Читать книгу Poems - Victor Hugo, Clara Inés Bravo Villarreal - Страница 39

     While bright but scentless azure stars

       Be-gem the golden corn,

     And spangle with their skyey tint

       The furrows not yet shorn;

     While still the pure white tufts of May

       Ape each a snowy ball, —

     Away, ye merry maids, and haste

       To gather ere they fall!

     Nowhere the sun of Spain outshines

       Upon a fairer town

     Than Peñafiel, or endows

       More richly farming clown;

     Nowhere a broader square reflects

       Such brilliant mansions, tall, —

     Away, ye merry maids, etc.

     Nowhere a statelier abbey rears

       Dome huger o'er a shrine,

     Though seek ye from old Rome itself

       To even Seville fine.

     Here countless pilgrims come to pray

      And promenade the Mall, —

     Away, ye merry maids, etc.

     Where glide the girls more joyfully

       Than ours who dance at dusk,

     With roses white upon their brows,

       With waists that scorn the busk?

     Mantillas elsewhere hide dull eyes —

       Compared with these, how small!

     Away, ye merry maids, etc.

     A blossom in a city lane,

       Alizia was our pride,

     And oft the blundering bee, deceived,

       Came buzzing to her side —

     But, oh! for one that felt the sting,

       And found, 'neath honey, gall —

     Away, ye merry maids, etc.

     Young, haughty, from still hotter lands,

       A stranger hither came —

     Was he a Moor or African,

       Or Murcian known to fame?

     None knew – least, she – or false or true,

       The name by which to call.

     Away, ye merry maids, etc.

     Alizia asked not his degree,

       She saw him but as Love,

     And through Xarama's vale they strayed,

       And tarried in the grove, —

     Oh! curses on that fatal eve,

       And on that leafy hall!

     Away, ye merry maids, etc.

     The darkened city breathed no more;

       The moon was mantled long,

     Till towers thrust the cloudy cloak

       Upon the steeples' throng;

     The crossway Christ, in ivy draped,

       Shrank, grieving, 'neath the pall, —

     Away, ye merry maids, etc.

     But while, alone, they kept the shade,

       The other dark-eyed dears

     Were murmuring on the stifling air

       Their jealous threats and fears;

     Alizia was so blamed, that time,

       Unheeded rang the call:

     Away, ye merry maids, etc.

     Although, above, the hawk describes

       The circle round the lark,

     It sleeps, unconscious, and our lass

       Had eyes but for her spark —

     A spark? – a sun!  'Twas Juan, King!

       Who wears our coronal, —

     Away, ye merry maids, etc.

     A love so far above one's state

       Ends sadly. Came a black

     And guarded palanquin to bear

       The girl that ne'er comes back;

     By royal writ, some nunnery

       Still shields her from us all

     Away, ye merry maids, and haste

       To gather ere they fall!