Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SPANISH GYPSY: BOOK 3, by MARY ANN EVANS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SPANISH GYPSY: BOOK 3, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Quit now the town, and with a journeying dream
Last Line: Where we have found each other, my fedalma.
Alternate Author Name(s): Eliot, George; Cross, Marian Lewes; Evans, Marian; Ann, Mary
Subject(s): Christianity; Family Life; Inquisition; Man-woman Relationships; Moors (land); Moors (people); Spain; War; Relatives; Male-female Relations


QUIT now the town, and with a journeying dream
Swift as the wings of sound yet seeming slow
Through multitudinous compression of stored sense
And spiritual space, see walls and towers
Lie in the silent whiteness of a trance,
Giving no sign of that warm life within
That moves and murmurs through their hidden heart.
Pass o'er the mountain, wind in sombre shade,
Then wind into the light and see the town
Shrunk to white crust upon the darken rock.
Turn east and south, descend, then rise anew
'Mid smaller mountains ebbing towards the plain:
Scent the fresh breath of the height-loving herbs
That, trodden by the pretty parted hoofs
Of nimble goats, sigh at the innocent bruise,
And with a mingled difference exquisite
Pour a sweet burden on the buoyant air.
Pause now and be all ear. Far from the south,
Seeking the listening silence of the heights,
Comes a slow-dying sound, — the Moslems' call
To prayer in afternoon. Bright in the sun
Like tall white sails on a green shadowy sea
Stand Moorish watch-towers: 'neath that eastern sky
Couches unseen the strength of Moorish Baza:
Where the meridian bends lies Guadix, hold
Of brave El Zagal. This is Moorish land,
Where Allah lives unconquered in dark breasts
And blesses still the many-nourishing earth
With dark-armed industry. See from the steep
The scattered olives hurry in gray throngs
Down towards the valley, where the little stream
Parts a green hollow 'twixt the gentler slopes;
And in that hollow, dwellings: not white homes
Of building Moors, but little swarthy tents
Such as of old perhaps on Asian plains,
Or wending westward past the Caucasus,
Our fathers raised to rest in. Close they swarm
About two taller tents, and viewed afar
Might seem a dark-robed crowd in penitence
That silent kneel; but come now in their midst
And watch a busy, bright-eyed, sportive life!
Tall maidens bend to feed the tethered goat,
The ragged kirtle fringing at the knee
Above the living curves, the shoulder's smoothness
Parting the torrent strong of ebon hair.
Women with babes, the wild and neutral glance
Swayed now to sweet desire of mothers' eyes,
Rock their strong cradling arms and chant low strains
Taught by monotonous and soothing winds
That fall at night-time on the dozing ear.
The crones plait reeds, or shred the vivid herbs
Into the caldron: tiny urchins crawl
Or sit and gurgle forth their infant joy.
Lads lying sphinx-like with uplifted breast
Propped on their elbows, their black manes tossed back,
Fling up the coin and watch its fatal fall,
Dispute and scramble, run and wrestle fierce,
Then fall to play and fellowship again;
Or in a thieving swarm they run to plague
The grandsires, who return with rabbits slung,
And with the mules fruit-laden from the fields.
Some striplings choose the smooth stones from the brook
To serve the slingers, cut the twigs for snares,
Or trim the hazel-wands, or at the bark
Of some exploring dog they dart away
With swift precision towards a moving speck.
These are the brood of Zarca's Gypsy tribe;
Most like an earth-born race bred by the Sun
On some rich tropic soil, the father's light
Flashing in coal black eyes, the mother's blood
With bounteous elements feeding their young limbs
The stalwart men and youths are at the wars
Following their chief, all save a trusty band
Who keep strict watch along the northern heights.

But see, upon a pleasant spot removed
From the camp's hubbub, where the thicket strong
Of huge-eared cactus makes a bordering curve
And casts a shadow, lies a sleeping man
With Spanish hat screening his upturned face,
His doublet loose, his right arm backward flung,
His left caressing close the long-necked lute
That seems to sleep too, learning tow'rds its lord.
He draws deep breath secure but not unwatched.
Moving a-tiptoe, silent as the elves,
As mischievous too, trip three barefooted girls
Not opened yet to womanhood, — dark flowers
In slim long buds: some paces farther off
Gathers a little white-teethed shaggy group,
A grinning chorus to the merry play.
The tripping girls have robbed the sleeping man
Of all his ornaments. Hita is decked
With an embroidered scarf across her rags;
Tralla, with thorns for pins, sticks two rosettes
Upon her threadbare woollen; Hinda now,
Prettiest and boldest, tucks her kirtle up
As wallet for the stolen buttons, — then
Bends with her knife to cut from off the hat
The aigrette and the feather; deftly cuts,
Yet wakes the sleeper, who with sudden start
Shakes off the masking hat and shows the face
Of Juan: Hinda swift as thought leaps back,
But carries off the feather and aigrette,
And leads the chorus of a happy laugh,
Running with all the naked-footed imps,
Till with safe survey all can face about
And watch for signs of stimulating chase,
While Hinda ties long grass around her brow
To stick the feather in with majesty.
Juan still sits contemplative, with looks
Alternate at the spoilers and their work.

JUAN.
Ah, you marauding kite, — my feather gone!
My belt, my scarf, my buttons and rosettes!
This is to be a brother of Zincali!
The fiery-blooded children of the Sun, —
So says chief Zarca, — children of the Sun!
Ay, ay, the black and stinging flies he breeds
To plague the decent body of mankind.
Orpheus, professor of the gui saber,
Made all the brutes polite, they say, by dint of song.
Pregnant, — but as a guide in daily life
Delusive. For if song and music cure
The barbarous trick of thieving, 't is a cure
That works as slowly as old Doctor Time
In curing folly. Why, the minxes there
Have rhythm in their toes, and music rings
As readily from them as from little bells
Swung by the breeze. Well, I will try the physic.

(He touches his lute.)
Hem! taken rightly, any single thing
The Rabbis say, implies all other things.
A knotty task, though, the unravelling
Meum and Tuum from a saraband:
It needs a subtle logic, nay, perhaps
A good large property, to see the thread.

(He touches the lute again.)
There's more of odd than even in this world,
Else pretty sinners would not be let off
Sooner than ugly; for if honeycombs
Are to be got by stealing, they should go
Where life is bitterest on the tongue. And yet, —
Because this minx has pretty ways I wink
At all her tricks, though if a flat-faced lass,
With eyes askew, were half as bold as she,
I should chastise her with a hazel switch.
I'm a plucked peacock, — even my voice and wit
Without a tail! — why, any fool detects
The absence of your tail, but twenty fools
May not detect the presence of your wit.

(He touches his lute again.)
Well, I must coax my tail back cunningly,
For to run after these brown lizards, — ah!
I think the lizards lift their ears at this.

(As he thrums his lute the lads and girls gradually approach: he touches
it more briskly, and HINDA, advancing, begins to move arms and legs with an
initiatory dancing movement, smiling coaxingly at JUAN. He suddenly stops,
lays down his lute and folds his arms.)
What, you expected a tune to dance to, eh?
HINDA, HITA, TRALLA, AND THE REST (clapping their hands).
Yes, yes, a tune, a tune!

JUAN.
But that is what you cannot have, my sweet brothers and sisters. The tunes
are all dead, — dead as the tunes of the lark when you have plucked his
wings off; dead as the song of the grasshopper when the ass has swallowed him. I
can play and sing no more. Hinda has killed my tunes.

(All cry out in consternation. HINDA gives a wail and tries to
examine the lute. JUAN waves her off.)
Understand, Señora Hinda, that the tunes are in me; they are not in
the lute till I put them there. And if you cross my humor, I shall be as
tuneless as a bag of wool. If the tunes are to be brought to life again, I must
have my feather back.

(HINDA kisses his hands and feet coaxingly.)
No, no! not a note will come for coaxing. The feather, I say, the feather!

(HINDA sorrowfully takes off the feather, and gives it to JUAN.)
Ah, now let us see. Perhaps a tune will come.

(He plays a measure, and the three girls begin to dance; then he suddenly
stops.)
No, the tune will not come: it wants the aigrette (pointing to it on
HINDA'S neck).

(HINDA, with rather less hesitation, but again sorrowfully, takes off
the aigrette, and gives it to him.)

Ha! (he plays again, but, after rather a longer time, again stops.) No,
no; 't is the buttons are wanting, Hinda, the buttons. This tune feeds chiefly
on buttons, — a hungry tune. It wants one, two, three, four, five, six.
Good!

(After HINDA has given up the buttons, and JUAN has laid them
down one by one, he begins to play again, going on longer than before, so that
the dancers become excited by the movement. Then he stops.)
Ah, Hita, it is the belt, and, Tralla, the rosettes, — both are
wanting. I see the tune will not go on without them.

(HITA and TRALLA take off the belt and rosettes, and lay them down
quickly, being fired by the dancing, and eager for the music. All the articles
lie by JUAN'S side on the ground.)
Good, good, my docile wild-cats! Now I think the tunes are all alive again.
Now you may dance and sing too. Hinda, my little screamer, lead off with the
song I taught you, and let us see if the tune will go right on from beginning to
end.

(He plays. The dance begins again, HINDA singing. All the other boys
and girls join in the chorus, and all at last dance wildly.)

SONG.
All things journey: sun and moon,
Morning, noon, and afternoon,
Night and all her stars:
'Twixt the east and western bars
Round they journey,
Come and go!
We go with them!
For to roam and ever roam
Is the wild Zincali's home.

Earth is good, the hillside breaks
By the ashen roots and makes
Hungry nostrils glad:
Then we run till we are mad,
Like the horses,
And we cry,
None shall catch us!
Swift winds wing us, — we are free, —
Drink the air, — Zincali we!

Falls the snow: the pine-branch split,
Call the fire out, see it flit,
Through the dry leaves run, Spread and glow, and make a
sun
In the dark tent:
O warm dark!
Warm as conies!
Strong fire loves us, we are warm!
Who shall work Zincali harm?

Onward journey: fires are spent;
Sunward, sunward! lift the tent,
Run before the rain,
Through the pass, along the plain.
Hurry, hurry,
Lift us, wind!
Like the horses.
For to roam and ever roam
Is the wild Zincali's home.

(When the dance is at its height, HINDA breaks away from the rest,
and dances round JUAN, who is now standing. As he turns a little to watch
her movement, some of the boys skip towards the feather, aigrette, &c., snatch
them up, and run away, swiftly followed by HITA, TRALLA, and the rest.
HINDA, as she turns again, sees them, screams, and falls in her whirling; but
immediately gets up, and rushes after them, still screaming with rage.)

JUAN.
Santiago! these imps get bolder. Haha! Señora Hinda, this finishes
your lesson in ethics. You have seen the advantage of giving up stolen goods.
Now you see the ugliness of thieving when practised by others. That fable of
mine about the tunes was excellently devised. I feel like an ancient sage
instructing our lisping ancestors. My memory will descend as the Orpheus of
Gypsies. But I must prepare a rod for those rascals. I'll bastinado them with
prickly pears. It seems to me these needles will have a sound moral teaching in
them.

(While JUAN takes a knife from his belt, and surveys the prickly
pear, HINDA returns.)

JUAN.
Pray, Señora, why do you fume? Did you want to steal my ornaments
again yourself?

HINDA (sobbing)
No; I thought you would give them me back again.

JUAN.
What, did you want the tunes to die again? Do you like finery better than
dancing?

HINDA.
Oh, that was a tale; I shall tell tales too, when I want to get anything I
can't steal. And I know what I will do. I shall tell the boys I've found some
little foxes, and I will never say where they are till they give me back the
feather! (She runs off again.)

JUAN.
Hem! the disciple seems to seize the mode sooner than the matter. Teaching
virtue with this prickly pear may only teach the youngsters to use a new weapon;
as your teaching orthodoxy with fagots may only bring up a fashion of roasting.
Dios! my remarks grow too pregnant, — my wits get a plethora by solitary
feeding on the produce of my own wisdom.

(As he puts up his knife again, HINDA comes running back, and crying,
"Our Queen! our Queen!" JUAN adjusts his garments and his lute, while
HINDA turns to meet FEDALMA, who wears a Moorish dress, with gold
ornaments, her black hair hanging round her in plaits, a white turban on her
head, a dagger by her side. She carries a scarf on her left arm, which she holds
up as a shade.)

FEDALMA (patting HINDA'S head).
How now, wild one? You are hot and panting. Go to my tent, and help Nouna
to plait reeds.

(HINDA kisses FEDALMA'S hand, and runs off. FEDALMA advances
towards JUAN, who kneels to take up the edge of her cymar, and kisses it.)

JUAN.
How is it with you, lady? You look sad.

FEDALMA.
Oh, I am sick at heart. The eye of day,
The insistent summer sun, seems pitiless,
Shining in all the barren crevices
Of weary life, leaving no shade, no dark,
Where I may dream that hidden waters lie;
As pitiless as to some shipwrecked man,
Who, gazing from his narrow shoal of sand
On the wide unspecked round of blue and blue,
Sees that full light is errorless despair.
The insects' hum that slurs the silent dark
Startles, and seems to cheat me, as the tread
Of coming footsteps cheats the midnight watcher
Who holds her heart and waits to hear them pause,
And hears them never pause, but pass and die.
Music sweeps by me as a messenger
Carrying a message that is not for me.
The very sameness of the hills and sky
Is obduracy, and the lingering hours
Wait round me dumbly, like superfluous slaves,
Of whom I want naught but the secret news
They are forbid to tell. And, Juan, you —
You, too, are cruel — would be over-wise
In judging your friend's needs, and choose to hide
Something I crave to know.

JUAN.
I, lady?

FEDALMA.
You.
JUAN.
I never had the virtue to hide aught,
Save what a man is whipped for publishing.
I'm no more reticent than the voluble air, —
Dote on disclosure, — never could contain
The latter half of all my sentences,
But for the need to utter the beginning.
My lust to tell is so importunate
That it abridges every other vice,
And makes me temperate for want of time.
I dull sensation in the haste to say
'T is this or that, and choke report with surmise.
Judge, then, dear lady, if I could be mute
When but a glance of yours had bid me speak.

FEDALMA.
Nay, sing such falsities! — you mock me worse
By speech that gravely seems to ask belief.
You are but babbling in a part you play
To please my father. Oh, 't is well meant, say you, —
Pity for woman's weakness. Take my thanks.

JUAN.
Thanks angrily bestowed are red-hot coin
Burning your servant's palm.

FEDALMA.
Deny it not,
You know how many leagues this camp of ours
Lies from Bedmár, — what mountains lie between, —
Could tell me if you would about the Duke, —
That he is comforted, sees how he gains
By losing the Zincala, finds how slight
The thread Fedalma made in that rich web,
A Spanish noble's life. No, that is false!
He never would think lightly of our love.
Some evil has befallen him, — he's slain, —
Has sought for danger and has beckoned death
Because I made all life seem treachery.
Tell me the worst, — be merciful, — no worst,
Against the hideous painting of my fear,
Would not show like a better.

JUAN.
If I speak,
Will you believe your slave? For truth is scant;
And where the appetite is still to hear
And not believe, falsehood would stint it less.
How say you? Does your hunger's fancy choose
The meagre fact?

FEDALMA (seating herself on the ground).
Yes, yes, the truth, dear Juan.
Sit now, and tell me all.

JUAN.
That all is naught.
I can unleash my fancy if you wish
And hunt for phantoms: shoot an airy guess
And bring down airy likelihood, — some lie
Masked cunningly to look like royal truth
And cheat the shooter, while King Fact goes free,
Or else some image of reality
That doubt will handle and reject as false.
Ask for conjecture, — I can thread the sky
Like any swallow, but, if you insist,
On knowledge that would guide a pair of feet
Right to Bedmár, across the Moorish bounds,
A mule that dreams of stumbling over stones
Is better stored.

FEDALMA.
And you have gathered naught
About the border wars? No news, no hint
Of any rumors that concern the Duke, —
Rumors kept from me by my father?

JUAN.
None.
Your father trusts no secrets to the echoes.
Of late his movements have been hid from all
Save those few hundred picked Zincali breasts
He carries with him. Think you he's a man
To let his projects slip from out his belt,
Then whisper him who haps to find them strayed
To be so kind as keep his counsel well?
Why, if he found me knowing aught too much,
He would straight gag or strangle me, and say,
"Poor hound! it was a pity that his bark
Could chance to mar my plans: he loved my daughter, —
The idle hound had naught to do but love,
So followed to the battle and got crushed."

FEDALMA (holding out her hand, which JUAN kisses).
Good Juan, I could have no nobler friend.
You'd ope your veins and let your life-blood out
To save another's pain, yet hide the deed
With jesting, — say, 't was merest accident,
A sportive scratch that went by chance too deep, —
And die content with men's slight thought of you,
Finding your glory in another's joy.

JUAN.
Dub not my likings virtues, lest they get
A drug-like taste, and breed a nausea.
Honey's not sweet, commended as cathartic.
Such names are parchment labels upon gems
Hiding their color. What is lovely seen
Priced in a tariff? — lapis lazuli,
Such bulk, so many drachmas: amethysts
Quoted at so much; sapphires higher still.
The stone like solid heaven in its blueness
Is what I care for, not its name or price.
So, if I live or die to serve my friend,
'T is for my love, — 't is for my friend alone,
And not for any rate that friendship bears
In heaven or on earth. Nay, I romance, —
I talk of Roland and the ancient peers.
In me 't is hardly friendship, only lack
Of a substantial self that holds a weight;
So I kiss larger things and roll with them.

FEDALMA.
Nay, you will never hide your soul from me;
I've seen the jewel's flash, and know 't is there,
Muffle it as you will. That foam-like talk
Will not wash out a fear which blots the good
Your presence brings me. Oft I'm pierced afresh
Through all the pressure of my selfish griefs
By thought of you. It was a rash resolve
Made you disclose yourself when you kept watch
About the terrace wall: — your pity leaped
Seeing my ills alone and not your loss,
Self-doomed to exile. Juan, you must repent.
'T is not in nature that resolve, which feeds
On strenuous actions, should not pine and die
In these long days of empty listlessness.

JUAN.
Repent? Not I. Repentance is the weight
Of indigested meals eat yesterday.
'T is for large animals that gorge on prey,
Not for a honey-sipping butterfly.
I am a thing of rhythm and redondillas, —
The momentary rainbow on the spray
Made by the thundering torrent of men's lives:
No matter whether I am here or there;
I still catch sunbeams. And in Africa,
Where melons and all fruits, they say, grow large,
Fables are real, and the apes polite,
A poet, too, may prosper past belief:
I shall grow epic, like the Florentine,
And sing the founding of our infant state,
Sing the Zincalo's Carthage.

FEDALMA.
Africa!
Would we were there! Under another heaven,
In lands where neither love nor memory
Can plant a selfish hope, — in lands so far
I should not seem to see the outstretched arms
That seek me, or to hear the voice that calls.
I should feel distance only and despair;
So rest forever from the thought of bliss,
And wear my weight of life's great chain unstruggling.
Juan, if I could know he would forget, —
Nay, not forget, forgive me, — be content
That I forsook him for no joy, but sorrow;
For sorrow chosen rather than a joy
That destiny made base! Then he would taste
No bitterness in sweet, sad memory,
And I should live unblemished in his thought,
Hallowed like her who dies an unwed bride.
Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.
Could mine but reach him, Juan!

JUAN.
Speak but the wish, —
My feet have wings, — I'll be your Mercury.
I fear no shadowed perils by the way.
No man will wear the sharpness of his sword
On me. Nay, I'm a herald of the Muse,
Sacred for Moors and Spaniards. I will go, —
Will fetch you tidings for an amulet.
But stretch not hope too strongly towards that mark
As issue of my wandering. Given, I cross
Safely the Moorish border, reach Bedmár:
Fresh counsels may prevail there, and the Duke
Being absent in the field, I may be trapped.
Men who are sour at missing larger game
May wing a chattering sparrow for revenge.
It is a chance no further worth the note
Than as a warning, lest you feared worse ill
If my return were stayed. I might be caged;
They would not harm me else. Untimely death,
The red auxiliary of the skeleton,
Has too much work on hand to think of me;
Or, if he cares to slay me, I shall fall
Choked with a grape-stone for economy.
The likelier chance is that I go and come,
Bringing you comfort back.

FEDALMA (starts from her seat and walks to a little distance, standing a
few moments with her back towards JUAN, then she turns round quickly, and
goes towards him).
No, Juan, no!
Those yearning words come from a soul infirm,
Crying and struggling at the pain of bonds
Which yet it would not loosen. He knows all, —
All that he needs to know: I said farewell:
I stepped across the cracking earth and knew
'T would yawn behind me. I must walk right on.
No, Juan, I will win naught by risking you:
The possible loss would poison hope. Besides,
'T were treachery in me: my father wills
That we — all here — should rest within this camp.
If I can never live, like him, on faith
In glorious morrows, I am resolute.
While he treads painfully with stillest step
And beady brow, pressed 'neath the weight of arms,
Shall I, to ease my fevered restlessness,
Raise peevish moans, shattering that fragile silence?
No! On the close-thronged spaces of the earth
A battle rages: Fate has carried me
'Mid the thick arrows: I will keep my stand, —
Not shrink and let the shaft pass by my breast
To pierce another. Oh, 't is written large
The thing I have to do. But you, dear Juan,
Renounce, endure, are brave, unurged by aught
Save the sweet overflow of your good will.
(She seats herself again.)

JUAN.
Nay, I endure naught worse than napping sheep,
When nimble birds uproot a fleecy lock
To line their nest with. See! your bondsman, Queen,
The minstrel of your court, is featherless;
Deforms your presence by a moulting garb;
Shows like a roadside bush culled of its buds.
Yet, if your graciousness will not disdain
A poor plucked songster, — shall he sing to you?
Some lay of afternoons, — some ballad strain
Of those who ached once but are sleeping now
Under the sun-warmed flowers? 'T will cheat the time.

FEDALMA.
Thanks, Juan, later, when this hour is passed.
My soul is clogged with self; it could not float
On with the pleasing sadness of your song.
Leave me in this green spot, but come again, —
Come with the lengthening shadows.

JUAN.
Then your slave
Will go to chase the robbers. Queen, farewell!

FEDALMA.
Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness!

[While Juan sped along the stream, there came
From the dark tents a ringing joyous shout
That thrilled Fedalma with a summons grave
Yet welcome too. Straightway she rose and stood,
All languor banished, with a soul suspense,
Like one who waits high presence, listening.
Was it a message, or her father's self
That made the camp so glad?
It was himself!
She saw him now advancing, girt with arms
That seemed like idle trophies hung for show
Beside the weight and fire of living strength
That made his frame. He glanced with absent triumph,
As one who conquers in some field afar
And bears off unseen spoil. But nearing her,
His terrible eyes intense sent forth new rays, —
A sudden sunshine where the lightning was
'Twixt meeting dark. All tenderly he laid
His hand upon her shoulder; tenderly,
His kiss upon her brow.]

ZARCA.
My royal daughter!

FEDALMA.
Father, I joy to see your safe return.

ZARCA.
Nay, I but stole the time, as hungry men
Steal from the morrow's meal, made a forced march,
Left Hassan as my watch-dog, all to see
My daughter, and to feed her famished hope
With news of promise.

FEDALMA.
Is the task achieved
That was to be the herald of our flight?

ZARCA.
Not outwardly, but to my inward vision
Things are achieved when they are well begun.
The perfect archer calls the deer his own
While yet the shaft is whistling. His keen eye
Never sees failure, sees the mark alone.
You have heard naught, then, — had no messenger?

FEDALMA.
I, father? no: each quiet day has fled
Like the same moth, returning with slow wing,
And pausing in the sunshine.

ZARCA.
It is well.
You shall not long count days in weariness.
Ere the full moon has waned again to new,
We shall reach Almería: Berber ships
Will take us for their freight, and we shall go
With plenteous spoil, not stolen, bravely won
By service done on Spaniards. Do you shrink?
Are you aught less than a Zincala?

FEDALMA.
No;
But I am more. The Spaniards fostered me.

ZARCA.
They stole you first, and reared you for the flames.
I found you, rescued you, that you might live
A true Zincala's life; else you were doomed.
Your bridal bed had been the rack.

FEDALMA (in a low tone).
They meant —
To seize me? — ere he came?

ZARCA.
Yes, I know all.
They found your chamber empty.

FEDALMA (eagerly).
Then you know, —

(Checking herself.)
Father, my soul would be less laggard, fed
With fuller trust.

ZARCA.
My daughter, I must keep
The Arab's secret. Arabs are our friends,
Grappling for life with Christians who lay waste
Granada's valleys, and with devilish hoofs
Trample the young green corn, with devilish play
Fell blossomed trees, and tear up well-pruned vines:
Cruel as tigers to the vanquished brave,
They wring out gold by oaths they mean to break;
Take pay for pity and are pitiless;
Then tinkle bells above the desolate earth,
And praise their monstrous gods, supposed to love
The flattery of liars. I will strike
The full-gorged dragon. You, my child, must watch
The battle with a heart, not fluttering
But duteous, firm-weighted by resolve,
Choosing between two lives, like her who holds
A dagger which must pierce one of two breasts,
And one of them her father's. Nay, you divine, —
I speak not closely, but in parables;
Put one for many.

FEDALMA (collecting herself, and looking firmly at ZARCA).
Then it is your will
That I ask nothing?

ZARCA.
You shall know enough
To trace the sequence of the seed and flower.
El Zagal trusts me, rates my counsel high:
He, knowing I have won a grant of lands
Within the Berber's realm, wills me to be
The tongue of his good cause in Africa,
So gives us furtherance in our pilgrimage
For service hoped, as well as service done
In that great feat of which I am the eye,
And my three hundred Gypsies the best arm.
More, I am charged by other noble Moors
With messages of weight to Telemsán.
Ha, your eye flashes. Are you glad?

FEDALMA.
Yes, glad
That men are forced to honor a Zincalo.

ZARCA.
Oh fighting for dear life men choose their swords
For cutting only, not for ornament.
What naught but Nature gives, man takes perforce
Where she bestows it, though in vilest place.
Can he compress invention out of pride,
Make heirship do the work of muscle, sail
Towards great discoveries with a pedigree?
Sick men ask cures, and Nature serves not hers
Daintily as a feast. A blacksmith once
Founded a dynasty and raised on high
The leathern apron over armies spread
Between the mountains like a lake of steel.

FEDALMA (bitterly).
To be contemned, then, is fair augury.
That pledge of future good at least is ours.

ZARCA.
Let men contemn us: 't is such blind contempt
That leaves the wingéd broods to thrive in warmth
Unheeded, till they fill the air like storms.
So we shall thrive, — still darkly shall draw force
Into a new and multitudinous life
That likeness fashions to community,
Mother divine of customs, faith, and laws.
'T is ripeness, 't is fame's zenith that kills hope.
Huge oaks are dying, forests yet to come
Lie in the twigs and rotten-seeming seeds.

FEDALMA.
And our Zincali? Under their poor husk
Do you discern such seed? You said our band
Was the best arm of some hard enterprise;
They give out sparks of virtue, then, and show
There's metal in their earth?

ZARCA.
Ay, metal fine
In my brave Gypsies. Not the lithest Moor
Has lither limbs for scaling, keener eye
To mark the meaning of the farthest speck
That tells of change; and they are disciplined
By faith in me, to such obedience
As needs no spy. My scalers and my scouts
Are to the Moorish force they're leagued withal
As bow-string to the bow; while I their chief
Command the enterprise and guide the will
Of Moorish captains, as the pilot guides
With eye-instructed hand the passive helm.
For high device is still the highest force,
And he who holds the secret of the wheel
May make the rivers do what work he would.
With thoughts impalpable we clutch men's souls,
Weaken the joints of armies, make them fly
Like dust and leaves before the viewless wind.
Tell me what's mirrored in the tiger's heart,
I'll rule that too.

FEDALMA (wrought to a glow of admiration).
O my imperial father!
'T is where there breathes a mighty soul like yours
That men's contempt is of good augury.

ZARCA (seizing both FEDALMA'S hands, and looking at her
searchingly).
And you, my daughter, are you not the child
Of the Zincalo? Does not his great hope
Thrill in your veins like shouts of victory?
'T is a vile life that like a garden pool
Lies stagnant in the round of personal loves;
That has no ear save for the tickling lute
Set to small measures, — deaf to all the beats
Of that large music rolling o'er the world:
A miserable, petty, low-roofed life,
That knows the mighty orbits of the skies
Through naught save light or dark in its own cabin.
The very brutes will feel the force of kind
And move together, gathering a new soul, —
The soul of multitudes. Say now, my child,
You will not falter, not look back and long
For unfledged ease in some soft alien nest.
The crane with outspread wing that heads the file
Pauses not, feels no backward impulses:
Behind it summer was, and is no more;
Before it lies the summer it will reach
Or fall in the mid-ocean. And you no less
Must feel the force sublime of growing life.
New thoughts are urgent as the growth of wings;
The widening vision is imperious
As higher members bursting the worm's sheath.
You cannot grovel in the worm's delights:
You must take wingéd pleasures, wingéd pains.
Are you not steadfast? Will you live or die
For aught below your royal heritage?
To him who holds the flickering brief torch
That lights a beacon for the perishing,
Aught else is crime. Are you a false Zincala?

FEDALMA.
Father, my soul is weak, the mist of tears
Still rises to my eyes, and hides the goal
Which to your undimmed sight is clear and changeless.
But if I cannot plant resolve on hope
It will stand firm on certainty of woe.
I choose the ill that is most like to end
With my poor being. Hopes have precarious life.
They are oft blighted, withered, snapped sheer off
In vigorous growth and turned to rottenness.
But faithfulness can feed on suffering,
And knows no disappointment. Trust in me!
If it were needed, this poor trembling hand
Should grasp the torch, — strive not to let it fall
Though it were burning down close to my flesh,
No beacon lighted yet: through the damp dark
I should still hear the cry of gasping swimmers.
Father, I will be true!

ZARCA.
I trust that word.
And, for your sadness, — you are young, — the bruise
Will leave no mark. The worst of misery
Is when a nature framed for noblest things
Condemns itself in youth to petty joys,
And, sore athirst for air, breathes scanty life
Gasping from out the shallows. You are saved
From such poor doubleness. The life we choose
Breathes high, and sees a full-arched firmament.
Our deeds shall speak like rock-hewn messages,
Teaching great purpose to the distant time.
Now I must hasten back. I shall but speak
To Nadar of the order he must keep
In setting watch and victualling. The stars
And the young moon must see me at my post.
Nay, rest you here. Farewell, my younger self, —
Strong-hearted daughter! Shall I live in you
When the earth covers me?

FEDALMA.
My father, death
Should give your will divineness, make it strong
With the beseechings of a mighty soul
That left its work unfinished. Kiss me now:

(They embrace, and she adds tremulously as they part,)
And when you see fair hair be pitiful. (Exit ZARCA.)

(FEDALMA seats herself on the bank, leans her head forward, and covers
her face with her drapery. While she is seated thus, HINDA comes from the
bank, with a branch of musk roses in her hand. Seeing FEDALMA with head bent
and covered, she pauses, and begins to move on tiptoe.)

HINDA.
Our Queen! Can she be crying? There she sits
As I did every day when my dog Saad
Sickened and yelled, and seemed to yell so loud
After we'd buried him, I oped his grave.

(She comes forward on tiptoe, kneels at FEDALMA'S feet, and embraces
them. FEDALMA uncovers her head.)

FEDALMA.
Hinda! what is it?

HINDA.
Queen, a branch of roses, —
So sweet, you'll love to smell them. 'T was the last.
I climbed the bank to get it before Tralla,
And slipped and scratched my arm. But I don't mind.
You love the roses, — so do I. I wish
The sky would rain down roses, as they rain
From off the shaken bush. Why will it not?
Then all the valley would be pink and white
And soft to tread on. They would fall as light
As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be
Like sleeping and yet waking, all at once!
Over the sea, Queen, where we soon shall go,
Will it rain roses?

FEDALMA.
No, my prattler, no!
It never will rain roses: when we want
To have more roses we must plant more trees.
But you want nothing, little one, — the world
Just suits you as it suits the tawny squirrels.
Come, you want nothing.

HINDA.
Yes, I want more berries, —
Red ones, — to wind about my neck and arms
When I am married, — on my ankles too
I want to wind red berries, and on my head.

FEDALMA.
Who is it you are fond of? Tell me, now.

HINDA.
O Queen, you know! It could be no one else
But Ismaël. He catches birds, — no end!
Knows where the speckled fish are, scales the rocks,
And sings and dances with me when I like.
How should I marry and not marry him?

FEDALMA.
Should you have loved him, had he been a Moor,
Or white Castilian?

HINDA (starting to her feet, then kneeling again).
Are you angry, Queen?
Say why you will think shame of your poor Hinda?
She'd sooner be a rat and hang on thorns
To parch until the wind had scattered her,
Than be an outcast, spit at by her tribe.

FEDALMA.
Hinda, I know you are a good Zincala.
But would you part from Ismaël? leave him now
If your chief bade you, — said it was for good
To all your tribe that you must part from him?

HINDA (giving a sharp cry).
Ah, will he say so?

FEDALMA (almost fierce in her earnestness).
Nay, child, answer me.
Could you leave Ismaël? get into a boat
And see the waters widen 'twixt you two
Till all was water and you saw him not,
And knew that you would never see him more?
If 't was your chief's command, and if he said
Your tribe would all be slaughtered, die of plague,
Of famine, — madly drink each other's blood . . . .

HINDA (trembling).
O Queen, if it is so, tell Ismaël.

FEDALMA.
You would obey, then? part from him forever?
HINDA.
How could we live else? With our brethren lost? —
No marriage feast? The day would turn to dark.
Zincali cannot live without their tribe.
I must obey! Poor Ismaël — poor Hinda!
But will it ever be so could and dark?
Oh, I would sit upon the rocks and cry,
And cry so long that I could cry no more:
Then I should go to sleep.

FEDALMA.
No, Hinda, no!
Thou never shalt be called to part from him.
I will have berries for thee, red and black,
And I will be so glad to see thee glad,
That earth will seem to hold enough of joy
To outweigh all the pangs of those who part.
Be comforted, bright eyes. See, I will tie
These roses in a crown, for thee to wear.

HINDA (clapping her hands, while FEDALMA puts the roses on her head).
Oh, I'm as glad as many little foxes, —
I will find Ismaël, and tell him all. (She runs off.)

FEDALMA (alone).
She has the strength I lack. Within her world
The dial has not stirred since first she woke:
No changing light has made the shadows die,
And taught her trusting soul sad difference.
For her, good, right, and law are all summed up
In what is possible; life is one web
Where love, joy, kindred, and obedience
Lie fast and even, in one warp and woof
With thirst and drinking, hunger, food, and sleep.
She knows no struggles, sees no double path:
Her fate is freedom, for her will is one
With the Zincalo's law, the only law
She ever knew. For me — oh, I have fire within,
But on my will there falls the chilling snow
Of thoughts that come as subtly as soft flakes,
Yet press at last with hard and icy weight.
I could be firm, could give myself the wrench
And walk erect, hiding my life-long wound,
If I but saw the fruit of all my pain
With that strong vision which commands the soul,
And makes great awe the monarch of desire.
But now I totter, seeing no far goal:
I tread the rocky pass, and pause and grasp,
Guided by flashes. When my father comes,
And breathes into my soul his generous hope, —
By his own greatness making life seem great,
As the clear heavens bring sublimity,
And show earth larger, spanned by that blue vast, —
Resolve is strong: I can embrace my sorrow,
Nor nicely weigh the fruit; possessed with need
Solely to do the noblest, though it failed, —
Though lava streamed upon my breathing deed
And buried it in night and barrenness.
But soon the glow dies out, the warrior's music
That vibrated as strength through all my limbs
Is heard no longer; over the wide scene
There's naught but chill gray silence, or the hum
And fitful discord of a vulgar world.
Then I sink helpless, — sink into the arms
Of all sweet memories, and dream of bliss:
See looks that penetrate like tones; hear tones
That flash looks with them. Even now I feel
Soft airs enwrap me, as if yearning rays
Of some far presence touched me with their warmth
And brought a tender murmuring. . . . .

[While she mused
A figure came from out the olive-trees
That bent close-whispering 'twixt the parted hills
Beyond the crescent of thick cactus: paused
At sight of her; then slowly forward moved
With careful step, and gently said, "FEDALMA!"
Fearing lest fancy had enslaved her sense,
She quivered, rose, but turned not. Soon again:
"FEDALMA, it is SILVA!" Then she turned.
He, with bared head and arms entreating, beamed
Like morning on her. Vision held her still
One moment, then with gliding motion swift,
Inevitable as the melting stream's,
She found her rest within his circling arms.]

FEDALMA.
O love, you are living, and believe in me!

DON SILVA.
Once more we are together. Wishing dies, —
Stifled with bliss.

FEDALMA.
You did not hate me, then, —
Think me an ingrate, — think my love was small
That I forsook you?

DON SILVA.
Dear, I trusted you
As holy men trust God. You could do naught
That was not pure and loving, — though the deed
Might pierce me unto death. You had less trust,
Since you suspected mine. 'T was wicked doubt.

FEDALMA.
Nay, when I saw you hating me the fault
Seemed in my lot, — the poor Zincala's, — her
On whom you lavished all your wealth of love
As price of naught but sorrow. Then I said,
"'T is better so. He will be happier!"
But soon that thought, struggling to be a hope,
Would end in tears.

DON SILVA.
It was a cruel thought.
Happier! True misery is not begun
Until I cease to love thee.

FEDALMA.
Silva!

DON SILVA.
Mine!

(They stand a moment or two in silence.)

FEDALMA.
I thought I had so much to tell you, love, —
Long eloquent stories, — how it all befell, —
The solemn message, calling me away
To awful spousals, where my own dead joy,
A conscious ghost, looked on and saw me wed.

DON SILVA.
Oh that grave speech would cumber our quick souls
Like bells that waste the moments with their loudness.

FEDALMA.
And if it all were said, 't would end in this,
That I still loved you when I fled away.
'T is no more wisdom than the little birds
Make known by their soft twitter when they feel
Each other's heart beat.

DON SILVA.
All the deepest things
We now say with our eyes and meeting pulse:
Our voices need but prattle.

FEDALMA.
I forget
All the drear days of thirst in this one draught.

(Again they are silent for a few moments.)
But tell me how you came? Where are your guards?
Is there no risk? And now I look at you,
This garb is strange . . . .

DON SILVA.
I came alone.

FEDALMA.
Alone?

DON SILVA.
Yes, — fled in secret. There was no way else
To find you safely.

FEDALMA (letting one hand fall and moving a little from him with a look of
sudden terror, while he clasps her more firmly by the other arm). Silva!

DON SILVA.
It is naught.
Enough that I am here. Now we will cling.
What power shall hinder us? You left me once
To set your father free. That task is done,
And you are mine again. I have braved all
That I might find you, see your father, win
His furtherance in bearing you away
To some safe refuge. Are we not betrothed?

FEDALMA.
Oh I am trembling 'neath the rush of thoughts
That come like griefs at morning, — look at me
With awful faces, from the vanishing haze
That momently had hidden them.

DON SILVA.
What thoughts?

FEDALMA.
Forgotten burials. There lies a grave
Between this visionary present and the past.
Our joy is dead, and only smiles on us
A loving shade from out the place of tombs.

DON SILVA.
Fedalma, your love faints, else aught that parts us
Would seem but superstition. Love supreme
Defies all sophistry, — risks avenging fires.
I have risked all things. But your love is faint.

FEDALMA (retreating a little, but keeping his hand).
Silva, if now between us came a sword,
Severed my arm, and left our two hands clasped,
This poor maimed arm would feel the clasp till death.
What parts us is a sword . . . .

(ZARCA has been advancing in the background. He has drawn his sword, and
now thrusts the naked blade between them. SILVA lets go FEDALMA'S hand,
and grasps his sword. FEDALMA, startled at first, stands firmly, as if
prepared to interpose between her father and the Duke.)

ZARCA.
Ay, 't is a sword
That parts the Spanish noble and the true Zincala:
A sword that was baptized in Christian blood,
When once a band, cloaking with Spanish law
Their brutal rapine, would have butchered us,
And then outraged our women.

(Resting the point of his sword on the ground.)
My lord Duke,
I was a guest within your fortress once
Against my will; had entertainment too, —
Much like a galley slave's. Pray, have you sought
The poor Zincalo's camp, to find return
For that Castilian courtesy? or rather
To make amends for all our prisoned toil
By this great honor of your unasked presence?

DON SILVA.
Chief, I have brought no scorn to meet your scorn.
I came because love urged me, — that deep loveI bear to her whom you call
daughter, — her
Whom I reclaim as my betrothéd bride.

ZARCA.
Doubtless you bring for final argument
Your men-at-arms who will escort your bride?

DON SILVA.
I came alone. The only force I bring
Is tenderness. Nay, I will trust besides
In all the pleadings of a father's care
To wed his daughter as her nurture bids.
And for your tribe, — whatever purposed good
Your thoughts may cherish, I will make secure
With the strong surety of a noble's power:
My wealth shall be your treasury.

ZARCA (with irony).
My thanks!
To me you offer liberal price; for her
Your love's beseeching will be force supreme.
She will go with you as a willing slave,
Will give a word of parting to her father,
Wave farewells to her tribe, then turn and say:
"Now, my lord, I am nothing but your bride;
I am quite culled, have neither root nor trunk,
Now wear me with your plume!"

DON SILVA.
Yours is the wrong
Feigning in me one thought of her below
The highest homage. I would make my rank
The pedestal of her worth; a noble's sword,
A noble's honor, her defence; his love
The life-long sanctuary of her womanhood.

ZARCA.
I tell you, were you King of Aragon,
And won my daughter's hand, your higher rank
Would blacken her dishonor. 'T were excuse
If you were beggared, homeless, spit upon,
And so made even with her people's lot;
For then she would be lured by want, not wealth,
To be a wife amongst an alien race
To whom her tribe owes curses.

DON SILVA.
Such blind hate
Is fit for beasts of prey, but not for men.
My hostile acts against you should but count
As ignorant strokes against a friend unknown;
And for the wrongs inflicted on your tribe
By Spanish edicts or the cruelty
Of Spanish vassals, am I criminal?
Love comes to cancel all ancestral hate,
Subdues all heritage, proves that in mankind
Union is deeper than division.

ZARCA.
Ay,
Such love is common: I have seen it oft, —
Seen many women rend the sacred ties
That bind them in high fellowship with men,
Making them mothers of a people's virtue;
Seen them so levelled to a handsome steed
That yesterday was Moorish property,
To-day is Christian, — wears new-fashioned gear,
Neighs to new feeders, and will prance alike
Under all banners, so the banner be
A master's who caresses. Such light change
You call conversion; we Zincali call
Conversion infamy. Our people's faith
Is faithfulness; not the rote-learned belief
That we are heaven's highest favorites,
But the resolve that, being most forsaken
Among the sons of men, we will be true
Each to the other, and our common lot.
You Christians burn men for their heresy:
Our vilest heretic is that Zincala
Who, choosing ease, forsakes her people's woes.
The dowry of my daughter is to be
Chief woman of her tribe, and rescue it.
A bride with such a dowry has no match
Among the subjects of that Catholic Queen
Who would have Gypsies swept into the sea
Or else would have them gibbeted.

DON SILVA.
And you,
Fedalma's father, — you who claim the dues
Of fatherhood, — will offer up her youth
To mere grim idols of your fantasy!
Worse than all Pagans, with no oracle
To bid you murder, no sure good to win,
Will sacrifice your daughter, — to no god,
But to a hungry fire within your soul,
Mad hopes, blind hate, that like possessing fiends
Shriek at a name! This sweetest virgin, reared
As garden flowers, to give the sordid world
Glimpses of perfectness, you snatch and thrust
On dreary wilds; in visions mad, proclaim
Semiramis of Gypsy wanderers;
Doom; with a broken arrow in her heart,
To wait for death 'mid squalid savages:
For what? You would be savior of your tribe;
So said Fedalma's letter; rather say,
You have the will to save by ruling men,
But first to rule; and with that flinty will
You cut your way, though the first cut you give
Gash your child's bosom.

(While SILVA has been speaking, with growing passion, FEDALMA has
placed herself between him and her father.)

ZARCA (with calm irony).
You are loud, my lord!
You only are the reasonable man;
You have a heart, I none. Fedalma's good
Is what you see, you care for; while I seek
No good, not even my own, urged on by naught
But hellish hunger, which must still be fed
Though in the feeding it I suffer throes.
Fume at your own opinion as you will:
I speak not now to you, but to my daughter.
If she still calls it good to mate with you,
To be a Spanish duchess, kneel at court,
And hope her beauty is excuse to men
When women whisper, "She was a Zincala;"
If she still calls it good to take a lot
That measures joy for her as she forgets
Her kindred and her kindred's misery,
Nor feels the softness of her downy couch
Marred by remembrance that she once forsook
The place that she was born to, — let her go!
If life for her still lies in alien love,
That forces her to shut her soul from truth
As men in shameful pleasures shut out day;
And death, for her, is to do rarest deeds,
Which, even failing, leave new faith to men,
The faith in human hearts, — then, let her go!
She is my only offspring; in her veins
She bears the blood her tribe has trusted in;
Her heritage is their obedience,
And if I died, she might still lead them forth
To plant the race her lover now reviles
Where they may make a nation, and may rise
To grander manhood than his race can show;
Then live a goddess, sanctifying oaths,
Enforcing right, and ruling consciences,
By law deep-graven in exalting deeds,
Through the long ages of her people's life.
If she can leave that lot for silken shame,
For kisses honeyed by oblivion, —
The bliss of drunkards or the blank of fools, —
Then let her go! You Spanish Catholics,
When you are cruel, base, and treacherous,
For ends not pious, tender gifts to God,
And for men's wounds offer much oil to churches:
We have no altars for such healing gifts
As soothe the heavens for outrage done on earth.
We have no priesthood and no creed to teach
That the Zincala who might save her race
And yet abandons it, may cleanse that blot,
And mend the curse her life has been to men,
By saving her own soul. Her one base choice
Is wrong unchangeable, is poison shed
Where men must drink, shed by her poisoning will
Now choose, Fedalma!

[But her choice was made.
Slowly, while yet her father spoke, she moved
From where oblique with deprecating arms
She stood between the two who swayed her heart:
Slowly she moved to choose sublimer pain;
Yearning, yet shrinking; wrought upon by awe,
Her own brief life seeming a little isle
Remote through visions of a wider world
With fates close-crowded; firm to slay her joy
That cut her heart with smiles beneath the knife,
Like a sweet babe foredoomed by prophecy.
She stood apart, yet near her father: stood
Hand clutching hand, her limbs all tense with will
That strove against her anguish, eyes that seemed a soul
Yearning in death towards him she loved and left.
He faced her, pale with passion and a will
Fierce to resist whatever might seem strong
And ask him to submit: he saw one end, —
He must be conqueror; monarch of his lot
And not its tributary. But she spoke
Tenderly, pleadingly.]

FEDALMA.
My lord, farewell!
'T was well we met once more; now we must part.
I think we had the chief of all love's joys
Only in knowing that we loved each other.

DON SILVA.
I thought we loved with love that clings till death,
Clings as brute mothers bleeding to their young,
Still sheltering, clutching it, though it were dead;
Taking the death-wound sooner than divide.
I thought we loved so.

FEDALMA.
Silva, it is fate.
Great Fate has made me heiress of this woe.
You must forgive Fedalma all her debt:
She is quite beggared: if she gave herself,
'T would be a self corrupt with stifled thoughts
Of a forsaken better. It is truth
My father speaks: the Spanish noble's wife
Would be a false Zincala. I will bear
The heavy trust of my inheritance.
See, 't was my people's life that throbbed in me;
An unknown need stirred darkly in my soul,
And made me restless even in my bliss.Oh, all my bliss was in our love; but now
I may not taste it: some deep energy
Compels me to choose hunger. Dear, farewell!
I must go with my people.

[She stretched forth
Her tender hands, that oft had lain in his,
The hands he knew so well, that sight of them
Seemed like their touch. But he stood still as death;
Locked motionless by forces opposite:
His frustrate hopes still battled with despair;
His will was prisoner to the double grasp
Of rage and hesitancy. All the travelled way
Behind him, he had trodden confident,
Ruling munificently in his thought
This Gypsy father. Now the father stood
Present and silent and unchangeable
As a celestial portent. Backward lay
The traversed road, the town's forsaken wall,The risk, the daring; all around
him now
Was obstacle, save where the rising flood
Of love close pressed by anguish of denial
Was sweeping him resistless; save where she
Gazing stretched forth her tender hands, that hurt
Like parting kisses. Then at last he spoke.]

DON SILVA.
No, I can never take those hands in mine,
Then let them go forever!

FEDALMA.
It must be.
We may not make this world a paradise
By walking it together hand in hand,
With eyes that meeting feed a double strength.
We must be only joined by pains divine
Of spirits blent in mutual memories.
Silva, our joy is dead.

DON SILVA.
But love still lives,
And has a safer guard in wretchedness.
Fedalma, women know no perfect love:
Loving the strong, they can forsake the strong;
Man clings because the being whom he loves
Is weak and needs him. I can never turn
And leave you to your difficult wandering;
Know that you tread the desert, bear the storm,
Shed tears, see terrors, faint with weariness,
Yet live away from you. I should feel naught
But your imagined pains: in my own steps
See your feet bleeding, taste your silent tears.
And feel no presence but your loneliness.
No, I will never leave you!

ZARCA.
My lord Duke,
I have been patient, given room for speech,
Bent not to move my daughter by command,
Save that of her own faithfulness. But now.
All further words are idle elegies
Unfitting times of action. You are here
With the safe conduct of that trust you showed
Coming alone to the Zincalo's camp.
I would fain meet all trust with courtesy
As well as honor; but my utmost power
Is to afford you Gypsy guard to-night
Within the tents that keep the northward lines,
And for the morrow, escort on your way
Back to the Moorish bounds.

DON SILVA.
What if my words
Were meant for deeds, decisive as a leap
Into the current? It is not my wont
To utter hollow words, and speak resolves
Like verses banded in a madrigal.
I spoke in action first: I faced all risks
To find Fedalma. Action speaks again
When I, a Spanish noble, here declare
That I abide with her, adopt her lot,
Claiming alone fulfilment of her vows
As my betrothéd wife.

FEDALMA (wresting herself from him, and standing opposite with a look of
terror).
Nay, Silva, nay!
You could not live so; spring from your high place . . . .

DON SILVA.
Yes, I have said it. And you, chief, are bound
By her strict vows, no stronger fealty
Being left to cancel them.

ZARCA.
Strong words, my lord!
Sounds fatal as the hammer-strokes that shape
The glowing metal: they must shape your life.
That you will claim my daughter is to say
That you will leave your Spanish dignities,
Your home, your wealth, your people, to become
A true Zincalo; share your wanderings,
And be a match meet for my daughter's dower
By living for her tribe; take the deep oath
That binds you to us; rest within our camp,
Nevermore hold command of Spanish men,
And keep my orders. See, my lord, you lock
A many-winding chain, — a heavy chain.

DON SILVA.
I have but one resolve: let the rest follow.
What is my rank? To-morrow it will be filled
By one who eyes it like a carrion bird,
Waiting for death. I shall be no more missed
Than waves are missed that leaping on the rock
Find there a bed and rest. Life's a vast sea
That does its mighty errand without fail,
Panting in unchanged strength though waves are changing.
And I have said it. She shall be my people,
And where she gives her life I will give mine.
She shall not live alone, nor die alone.
I will elect my deeds, and be the liege,
Not of my birth, but of that good alone
I have discerned and chosen.

ZARCA.
Our poor faith
Allows not rightful choice, save of the right
Our birth has made for us. And you, my lord,
Can still defer your choice, for some days' space.
I march perforce to-night; you, if you will,
Under Zincalo guard, can keep the heights
With silent Time that slowly opes the scroll
Of change inevitable; taking no oath
Till my accomplished task leaves me at large
To see you keep your purpose or renounce it.

DON SILVA.
Chief, do I hear amiss, or does your speech
Ring with a doubleness which I had held
Most alien to you? You would put me off,
And cloak evasion with allowance? No!
We will complete our pledges. I will take
That oath which binds not me alone, but you,
To join my life forever with Fedalma's.

ZARCA.
I wrangle not, — time presses. But the oath
Will leave you that same post upon the heights;
Pledged to remain there while my absence lasts.
You are agreed, my lord?

DON SILVA.
Agreed to all.

ZARCA.
Then I will give the summons to our camp.
We will adopt you as a brother now,
In the Zincalo's fashion. [Exit ZARCA.

(SILVA takes FEDALMA'S hands.)

FEDALMA.
O my lord!
I think the earth is trembling: naught is firm.
Some terror chills me with a shadowy grasp.
Am I about to wake, or do you breathe
Here in this valley? Did the outer air
Vibrate to fatal words, or did they shake
Only my dreaming soul? You a Zincalo?

DON SILVA.
Is then your love too faint to raise belief
Up to that height?

FEDALMA.
Silva, had you but said
That you would die, — that were an easy task
For you who oft have fronted death in war.
But so to live for me, — you, used to rule, —
You could not breathe the air my father breathes:
His presence is subjection. Go, my lord!
Fly, while there yet is time. Wait not to speak.
I will declare that I refused your love, —
Would keep no vows to you . . . .

DON SILVA.
It is too late.
You shall not thrust me back to seek a good
Apart from you. And what good? Why, to face
Your absence, — all the want that drove me forth
To work the will of a more tyrannous friend
Than any uncowled father. Life at least
Gives choice of ills; forces me to defy,
But shall not force me to a weak defiance.
The power that threatened you, to master me,
That scorches like a cave-hid dragon's breath,
Sure of its victory in spite of hate,
Is what I last will bend to, — most defy.
Your father has a chieftain's ends, befitting
A soldier's eye and arm: were he as strong
As the Moors' prophet, yet the prophet too
Had younger captains of illustrious fame
Among the infidels. Let him command,
For when your father speaks, I shall hear you.
Life were no gain if you were lost to me:
I would straight go and seek the Moorish walls,
Challenge their bravest, and embrace swift death.
The Glorious Mother and her pitying Son
Are not Inquisitors, else their heaven were hell.
Perhaps they hate their cruel worshippers,
And let them feed on lies. I 'll rather trust
They love you and have sent me to defend you.

FEDALMA.
I made my creed so, just to suit my mood
And smooth all hardship, till my father came
And taught my soul by ruling it. Since then
I cannot weave a dreaming happy creed
Where our love's happiness is not accursed.
My father shook my soul awake. And you, —
What the Zincala may not quit for you,
I cannot joy that you should quit for her.

DON SILVA.
Oh, Spanish men are not a petty band
Where one deserter makes a fatal breach.
Men, even nobles, are more plenteous
Than steeds and armor; and my weapons left
Will find new hands to wield them. Arrogance
Makes itself champion of mankind, and holds
God's purpose maimed for one hidalgo lost.
See where your father comes and brings a crowd
Of witnesses to hear my oath of love;
The low red sun glows on them like a fire;
This seems a valley in some strange new world,
Where we have found each other, my Fedalma.





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