morocco shoes with bows
Of scarlet ribbons. Daintily
You walked by me and I did see
Your oblique eyes, your sensuous lip,
That gnawed the rose you once did flip
At bashful Jose's nose while loud
Laughed the guant guards among the crowd.
And, in your brazen chemise thrust,
Heaved with the swelling of your bust,
That bunch of white acacia blooms
Whiffed past my nostrils hot perfumes.
As in a cool _neveria_
I ate an ice with Merimee,
Dark Carmencita, you passed gay,
All holiday bedizened,
A new mantilla on your head;
A crimson dress bespangled fierce;
And crescent gold, hung in your ears,
Shone wrought Morisco; and each shoe
Cordovan leather, spangled blue,
Glanced merriment; and from large arms
To well-turned ancles all your charms
Blew flutterings and glitterings
Of satin bands and beaded strings;
And 'round each arm's fair thigh one fold,
And graceful wrists, a twisted gold
Coiled serpents, tails fixed in the head,
Convulsive-jeweled glossy red.
In flowers and trimmings to the jar
Of mandolin and low guitar
You in the grated _patio_
Danced; the curled coxcombs' flirting row
Rang pleased applause. I saw you dance,
With wily motion and glad glance
Voluptuous, the wild _romalis_,
Where every movement was a kiss
Of elegance delicious, wound
In your Basque tambourine's dull sound.
Or as the ebon castanets
Clucked out dry time in unctuous jets,
Saw angry Jose thro' the grate
Glare on us a pale face of hate,
When some indecent colonel there
Presumed too lewdly for his ear.
Some still night in Seville; the street,
_Candilejo_; two shadows meet--
Flash sabres; crossed within the moon,--
Clash rapidly--a dead dragoon.
DISENCHANTMENT OF DEATH.
Hush! She is dead! Tread gently as the light
Foots dim the weary room. Thou shalt behold.
Look:--In death's ermine pomp of awful white,
Pale passion of pulseless slumber virgin cold:
Bold, beautiful youth proud as heroic Might--
Death! and how death hath made it vastly old.
Old earth she is now: energy of birth
Glad wings hath fledged and tried them suddenly;
The eyes that held have freed their narrow mirth;
Their sparks of spirit, which made this to be,
Shine fixed in rarer jewels not of earth,
Far Fairylands beyond some silent sea.
A sod is this whence what were once those eyes
Will grow blue wild-flowers in wha
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