Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (644 page)

On Moslem galleys, turning all their stores

From threats to gifts. What Spanish knight is he

Who, living now, holds it not shame to live

Apart from that hereditary battle

Which needs his sword ? Castilian gentlemen

Choose not their task — they choose to do it well.

The time is great, and greater no man’s trust

Than his who keeps the fortress for his king,

Wearing great honours as some delicate robe

Brocaded o’er with names ‘t were sin to tarnish.

Born de la Cerda, Calatravan knight,

Count of Segura, fourth Duke of Bedmar,

Offshoot from that high stock of old Castile

Whose topmost branch is proud Medina Celi, —

Such titles with their blazonry are his

Who keeps this fortress, sworn Alcayde,

Lord of the valley, master of the town,

Commanding whom he will, himself commanded

By Christ his Lord who sees him from the Cross

And from bright heaven where the Mother pleads ;-

By good Saint James upon the milk-white steed,

Who leaves his bliss to fight for chosen Spain ; —

By the dead gaze of all his ancestors ; —

And by the mystery of his Spanish blood

Charged with the awe and glories of the past.

See now with soldiers in his front and rear

He winds at evening through the narrow streets

That toward the Castle gate climb devious :

His charger, of fine Andalusian stock,

An Indian beauty black but delicate,

Is conscious of the herald trumpet note,

The gathering glances, and familiar ways

That lead fast homeward : she forgets fatigue,

And at the light touch of the master’s spur

Thrills with the zeal to bear him royally,

Arches her neck and clambers up the stones

As if disdainful of the difficult steep.

Night-black the charger, black the rider’s plume,

But all between is bright with morning hues —

Seems ivory and gold and deep blue gems,

And starry flashing steel and pale vermilion,

All set in jasper : on his surcoat white

Glitter the sword-belt and the jewelled hilt,

Red on the back and breast the holy cross,

And ‘twixt the helmet and the soft-spun white

Thick tawny wavelets like the lion’s mane

Turn backward from his brow, pale, wide, erect.

Shadowing blue eyes, — blue as the rain-washed sky

That braced the early stem of Gothic kings

He claims for ancestry. A goodly knight,

A noble caballero, broad of chest

And long of limb. So much the August sun,

Now in the west but shooting half its beams

Past a dark rocky profile toward thy plain,

At winding opportunities across the slope

Makes suddenly luminous for all who see :

For women smiling from the terraced roofs ;

For boys that prone on trucks with head up-propped,

Lazy and curious, stare irreverent ;

For men who make obeisance with degrees

Of good-will shading towards servility,

Where good-will ends and secret fear begins

And curses, too, low-muttered through the teeth,

Explanatory to the God of Shem.

Five, grouped within a whitened tavern court

Of Moorish fashion, where the trellised vines

Purpling above their heads make odorous shade,

Note through the open door the passers-by,

Getting some rills of novelty to speed

The lagging stream of talk and help the wine.

‘T is Christian to drink wine : whoso denies

His flesh at bidding save of Holy Church,

Let him beware and take to Christian sins

Lest he be taxed with Moslem sanctity.

The souls are five, the talkers only three.

(No time, most tainted by wrong faith and rule,

But holds some listeners and dumb animals.)

MINE HOST is one : he with the well-arched nose,

Soft-eyed, fat-handed, loving men for naught

But his own humour, patting old and young

Upon the back, and mentioning the cost

With confidential blandness, as a tax

That he collected much against his will

From Spaniards who were all his bosom friends :

Warranted Christian, — else how keep the inn,

Which calling asks faith ? though like his wine

Of cheaper sort, a trifle over-new.

His father was a convert, chose the chrism

As men choose physic, kept his chimney warm

With smokiest wood upon a Saturday,

Counted his gains and grudges on a chaplet,

And crossed himself asleep for fear of spies,

Trusting the God of Israel would see

‘T was Christian tyranny that made him base.

Our host his son was born ten years too soon,

Had heard his mother call him Ephraim,

Knew holy things from common, thought it sin

To feast on days when Israel’s children mourned,

So had to be converted with his sire

To doff the awe he learned as Ephraim,

And suit his manners to a Christian name.

But infant awe, that unborn breathing thing,

Dies with what nourished it, can never rise

From the dead womb and walk and seek new pasture.

Baptism seemed to him a merry game

Not tried before, all sacraments a mode

Of doing homage for one’s property,

And all religions a queer human whim

Or else a vice, according to degrees :

As, ‘t is a whim to like your chestnuts hot,

Burn your own mouth and draw your face awry,

A vice to pelt frogs with them, — animals

Content to take life coolly. And Lorenzo

Would have all lives made easy, even lives

Of spiders and inquisitors, yet still

Wishing so well to flies and Moors and Jews,

He rather wished the others easy death ;

For loving all men clearly was deferred

Till all men loved each other. Such Mine Host,

With chiselled smile caressing. Seneca,

The solemn mastiff leaning on his knee.

His right-hand guest is solemn as the dog,

Square-faced and massive : BLASCO is his name,

A prosperous. silversmith from Aragon ;

In speech not silvery, rather tuned as notes

From a deep vessel made of plenteous iron,

Or some great bell of slow but certain swing

That, if you only wait, will tell the hour

As well as flippant clocks that strike in haste

And set off chiming a superfluous tune, —

Like JUAN there, the spare man with the lute,

Who makes you dizzy with his rapid tongue,

Whirring athwart your mind with comment swift

On speech you would have finished by and by,

Shooting your bird for you while you are loading,

Cheapening your wisdom as a pattern known

And spun by any shuttle on demand.

Can never sit quite still, too: sees a wasp

And kills it with a movement like a flash ;

Whistle low notes or seems to thrum his lute

As a mere hyphen ‘twixt two syllables

Of any steadier man ; walks up and down

And snuffs the orange flowers and shoots a pea

To hit a streak of light let through the awning.

Has a queer face : eyes large as plums, a nose

Small, round, uneven, like a bit of wax

Melted and cooled by chance. Thin-fingered, lithe,

And as a squirrel noiseless,, startling men

Only by quickness. In his speech and look

A touch of graceful wildness, as of things

Not trained or tamed for uses of the world ;

Most like the Fauns that roamed in days of old

About the listening whispering woods, and shared

The subtler sense of sylvan ears and eyes

Undulled by scheming thought, yet joined the rout

Of men and women on the festal days,

And played the syrinx too, and knew love’s pains,

Turning their anguish into melody.

For Juan was a minstrel still, in times

When minstrelsy was held a thing outworn.

Spirits seem buried and their epitaph