# The Troubadour; Catalogue of Pictures, and Historical Sketches/Moorish Maiden

MOORISH MAIDEN'S TALE.
Albeit on my brow and breast  Is Moorish turban, Moorish vest;  Albeit too of Moorish line,  Yet Christian blood and faith are mine.  Even from earliest infancy  I have been taught to bend the knee  Before the sweet Madonna's face,  To pray from her a Saviour's grace!
My mother's youthful heart was given  To one an infidel to heaven;  Alas! that ever earthly love  Could turn her hope from that above;  Yet surely 'tis for tears, not blame,  To be upon that mother's name.
 Well can I deem my father all  That holds a woman's heart in thrall,—  In truth his was as proud a form  As ever stemm'd a battle storm,  As ever moved first in the hall  Of crowds and courtly festival.  Upon each temple the black hair  Was mix'd with grey, as early care  Had been to him like age,—his eye,  And lip, and brow, were dark and high;
And yet there was a look that seem'd  As if at other times he dream'd  Of gentle thoughts he strove to press  Back to their unsunn'd loneliness.  Your first gaze cower'd beneath his glance,  Keen like the flashing of a lance,  As forced a homage to allow  To that tall form, that stately brow;  But the next dwelt upon the trace  That time may bring, but not efface,  Of cares that wasted life's best years,  Of griefs seared more than sooth'd by tears,  And homage changed to a sad feeling  For a proud heart its grief concealing.  If such his brow, when griefs that wear,  And hopes that waste, were written there,
What must it have been, at the hour  When in my mother's moonlit bower,  If any step moved, 'twas to take  The life he ventured for her sake?  He urged his love; to such a suit  Could woman's eye or heart be mute?  She fled with him,—it matters not,  To dwell at length upon their lot.  But that my mother's frequent sighs  Swell'd at the thoughts of former ties,  First loved, then fear'd she loved too well,  Then fear'd to love an Infidel;  A struggle all, she had the will  But scarce the strength to love him still:—  But for this weakness of the heart  Which could not from its love depart,
Rebell'd, but quickly clung again,  Which broke and then renew'd its chain,  Without the power to love, and be  Repaid by love's fidelity:—  Without this contest of the mind,  Though yet its early fetters bind,  Which still pants to be unconfined,  They had been happy.
 'Twas when first  My spirit from its childhood burst,  That to our roof a maiden came,  My mother's sister, and the same  In form, in face, in smiles, in tears,  In step, in voice, in all but years,  Save that there was upon her brow  A calm my mother's wanted now;
And that Elvira's loveliness  Seem'd scarce of earth, so passionless,  So pale, all that the heart could paint  Of the pure beauty of a saint.  Yes, I have seen Elvira kneel,  And seen the rays of evening steal,  Lighting the blue depths of her eye  With so much of divinity  As if her every thought was raised  To the bright heaven on which she gazed!  Then often I have deem'd her form  Rather with light than with life warm.
 My father's darken'd brow was glad,  My mother's burthen'd heart less sad  With her, for she was not of those  Who all the heart's affections close
In a drear hour of grief or wrath,—  Her path was as an angel's path,  Known only by the flowers which spring  Beneath the influence of its wing;  And that her high and holy mood  Was such as suited solitude.  Still she had gentle words and smiles,  And all that sweetness which beguiles,  Like sunshine on an April day,  The heaviness of gloom away.  It was as the souls weal were sure  When prayer rose from lips so pure.
 She left us;—the same evening came  Tidings of woe, and death, and shame.  Her guard had been attack'd by one  Whose love it had been her's to shun.
Fierce was the struggle, and her flight  Meanwhile had gain'd a neighbouring height,  Which dark above the river stood,  And look'd upon the rushing flood;  'Twas compass'd round, she was bereft  Of the vague hope that flight had left.  One moment, and they saw her kneel,  And then, as Heaven heard her appeal,  She flung her downwards from the rock:  Her heart was nerved by death to mock  What that heart never might endure,  The slavery of a godless Moor.
 And madness in its burning pain  Seized on my mother's heart and brain:  She died that night, and the next day  Beheld my father far away.
But wherefore should I dwell on all  Of sorrow memory can recall,  Enough to know that I must roam  An orphan to a stranger home.—  My father's death in battle field  Forced me a father's rights to yield  To his stern brother; how my heart  Was forced with one by one to part  Of its best hopes, till life became  Existence only in its name;  Left but a single wish,—to share  The cold home where my parents were.
 At last I heard, I may not say  How my soul brighten'd into day,  Elvira lived; a miracle  Had surely saved her as she fell!
A fisherman who saw her float,  Bore her in silence to his boat.  She lived! how often had I said  To mine own heart she is not dead;  And she remember'd me, and when  They bade us never meet again,  She sent to me an Ethiop slave,  The same who guides us o'er the wave,  Whom she had led to that pure faith  Which sains and saves in life and death,  And plann'd escape.
 It was one morn  I saw our conquering standards borne,  And gazed upon a Christian knight  Wounded and prisoner from the fight;
I made a vow that he should be  Redeem'd from his captivity.  Sir knight, the Virgin heard my vow,—  Yon light,—we are in safety now!