Poems (Spofford)/The Granadan Girl's Song

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THE GRANADAN GIRL'S SONG.
All day the lime blows in the sun, All day the silver aspens quiver,All day along the far blue plain Winds serpent-like the golden river.  From clustering flower and myrtle bower   Soft sounds arise forever,  From gleaming tower with crescent dower   Our banner floats forever!
Its purple bloom the grape puts on, Pulping to this compelling summer,And heavy dews shake through the globes Scarce stirred by some bright-winged newcomer;  On yon brown hill, where all is still,   Where lightly rides the muleteer,  With jangling bells, whose burden swells   Till shaft and arch rise fine and clear.
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As one by one the shadows creep Back to their lairs in hilly hollows,A broader radiance issues forth, And on their track in silence follows.  A fuller air swims everywhere,   A freer murmur shakes the bough,  A thousand fires surprise the spires,   And all the city wakes below!
What morn shall rise, what cursèd morn, To find this bright pomp all surrendered,These palaces an empty shell, This vigor listless ruin rendered;  While every sprite of its delight   Mocks fickle echoes through the court,  And in our place a sculptured trace   Saddens some stranger's careless sport?
Oh, gay with all the stately stir, And bending to your silken flowing,One day, my banner-poles, ye creak Naked beneath the high winds blowing!  One day ye fall across the wall   And moulder in the moat's green bosom, ​  While in the cleft the wild tree left   Bursts into spikes of cruel blossom!
Ah, never dawn that day for me! O Fate, its fierce foreboding banish!When all our hosts, like pallid ghosts Blown on by morning, melt and vanish!  Oh, in the fires of their desires   Consume the toil of those invaders!  And let the brand divide the hand   That grasps the hilt of the Crusaders!
Yet idle words in such a scene! Yon pearly mists on high careering;The Moorish cavaliers who fleet With hawk and hound and distant cheering;  The dipping sail puffed to the gale,   The prow that spurns the billow's fawning,—  How can they fade to dimmer shade,   And how this day desert its dawning?
Forget to float, thou pearly rack! Ye riders, bronze your airy motion! ​Still skim the seas, so snowy craft, Forever sail to meet the ocean!  There bid the tide refuse to slide,   Glassing, below, thy drooping pinion,  Forever cease its wild caprice,   Fallen at the feet of our dominion!
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