Produced by Brian Foley and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of this document. MOSADA. A Dramatic Poem. BY W. B. YEATS. WITH A Frontispiece Portrait of the Author By J. B. YEATS. _Reprinted from the DUBLIN UNIVERSITY REVIEW._ DUBLIN: PRINTED BY SEALY, BRYERS, AND WALKER, 94, 95 AND 96 MIDDLE ABBEY STREET. 1886. [Illustration] MOSADA. "_And my Lord Cardinal hath had strange days in his youth._" _Extract from a Memoir of the Fifteenth Century._ MOSADA, A Moorish Lady. EBREMAR, A Monk. COLA, A Lame Boy. MONKS AND INQUISITORS. SCENE I. _A Little Moorish Room in the Village of Azubia. In the centre of the room a chafing dish._ _Mosada._ [_alone_] Three times the roses have grown less and less, As slowly Autumn climbed the golden throne Where sat old Summer fading into song, And thrice the peaches flushed upon the walls, And thrice the corn around the sickles flamed, Since 'mong my people, tented on the hills, He stood a messenger. In April's prime (Swallows were flashing their white breasts above Or perching on the tents, a-weary still From waste seas cross'd, yet ever garrulous) Along the velvet vale I saw him come: In Autumn, when far down the mountain slopes The heavy clusters of the grapes were full, I saw him sigh and turn and pass away; For I and all my people were accurst Of his sad God; and down among the grass Hiding my face, I cried long, bitterly. Twas evening, and the cricket nation sang Around my head and danced among the grass; And all was dimness till a dying leaf Slid circling down and softly touched my lips With dew as though 'twere sealing them for death. Yet somewhere in the footsore world we meet We two before we die, for Azolar The star-taught Moor said thus it was decreed By those wan stars that sit in company Above the Alpujarras on their thrones, That when the stars of our nativity Draw star to star, as on that eve he passed Down the long valleys from my people's tents, We meet--we two. [_She opens the casement--the mingled sound of the voices and laughter of the apple gatherers floats in._] How merry all these are Among the fruit. But yon, lame Cola crouches Away from all the others. Now the sun-- A-shining on the little crucifix Of silver hanging round lame Cola's neck-- Sinks down at last with yonder minaret Of the Alhambra black athwart his disk; And Cola seeing, knows the sign and comes. Thus do I burn these precious herbs whose smoke Pours up and floats in fragrance o'er my head In coil on coil of azure. [_Enter Cola._] All is ready. _Cola._ Mosada, it is then so much the worse. I will not share your sin.