Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti
Felicia Dorothea Hemans (17931835)A Ballad of Roncesvalles
‘T
At the pouring of the wine,
Men bear not from the hall of song
So dark a mien as thine!
There ’s blood upon thy shield,
There ’s dust upon thy plume,
Thou hast brought from some disastrous field
That brow of wrath and gloom.’
Maiden, it well may be!
We have sent the streams from our battle field
All darkened to the sea!
We have given the founts a stain
Midst their woods of ancient pine;
And the ground is wet—but not with rain,
Deep dyed—but not with wine.
We have been in war array,
And the noblest blood of Christian Spain
Hath bathed her soil to-day.
I have seen the strong man die,
And the stripling meet his fate,
Where the mountain winds go sounding by
In the Roncesvalles’ Strait.
There are helms and lances cleft;
And they that moved at morn elate
On a bed of heath are left!
There ’s many a fair young face
Which the war-steed hath gone o’er;
At many a board there is kept a place
For those that come no more!’
If woe like this must be!
Hast thou seen a youth with an eagle crest
And a white plume waving free?
With his proud quick-flashing eye,
And his mien of kingly state,
Doth he come from where the swords flashed high
In the Roncesvalles’ Strait?’
I saw, and marked him well;
For nobly on his steed he sate
When the pride of manhood fell.
But it is not youth which turns
From the field of spears again;
For the boy’s high heart too wildly burns
Till it rests among the slain.’
The lovely and the brave?
Oh none could look on his joyous brow
And think upon the grave!
Dark, dark perchance the day
Hath been with valour’s fate;
But he is on his homeward way
From the Roncesvalles’ Strait.’
And o’er his graceful head,
And the warhorse will not wake him now,
Though it browse his greensward bed.
I have seen the stripling die,
And the strong man meet his fate,
Where the mountain winds go sounding by,
In the Roncesvalles’ Strait.’