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The long, straight line of the highway,
The distant town that seems so near,
The peasants in the fields, that stay
Their toil to cross themselves and pray,
When from the belfry at midday
The Angelus they hear;

White crosses in the mountain pass,
Mules gay with tassels, the loud din
Of muleteers, the tethered ass
That crops the dusty wayside grass,
And cavaliers with spurs of brass
Alighting at the inn;

White hamlets hidden in fields of wheat,
White cities slumbering by the sea,
White sunshine flooding square and street,
Dark mountain ranges at whose feet
The river beds are dry with heat,

All was a dream to me.

Yet something sombre and severe

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O'er the enchanted landscape reigned; A terror in the atmosphere

As if King Philip listened near,
Or Torquemada, the austere,
His ghostly sway maintained.

The softer Andalusian skies

Dispelled the sadness and the gloom:

There Cadiz by the seaside lies,
And Seville's orange-orchards rise,
Making the land a paradise
Of beauty and of bloom.

There Cordova is hidden among
The palm, the olive, and the vine;
Gem of the South, by poets sung,
And in whose Mosque Almanzor hung
As lamps the bells that once had rung
At Compostella's shrine.

But over all the rest supreme,

The star of stars, the cynosure,

The artist's and the poet's theme,

The young man's vision, the old man's dream, Granada by its winding stream,

The city of the Moor!

And there the Alhambra still recalls
Aladdin's palace of delight:
Allah il Allah! through its halls
Whispers the fountain as it falls,
The Darro darts beneath its walls,
The hills with snow are white.

Ah yes, the hills are white with snow,
And cold with blasts that bite and freeze;
But in the happy vale below

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The orange and pomegranate grow,
And wafts of air toss to and fro
The blossoming almond trees.

The Vega cleft by the Xenil,
The fascination and allure

Of the sweet landscape chains the will,
The traveller lingers on the hill,
His parted lips are breathing still
The last sigh of the Moor.

How like a ruin overgrown

With flowers that hide the rents of time,
Stands now the Past that I have known,
Castles in Spain, not built of stone
But of white summer clouds, and blown
Into this little mist of rhyme !

Don Quixote

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

BEHIND thy pasteboard, on thy battered hack,
Thy lean cheek striped with plaster to and fro,
Thy long spear levelled at the unseen foe,
And doubtful Sancho trudging at thy back,
Thou wert a figure strange enough, good lack!
To make wiseacredom, both high and low,
Rub purblind eyes, and (having watched thee go)
Despatch its Dogberrys upon thy track:

Alas! poor Knight! Alas, poor soul possest! Yet would to-day, when Courtesy grows chill, And life's fine loyalties are turned to jest,

Some fire of thine might burn within us still! Ah! would but one might lay his lance in rest, And charge in earnest were it but a mill.

Austin Dobson.

Gibraltar

EVEN weeks of sea, and twice seven days of

SEVEN

storm

Upon the huge Atlantic, and once more
We ride into still water and the calm
Of a sweet evening, screened by either shore
Of Spain and Barbary. Our toils are o'er,
Our exile is accomplish'd. Once again
We look on Europe, mistress as of yore
Of the fair earth and of the hearts of men.

Ay, this is the famed rock which Hercules
And Goth and Moor bequeathed us. At this door
England stands sentry. God! to hear the shrill
Sweet treble of her fifes upon the breeze,
And at the summons of the rock gun's roar
To see her red coats marching from the hill!

Wilfred Scawen Blunt.

Le Soupir du More

(Granada)

CE

E cavalier qui court vers la montagne,
Inquiet, pâle au moindre bruit,

C'est Boabdil, roi des Mores d'Espagne,
Qui pouvait mourir, et qui fuit!

Aux Espagnols Grenade s'est rendue;
La croix remplace le croissant,
Et Boabdil pour sa ville perdue
N'a que des pleurs et pas de sang.

Sur un rocher nommé Soupir-du-More,
Avant d'entrer dans la Sierra,

Le fugitif s'assit, pour

voir encore

De loin Grenade et l'Alhambra :

"Hier, dit-il, j'étais calife;

Comme un dieu vivant adoré,
Je passais du Géneralife

A l'Alhambra peint et doré!
J'avais, loin des regards profanes,
Des bassins aux flots diaphanes
Où se baignaient trois cents sultanes;
Mon nom partout jetait l'effroi !
Hélas! ma puissance est détruite;
Ma vaillante armée est en fuite,
Et je m'en vais sans autre suite
Que mon ombre derrière moi!

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