Asks for their counsel and awaits their answer while with fear. 
Five thousand warriors tried and true the Moors were standing near,
All armed with leathern buckler, all armed with sword and spear. 
“The place,” they answer, “is too strong, by walls too high ’tis bound,
Too many are the watch-towers that circle it around. 
The knights and proud hidalgos who on the wall are seen,
Their hearts are bold, their arms are strong, their swords and spears are

                            keen. 

Disaster will be certain as the rising of the day,
And victory and booty are a slippery prize,” they say,
“It would be wise in this emprise the conflict to forego;
Not all the Moors Granada boasts could lay proud Jaen low.”

THE DEATH OF REDUAN

  He shrank not from his promise, did Reduan the brave,
  The promise to Granada’s King with daring high he gave;
  And when the morning rose and lit the hills with ruddy glow,
  He marshalled forth his warriors to strike a final blow. 
  With shouts they hurry to the walls, ten thousand fighting men—­
  Resolved to plant the crescent on the bulwarks of Jaen. 
  The bugle blast upon the air with clarion tone is heard,
  The burghers on the city wall reply with scoffing word;
  And like the noise of thunder the clattering squadrons haste,
  And on his charger fleet he leads his army o’er the waste. 
  In front of his attendants his march the hero made,
  He tarried not for retinue or clattering cavalcade,
  And they who blamed the rash assault with weak and coward minds
  Deserted him their leader bold or loitered far behind. 
  And now he stands beneath the wall and sees before him rise
  The object of the great campaign, his valor’s priceless prize;
  He dreams one moment that he holds her subject to his arms,
  He dreams that to Granada he flies from war’s alarms,
  Each battlement he fondly eyes, each bastion grim and tall,
  And in fancy sees the crescents rise above the Christian wall. 
  But suddenly an archer has drawn his bow of might,
  And suddenly the bolt descends in its unerring flight,
  Straight to the heart of Reduan the fatal arrow flies,
  The gallant hero struck to death upon the vega lies. 
  And as he lies, from his couch of blood, in melancholy tone,
  Thus to the heavens the hero stout, though fainting, makes his moan,
  And ere his lofty soul in death forth from its prison breaks,
  Brave Reduan a last farewell of Lindaraja takes: 
  “Ah, greater were the glory had it been mine to die,
  Not thus among the Christians and hear their joyful cry,
  But in that happy city, reclining at thy feet,
  Where thou with kind and tender hands hast wove my winding-sheet. 
  Ah! had it been my fate once more to gaze upon thy face,
  And love and pity in those eyes with dying glance to trace,