The din of battle rises like thunder to the sky,
From many a crag and forest the thundering echoes fly,
And there is sound of clashing arms, of sword and rattling steel,
Moorish horns, the fife and drum, as the scattering squadrons reel,
And the dying moan and the wounded shriek for the hurt that none can
heal,
While in Baeza every bell
Does the appalling tidings tell,
“Arm!  Arm!”
Rings on the night the loud alarm.

SIEGE OF JAEN

Now Reduan gazes from afar on Jaen’s ramparts high,
And tho’ he smiles in triumph yet fear is in his eye,
And vowed has he, whose courage none charged with a default,
That he would climb the ramparts and take it by assault,
Yet round the town the towers and walls the city’s streets impale,
And who of all his squadrons that bastion can scale? 
He pauses until one by one his hopes have died away,
And his soul is filled with anguish and his face with deep dismay. 
He marks the tall escarpment, he measures with his eye
The soaring towers above them that seem to touch the sky. 
Height upon height they mount to heaven, while glittering from afar
Each cresset on the watch-towers burns like to a baleful star. 
His eyes and heart are fixed upon the rich and royal town,
And from his eye the tear of grief, a manly tear, flows down. 
His bosom heaves with sighs of grief and heavy discontent,
As to the royal city he makes his sad lament: 
“Ah, many a champion have I lost, fair Jaen, at thy gate,
Yet lightly did I speak of thee with victory elate,
The prowess of my tongue was more than all that I could do,
And my word outstripped the lance and sword of my squadron strong and

                            true. 

And yet I vowed with courage rash thy turrets I would bring
To ruin and thy subjects make the captives of my King. 
That in one night my sword of might, before the morrow’s sun,
Would do for thy great citadel what centuries have not done. 
I pledged my life to that attempt, and vowed that thou shouldest fall,
Yet now I stand in impotence before thy castle tall. 
For well I see, before my might shall win thee for my King,
That thou, impregnable, on me wilt rout and ruin bring,
Ah, fatal is the hasty tongue that gives such quick consent,
And he who makes the hasty vow in leisure must repent. 
Ah! now too late I mourn the word that sent me on this quest,
For I see that death awaits me here whilst thou livest on at rest,
For I must enter Jaen’s gates a conqueror or be sent
Far from Granada’s happy hills in hopeless banishment;
But sorest is the thought that I to Lindaraja swore: 
If Jaen should repulse me I’d return to her no more;
No more a happy lover would I linger at her side,
Until Granada’s warrior host had humbled Jaen’s pride.” 
Then turning to his warriors, the Moorish cavalier