The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I cannot love thee.
It is my destiny.
Restless and violent.

me,

This is not my fault,

Thou art a man

And this same passionate humor in your blood What wouldst thou with Has marred your fortune. Yes; I see it now; The line of life is crossed by many marks. Shame! shame! O you have wronged the maid who loved you!

A feeble girl, who have not long to live,
Whose heart is broken? Seek another wife,
Better than I, and fairer; and let not

Thy rash and headlong moods estrange her from thee.

Thou art unhappy in this hopeless passion.

I never sought thy love; never did aught
To make thee love me. Yet I pity thee,
And most of all I pity thy wild heart,

That hurries thee to crimes and deeds of blood.
Beware, beware of that.

Bart.

For thy dear sake I will be gentle. Thou shalt teach me patience. Prec. Then take this farewell, and depart in

peace.

Thou must not linger here. Bart.

How could you do it?

Vict.

I never loved a maid;

For she I loved was then a maid no more.
Prec. How know you that?
Vict.

Whispered the secret.

Prec.

A little bird in the air

There, take back your gold! Your hand is cold, like a deceiver's hand! There is no blessing in its charity! Make her your wife, for you have been abused; And you shall mend your fortunes, mending hers. Vict. (aside). How like an angel's speaks the tongue of woman,

When pleading in another's cause her own!
Come, come with me. That is a pretty ring upon your finger.
Pray give it me.
Prec

And sent me this protector! Now be strong,
Be strong, my heart! I must dissemble here.
False friend or true?
Vict.
A true friend to the true;
Fear not; come hither. So; can you tell for-
tunes?
Prec. Not in the dark. Come nearer to the
fire.

Give me your hand. It is not crossed, I see.
Vict. (putting a piece of gold into her hand.)
There is the cross.

Prec.
Is 't silver.
Vict.
No. 't is gold.
Prec. There's a fair lady at the Court, who
loves you,

And for yourself alone.

(Tries to take the ring.) No; never from my hand

Shall that be taken!
Vict.
Why, 't is but a ring.
I'll give it back to you; or, if I keep it,
Will give you gold to buy you twenty such.
Prec. Why would you have this ring?
Vict.
A traveller's fancy,
A whim, and nothing more. I would fain keep it
As a memento of the Gypsy camp

In Guadarrama, and the fortune-teller
Who sent me back to wed a widowed maid.
Pray, let me have the ring.

Vict. (aside). Be still, my swelling heart! one moment, still!

Why, 't is the folly of a love-sick girl.
Come, give it me, or I will say 't is mine,
And that you stole it.
Prec.

O, you will not dare
I not dare?
Look in my face, and say if there is aught
I have not dared, I would not dare for thee!
(She rushes into his arms.)

To utter such a falsehood!
Viet.

Prec. 'T is thou! 't is thou! Yes; yes; my heart's elected!

My dearest-dear Victorian ! my soul's heaven! Where hast thou been so long? Why didst thou leave me?

Vict. Ask me not now, my dearest Preciosa. Let me forget we ever have been parted! Prec. Hadst thou not come

Vict. I pray thee, do not chide me! Prec. I should have perished here among these Gypsies.

Vict. Forgive me, sweet! for what I made thee suffer.

Think'st thou this heart could feel a moment's joy,

Thon being absent? O, believe it not!
Indeed, since that sad hour I have not slept,
For thinking of the wrong I did to thee!
Dost thou forgive me? Say, wilt thou forgive
me?

Prec. I have forgiven thee. Ere those words

Vict. What more of this strange story? Chispa. Nothing more. Your friend, Don Carlos, now at the village Showing to Pedro Crespo, the Alcalde, The proofs of what I tell you. The old hag, Who stole you in your childhood, has confessed; And probably they 'll hang her for the crime, To make the celebration more complete.

Vict. No; let it be a day of general joy; Fortune comes well to all, that comes not late. Now let us join Don Carlos.

Hyp.

So farewell,

The student's wandering life! Sweet serenades,
Sung under ladies' windows in the night,
And all that makes vacation beautiful!
To you, ye cloistered shades of Alcalá,
To you, ye radiant visions of romance,
Written in books, but here surpassed by truth,
The Bachelor Hypolito returns,

And leaves the Gypsy with the Spanish Student.

And we have all

Shep. San Ildefonso.

Been drinking at the tavern to your health,
As wells drink in November, when it rains.
Vict. Where is the gentleman?
Chispa.

As the old song says,

His body is in Segovia, His soul is in Madrid.

Prec. Is this a dream? O, if it be a dream, Let me sleep on, and do not wake me yet! Repeat thy story! Say I'm not deceived! Say that I do not dream! I am awake; This is the Gypsy camp; this is Victorian, And this his friend, Hypolito! Speak! speak! Let me not wake and find it all a dream!

Vict. It is a dream, sweet child! a waking dream,

A blissful certainty, a vision bright

Of that rare happiness, which even on earth
Heaven gives to those it loves.

rich,

Now art thou

As thou wast ever beautiful and good;

And I am now the beggar.

Prec. (giving him her hand). I have still A hand to give.

Chispa (aside). And I have two to take. I've heard my grandmother say, that Heaven gives almonds

To those who have no teeth. That's nuts to crack.

I've teeth to spare, but where shall I find almonds?

Monk. A long way to breakfast.

Shep. Ay, marry.

Monk. Are there robbers in these mountains? Shep. Yes, and worse than that.

Monk. What?

Shop. Wolves.

Monk. Santa Maria! Come with me to San Ildefonso, and thou shalt be well rewarded. Shep. What wilt thou give me?

Monk. An Agnus Dei and my benediction.

(They disappear. A mounted Contrabandista passes, wrapped in his cloak, and a gun at his saddle-bow. He goes down the pass singing.

SONG.

Worn with speed is my good steed,
And I march me hurried, worried!
Onward. cabillito mio,

With the white star in thy forehead!
Onward, for here comes the Ronda,
And I hear their rifles crack!
Ay, jalóo! Ay, ay, jaléo!

Ay, jaléo! They cross our track.

(Song dies away. Enter PRECIOsa, on horseback, attended by VICTORIAN, HYPOLITO, DON CARLOS, and CHISPA, on foot, and armed.)

Vict. This is the highest point. Here let us

rest.

See, Preciosa, see how all about us

Blasts of adversity and frosts of fate!

Kneeling, like hooded friars, the misty mountains But the first ray of sunshine that falls on thee Receive the benediction of the sun!

Prec.

And which

way

lies

Segovia ?

Vict.

At a great distance yonder.

Dost thou not see it?

Prec.

No. I do not see it.

Melts thee to tears! O, let thy weary heart
Lean upon mine! and it shall faint no more,
Nor thirst, nor hunger; but be comforted
And filled with my affection.

Pree.
Stay no longer!
My father waits. Methinks I see him there,
Now looking from the window, and now watching
Each sound of wheels or footfall in the street,
And saying, Hark! she comes!" O father!

father!

(They descend the pass. CHISPA remains behind.)

Chispa. I have a father, too, but he is a dead one. Alas and alack-a-day! Poor was I born,

Vict. The merest flaw that dents the horizon's and poor do I remain. I neither win nor lose.

edge.

There, yonder!

Нур.
"T is a notable old town,
Boasting an ancient Roman aqueduct,
And an Alcázar, builded by the Moors,
Wherein, you may remember, poor Gil Blas
Was fed on Pan del Rey. O, many a time
Out of its grated windows have I looked
Hundreds of feet plumb down to the Eresma,
That, like a serpent through the valley creeping,
Glides at its foot.

IN the ancient town of Bruges,
In the quaint old Flemish city,
As the evening shades descended,
Low and loud and sweetly blended,
Low at times and loud at times,
And changing like a poet's rhymes,
Rang the beautiful wild chimes
From the Belfry in the market
Of the ancient town of Bruges.

Then, with deep sonorous clangor
Calmly answering their sweet anger,
When the wrangling bells had ended,
Slowly struck the clock eleven,
And, from out the silent heaven,
Silence on the town descended.
Silence, silence everywhere,
On the earth and in the air,
Save that footsteps here and there
Of some burgher home returning,
By the street lamps faintly burning,
For a moment woke the echoes
Of the ancient town of Bruges.

But amid my broken slumbers
Still I heard those magic numbers,
As they loud proclaimed the flight
And stolen marches of the night;
Till their chimes in sweet collision
Mingled with each wandering vision,
Mingled with the fortune-telling
Gypsy-bands of dreams and fancies,
Which amid the waste expanses
Of the silent land of trances
Have their solitary dwelling;
All else seemed asleep in Bruges,
In the quaint old Flemish city.

And I thought how like these chimes
Are the poet's airy rhymes,
All his rhymes and roundelays,
His conceits, and songs, and ditties,
From the belfry of his brain,
Scattered downward, though in vain,
On the roofs and stones of cities!
For by night the drowsy ear
Under its curtains cannot hear,
And by day men go their ways,

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Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and

filled my brain;
They who live in history only seemed to walk
the earth again;

All the Foresters of Flanders,- mighty Baldwin
Bras de Fer,

Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy Philip, Guy de
Dampierre.

I beheld the pageants splendid that adorned
those days of old;

Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of Gold.

Juliers bold,

Marching homeward from the bloody battle of
the Spurs of Goli;

Saw the fight at Minnewater, saw the White
Hoods moving west,

Saw great Artevelae victorious scale the Golden
Dragon's nest.

And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land
with terror smote;

And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's throat;

The shadow of the linden-trees

Lay moving on the grass;

Between them and the moving boughs,
A shadow, thou didst pass.

Thy dress was like the lilies.

And thy heart as pure as they :
One of God's holy messengers
Did walk with me that day.

I saw the branches of the trees
Bend down thy touch to meet,
The clover-blossoms in the grass
Rise up to kiss thy feet.

"Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares,
Of earth and folly born!"
Solemnly sang the village choir
On that sweet Sabbath morn.

Through the closed blinds the golden sun
Poured in a dusty beam,

Like the celestial ladder seen

By Jacob in his dream.

And ever and anon, the wind,
Sweet-scented with the hay,

Turned o'er the hymn-book's fluttering leaves
That on the window lay.

Long was the good man's sermon,
Yet it seemed not so to me;
For he spake of Ruth the beautiful,
And still I thought of thee.

Long was the prayer he uttered,
Yet it seemed not so to me;
For in my heart I prayed with him,
And still I thought of thee.

But now, alas! the place seems changed;
Thou art no longer here:

Part of the sunshine of the scene
With thee did disappear.

Though thoughts, deep-rooted in my heart,
Like pine trees dark and high,
Subdue the light of noon, and breathe
A low and ceaseless sigh;

This memory brightens o'er the past,
As when the sun, concealed
Behind some cloud that near us hangs,
Shines on a distant field.

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