“ Alas! for love, for woman's breast, If woe like this must be ! 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; -But it is not youth which turns From the field of spears again ; Till it rests amidst the slain !" “Thou canst not say that he lies low, The lovely and the brave ! Dark, dark perchance the day But he is on his homeward way, From the Roncesvalles' Strait ! " “ There is dust upon his joyous brow, And o'er his graceful head; -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, XIMENA. My mother, this Is not the free air of our mountain-wilds; And these are not the halls, wherein my voice ELMINA Alas! thy heart (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 ΧΙΜΕΝΑ, Aye, days, that wake ELMINA. Hast thou some secret woe That thus thou speak’st? XIMENA. What sorrow should be mine, Unknown to thee? ELMINA. Alas! the baleful air Wherewith the pestilence in darkness walks Through the devoted city, like a blight Amidst the rose-tints of thy cheek hath fallen, And wrought an early withering !-Thou hast cross'd The paths of Death, and minister'd to those O'er whom his shadow rested, till thine eye Hath chang'd its glancing sunbeam for a still, Deep, solemn radiance, and thy brow hath caught A wild and high expression, which at times Fades unto desolate calmness, most unlike What youth's bright mien should wear. My gentle child ! I look on thee in fear! XIMENA. Thou hast no cause |