Descending low before her face a screen of feathers hung,--A moscader, or fan for flies, 'tis called in vulgar tongue;From the feathers of the peacock's wing 't was fashioned bright and fair, And glistened like the heaven above when all its stars are there.
It chanced that, for the people's sins, fell the lightning's blasting stroke:
Forth from all four the sacred walls the flames consuming broke;The sacred robes were all consumed, missal and holy book;And hardly with their lives the monks their crumbling walls forsook.
.........
But though the desolating flame raged fearfully and wild, It did not reach the Virgin Queen, it did not reach the Child;It did not reach the feathery screen before her face that shone, Nor injure in a farthing's worth the image or the throne.
The image it did not consume, it did not burn the screen;Even in the value of a hair they were not hurt, I ween;Not even the smoke did reach them, nor injure more the shrine Than the bishop hight Don Tello has been hurt by hand of mine.
.........
SONG
She is a maid of artless grace, Gentle in form, and fair of face,Tell me, thou ancient mariner, That sailest on the sea, If ship, or sail or evening star Be half so fair as she!
Tell me, thou gallant cavalier, Whose shining arms I see, If steel, or sword, or battle-field Be half so fair as she!
Tell me, thou swain, that gnard'st thy flock Beneath the shadowy tree, If flock, or vale, or mountain-ridge Be half so fair as she!
SANTA TERESA'S BOOK-MARK
(LETRILLA QUE LLEVABA POR REGISTRO EN SU BREVIARIO)BY SANTA TERESA DE AVILA
Let nothing disturb thee, Nothing affright thee;All things are passing;
God never changeth;
Patient endurance Attaineth to all things;Who God possesseth In nothing is wanting;Alone God sufficeth.
FROM THE CANCIONEROS
I
EYES SO TRISTFUL, EYES SO TRISTFUL
(OJOS TRISTES, OJOS TRISTES)
BY DIEGO DE SALDANA
Eyes so tristful, eyes so tristful, Heart so full of care and cumber, I was lapped in rest and slumber, Ye have made me wakeful, wistful!
In this life of labor endless Who shall comfort my distresses?
Querulous my soul and friendless In its sorrow shuns caresses.
Ye have made me, ye have made me Querulous of you, that care not, Eyes so tristful, yet I dare not Say to what ye have betrayed me.
II
SOME DAY, SOME DAY
(ALGUNA VEZ)
BY CRISTOBAL DE GASTILLOJO
Some day, some day O troubled breast, Shalt thou find rest.
If Love in thee To grief give birth, Six feet of earth Can more than he;There calm and free And unoppressed Shalt thou find rest.
The unattained In life at last, When life is passed, Shall all be gained;And no more pained, No more distressed, Shalt thou find rest.
III
COME, O DEATH, SO SILENT FLYING
(VEN, MUERTE TAN ESCONDIDA)
BY EL COMMENDADOR ESCRIVA
Come, O Death, so silent flying That unheard thy coming be, Lest the sweet delight of dying Bring life back again to me.
For thy sure approach perceiving, In my constancy and pain I new life should win again, Thinking that I am not living.
So to me, unconscious lying, All unknown thy coming be, Lest the sweet delight of dying Bring life back again to me.
Unto him who finds thee hateful, Death, thou art inhuman pain;But to me, who dying gain, Life is but a task ungrateful.
Come, then, with my wish complying, All unheard thy coming be, Lest the sweet delight of dying Bring life back again to me.
IV
GLOVE OF BLACK IN WHITE HAND BARE
Glove of black in white hand bare, And about her forehead pale Wound a thin, transparent veil, That doth not conceal her hair;Sovereign attitude and air, Cheek and neck alike displayed With coquettish charms arrayed, Laughing eyes and fugitive;--This is killing men that live, 'T is not mourning for the dead.
FROM THE SWEDISH AND DANISH
PASSAGES FROM FRITHIOF'S SAGA
BY ESAIAS TEGNER
I
FRITHIOF'S HOMESTEAD
Three miles extended around the fields of the homestead, on three sides Valleys and mountains and hills, but on the fourth side was the ocean.
Birch woods crowned the summits, but down the slope of the hillsides Flourished the golden corn, and man-high was waving the rye-field.
Lakes, full many in number, their mirror held up for the mountains, Held for the forests up, in whose depths the high-horned reindeers Had their kingly walk, and drank of a hundred brooklets.
But in the valleys widely around, there fed on the greensward Herds with shining hides and udders that longed for the milk-pail.
'Mid these scattered, now here and now there, were numberless flocks of Sheep with fleeces white, as thou seest the white-looking stray clouds, Flock-wise spread o'er the heavenly vault when it bloweth in springtime.
Coursers two times twelve, all mettlesome, fast fettered storm-winds, Stamping stood in the line of stalls, and tugged at their fodder.
Knotted with red were their manes, and their hoofs all white with steel shoes.
Th' banquet-hall, a house by itself, was timbered of hard fir.
Not five hundred men (at ten times twelve to the hundred)Filled up the roomy hall, when assembled for drinking, at Yule-tide.
Through the hall, as long as it was, went a table of holm-oak, Polished and white, as of steel; the columns twain of the High-seat Stood at the end thereof, two gods carved out of an elm-tree:
Odin with lordly look, and Frey with the sun on his frontlet.
Lately between the two, on a bear-skin (the skin it was coal-black, Scarlet-red was the throat, but the paws were shodden with silver), Thorsten sat with his friends, Hospitality sitting with Gladness.
Oft, when the moon through the cloudrack flew, related the old man Wonders from distant lands he had seen, and cruises of Vikings Far away on the Baltic, and Sea of the West and the White Sea.
Hushed sat the listening bench, and their glances hung on the graybeard's Lips, as a bee on the rose; but the Scald was thinking of Brage, Where, with his silver beard, and runes on his tongue, he is seated Under the leafy beech, and tells a tradition by Mimer's Ever-murmuring wave, himself a living tradition.
