in the sight of all men born
The wildest of earth’s madmen dies!
DON QUIXOTE
THE air is valiant with drums
And honourable the skies,
When he rides singing as he comes
With solemn, dreamy eyes—
Of swinging of the splendid swords,
And crashing of the nether lords,
When Hell makes onslaught with its hordes
In desperate emprise.
He rides along the roads of Spain
The champion of the world,
For whom great soldans live again
With Moorish beards curled—
But all their spears shall not avail
With one who weareth magic mail,
This hero of an epic tale
And his brave gauntlet hurled!
Clangour of horses and of arms
Across the quiet fields,
Herald and trumpeter, alarms
Of bowmen and of shields;
When doubt that twists and is afraid
Is shattered in the last crusade,
Where flaunts the plume and falls the blade
The cavalier wields.
Although in that eternal cause
No liegemen gather now,
Or flowered dames to grant applause,
Yet on his naked brow
The victor’s laurels interwreath;
But he no dower can bequeath
But sword snapped short and empty sheath
And errantry and vow!