“Six troops of Saracens are here;
    Six Christian troops, with targe and steed
  Be ready, when the day is fixed,
    To join the jousting of the reed.

  “For ’tis not right that furious war,
    Which sets the city’s roofs in flames,
  Should kindle with a fruitless fire
    The tender bosom of our dames.

  “In spite of all we suffer here
    Our ladies are with you arrayed,
  They pity you in this fierce war,
    This labor of the long blockade.

  “Amid the hardships of the siege
    Let pleasure yield a respite brief;
  (For war must ever have its truce)
    And give our hardships some relief.

  “What solace to the war-worn frame,
    To every soul what blest release,
  To fling aside the targe and mail,
    And don one hour the plumes of peace!

  “And he who shall the victor be
    Among the jousters of the game,
  I pledge my knightly word to him,
    In token of his valorous fame,

  “On his right arm myself to bind
    The favor of my lady bright;
  ’Twas given me by her own white hand,
    The hand as fair as it is white.”

  ’Twas thus that Tarfe, valiant Moor,
    His proclamation wrote at large;
  He, King Darraja’s favored squire,
    Has nailed the cartel to his targe.

  ’Twas on the day the truce was made,
    By Calatrava’s master bold,
  To change the quarters of his camp,
    And with his foes a conference hold.

  Six Moorish striplings Tarfe sent
    In bold Abencerraje’s train—­
  His kindred both in race and house—­
    To meet the leaguers on the plain.

  In every tent was welcome warm;
    And when their challenge they display,
  The master granted their request
    To join the joust on Easter day.

  In courteous words that cartel bold
    He answered; and a cavalcade
  Of Christians, with the Moorish guards,
    Their journey to Granada made.

  The guise of war at once was dropped;
    The armory closed its iron door;
  And all put on the damask robes
    That at high festival they wore.

  The Moorish youths and maidens crowd,
    With joyful face, the city square;
  These mount their steeds, those sit and braid
    Bright favors for their knights to wear.

  Those stern antagonists in war,
    Like friends, within the town are met;
  And peacefully they grasp the hand,
    And for one day the past forget.

  And gallant Almarada comes
    (Not Tarfe’s self more brave, I ween),
  Lord of a lovely Moorish dame,
    Who rules her lover like a queen.

  A hundred thousand favors she
    In public or in private gives,
  To show her lover that her life
    Is Almarada’s while she lives!

  And once upon a cloudy night,
    Fit curtain for his amorous mood,
  The gallant Moor the high hills scaled
    And on Alhambra’s terrace stood.