University of Virginia Library


408

XVI. PEACOCK

I graced Don Pedro's revelry,
All drest in fire and feather,
When Loveliness and Chivalry
Were met to feast together;
He flung the slave who moved the lid
A purse of maravedis,—
And this that gallant Spaniard did
For me, and for the Ladies.
He vowed a vow, that noble Knight,
Before he went to table,
To make his only sport the fight,
His only couch the stable,
Till he had dragged, as he was bid,
Five score of Turks to Cadiz,—
And this that gallant Spaniard did
For me, and for the Ladies.

409

To ride through mountains, where my First
A banquet would be reckoned,—
Through deserts where, to quench their thirst,
Men vainly turn my Second;—
To leave the gates of fair Madrid,
To dare the gates of Hades,—
And this that gallant Spaniard did,
For me, and for the Ladies.