And now Abdallah leaves yon peaceful fane, His ravaged city traversing again. No sound of gladness his approach precedes, No splendid pageant the procession leads; Where’er he moves the silent streets along, Broods a stern quiet o’er the sullen throng. No voice is heard; but in each alter’d eye, Once brightly beaming when his steps were nigh, And in each look of those whose love hath fled From all on earth to slumber with the dead, Those by his guilt made desolate, and thrown On the bleak wilderness of life alone-- In youth’s quick glance of scarce-dissembled rage, And the pale mien of calmly-mournful age, May well be read a dark and fearful tale Of thought that ill the indignant heart can veil, And passion like the hush’d volcano’s power, That waits in stillness its appointed hour. No more the clarion from Granada’s walls, Heard o’er the Vega, to the tourney calls; No more her graceful daughters, throned on high, Bend o’er the lists the darkly-radiant eye: Silence and gloom her palaces o’erspread, And song is hush’d, and pageantry is fled. --Weep, fated city! o’er thy heroes weep-- Low in the dust the sons of glory sleep! Furl’d are their banners in the lonely hall, Their trophied shields hang mouldering on the wall, Wildly their chargers range the pastures o’er-- Their voice in battle shall be heard no more. And they, who still thy tyrant’s wrath survive, Whom he hath wrong’d too deeply to forgive, That race of lineage high, of worth approved, The chivalrous, the princely, the beloved-- Thine Aben-Zurrahs--they no more shall wield In thy proud cause the conquering lance and shield: Condemn’d to bid the cherish’d scenes farewell Where the loved ashes of their fathers dwell, And far o’er foreign plains as exiles roam, Their land the desert, and the grave their home. Yet there is one shall see that race depart In deep though silent agony of heart: One whose dark fate must be to mourn alone, Unseen her sorrows and their cause unknown, And veil her heart, and teach her cheek to wear That smile in which the spirit hath no share-- Like the bright beams that shed their fruitless glow O’er the cold solitude of Alpine snow. Soft, fresh, and silent is the midnight hour, And the young Zayda seeks her lonely bower; That Zegri maid, within whose gentle mind One name is deeply, secretly enshrined. That name in vain stern reason would efface: Hamet! ’tis thine, thou foe to all her race!