g soul!
But altars youths to you should raise,
And passion'd vot'ries sound your praise!

Quit then a scene which must consume
Unworthily your early bloom!
To my soft vows your ear incline,
Nor frown, but be for ever mine!

His gladsome torch let Hymen light,
And let the god our hearts unite!
This day would then before its end,
See me your husband, lover, friend.

The last line was immediately followed by the flight of two brick-bats,
which fell close to the singer's feet; but had they come in contact with
his head, they would certainly have knocked all the music and poetry out
of it. The poor frightened musician took to his heels with such speed
that a greyhound could not have caught him. Unhappy fate of
night-birds, to be always subject to such showers! All who had heard
the voice of the fugitive admired it, but most of all, Tomas Pedro, only
he would rather the words had not been addressed to Costanza, although
she had not heard one of them. The only person who found fault with the
romance was a muleteer, nicknamed Barrabas. As soon as this man saw the
singer run off, he bawled after him; "There you go, you Judas of a
troubadour! May the fleas eat your eyes out! Who the devil taught you to
sing to a scullery-maid about celestial realms, and spheres, and
ocean-beds, and to call her stars and suns and all the rest of it? If
you had told her she was as straight as asparagus, as white as milk, as
modest as a lay-brother in his novitiate, more full of humours and
unmanageable than a hired mule, and harder than a lump of dry mortar,
why then she would have understood you and been pleased; but your fine
words are fitter for a scholar than for a scullery-maid. Truly, there
are poets in the world who write songs that the devil himself could not
understand; for my part, at least, Barrabas though I am, I cannot make
head or tail of what this fellow has been singing. What did he suppose
Costanza could make of them? But she knows better than to listen to such
stuff, for she is snug in bed, and cares no more for all these
caterwaulers than she does for Prester John. This fellow at least, is
not one of the singers belonging to the corregidor's son, for they are
out and out good ones, and a body can generally understand them; but, by
the Lord, this fellow sets me mad."

The bystanders coincided in opinion with Barrabas, and thought his
criticism very judicious. Everybody now went to bed