JUAN MANUEL.

ROMANCE.

"Gritando va el caballero."

ALL alone the knight is wandering,
Crying with a heavy tone;
Clad in dark funereal garments,

Lined with serge, he walks aloneTo the dreary, trackless mountains and mourn.

He retires to weep

Barefoot-lonely—and deserted,
Swearing never to return,

Where the voice of lovely woman
Might betray him to forget
Her, whose ever-blessed memory,
Lives within his heart-shrine yet.
Her who, promised to his passion,
Ere he had possess'd her died!
Now he seeks some desert country,
There in darkness to abide.
In a distant, gloomy mountain,

Where no human beings dwell;
There he built a house of sadness,

Sadder than the thoughts can tell.

Of a yellow wood he built it,

Of a wood that's call'd despair ; Black the stone that form'd the dwelling, Black the blending mortar there. Roof he raised of gloomy tilings, O'er the beams of ebony;

Sheets of lead he made his flooring,

Heavy as his misery.

Leaden were the doors he sculptured,
His own chisel carved the door,—
His own weary fingers scatter'd

Faded vine leaves on the floor.
He who makes his home with sorrow
Should not fly to joy's relief:
Here, in this dark, dolorous mansion,
Dwelt he, votary of grief.
Discipline is his, severer

Than the mouths of stern Paulār;
And his bed was made of tendrils,
And his food those tendrils are;
And his drink is tears of sorrow,
Which soon turn'd to tears again.
Once a day he eat-once only,—
Sooner to be freed from pain.
Like the wood the walls he painted,

Like that dark and yellow wood;
There a cloth of silk suspended,
White as snow in solitude;

⚫ Desesperar.

And an alabaster altar

Even before that emblem stood,

There a taper of bitumen

O'er the altar faintly moved; And the image of his lady,

Of the lady that he loved,

There he placed; her form of silver,
And her cheeks of crystal clear,

Clad in robes of silvery damask,
Such as richest maidens wear;
Next a snow-white convent-garment,
And a flounce of purest white,
Cover'd o'er with moons, whose brightness
Shed a chaste and gentle light;

On her head a royal coronet,

Such as honour'd monarchs see

'Twas adorn'd with chestnut branches
Gather'd from the chestnut tree.
Mark! beneath that word mysterious
Hidden sense may chance to be-
Chestnut-branches may betoken,
May betoken chastity.*

Two and twenty years the maiden
Lived, and died so fair, so young—
Tell me how such youth and beauty
Should in fitting words be sung?

Tell me how to sing his sorrow,

Who thus mourn'd his perish'd maid :

▾ Castañas-casta (chaste).

There he lived in woe and silence,
With her image and her shade.
Pleasure from his house he banish'd,
While he welcom'd pain and woe;
They shall dwell with him for ever,
They from him shall never go.

Cancionero de Valencia, 1511, p. 135.

KING JOHN THE SECOND.

I NEVER KNEW IT, LOVE! TILL NOW.

"Amor nunca pensé."

I NE'ER imagined, love! that thou
Wert such a mighty one; at will
Thou canst both faith and conscience bow,
And thy despotic law fulfil:

I never knew it, love! till now.

I thought I knew thee well,-I thought
That I thy mazes had explor'd;
But I within thy nets am caught,

And now I own thee, sovereign lord!
I ne'er imagined, love! that thou
Wert such a mighty one; at will
Thou bidst both faith and conscience bow,
And thy despotic law fulfil:

I never knew it, love! till now.

Trescientas de Juan de Mena,

Amberes, 1552, p. 823.