"
Then the voice sententious faltered, and the wisdom it would teach
Lost itself in fondest trifles of his soft Castilian speech;
And on "Concha" "Conchitita," and "Conchita" he would dwell
With the fond reiteration which the Spaniard knows so well.
So with proverbs and caresses, half in faith and half in doubt,
Every day some hope was kindled, flickered, faded, and went out.
IV
Yearly, down the hillside sweeping, came the stately cavalcade,
Bringing revel to vaquero, joy and comfort to each maid;
Bringing days of formal visit, social feast and rustic sport,
Of bull-baiting on the plaza, of love-making in the court.
Vainly then at Concha's lattice, vainly as the idle wind,
Rose the thin high Spanish tenor that bespoke the youth too kind;
Vainly, leaning from their saddles, caballeros, bold and fleet,
Plucked for her the buried chicken from beneath their mustang's feet;
So in vain the barren hillsides with their gay serapes blazed,--
Blazed and vanished in the dust-cloud that their flying hoofs had
raised.
Then the drum called from the rampart, and once more, with patient
mien,
The Commander and his daughter each took up the dull routine,--
Each took up the petty duties of a life apart and lone,
Till the slow years wrought a music in its dreary monotone.
V
Forty years on wall and bastion swept the hollow idle breeze,
Since the Russian eagle fluttered from the California seas;
Forty years on wall and bastion wrought its slow but sure decay,
And St.
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