To win their smiles full often had gallant cavaliers
Met with a shock, like thunder, at the Tournament of Spears,
And all had won the homage by Love and Valor paid,
When, under moon-lit balconies awoke the serenade.
Xarifa, rose of sunset—Zoroyda, star of dawn!
Ye never can be numbered with things of beauty gone:
Poetical embalmment bestows a glorious light,
That frights away the minions of darkness, dust and blight.
Umbrageous courts I traversed, where lime and orange grew,
And fig and date their shadows on beds of roses threw,