BAZA REVISITED

  Brave Celin came, the valiant son of him the castelain
  Of the fortress of Alora and Alhama’s windy plain. 
  He came to see great Baza, where he in former days
  Had won from Zara’s father that aged warrior’s praise. 
  The Moor gazed on that fortress strong, the towers all desolate,
  The castle high that touched the sky, the rampart and the gate. 
  The ruined hold he greeted, it seemed its native land,
  For there his bliss had been complete while Zara held his hand. 
  And Fortune’s cruel fickleness he furiously reviled,
  For his heart sent madness to his brain and all his words were wild. 
  “O goddess who controllest on earth our human fate,
  How is it I offend thee, that my life is desolate? 
  Ah! many were the triumphs that from Zara’s hands I bore,
  When in the joust or in the dance she smiled on me of yore. 
  And now, while equal fortune incessantly I chase,
  Naught can I gather from thy hand but disaster and disgrace. 
  Since King Fernando brought his host fair Baza to blockade,
  My lot has been a wretched lot of anguish unalloyed. 
  Yet was Fernando kind to me with all his kingly art,
  He won my body to his arms, he could not win my heart.” 
  While thus he spoke the mantle that he wore he cast away;
  ’Twas green, ’twas striped with red and white, ’twas lined with dismal
                gray. 
  “Best suits my fate, best suits the hue, in this misfortune’s day;
  Not green, not white nor purple, but the palmer’s garb of gray. 
  I ask no plumes for helm or cap of nature’s living green,
  For hope has vanished from my life of that which might have been! 
  And from my target will I blot the blazon that is vain—­
  The lynx whose eyes are fixed upon the prey that it would gain. 
  For the glances that I cast around meet fortune’s foul disdain;
  And I will blot the legend, as an accursed screed. 
  ’Twas writ in Christian letters plain that all the world might read: 
  ‘My good right arm can gain me more altho’ its range be short,
  Then all I know by eye-sight or the boundless range of thought.’ 
  The blue tahala fluttering bright upon my armored brow
  In brilliant hue assorts but ill with the lot I meet with now. 
  I cast away this gaudy cap, it bears the purple dye;
  Not that my love is faithless, for I own her constancy;
  But for the fear that there may be, within the maiden’s sight,
  A lover worthier of her love than this unhappy knight.” 
  With that he took his lance in hand, and placed it in its rest,
  And o’er the plain with bloody spur the mournful Celin pressed. 
  On his steed’s neck he threw the reins, the reins hung dangling low,
  That the courser might have liberty to choose where he would go;
  And he said:  “My steed, oh, journey well, and make thy way to find
  The bliss which still eludes me, tho’ ’tis ever in my mind. 
  Nor bit nor rein shall now restrain thy course across the lea,
  For the curb and the bridle I only use from infamy to flee.”