Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ALHAMBRA SONGS: 4. ZORAYA, by THOMAS WALSH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ALHAMBRA SONGS: 4. ZORAYA, by                    
First Line: There came by night a northern cavalier
Last Line: But ah, who taught it thus to sigh, alas?
Alternate Author Name(s): Gill, Roderick; Strange, Garrett
Subject(s): Night; Singing & Singers; Bedtime


IV

THERE came by night a northern cavalier
Beneath her terrace when the moon was young,
And she, the fond Sultana, bent to hear
A serenade no Moslem youth had sung.

She stirred—but at her lips the Sultan yearned
And half-asleep entwined her fingers tight.
Till soon where down the gorge the pathway turned
She heard the horseman pass into the night.

There came by night though moons waxed bleak and old
No other voice to sing like his again;
The fountains splashed through marbles stained with gold;
Till dawn she heard the nightingale complain.

But day by day adown her mirador
She watched the mountain flocks and herdsmen pass;
Smiling she fed her parrot o'er and o'er,—
But ah, who taught it thus to sigh, Alas?





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