The Flight from Granada

There was crying in Granada when the sun was going down,
Some calling on the Trinity, some calling on Mahoun;
Here pass'd away the Koran, there in the Cross was borne,
And here was heard the Christian bell, and there the Moorish horn;

Te Deum Laudamus was up the Alcala sung:
Down from the Alhamra's minarets were all the crescents flung;
The arms thereon of Arragon they with Castille's display;
One king comes in in triumph, one weeping goes away.

Thus cried the weeper, while his hands his old white beard did tear,
"Farewell, farewell, Granada! thou city without peer;
Woe, woe, thou pride of Heathendom, seven hundred years and more
Have gone since first the faithful thy royal sceptre bore.

"Thou wert the happy mother of an high renowned race;
Within thee dwelt a haughty line that now go from their place;
Within thee fearless knights did dwell, who fought with mickle glee—
The enemies of proud Castille, the bane of Christientie.

"The mother of fair dames wert thou, of truth and beauty rare,
Into whose arms did courteous knights for solace sweet repair;—
For whose dear sakes the gallants of Afric made display
Of might in joust and battle on many a bloody day:

"Here gallants held it little thing for ladies' sake to die,
Or for the Prophet's honour, and pride of Soldanry;—
For here did valour flourish, and deeds of warlike might
Ennobled lordly palaces, in which was our delight.

"The gardens of thy Vega, its fields and blooming bowers—
Woe, woe! I see their beauty gone, and scatter'd all their flowers.—
No reverence can he claim the King that such a land hath lost,
On charger never can he ride, nor be heard among the host—
But in some dark and dismal place, where none his face may see,
There, weeping and lamenting, alone that King should be."—

Thus spake Granada's King as he was riding to the sea,
About to cross Gibraltar's Strait away to Barbary:—
Thus he in heaviness of soul unto his Queen did cry.—
(He had stopp'd and ta'en her in his arms, for together they did fly.)

"Unhappy King! whose craven soul can brook" —(she 'gan reply,)
"To leave behind Granada,—who hast not heart to die—
Now for the love I bore thy youth thee gladly could I slay,
For what is life to leave when such a crown is cast away?"—