La Gitanilla, tall dragoons
In Andalusian afternoons,
With ogling eye and compliment,
Smiled on you as along you went
Some sleepy street of old Seville;
Twirled with a military skill
Moustaches; buttoned uniforms
Of Spanish yellow bowed your charms.
Proud, wicked head, and hair blue-black,
Whence the mantilla, half thrown back,
Discovered shoulders and bold breast
Bohemian brown. And you were dressed
In some short skirt of gypsy red
Of smuggled stuff; and stockings,—dead
White silk,—that, worn with many a hole,
Let the plump leg peep through; while stole,
Now in, now out, your dainty toes,
Sheathed in morocco shoes, with bows
Of scarlet ribbon.—Flirtingly
You walked by me; and I did see
Your oblique eyes, your sensuous lip
That gnawed the rose I saw you flip
At bashful José’s nose while loud
The gaunt guards laughed among the crowd.
And in your brazen chemise thrust,
Heaved with the swelling of your bust,
A bunch of white acacia blooms
Whiffed past my nostrils hot perfumes.
As in a cool neveria
I ate an ice with Mérimée,
Dark Carmencita, very gay
You passed, with light and lissome tread,
All holiday bedizenéd;
A new mantilla on your head:
Your crimson dress gleamed, spangled fierce;
And crescent gold, hung in your ears,
Shone, wrought Morisco; and each shoe,
Of Cordovan leather, buckled blue,
Glanced merriment; and from large arms
To well-turned ankles all your charms
Blew flutterings and glitterings
Of satin bands and beaded strings:
Around each tight arm, twisted gold
Coiled serpents, and, a single fold,
Wreathed wrists; each serpent’s jeweled head,
With rubies set, convulsive red.
In flowers and trimmings, to the jar
Of mandolin and gay guitar,
You in the grated patio
Danced: the curled coxcombs’ staring row
Rang pleased applause. I saw you dance,
With wily motion and glad glance,
Voluptuous, the wild romalis,
Where every movement was a kiss,
A song, a poem, interwound
With your Basque tambourine’s dull sound.
I,—as the ebon castanets
Clucked out dry time in unctuous jets,—
Saw angry José through the grate
Glare on us, a pale face of hate,
When some indecent officer
Presumed too lewdly to you there.
Some still night in Seville: the street
Candilejo: two shadows meet:
Swift sabres flash within the moon—
Clash rapidly.—A dead dragoon.