Rio Grande

By the Rio Grande they dance no sarabande On level banks like lawns above the glassy, lolling tide, Nor sing they forlorn madrigals whose sad note stirs the sleeping gales Till they wake among the trees and shake the boughs and fright the nightingales. But they dance in the city down the public squares On the marble pavers with each colour laid in shares At the open church doors loud with light within At the bell’s huge tolling, by the river music, gurgling, thin through the soft Brazilian air. The Comendador and Alguacil Are there on horseback hid with feathers, loud and shrill Blowing orders on their trumpets like a bird’s sharp bill Through boughs like a bitter wind, calling They shine like steady starlight while those other sparks are falling In burnished armour with their plumes of fire, Tireless, while all others tire. The noisy streets are empty and hushed is the town To where, in the square, they dance and the band is playing, Such a space of silence through the town to the river That the water murmurs loud, Loud above the band and crowd together. And the strains of the sarabande More lively than a madrigal go hand in hand Like the river and its waterfall as the great Rio Grande Rolls down to the sea. By the Rio Grande they dance no sarabande Loud the marimba’s note above these half salt waves And louder still the tympanum, the plectrum and the kettledrum Sullen and menacing do these brazen voices ring They ride outside, above the salt sea’s tide they ride, Above the salt sea’s tide. By the Rio Grande they dance no sarabande Till the ships at anchor hear this enchantment Of the soft Brazilian air by those Southern winds wafted Slow and gentle their fierceness tempered By the air that flows between.