I

THE CHALLENGE

HAVE a vague remembrance
Of a story, that is told

In some ancient Spanish legend

Or chronicle of old.

It was when brave King Sanchez
Was before Zamora slain,
And his great besieging army

Lay encamped upon the plain.

Don Diego de Ordoñez

Sallied forth in front of all, And shouted loud his challenge To the warders on the wall.

All the people of Zamora,

Both the born and the unborn,

As traitors did he challenge
With taunting words of scorn.

The living, in their houses,

And in their graves, the dead! And the waters of their rivers,

And their wine, and oil, and bread!

There is a greater army,

That besets us round with strife, A starving, numberless army,

At all the gates of life.

The poverty-stricken millions

Who challenge our wine and bread, And impeach us all as traitors, Both the living and the dead.

And whenever I sit at the banquet,
Where the feast and song are high,
Amid the mirth and the music
I can hear that fearful cry.

And hollow and haggard faces
Look into the lighted hall,

And wasted hands are extended
To catch the crumbs that fall.

For within there is light and plenty,

And odors fill the air;

But without there is cold and darkness, And hunger and despair.

And there in the camp of famine,

In wind and cold and rain,

Christ, the great Lord of the army,

Lies dead upon the plain !

THE BROOK AND THE WAVE

HE brooklet came from the mountain,

THE

As sang the bard of old,

Running with feet of silver,
Over the sands of gold!

Far away in the briny ocean

There rolled a turbulent wave,

Now singing along the sea-beach,
Now howling along the cave.

And the brooklet has found the billow,
Though they flowed so far apart,

And has filled with its freshness and sweetness
That turbulent, bitter heart !

FROM THE SPANISH CANCIONEROS

Ε

I.

YES so tristful, eyes so tristful,

E Heart so full of care and cumber,

I was lapped in rest and slumber,
Ye have made me wakeful, wistful!

In this life of labor endless
Who shall comfort my distresses?
Querulous my soul and friendless
In its sorrow shuns caresses.
Ye have made me, ye have made me
Querulous of you, that care not,
Eyes so tristful, yet I dare not
Say to what ye have betrayed me.

II.

Some day, some day,
O troubled breast,

Shalt thou find rest.

If Love in thee

To grief give birth,
Six feet of earth

Can more than he;
There calm and free
And unoppressed

Shalt thou find rest.

The unattained

In life at last,

When life is passed,
Shall all be gained;
And no more pained,
No more distressed,

Shalt thou find rest.

III.

Come, O Death, so silent flying
That unheard thy coming be,
Lest the sweet delight of dying
Bring life back again to me.

For thy sure approach perceiving
In my constancy and pain
I new life should win again,
Thinking that I am not living.
So to me, unconscious lying,
All unknown thy coming be,
Lest the sweet delight of dying
Bring life back again to me.