And from her throne float forth cloud-messengers,
The white-winged spirits of the unborn rain:
They stoop and whisper to the dreaming flowers
Bidding their choicest petals venture out;
Then die to sight amid the morning shine,
As sudden angels, their high missions done,
Rapt from our days, resume their viewless shapes.
But the fair blossoms wake and look about them,
And find all May, and all things lapped in sunshine,
And softly call their kindred to arise,
Till every turf in all the happy fields
Is garish with their bloom, and atmospheres
Of perfume waft their homage to the seat
Of their dear sovereign. And the loving earth,
The great, dumb mother of the happy May,
With all her waving continents of trees,
Makes murmurous gestures full of ecstasy;
And up from land, and sea, and air, and sky,
Rise choral hallelujahs: "May is bride!"
Impressions of Spain.
by Lady Herbert.
Cordova and Malaga.
A comfortable little old-fashioned inn, with a "patio" full of orange-trees, leading to a public "sala," rather like a room at Damascus, with alcoves and fountains, gladdened the hearts of our wearied travellers. After a good night's rest (and one advantage in Spain is, that except mosquitoes, your beds are generally free from other inhabitants), they started down the narrow, badly paved streets to visit the cathedral. The exterior is disappointing, as all you see is a buttressed wall, with square towers sixty feet high, opposite which is the gateway and wall of the archepiscopal palace. But on passing through a beautiful oriental court, in the centre of which is a picturesque Moorish fountain, the rest of the space being filled with orange-trees and palms, and on the north side an exquisite giralda, or tower, from whence there is a beautiful view over the whole town and neighborhood. All the entrances to the mosque (now the cathedral) from this court are closed, except the centre one. Entering by that, a whole forest of pillars bursts upon you, with horseshoe arches interlacing one another and forming altogether the most wonderful building in the world. The Moors collected these pillars, of which there are upwards of a thousand, from the temples of Carthage, of Nismes, and of Rome, and adapted them to their mosque. Some are of jasper, some of verde-antique, some of porphyry—no two are alike. The pillars have no plinths, and divide the mosque into nineteen longitudinal and twenty-nine transverse aisles; hence the immense variety and beauty of the intersection of the arches. This mosque was built in the eighth century, and ranked in sanctity with the "Alaksa" of Jerusalem and the "Caaba" of Mecca.
A pilgrimage to it was, indeed, considered equivalent to that of Mecca, and hence the Spanish proverb to express distant wanderings, "Andar de zeca en Meca." The roof is of arbor-vitae, and is in perfect preservation. Two of the moresque chapels are exquisite in carving and richness of detail, one being that of the Caliphs, and the other the "Holy of Holies," where the Koran was kept. The beauty and delicacy of the moresque work, with its gold enamel and lovely trefoiled patterns, its quaint lions and bright-colored "azulejos" (tiles), exceeds anything of the sort in Europe. The roof is in the form of a shell, and exquisitely wrought out of one single piece of marble. The mosaic border was sent to Cordova by Romanus II., from Constantinople. When the brother of the king of Morocco came there a year or two ago, he went round this "Holy of Holies" seven times on his knees, crying bitterly all the time. The inscriptions in this mosque are in Cufic, and not in Arabic. The whole carries one back to Damascus and the East in a way which makes it difficult to realize that one is still in Europe. The choir is a horrible modern "churriqueresque" innovation, stuck in the centre of the beautiful forest of Saracenic columns, many of which were destroyed to make room for it. Even Charles V. protested against the bad taste of the chapter when he saw it completed in 1526, and exclaimed: "You have built a thing which one can see anywhere; and to do so, you have destroyed what was unique in the world." The carving of the choir is certainly fine, but the incongruity of the whole jars on one's taste too keenly for any kind of admiration. The only beautiful and solemn modernized portion of the building is the chapel of the cardinal, with fine tombs and a deep recess for the Blessed Sacrament, with a magnificent silver tabernacle. From the cathedral, some of the party went to visit the bishop, who received them very kindly, and sent his secretary to show them the treasures of the cathedral. The "custodia," of the fifteenth century, is in silver-gilt, with beautiful emeralds, and exquisitely carved; it is the work of Arphe, the Benvenuto Cellini of Spain. There are also some beautiful processional crosses, reliquaries, chalices, and pax, secreted at the time of Dupont's French invasion, and so saved from the universal plunder.
Having spent the morning in the cathedral, our travellers wandered down to the fine Roman bridge, of sixteen arches, over the Guadalquiver, looking upon some picturesque Moorish mills and orange gardens. To the left is a statue of St. Raphael, the guardian angel of Cordova; and close by is the Alcazar, now a ruin, formerly the palace of Roderick, the last of the Goths, whose father was duke of Cordova. Nothing can be more melancholy than the neglected gardens, the broken fountains and statues, the empty fish-ponds, and grass-grown walks, despite the palms and orange-trees and luxuriant creeping roses, which seemed to be striving to conceal the desolation around. The first palm ever planted in Cordova was by the Moorish king Abdulrrahman, who brought it from his much-loved and always-regretted Damascus.
After luncheon, having obtained special permission from the archbishop, our party started off in two carriages for the hermitages in the Sierra Morena, stopping first at a picturesque ruined villa, called the "Arrizafa," once the favorite residence of the Moorish king. The gardens are beautiful; passion-flowers and jessamine hung in festoons over all the broken walls, and the ground was carpeted with violets, narcissus, and other spring flowers. The view from the terrace is lovely, the town, when seen from a distance, being very like Verona. Here the road became so steep that the party had to leave their carriages and walk the remainder of the way. The mountain-path reminded them of Mount Carmel, with the same underwood of cistus, lilac and white, and heaps of flowering and aromatic shrubs. Beautiful wild iris grew among the rocks, and half-way up a rushing stream tumbled over the boulder-stones into a picturesque basin, covered with maiden-hair fern, which served as a resting-place for the tired travellers. After a fatiguing climb of two hours, they reached the postern gate of the hermitage, into which, after some demur as to their sex, the ladies, by special permission of the archbishop, were admitted. There are at present seventeen hermits, all gentlemen, and many of high birth and large fortune, living each in a little separate cabin, with a patch of garden round it, and entirely alone. They never see one another but at mass and in choir, or speak but once a month. In their chapel they have a beautiful oil painting of St. Paul the first hermit, whose rule they follow in all its primitive severity. One of the cabins was vacant, and the party entered. It was composed of two tiny rooms: in the inner one was a bed formed of three boards, with a sheepskin and a pillow of straw; the rest of the furniture consisted of a crucifix, a jug of water, a terrible discipline with iron points, and Rodriguez' essay on "Christian Perfection," published in 1606, at Valladolid, and evidently much read. This cell was that of Count ——, a man of great wealth and high rank, and of a still wider reputation for ability and talent. He had lost his wife some years ago, to whom he was passionately attached; and remaining in the world only till he had settled his children, then took leave of it for ever, and resolved to spend the rest of his days in penitence and prayer. Their habit is composed of a course grey stuff, with a leathern girdle, drawers, and a shirt of serge. No linen is allowed, or stockings, and they wear sandals on their feet. They are not permitted to possess anything, or to keep anything in their cells but a glazed earthenware pot, a wooden plate, a pitcher, a lamp, and instruments of penance and devotion. They keep a perpetual fast on beans and lentils, only on high days and holidays being allowed fish. They are not allowed to write or receive letters, or to go into one another's cells, or to go out of the enclosure, except once a month, when they may walk in the mountains round, which they generally do together, reciting litanies. Seven hours of each day must be given to prayer, and they take the discipline twice a week. [Footnote 109] How strange a life for one accustomed to live in the world and in society! Yet there is no lack of candidates for each vacancy; and the prior told our travellers that the number of vocations of late years had increased. There is a fine old marble seat and cross in the garden, erected by the late bishop, from whence there is a magnificent view over the whole country. The cold in winter is intense, and they are not allowed any fires, except what is absolutely necessary for the cooking of their miserable meal. Taking leave of the prior in his little "parloir," and receiving a rosary from him made of the wood of the "carouba" by the hermits themselves, the visitors retraced their steps down the hill, feeling as if they had been spending the last couple of hours in another world; and, rejoining their carriages at the villa, made the circuit of the city walls, which are partly Moorish, built of tapia, and described by Julius Caesar.
[Transcriber's note: The image of the following footnote is blurred. "Pardon my French.">[