Carmen.

La Gitanilla! tall dragoons In Andalusian afternoons, With ogling eye and compliment Smiled on you, as along you went Some sleepy street of old Seville; Twirled with a military skill Moustaches; buttoned uniforms Of Spanish yellow bowed your charms. Proud, wicked head and hair blue-black! Whence your mantilla, half thrown back, Discovered shoulders and bold breast Bohemian brown: and you were dressed - In some short skirt of gipsy red Of smuggled stuff; thence stockings dead White silk exposed with many a hole Thro' which your plump legs roguish stole A fleshly look; and tiny toes In red morocco shoes with bows Of scarlet ribbons. Daintily You walked by me and I did see Your oblique eyes, your sensuous lip, That gnawed the rose you once did flip At bashful Jose's nose while loud Laughed the guant guards among the crowd. And, in your brazen chemise thrust, Heaved with the swelling of your bust, That bunch of white acacia blooms Whiffed past my nostrils hot perfumes. As in a cool neveria I ate an ice with Mrime, Dark Carmencita, you passed gay, All holiday bedizend, A new mantilla on your head; A crimson dress bespangled fierce; And crescent gold, hung in your ears, Shone wrought Morisco; and each shoe Cordovan leather, spangled blue, Glanced merriment; and from large arms To well-turned ancles all your charms Blew flutterings and glitterings Of satin bands and beaded strings; And 'round each arm's fair thigh one fold, And graceful wrists, a twisted gold Coiled serpents, tails fixed in the head, Convulsive-jeweled glossy red. In flowers and trimmings to the jar Of mandolin and low guitar You in the grated patio Danced; the curled coxcombs' flirting row Rang pleased applause. I saw you dance, With wily motion and glad glance Voluptuous, the wild romalis, Where every movement was a kiss Of elegance delicious, wound In your Basque tambourine's dull sound. Or as the ebon castanets Clucked out dry time in unctuous jets, Saw angry Jose thro' the grate Glare on us a pale face of hate, When some indecent colonel there Presumed too lewdly for his ear. Some still night in Seville; the street, Candilejo; two shadows meet - Flash sabres; crossed within the moon, - Clash rapidly - a dead dragoon.