The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mosada, by William Butler Yeats

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Title: Mosada
A dramatic poem

Author: William Butler Yeats

Release Date: August 14, 2010 [EBook #33430]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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MOSADA.

A Dramatic Poem.

BY

W. B. YEATS.

WITH A

Frontispiece Portrait of the Author

By J. B. YEATS.

_Reprinted from the DUBLIN UNIVERSITY REVIEW._

DUBLIN:

PRINTED BY SEALY, BRYERS, AND WALKER,
94, 95 AND 96 MIDDLE ABBEY STREET.

1886.

[Illustration]

MOSADA.

"_And my Lord Cardinal hath had strange days in his youth._"

_Extract from a Memoir of the Fifteenth Century._

MOSADA, A Moorish Lady.
EBREMAR, A Monk.
COLA, A Lame Boy.
MONKS AND INQUISITORS.

SCENE I.

_A Little Moorish Room in the Village of Azubia.
In the centre of the room a chafing dish._

_Mosada._ [_alone_] Three times the roses have grown less and less,
As slowly Autumn climbed the golden throne
Where sat old Summer fading into song,
And thrice the peaches flushed upon the walls,
And thrice the corn around the sickles flamed,
Since 'mong my people, tented on the hills,
He stood a messenger. In April's prime
(Swallows were flashing their white breasts above
Or perching on the tents, a-weary still
From waste seas cross'd, yet ever garrulous)
Along the velvet vale I saw him come:
In Autumn, when far down the mountain slopes
The heavy clusters of the grapes were full,
I saw him sigh and turn and pass away;
For I and all my people were accurst
Of his sad God; and down among the grass
Hiding my face, I cried long, bitterly.
Twas evening, and the cricket nation sang
Around my head and danced among the grass;
And all was dimness till a dying leaf