How fares Don Roderick?—E’en as one who spies
Flames dart their glare o’er midnight’s sable woof,
And hears around his children’s piercing cries,
And sees the pale assistants stand aloof;
While cruel Conscience brings him bitter proof,
His folly, or his crime, have caused his grief;
And while above him nods the crumbling roof,
He curses earth and Heaven—himself in chief—
Desperate of earthly aid, despairing Heaven’s relief!
XXV.
That scythe-armed Giant turned his fatal glass
And twilight on the landscape closed her wings;
Far to Asturian hills the war-sounds pass,
And in their stead rebeck or timbrel rings;
And to the sound the bell-decked dancer springs,
Bazars resound as when their marts are met,
In tourney light the Moor his jerrid flings,
And on the land as evening seemed to set,
The Imaum’s chant was heard from mosque or minaret.
XXVI.
So passed that pageant. Ere another came,
The visionary scene was wrapped in smoke
Whose sulph’rous wreaths were crossed by sheets of flame;
With every flash a bolt explosive broke,
Till Roderick deemed the fiends had burst their yoke,
And waved ’gainst heaven the infernal gonfalone!
For War a new and dreadful language spoke,
Never by ancient warrior heard or known;
Lightning and smoke her breath, and thunder was her tone.
XXVII.
From the dim landscape rolled the clouds away—
The Christians have regained their heritage;
Before the Cross has waned the Crescent’s ray,
And many a monastery decks the stage,
And lofty church, and low-browed hermitage.
The land obeys a Hermit and a Knight,—
The Genii those of Spain for many an age;
This clad in sackcloth, that in armour bright,
And that was Valour named, this Bigotry was hight.
XXVIII.
Valour was harnessed like a chief of old,
Armed at all points, and prompt for knightly gest;
His sword was tempered in the Ebro cold,
Morena’s eagle plume adorned his crest,
The spoils of Afric’s lion bound his breast.
Fierce he stepped forward and flung down his gage;
As if of mortal kind to brave the best.
Him followed his Companion, dark and sage,
As he, my Master, sung the dangerous Archimage.
XXIX.