The Dream Of Roderick

Below, the tawny Tagus swept     Past royal gardens, breathing balm;     Upon his couch the monarch slept;     The world was still; the night was calm.     Gray, Gothic-gated, in the ray     Of moonrise, tower-and castle-crowned,     The city of Toledo lay     Beneath the terraced palace-ground.     Again, he dreamed, in kingly sport     He sought the tree-sequestered path,     And watched the ladies of his Court     Within the marble-basined bath.     Its porphyry stairs and fountained base     Shone, houried with voluptuous forms,     Where Andalusia vied in grace     With old Castile, in female charms.     And laughter, song, and water-splash     Rang round the place, with stone arcaded,     As here a breast or limb would flash     Where beauty swam or beauty waded.     And then, like Venus, from the wave     A maiden came, and stood below;     And by her side a woman slave     Bent down to dry her limbs of snow.     Then on the tesselated bank,     Robed on with fragrance and with fire,--     Like some exotic flower--she sank,     The type of all divine desire.     Then her dark curls, that sparkled wet,     She parted from her perfect brows,     And, lo, her eyes, like lamps of jet     Within an alabaster house.     And in his sleep the monarch sighed,     "Florinda!"--Dreaming still he moaned,     "Ah, would that I had died, had died!     I have atoned! I have atoned!" ...     And then the vision changed: O'erhead     Tempest and darkness were unrolled,     Full of wild voices of the dead,     And lamentations manifold.     And wandering shapes of gaunt despair     Swept by, with faces pale as pain,     Whose eyes wept blood and seemed to glare     Fierce curses on him through the rain.     And then, it seemed, 'gainst blazing skies     A necromantic tower sate,     Crag-like on crags, of giant size;     Of adamant its walls and gate.     And from the storm a hand of might     Red-rolled in thunder, reached among     The gate's huge bolts--that burst; and night     Clanged ruin as its hinges swung.     Then far away a murmur trailed,--     As of sad seas on cavern'd shores,--     That grew into a voice that wailed,     "They come! they come! the Moors! the Moors!"     And with deep boom of atabals     And crash of cymbals and wild peal     Of battle-bugles, from its walls     An army rushed in glimmering steel.     And where it trod he saw the torch     Of conflagration stalk the skies,     And in the vanward of its march     The monster form of Havoc rise.     And Paynim war-cries rent the storm,     Athwart whose firmament of flame,     Destruction reared an earthquake form     On wreck and death without a name ...     And then again the vision changed:     Where flows the Guadalete, see,     The warriors of the Cross are ranged     Against the Crescent's chivalry.     With roar of trumpets and of drums     They meet; and in the battle's van     He fights; and, towering towards him, comes     Florinda's father, Julian;     And one-eyed Taric, great in war:     And where these couch their burning spears,     The Christian phalanx, near and far,     Goes down like corn before the shears.     The Moslem wins: the Christian flies:     "Allah il Allah," hill and plain     Reverberate: the rocking skies,     "Allah il Allah," shout again.     And then he dreamed the swing of swords     And hurl of arrows were no more;     But, louder than the howling hordes,     Strange silence fell on field and shore.     And through the night, it seemed, he fled,     Upon a white steed like a star,     Across a field of endless dead,     Beneath a blood-red scimitar.     Of sunset: And he heard a moan,     Beneath, around, on every hand--     "Accursd! Yea, what hast thou done     To bring this curse upon thy land?"     And then an awful sense of wings:     And, lo! the answer--"'Twas his lust     That was his crime. Behold! E'en kings     Must reckon with Me. All are dust."