Poems (Ford)/Burial of Isabella of Castile
BURIAL OF ISABELLA OF CASTILE.
A son of mighty anguish shakes The grieving nation's breast,As, bowed in bitter woe, she mourns Her noblest heart at rest;Well may she weep—her tearful eyes Can ne'er behold againThe guardian genius of her homes, The morning-star of Spain.
A cloud has fallen on Castile, Her high hopes have gone down,For Death has bowed the noblest head That ever wore a crown;In lordly hall and lowly hut Grief's heart-wrung fountains flow,And over all the land is heard One long, deep wail of woe.
Stilled is the high, unselfish heart, The great and gifted mindThat with a woman's gentleness A hero's power combined; Stern warriors bow their heads in grief, For oft that still, slight formWith hope and courage nerved their hearts Amid the battle's storm.
Cold is the open, generous hand Of her who freely gaveHer jewels rare to trace a path Across the trackless wave,—She in whose name the flag of Spain Beside the cross unfurledIts silken folds—the first to wave O'er the new western world.
No glittering pomp of royal state, No proud and vain display,Accompanies that noble form To its cold house of clay,For she whose grandly regal soul Has to its Maker fled,Was self-denying in her life, And still would be though dead.
As slow the sad procession goes In silence through the land,The poor pour forth their prayers and tears For her whose kindly handWas ever open in their need; For she in life had beenTo Spain a guardian-spirit bright, A mother and a queen.
O'er Andalusia's fair green vales The tempest's black wings sweep,And wildly beat on her who lies In death's cold, dreamless sleep;The mountain-torrents, thundering down, Go seething o'er the plain,Where the mad waters hissing roll Around that funeral train.
No sunbeam cheers their path by day, No star by night appears,—It seems that Nature's saddened eyes Are blinded by her tears,For over all the land is flung A pall of darkest gloom,While she who was its life and light Is carried to the tomb.
At last Alhambra's crimson towers 'Gainst the gray sky are seen;Where, throned 'mid dark green orange groves, Granada sits a queen,And she whose fortitude and faith, Whose hope and courage highRegained it from the Moslem foe, Comes in its dust to lie.
The dark-plumed cavaliers move on With solemn pace and slow,And as through the old Moorish gates All mournfully they go, They think of how they entered them In triumph years before;Alas! that she they followed then Should lead them nevermore!
High o'er the ancient Moslem towers The gleaming cross is seen;Sadly the marble halls beneath Receive their crownless Queen;The solemn requiem is sung, And in the cloister's shade,With incense, prayer and taper's gleam, The royal dust is laid.
Religion mourns her brightest gem, Her shield, forever gone;Spain weeps her strength, her star of hope, Her purest spirit flown;All Christendom laments for her Now to the grave consigned,Who gave her every thought and deed To God and to her kind.
Cold are the glittering tears that fall For perishing renown,Save when the good as well as great Unto the dust go down;And 'midst the crowned and sceptred dead The eye will seek in vainOne loved so well, so truly mourned, As Isabel of Spain.