Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/The Murcian Cavalier

The Murcian Cavalier.

'Twas the Pentecost time of tournament
At the Court of high Castile,
And the first, among the Spanish knights,
Was the Prince of proud Seville.
And 'tis all to win Castile's fair Queen
That they meet to break the spear;
The last, to-day, on the list of fight,
Are Seville's famed Prince and a stranger knight,
The Murcian Cavalier.

But the trumpets scarce had sounded clear,
'Twas still but morning dawn,
When the Queen was far from gay Castile,
At the lone towers of Castellan.
The hours, till even, she spent in prayer
At the Holy Virgin's feet,
And when the night's ungentle breeze
Blew hollow through the orange trees,
She stood to hear the torrent beat.

And to the Courts of high Castile
She turned her eyes, and sighed!
Far, far remote were revelry,
And feast, and pomp, and pride.
Who is the fairest of that circle?
Who was there fair but one?
And she, upon a distant tower,
By her heart-pulse counts the passing hour,
Untended and alone . . . . .

"'Tis a horse's hoof from the tournament;
Dost hear the tramp on the plain?"
"Lady! 'tis but the waterfall
On the rocks of Castellan!"
"Inez! Inez! thou hearest nought
But the tumbling waterfall!
My ear has caught the faintest sound,
When the winds on the waters were loud around,
And I heard them not at all."

"O Lady! leave the battlement,
For the night is drawing near,
And the sighing of the forest trees
'Tis sorrowful to hear!"
"I would, Inez! 'twere sorrowful,
But it is nought to me!
I would that my crushed heart had room
For these unpainful fears that come
From the rustling of a tree!"

The Queen bent down her death-like cheek
On the marble pillar stone;
And she waved her hand to Inez,
That she would be alone!
Like a flame the moon was in the sky,
As through the mist it shone;
In the Tagus' wave, as in a glass,
Its face was red as burning brass,
Or the sun a-going down.

Whether it had been hope, or sought
But the water's overflow;
The sound had passed away that came
F rom the deep dell below.
. . . The fairest face in Spain is wet
With the falling dews of air!
That heart, for which so many pine,
Is watching for a distant sign,
As if life were treasured there!

. . . 'Tis the trampling now of horse's hoofs,
For the river wave is still,
That scarce beyond the forest's edge
Is gaining on the hill: . . .
"Yester-morn," said that Lady,
"I was Queen of high Castile;
But the hour is come that I must leave
These princely towers, a fugitive,
And a wanderer at will."

The Queen has left the battlement
Without a sigh or tear!
That horseman fleet that kneels at her feet
Is the Murcian Cavalier;
But to his vows of love and truth
She spoke not once again;
For her heart was swelling in her breast
With grief subdued and fear supprest,
As it would rend in twain.

They have journeyed on by day, by night,
Till behind them many a mile;
They left the wandering Tagus' course,
And the plains of fair Castile;
. . . Soft and cool the eventide fell
On the heats of the high-day noon;
The fiery sun's descending blaze
Had covered with a purple haze
The woods of dark Leon.

These woods, so deep, or lone, and wild,
The Queen surveyed, and sighed!
She turned to catch a distant gleam
Of the Douro's yellow tide;
With intermingling tops, the trees
An awful covering made;
And then that sky, of dusky red,
The dead of night had been less dread
Than that uncertain shade.

Far to the westward she had seen
The winding Douro part;
And she paused, amid that solitude,
To still her throbbing heart!
The Murcian Knight was by her side,
But he spoke not now at all. . . .
Her anxious thoughts be seemed to guess,
And with mute and mournful steadiness
He watched the dim night-fall.

It came! among these forests deep
As the darkest midnight gloom!
It came! . . . and nature seemed to be
But one unfathomed tomb!
Many a rugged, trackless path,
Amid that gloom they passed,
Till close above a tree decayed
A turret threw its spiral shade,
Dim, desolate, and vast!

Between and the opened gleam, was plain
That lonely castle's height;
The Queen's quick eye was traversing
The home of the Murcian Knight.
All silently she gave her hand
To mount the marble stairs;
A massy door she opened wide,
But the lofty halls on either side
Were tenantless and bare!

Save the dull echoes of their feet,
All other sounds were dumb!
And she felt the hand that grasped hers
Was stiff, and damp, and numb!
A strange and nameless terror ran
Along her shivering brain;
Something like this her heart had known,
When, alas! she heard no voice but one,
At the towers of Castellan.

They paused where, from an inner hall,
A lamp was burning bright;
It streamed, with full and steady glare,
On the face of the Murcian Knight.
O'er every feature clear she saw
Unearthly beauty wave!
The purest white, the softest red;
The eye alone was glazed and dead,
As the sleeper's in the grave!

Around and round her gazed the Queen,
By the lamp's unshaken light;
On the roof, like a spirit's swathed form,
Was the shadow of the Knight.
On that thin shape her eyes were fixed,
That she could not turn again,
When it raised, with faint, unsteady strength,
One stiffened arm's unmeasured length,
As it had moved in pain.

Then with a crash that ran along,
Till it rocked beneath her tread,
That arm fell down upon the stone,
And her stunned senses fled!
. . . The morning sun, with ruby tinge,
O'er the woods began to peer,
When the Queen was at the window tower;
But no more was seen, from that dread hour,
The Murcian Cavalier!

And still, upon the battlement,
She walks at shut of even;
Her face is pale, her air is wild,
And her looks are towards heaven!
And ever, when a deeper shade
Hang on these forests rude,
The Spanish shepherd girls will tell
How they hear, far off, in a desert dell,
The Lady of the Wood!