The city waits his coming, for the feast has been prepared, By rich and poor, by high and low the revel shall be shared; And there are warriors high in hope to win the jousting prize, And there are ladies longing for a smile from Celin's eyes. But when the news of gladness reached Adalifa's ear, Her loving heart was touched with grief and filled with jealous fear; And she wrote to Celin, bidding him to hold no revel high, For the thought of such rejoicing brought the tear-drop to her eye; The Moor received the letter as Granada came in sight, And straight he turned his courser's head toward Jaen's towering height, And exchanged for hues of mourning his robe of festal white. "For in the widest prison-house is misery to me, And the stoutest heart is broke unless the warrior's arm be free." BAZA REVISITED Brave Celin came, the valiant son of him the _castelain_ Of the fortress of Alora and Alhama's windy plain. He came to see great Baza, where he in former days Had won from Zara's father that aged warrior's praise. The Moor gazed on that fortress strong, the towers all desolate, The castle high that touched the sky, the rampart and the gate. The ruined hold he greeted, it seemed its native land, For there his bliss had been complete while Zara held his hand. And Fortune's cruel fickleness he furiously reviled, For his heart sent madness to his brain and all his words were wild. "O goddess who controllest on earth our human fate, How is it I offend thee, that my life is desolate? Ah! many were the triumphs that from Zara's hands I bore, When in the joust or in the dance she smiled on me of yore. And now, while equal fortune incessantly I chase, Naught can I gather from thy hand but disaster and disgrace. Since King Fernando brought his host fair Baza to blockade, My lot has been a wretched lot of anguish unalloyed. Yet was Fernando kind to me with all his kingly art, He won my body to his arms, he could not win my heart." While thus he spoke the mantle that he wore he cast away; 'Twas green, 'twas striped with red and white, 'twas lined with dismal gray. "Best suits my fate, best suits the hue, in this misfortune's day; Not green, not white nor purple, but the palmer's garb of gray. I ask no plumes for helm or cap of nature's living green, For hope has vanished from my life of that which might have been! And from my target will I blot the blazon that is vain-- The lynx whose eyes are fixed upon the prey that it would gain. For the glances that I cast around meet fortune's foul disdain; And I will blot the legend, as an accursed screed. 'Twas writ in Christian letters plain that all the world might read: 'My good right arm can gain me more altho' its range be short, Then all I know by eye-sight or the boundless range of thought.' The blue tahala fluttering bright upon my armored brow