The Poems of Felicia Hemans
Whose fitful swells its plaintive murmurs bear
Far o’er the Alpuxarras;--wild its tone,
And rocks and caverns echo, “Thou art gone!”
“Daughter of heroes! thou art gone
To share his tomb who gave thee birth:
Peace to the lovely spirit flown!
It was not form’d for earth.
Thou wert a sunbeam in thy race,
Which brightly pass’d and left no trace.
“But calmly sleep!--for thou art free,
And hands unchain’d thy tomb shall raise.
Sleep! they are closed at length for thee,
Life’s few and evil days!
Nor shalt thou watch, with tearful eye,
The lingering death of liberty.
“Flower of the desert! thou thy bloom
Didst early to the storm resign:
We bear it still--and dark _their_ doom
Who cannot weep for thine!
For us, whose every hope is fled,
The time is past to mourn the dead.
“The days have been, when o’er thy bier
Far other strains than these had flow’d;
Now, as a home from grief and fear,
We hail thy dark abode!
We, who but linger to bequeath
Our sons the choice of chains or death.
“Thou art with those, the free, the brave,
The mighty of departed years;
And for the slumberers of the grave
Our fate hath left no tears.
Though loved and lost, to weep were vain
For thee, who ne’er shalt weep again.
“Have we not seen despoil’d by foes
The land our fathers won of yore?
And is there yet a pang for those
Who gaze on _this_ no more?
Oh, that like them ’twere ours to rest!
Daughter of heroes! thou art blest!”
A few short year’s, and in the lonely cave
Where sleeps the Zegri maid, is Hamet’s grave.
Sever’d in life, united in the tomb--
Such, of the hearts that loved so well, the doom!
Their dirge, of woods and waves th’ eternal moan;
Their sepulchre, the pine-clad rocks alone.
And oft beside the midnight watch-fire’s blaze,
Amidst those rocks, in long-departed days,
(When freedom fled, to hold, sequester’d there,
The stern and lofty councils of despair,)
Some exiled Moor, a warrior of the wild,
Who the lone hours with mournful strains beguiled,
Hath taught his mountain-home the tale of those
Who thus have suffer’d, and who thus repose.
[86] The terrors occasioned by this sudden excitement of popular
feeling seem even to have accelerated Abo Abdeli’s capitulation.
“Aterrado Abo Abdeli con el alboroto y temiendo no ser ya el Dueño
de un pueblo amotinádo, se apresuró á concluir una capitulation, la
menos dura que podia obtenir en tan urgentes circumstancias, y ofrecio
entregor á Granada el dia seis de Enero.”--_Paseos en Granada_, vol. i.
p. 298.
[87] The oaken cross, carried by Pelagius in battle.
[88] See Southey’s Chronicle of the Cid, in which that warrior is
frequently styled, “he who was born in happy hour.”
[89] “Moreover, when the Miramamolin brought over from Africa against
King Don Alfonso, the eighth of that name, the mightiest power of
the misbelievers that had ever been brought against Spain, since the
destruction of the kings of the Goths, the Cid Campeador remembered
his country in that great danger; for the night before the battle was
fought at the Navas de Tolosa, in the dead of the night, a mighty sound
was heard in the whole city of Leon, as if it were the tramp of a great
army passing through; and it passed on to the royal monastery of St
Isidro, and there was a great knocking at the gate thereof, and they
called to a priest who was keeping vigils in the church, and told him
that the captains of the army whom he heard were the Cid Ruydiez, and
Count Ferran Gonzalez, and that they came there to call up King Don
Fernando the Great, who lay buried in that church, that he might go
with them to deliver Spain. And on the morrow that great battle of the
Navas de Tolosa was fought, wherein sixty thousand of the misbelievers
were slain, which was one of the greatest and noblest battles ever won
over the Moors.”--Southey’s _Chronicle of the Cid_.
[90] The name of Andalusia, the _region of evening_, or _of the west_,
was applied by the Arabs not only to the province so called, but to the
whole peninsula.
[91] “En este dia, para siempre memorable, los estandartes de la Cruz,
de St Jago, y el de los Reyes de Castilla se tremoláran sobre la torre
mas alta, llamada de _la Vela_; y un exercito prosternado, inundandose
en lagrimas de gozo y reconocimiento, asistio al mas glorioso de los
espectaculos.”--_Paseos en Granada_, vol. i. p. 299.
[92] Swinburne, after describing the noble palace built by Charles V.
in the precincts of the Alhambra, thus proceeds: “Adjoining (to the
north) stands a huge heap of as ugly buildings as can well be seen,
all huddled together, seemingly without the least intention of forming
_one_ habitation out of them. The walls are entirely unornamented, all
gravel and pebbles, daubed over with plaster by a very coarse hand;
yet this is the palace of the Moorish kings of Granada, indisputably
the most curious place within that exists in Spain, perhaps in Europe.
In many countries you may see excellent modern as well as ancient
architecture, both entire and in ruins; but nothing to be met with any
where else can convey an idea of this edifice, except you take it from
the decorations of an opera, or the tales of the genii.”--Swinburne’s
_Travels through Spain_.
[93] “Passing round the corner of the emperor’s palace, you are
admitted at a plain unornamented door in a corner. On my first visit,
I confess, I was struck with amazement as I stept over the threshold,
to find myself on a sudden transported into a species of fairy land.
The first place you come to is the court called the Communa, or _del
Mesucar_, that is, the common baths: an oblong square, with a deep
basin of clear water in the middle; two flights of marble steps leading
down to the bottom; on each side a parterre of flowers, and a row of
orange-trees. Round the court runs a peristyle paved with marble;
the arches bear upon very slight pillars, in proportions and style
different from all the regular orders of architecture. The ceilings and
walls are incrustated with fretwork in stucco, so minute and intricate
that the most patient draughtsman would find it difficult to follow
it, unless he made himself master of the general plan.”--Swinburne’s
_Travels in Spain_.
[94] The walls and cornices of the Alhambra are covered with
inscriptions in Arabic characters. “In examining this abode of
magnificence,” says Bourgoanne, “the observer is every moment
astonished at the new and interesting mixture of architecture and
poetry. The palace of the Alhambra may be called a collection of
fugitive pieces; and whatever duration these may have, time, with which
every thing passes away, has too much contributed to confirm to them
that title.”--See Bourgoanne’s _Travels in Spain_.
[95] Atabal, a kind of Moorish drum.
[96] “Y ansi entraron en la ciudad, y subieron al Alhambra, y encima de
la torre de Comares tan famosa se levantò la señal de la Santa Cruz,
y luego el real estandarte de los dos Christianos reyes. Y al punto
los reyes de armas, à grandes bozes dizieron, ‘Granada! Granada! por
su magestad, y por la reyna su muger.’ La serenissima reyna D. Isabel,
que viò ia señal de la Santa Cruz sobre la hermosa torre de Comares, y
el su estandarte real con ella, se hincò de rodillas, y diò infinitas
gracias à Dios por la victoria que le avia dado contra aquella gran
ciudad. La musica real de la capilla del rey luego à canto de organo
cantò _Te Deum laudamus_. Fuè tan grande el plazer que todos lloravan.
Luego del Alhambra sonaron mil instrumentos de musica de belicas
trompetas. Los Moros amigos del rey, que querian ser Christianos, cuya
cabeza era el valeroso Muça, tomaron mil dulzaynas y añafiles, sonando
grande ruydo de atambores por toda la ciudad.”--_Historia de las
Guerras Civiles de Granada._
[97] “Los cavalleros Moros que avemos dicho, aquella noche jugaron
galanamente alcancias y cañas. Andava Granada aquella noche con
tanta alegria, y con tantas luminarias, que parecia que se ardia la
terra.”--_Historia de las Guerras Civiles de Granada._
Swinburne, in his Travels through Spain, in the years 1775 and 1776,
mentions, that the anniversary of the surrender of Granada to Ferdinand
and Isabella was still observed in the city as a great festival and day
of rejoicing; and that the populace on that occasion paid an annual
visit to the Moorish palace.
[98] “Los Gomeles todos se passeron en Africa, y el Rey Chico con
ellos, que no quisò estar en España, y en Africa le mataron los Moros
de aquellas partes, porque perdiò a Granada.”--_Guerras Civiles de
Granada._
[99] Abo Abdeli, upon leaving Granada, after its conquest by Ferdinand
and Isabella, stopped on the hill of Padul to take a last look of his
city and palace. Overcome by the sight, he burst into tears, and was
thus reproached by his mother, the Sultaness Ayxa,--“Thou dost well to
weep like a woman, over the loss of that kingdom which thou knewest not
how to defend and die for like a man.”
[100] “El rey mandò, que si quedavan Zegris, que no viviessen en
Granada, por la maldad qui hizieron contra los Abencerrages.”--_Guerras
Civiles de Granada._
[101] “The Alpuxarras are so lofty that the coast of Barbary, and the
cities of Tangier and Ceuta, are discovered from their summits; they
are about seventeen leagues in length, from Veles Malaga to Almeria,
and eleven in breadth, and abound with fruit trees of great beauty and
prodigious size. In these mountains the wretched remains of the Moors
took refuge.”--Bourgoanne’s _Travels in Spain_.
[102] “Plût à Dieu que je craignisse!”--_Andromaque._
[103] Mrs Radcliffe, in her journey along the banks of the Rhine,
thus describes the colours of granite rocks in the mountains of the
Bergstrasse. “The nearer we approached these mountains, the more we had
occasion to admire the various tints of their granites. Sometimes the
precipices were of a faint pink, then of a deep red, a dull purple, or
a blush approaching to lilac; and sometimes gleams of a pale yellow
mingled with the low shrubs that grew upon their sides. The day was
cloudless and bright, and we were too near these heights to be deceived
by the illusions of aërial colouring; the real hues of their features
were as beautiful as their magnitude was sublime.”
THE WIDOW OF CRESCENTIUS.
[“In the reign of Otho III. Emperor of Germany, the Romans, excited
by their Consul, Crescentius, who ardently desired to restore the
ancient glory of the Republic, made a bold attempt to shake off the
Saxon yoke, and the authority of the popes, whose vices rendered
them objects of universal contempt. The Consul was besieged by Otho
in the Mole of Hadrian, which long afterwards continued to be called
the Tower of Crescentius. Otho, after many unavailing attacks upon
this fortress, at last entered into negotiations; and, pledging his
imperial word to respect the life of Crescentius, and the rights
of the Roman citizens, the unfortunate leader was betrayed into
his power, and immediately beheaded, with many of his partisans.
Stephania, his widow, concealing her affliction and her resentment
for the insults to which she had been exposed, secretly resolved
to revenge her husband and herself. On the return of Otho from a
pilgrimage to Mount Gargano, which perhaps a feeling of remorse had
induced him to undertake, she found means to be introduced to him,
and to gain his confidence; and a poison administered by her was soon
afterwards the cause of his painful death.”--Sismondi, _History of the
Italian Republics_, vol. i.]
“L’orage peut briser en un moment les fleurs qui tiennent encore la