XXII.

Ah, better ’twere beneath this radiant sky, This sparkling sunlight shimmering o’er the plain, To give to tender thoughts the melting eye, And yield the heart to Love’s delicious pain. The genius bland, the balmy air of Spain, More fit the lute than dire artillery’s roar. Ah, better far to sing such sweet refrain Some dark-eyed Andaluzan’s bower before, As thus might ease the shaft that quivers in the core:--

La Sebillana

1.

My Enriqueta’s eyelids Are as soft as dews that fall From the moonlit jasper fountain In Alhambra’s silent hall. No star that, through its casement, At the midnight hour you spy, Hath the light, Streaming bright, Of my Enriqueta’s eye!

2.

It hath the Southern darkness, And the Southern depth as well; Touches, too, of Moorish wildness In its rapid glances dwell. ’Tis broad-cut like an almond, With a long and silken lash; When her mind Is to be kind, How she veils its lightning flash!

3.

Her step is light and buoyant, As if borne upon the air; Short and danceful are her movements, Like a pheasant’s young and fair. Stately-paced _piafadora_,[C] Waving gently to and fro, Do I hear No music near, While so gracefully you go?

4.

Her head she carries finely, And her bearing’s wondrous proud, And her voice, like silver lute strings, Thrills the heart--but never loud! ’Tis a voice the brain to wilder; Oh, I glory to be near, As she strolls, Witching souls, By the blue Guadalquivír!