Classic Poem

SPAIN

The Escurial frowns upon the great blue night,
O king, thou standest there, in calm, alone!
What do thy sad thoughts tell the listening stone?
Do not the phantoms of thy youth's delight

Loom up and haunt thee? I can hear thee moan
And gnaw thine ashen lips with creeping fright;
Philip, the shades that flit before thy sight,
Are they of friends that perished for thy throne?

No, no, tho' hidden by thy granite's gloom,
Faces more hideous haunt thy mind and stay. . . .
Not they who in battle found an honored tomb,
Not they who died in Indias far away,
The souls that haunt thee, thou, thyself, didst doom
To die in fire at thine Auto-da-fe!