Don Quixote

Gaunt, rueful knight, on raw-boned, shambling hack, Thy battered morion, shield and rusty spear, Jog ever down the road in strange career, Both tears and laughter following on thy track, Stout Sancho hard behind, whose leathern back Is curved in clownish sufferance, mutual cheer The quest beguiling as devoid of fear, Thou spurrest to rid the world of rogues, alack! Despite fantastic creed and addled pate, Of awkward arms and weight of creaking steel, Nobility is thine—the high estate That arms knights errant for all human weal; How rare, La Mancha, grow such souls of late,— Dear, foiled enthusiast, teach our hearts to feel!

Collection: 
English
Craven Langstroth Betts

More from Poet

  • To the Moonflower

    Pale, climbing disk, who dost lone vigil keep When all the flower-heads droop in drowsy swoon; When lily bells fold to the zephyr’s tune, And wearied bees are lapped in sugared sleep; What secret hope is thine? What purpose deep? Art thou enamored of the siren moon That thus thy white face from...

  • Don Quixote

    Gaunt, rueful knight, on raw-boned, shambling hack, Thy battered morion, shield and rusty spear, Jog ever down the road in strange career, Both tears and laughter following on thy track, Stout Sancho hard behind, whose leathern back Is curved in clownish sufferance, mutual cheer The quest...

  • The Hollyhocks

    Some space beyond the garden close I sauntered down the shadowed lawn; It was the hour when sluggards doze, The cheerful, zephyr-breathing dawn. The sun had not yet bathed his face, Dark reddened from the night’s carouse, When, lo! in festive gypsy grace The hollyhocks stood nodding...