"'Tis now seven years since first I trod
The valley and the wandering wood;
My feet were bare, my flesh was torn,
And all my pathway stained in blood.
"Ah, mournfully I seek in vain
The Emperor's daughter, who had gone
A prisoner made by caitiff Moors,
Upon the morning of St. John.
"She gathered flowers upon the plain,
She plucked the roses from the spray,
And in the orchard of her sire
They found and bore the maid away."
These words has Moriana heard,
Close nestled in the Moor's embrace;
The tears that welled from out her eyes
Have wet her captor's swarthy face.
THE WARDEN OF MOLINA
The warden of Molina, ah! furious was his speed,
As he dashed his glittering rowels in the flank of his good steed,
And his reins left dangling from the bit, along the white highway,
For his mind was set to speed his horse, to speed and not to stay.
He rode upon a grizzled roan, and with the wind he raced,
And the breezes rustled round him like a tempest in the waste.
In the Plaza of Molina at last he made his stand,
And in a voice of thunder he uttered his command:
To arms, to arms, my captains!
Sound, clarions; trumpets, blow;
And let the thundering kettle-drum
Give challenge to the foe.
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