Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.
By Francis SaltusSaltus1022 The Andalusian Sereno
W
He strolls at midnight when the world is still
Through dismal lanes and plazas plumed with light,
Guarding the drowsy thousands in Seville.
With careless step he wanders to and fro;
The gloomy streets reëcho with his cry,
His slow, low, sad, and dreary “Se-re-no!”
Of old giralda with its opal sheen,
And in broad alamedas, warm with flowers,
He sees the Moorish cypress bend and lean.
His father passed beneath those very stars,
The tales of escaladed walls, the fights,
The mirth, the songs, the Babel of guitars!
How, often, in the gardens dim and dark,
He met full many a mantled Romeo,
And stumbled over corpses cold and stark.
No ladder hangs from Donna Linda’s bars,
And the wan glint of an assassin’s blade
He ne’er has seen beneath these quiet stars.
His soul regrets the Past’s romantic glow,
While mute, despondent, pacing up and down,
He sadly moans his dreary “Se-re-no!”
He stops and trembles in his clinging cape,
For he can see a lady’s curtain drawn,
And, in the street below, a phantom shape,
Sombrero vast, and mandolin on arm,
Which seems to play a weird, wild lay of love,
And at his coming shows no quick alarm;
And haggard, leers within the lightless lane!
And the Sereno knows that he has seen
The spectre of the Past, the ghost of Spain.