Spain in America II

Why went Columbus to that highland race,Frugal and pensive, prone to love and ire,Despising kingdoms for a woman's face,For honour riches, and for faith desire?On Spain's own breast was snow, within it fire;In her own eyes and subtle tongue was mirth;The eternal brooded in her skies, whence nigherThe trebled starry host admonished earthTo shame away her grief and mock her baubles' worth.

Ah! when the crafty Tyrian came to SpainTo barter for her gold his motley wares,Treading her beaches he forgot his gain.The Semite became noble unawares.Her passion breathed Hamilcar's cruel prayers;Her fiery winds taught Hannibal his vows;Out of her tribulations and despairsThey wove a sterile garland for their brows.To her sad ports they fled before the Roman prows.

And the Greek coming too forgot his art,And that large temperance which made him wise.The wonder of her mountains choked his heart,The languor of her gardens veiled his eyes;He dreamed, he doubted; in her deeper skiesHe read unfathomed oracles of woe,And stubborn to the onward destinies,Like some dumb brute before a human foe,Sank in Saguntum's flames and deemed them brighter so.

The mighty Roman also when he came,Bringing his gods, his justice, and his tongue,Put off his greatness for a sadder fame,And what a Caesar wrought a Lucan sung.Nor was the pomp of his proud music, wrungFrom Latin numbers, half so stern and dire,Nor the sad majesties he moved amongHalf so divine, as her unbreathed desire.Shall longing break the heart and not untune the lyre?

When after many conquerors came Christ,The only conqueror of Spain indeed,Not Bethlehem nor Golgotha sufficedTo show him forth, but every shrine must bleedAnd every shepherd in his watches heedThe angels' matins sung at heaven's gate.Nor seemed the Virgin Mother wholly freedFrom taint of ill if born in frail estate,But shone the seraphs' queen and soared immaculate.

And when the Arab from his burning sandsSwept o'er the waters like a heavenly flail,He took her lute into his conquering hands,And in her midnight turned to nightingale.With woven lattices and pillars frailHe screened the pleasant secrets of his bower,Yet little could his subtler arts availAgainst the brutal onset of the Giaour.The rose passed from his courts, the muezzin from his tower.

Only one image of his wisdom stayed,One only relic of his magic lore,--Allah the Great, whom silent fate obeyed,More than Jehovah calm and hidden more,Allah remained in her heart's kindred coreHigh witness of these terrene shifts of wrong.Into his ancient silence she could pourHer passions' frailty--He alone is strong--And chant with lingering wail the burden of her song.

Seizing at Covadonga the rude crossPelayo raised amid his mountaineers,She bore it to Granada, one day's lossRansomed with battles of a thousand years.A nation born in harness, fed on tears,Christened in blood, and schooled in sacrifice,All for a sweeter music in the spheres,All for a painted heaven--at a priceShould she forsake her loves and sail to Ind for spice?

Had Genoa in her merchant palacesNo welcome for a heaven-guided son?Had Venice, mistress of the inland seas,No ships for bolder venture? Pisa none?Was sated Rome content? Her mission done?Saw Lusitania in her seaward dreamsNo floating premonition, beckoning onTo vast horizons, gilded yet with gleamsOf old Atlantis, whelmed beneath the bubbling streams?

Or if some torpor lay upon the South,Tranced by the might of memories divine,Dwelt no shrewd princeling by the marshy mouthOf Scheldt, or by the many mouths of Rhine?Rode Albion not at anchor in the brineWhose throne but now the thrifty Tudor stoleChanging a noble for a crafty line?Swarmed not the Norsemen yet about the pole,Seeking through endless mists new havens for the soul?

These should have been thy mates, Columbus, thesePatrons and partners of thy enterprise,Sad lovers of immeasurable seas,Bound to no hallowed earth, no peopled skies.No ray should reach them of their ladies' eyesIn western deserts: no pure minstrel's rhyme,Echoing in forest solitudes, surpriseTheir heart with longing for a sweeter clime.These, these should found a world who drag no chains of time.

In sooth it had seemed folly, to revealTo stubborn Aragon and evil-eyedThese perilous hopes, folly to dull CastileMoated in jealous faith and walled in pride,Save that those thoughts, to Spain's fresh deeds allied,Painted new Christian conquests, and her handItched for that sword, now dangling at her side,Which drove the Moslem forth and purged the land.And then she dreamed a dream her heart could understand.