Rain slants on an empty square.

Across the expanse of cobbles
rides an old shawl-muffled woman
black on a donkey with pert ears
that places carefully
his tiny sharp hoofs
as if the cobbles were eggs.
The paniers are full
of bright green lettuces
and purple cabbages,
and shining red bellshaped peppers,
dripping, shining, a band in marchtime,
in the grey rain,
in the grey city.

Plaza Santa Ana

The fountain some dead king put up,
conceived in pompous imageries,
piled with mossgreened pans and centaurs
topped by a prudish tight-waisted Cybele
(Cybele the many-breasted mother of the grain)
spurts with a solemn gurgle of waters.

Where the sun is warmest
their backs against the greystone basin
sit, hoarding every moment of the palefaced sun,
(thy children Cybele)
Pan a bearded beggar with blear eyes;
his legs were withered by a papal bull,
those shaggy legs so nimble to pursue
through groves of Arcadian myrtle
the nymphs of the fountains and valleys;
a young Faunus with soft brown face
and dirty breast bared to the sun;
the black hair crisps about his ears
with some grace yet;
a little barefoot Eros
crouching to scratch his skinny thighs
who stares with wide gold eyes aghast
at the yellow shiny trams that clatter past.

All day long they doze in the scant sun
and watch the wan leaves rustle to the ground
from the yellowed limetrees of the avenue.
They are still thine Cybele
nursed at thy breast;
(like a woman's last foster-children
that still would suck grey withered dugs).
They have not scorned thy dubious bounty
for stridence of grinding iron
and pale caged lives
made blind by the dust of toil
to coin the very sun to gold.

Plaza de Cibeles

Footsteps
and the leisurely patter of rain.

Beside the lamppost in the alley
stands a girl in a long sleek shawl
that moulds vaguely to the curves
of breast and arms.
Her eyes are in shadow.

A smell of frying fish;
footsteps of people going to dinner
clatter eagerly through the lane.
A boy with a trough of meat on his shoulder
turns by the lamppost,
his steps drag.
The green light slants
in the black of his eyes.
Her eyes are in shadow.

Footsteps of people going to dinner
clatter eagerly; the rain
falls with infinite nonchalance ...
a man turns with a twirl of moustaches
and the green light slants on his glasses
on the round buttons of his coat.
Her eyes are in shadow.

A woman with an umbrella
keeps her eyes straight ahead
and lifts her dress
to avoid the mud on the pavingstones.

An old man stares without fear
into the eyes of the girl
through the stripes of the rain.
His steps beat faster and he sniffs hard suddenly
the smell of dinner and frying fish.
Was it a flame of old days
expanding in his cold blood,
or a shiver of rigid graves,
chill clay choking congealing?

Beside the lamppost in the alley
stands a girl in a long sleek shawl
that moulds vaguely to the curves
of breast and arms.

Calle del Gato

A brown net of branches
quivers above silver trunks of planes.
Here and there
a late leaf flutters
its faint death-rattle in the wind.
Beyond, the sky burns fervid rose
like red wine held against the sun.

Schoolboys are playing in the square
dodging among the silver tree-trunks
collars gleam and white knees
as they romp shrilly.

Lamps bloom out one by one
like jessamine, yellow and small.
At the far end a church's dome
flat deep purple cuts the sky.

Schoolboys are romping in the square
in and out among the silver tree-trunks
out of the smoked rose shadows
through the timid yellow lamplight ...
Socks slip down
fingermarks smudge white collars;
they run and tussle in the shadows
kicking the gravel with muddied boots
with cheeks flushed hotter than the sky
eyes brighter than the street-lamps
with fingers tingling and breath fast:
banqueters early drunken
on the fierce cold wine of the dead year.

Paseo de la Castellana

Green against the livid sky
in their square dun-colored towers
hang the bronze bells of Castile.
In their unshakeable square towers
jutting from the slopes of hills
clang the bells of all the churches
the dustbrown churches of Castile.

How they swing the green bronze bells
athwart olive twilights of Castile
till their fierce insistant clangour
rings down the long plowed slopes
breaks against the leaden hills
whines among the trembling poplars
beside sibilant swift green rivers.

O you strong bells of Castile
that commanding clang your creed
over treeless fields and villages
that huddle in arroyos, gleaming
orange with lights in the greenish dusk;
can it be bells of Castile,
can it be that you remember?

Groans there in your bronze green curves
in your imperious evocation
stench of burnings, rattling screams
quenched among the crackling flames?
The crowd, the pile of faggots in the square,
the yellow robes.... Is it that
bells of Castile that you remember?

Toledo——Madrid

The Tagus flows with a noise of wiers through Aranjuez.
The speeding dark-green water mirrors the old red walls
and the balustrades and close-barred windows of the palace;
and on the other bank three stooping washerwomen
whose bright red shawls and piles of linen gleam in the green,
the swirling green where shimmer the walls of Aranjuez.

The Tagus flows with a noise of wiers through Aranjuez.
And slipping by mirrors the brown-silver trunks of the planes and the hedges
of box and spires of cypress and alleys of yellowing elms;
and on the other bank three grey mules pulling a cart
loaded with turnips, driven by a man in a blue woolen sash
who strides along whistling and does not look towards Aranjuez.

Beyond