Poems of Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Heath’s Book of Beauty, 1833/The Choice
DONNA JULIA
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THE CHOICE.
The Spanish lady sat alone within her evening bower,
And, sooth to say, her thoughts were such as suited well the hour;
For, shining on the myrtle-leaves until they shone again,
The moonlight fell amid the boughs like light and glittering rain.
The ground was strewn with cactus flowers, the fragile and the fair—
Fit emblems of our early hopes—so perishing they are;
The jasmine made a starry roof, like some Arabian hall;
And sweet there floated on the air a distant fountain's fall.
She leant her head upon her hand: "I know not which to choose—
Alas! whichever choice I make, the other I must lose.
They say my eyes are like the stars; and if they are so bright,
Methinks they should be as those stars, and shed o'er all their light.
"Don Felix rides the boldest steed, and bears the stoutest lance,
And gallantly above his helm his white plumes wave and dance:
But then Don Guzman—when the night and dews are falling round,
How sweet beneath my lattice comes his lute's soft numbers' sound!
"Don Felix has in trumph borne my colours round the ring;
Three courses, for my beauty's sake, he rode before the King.
Don Guzman he has breathed in song a lover's gentle care—
And many who know not my face, yet know that it is fair."
The inconstant moon, now bright, now veil'd, shone o'er the changing tide;
The wind shook down the flowers, but still new flowers their place supplied;
And echo'd by some far-off song, the lady's voice was heard—
"Alas! I know not which to choose!" was aye her latest word.
Yet, ere that moon was old, we saw the Donna Julia ride
Gay on her snowy palfrey, as Don Alonzo's bride.
The bride was young and beautiful, the bridegroom stern and old,—
But the silken rein was hung with pearls, the housings bright with gold.