92.)

1. The Spanish noon is a blaze of azure fire, and the dusty
pilgrims crawl like an endless serpent along treeless plains and
bleached highroads, through rock-split ravines and castellated,
cathedral-shadowed towns.

2. The hoary patriarch, wrinkled as an almond shell, bows painfully
upon his staff. The beautiful young mother, ivory-pale, well-nigh
swoons beneath her burden; in her large enfolding arms nestles her
sleeping babe, round her knees flock her little ones with bruised
and bleeding feet. "Mother, shall we soon be there?"

3. The youth with Christ-like countenance speaks comfortably to
father and brother, to maiden and wife. In his breast, his own
heart is broken.

4. The halt, the blind, are amid the train. Sturdy pack-horses
laboriously drag the tented wagons wherein lie the sick athirst
with fever.

5. The panting mules are urged forward with spur and goad; stuffed
are the heavy saddlebags with the wreckage of ruined homes.

6. Hark to the tinkling silver bells that adorn the tenderly-carried
silken scrolls.

7. In the fierce noon-glare a lad bears a kindled lamp; behind its
net-work of bronze the airs of heaven breathe not upon its faint
purple star.

8. Noble and abject, learned and simple, illustrious and obscure,
plod side by side, all brothers now, all merged in one routed army
of misfortune.

9. Woe to the straggler who falls by the wayside! no friend shall
close his eyes.

10. They leave behind, the grape, the olive, and the fig; the vines
they planted, the corn they sowed, the garden-cities of Andalusia
and Aragon, Estremadura and La Mancha, of Granada and Castile; the
altar, the hearth, and the grave of their fathers.

11. The townsman spits at their garments, the shepherd quits his
flock, the peasant his plow, to pelt with curses and stones; the
villager sets on their trail his yelping cur.

12. Oh the weary march, oh the uptorn roots of home, oh the
blankness of the receding goal!

13. Listen to their lamentation: They that ate dainty food are
desolate in the streets; they that were reared in scarlet embrace
dunghills. They flee away and wander about. Men say among the
nations, they shall no more sojourn there; our end is near, our
days are full, our doom is come.