II.
The drear, chill gray of dawning day
Dies in a golden glow,
And merrily on the dancing sea
The rippling sunbeams flow;
And they glance and glint, in many a tint,
Over minaret and tower,
Where the lofty cross shows the Paynim's loss
And the wane of Moslem power.
And waving high in the brightening sky,
Floating o'er town and sea,
And gleaming bright in the morning light,
Spain's flag flaunts haughtily.
Who passes through the antique street
Worshipped by all around?
Whom do the thousand voices greet
That to the heavens resound?
Proud is the flash of his dark eye,
Yet tempered with humility;
The softened radiance, high yet meek,
That doth the Christian soul bespeak;
Proud is his heaving bosom's swell,
And proud his seat in velvet selle;
His very courser paws the earth
As conscious of its master's worth.
And now his armed heel loud rings
Through a high, carved hall,
Where blazoned shields of queens and kings
Hang fluttering on the wall.
Around, the noblest of the land
In deepest awe uncovered stand:
Princes, whose proud sires had well
Upheld the cross with Charles Martel;
And knights, whose scutcheons flashed amid
The fiercest fights where blazed the Cid;
Soldiers, who by their sovereign's side
Hurled back in blood the seething tide
Of Moslem war; and churchmen sage,
The men who smoothed that iron age.
And all alone, 'mid that bright throng,
His voice arises clear and strong.
He stands before a throne; even now
His dark plume waves above his brow,
As he, of all the courtier train,
Rivalled the majesty of Spain.
Fortune like this, what fate can mar?
He stands—a cloudless, risen star.
III.
Once more 'tis the mid hour of night;
Once more the storm beats high;
But now it whirls its fearful might
Along the cloud-fraught sky
Which spans the drear Atlantic's waste,
All whitened with wild foam,
That cleaves the air, as sea-birds haste
At even to their home.
But even there, where nature's power
Laughs puny man to scorn,
Man lords it for his little hour
O'er fellow-man forlorn.
Within a Vessel's creaking sides
A chained prisoner sits;
Drooped, weary, careless what betides
His tired soul, ere it flits
Far from a world where gratitude
Yields ever to the selfish brood
That gold and thirst for honor bring
To breast of peasant and of king.
What now avails the world he gave
To thankless Spain? It cannot save
From slavish chains its whilom lord,
Nor shield him from the hatred poured
O'er his bowed head by those who late
But formed the puppets of his state.
Gone is his kindly mistress—laid
To sleep among Spain's royal dead.
Dead is her smile, her beaming gaze
So full of hope when darkening days
Hung o'er the crown she wore so well;
Yea, dead is queenly Isabel!
And where are now the crowds that hung
Upon his steps when every tongue
Shouted his praise? The station high
Above all Spain's plumed chivalry?
The high commands? Away! each thought
With saddening memory so deep fraught!
Call not pale flashes from afar
To mock with light a fallen star!
The past is dead, the future read,
Ay! see a broken, moss-grown stone,
And on it view a kingly meed
Of thanks to genius shown—
Ay! trace o'er that forgotten grave—
"ANOTHER WORLD COLUMBUS GAVE
TO CASTILE AND LÉON."
Front-de-boeuf.
Original.
The Two Lovers of Flavia Domitilla.
by Clonfert.
Chapter II.
The Slaves' Feast.
The great Festival called Saturnalia was being celebrated in Rome when these events took place. The occurrence of this feast enabled the Christians from many parts of the world to assemble in the city, and to celebrate under cover of it the feast of Christmas. History does not light us with certainty to the precise time at which this latter feast was instituted, but shows it in matured existence at a very early period. Tradition has surmised that it had its birth in the first century, and that it was celebrated in secret and security under shadow of the pagan festivities of the Saturnalia.
The Saturnalia, in honor of Saturnus, to whom the Latins traced the introduction into Italy of agriculture and the civilizing arts, fell toward the end of December. The agricultural labors of the year being then over, it became a kind of harvest-home with the rural population. After the Julian addition of two days to the month of December, it commenced on the 16th of the Kalends of January, that is, on the 17th December, and continued for three days. But the people generally anticipated the time and prolonged it to the end of the month, especially to the 24th, when it became merged in another feast called Sigillaria, on account of the earthenware figures then hawked about as toys for children.