We have sent the streams from our battle-field,

All darken'd to the sea!

We have given the founts a stain,
'Midst their woods of ancient pine;
And the ground is wet-but not with rain,
Deep-dyed-but not with wine!

"The ground is wet-but not with rain—
We have been in war array,

And the noblest blood of Christian Spain
Hath bathed her soil to-day.

I have seen the strong man die,
And the stripling meet his fate,
Where the mountain-winds go sounding by,
In the Roncesvalles' Strait.

"In the gloomy Roncesvalles' Strait There are helms and lances cleft; And they that mov'd at morn elate

On a bed of heath are left!

There's many a fair

young face,

Which the war steed hath gone o'er;

At many a board there is kept a place

For those that come no more!"

"Alas! for love, for woman's breast,

If woe like this must be !

-Hast thou seen a youth with an eagle crest,

And a white plume waving free?

With his proud quick flashing eye,

And his mien of knightly state?

Doth he come from where the swords flash'd high, In the Roncesvalles' Strait ? "

"In the gloomy Roncesvalles' Strait I saw and mark'd him well; For nobly on his steed he sate,

When the pride of manhood fell!

-But it is not youth which turns
From the field of spears again;
For the boy's high heart too wildly burns,
Till it rests amidst the slain!"

"Thou canst not say that he lies low, The lovely and the brave!

Oh! none could look on his joyous brow,

And think upon the grave!

Dark, dark perchance the day

Hath been with valour's fate,

But he is on his homeward way,

From the Roncesvalles' Strait!"

"There is dust upon his joyous brow,
And o'er his graceful head;

And the war-horse will not wake him now,
Though it bruise his greensward bed!
-I have seen the stripling die,

And the strong man meet his fate,
Where the mountain-winds go sounding by,
In the Roncesvalles' Strait!"

ELMINA enters.

ELMINA.

Your songs are not as those of other days,
Mine own Ximena !-Where is now the young

And buoyant spirit of the morn, which once
Breath'd in your spring-like melodies, and woke
Joy's echo from all hearts?

ΧΙΜΕΝΑ.

My mother, this

Is not the free air of our mountain-wilds;

(I see it well) doth sicken for the pure

Free-wandering breezes of the joyous hills,

Where thy young brothers, o'er the rock and heath, Bound in glad boyhood, e'en as torrent-streams Leap brightly from the heights. Had we not been Within these walls thus suddenly begirt,

Thou shouldst have track'd ere now, with step as light, Their wild wood-paths.

XIMENA.

I would not but have shar'd

These hours of woe and peril, though the deep
And solemn feelings wakening at their voice,
Claim all the wrought-up spirit to themselves,

And will not blend with mirth. The storm doth hush
All floating whispery sounds, all bird-notes wild
O' th' summer-forest, filling earth and heaven
With its own awful music.—And 'tis well!
Should not a hero's child be train'd to hear
The trumpet's blast unstartled, and to look
In the fix'd face of death without dismay?

ELMINA.

Woe! woe! that aught so gentle and so young
Should thus be call'd to stand i' the tempest's path,
And bear the token and the hue of death

On a bright soul so soon! I had not shrunk

From mine own lot, but thou, my child, shouldst move As a light breeze of heaven, through summer-bowers, And not o'er foaming billows. We are fallen

On dark and evil days!

XIMENA.

Aye, days, that wake

All to their tasks!-Youth may not loiter now
In the green walks of spring; and womanhood
Is summon'd unto conflicts, heretofore
The lot of warrior-souls. But we will take
Our toils upon us nobly! Strength is born
In the deep silence of long-suffering hearts;
Not amidst joy.