Classic Poem

( " Tandis que l'etoile inodore. " )

While bright but scentless azure stars
Be-gem the golden corn,
And spangle with their skyey tint
The furrows not yet shorn;
While still the pure white tufts of May
Are each a snowy ball, —
Away, ye merry maids, and haste
To gather ere they fall!

Nowhere the sun of Spain outshines
Upon a fairer plain
Than Penafiel's, or bestows
More wealth of grass and grain.
Nowhere a broader square reflects
Such brilliant mansions, tall, —
Away, ye merry maids, &c.

Nowhere a statelier abbey rears
Dome huger o'er a shrine,
Though seek ye from old Rome itself
To even Seville fine.
Here countless pilgrims come to pray
And promenade the Mall, —
Away, ye merry maids, &c.

Where glide the girls more joyfully
Than ours who dance at dusk,
With roses white upon their brows,
With waists that scorn the busk?
Mantillas elsewhere hide dull eyes —
Compared with these, how small!
Away, ye merry maids, &c.

A blossom in a city lane,
Alizia was our pride,
And oft the blundering bee, deceived,
Came buzzing to her side —
But, oh! for one that felt the sting,
And found, 'neath honey, gall —
Away, ye merry maids, &c.

Young, haughty, from still hotter lands,
A stranger hither came —
Was he a Moor or African,
Or Murcian known to fame?
None knew — least, she — or false or true,
By what name him to call.
Away, ye merry maids, &c.

Alizia asked not his degree,
She saw him but as Love,
And through Xarama's vale they strayed,
And tarried in the grove, —
Oh! curses on that fatal eve,
And on that leafy hall!
Away, ye merry maids. &c.

The darkened city breathed no more;
The moon was mantled long,
Till towers thrust the cloudy cloak
Upon the steeples' throng;
The crossway Christ, in ivy draped,
Shrank, grieving, 'neath the pall, —
Away, ye merry maids, &c.

But while, alone, they kept the shade,
The other dark-eyed dears
Were murmuring on the stifling air
Their jealous threats and fears;
Alizia was so blamed, that time,
Unheeded rang the call:
Away, ye merry maids, &c.

Although, above, the hawk describes
The circle round the lark,
It sleeps, unconscious, and our lass
Had eyes but for her spark —
A spark? — a sun! 'Twas Juan, King!
Who wears our coronal, —
Away, ye merry maids, &c.

A love so far above one's state
Ends sadly. Came a black
And guarded palanquin to bear
The girl that ne'er comes back;
By royal writ, some nunnery
Still shields her from us all:
Away, ye merry maids, and haste
To gather ere they fall!