Harriet Monroe: Don Juan in Portugal

At every pelhourinho's ledge Faces to set my teeth on edge — Gray gossips, like a dusty hedge. Whisper and crackle.

I lean at Alcobaca, dim

Wth fig-leaves twisted round its rim.

Pauses a slim

Tall maid. Her name? — ^A Latin hymn,

Gloria da Madre de Deus;

A white-rose face dipped tremulous —

A profile carved as nobly clear

As love-child of Aurelius.

White-clad, barefoot and straight she stood. Vase-bearing nymph ripe to be wooed In some delicious interlude.

What need now to remember more? — The tiled and twisted fountain's pour. The vase forgotten on the floor, The white street ending in her door;

Her head, a dark flower on a stem;

Her diadem

Of heavy hair, the Moorish low estalegem;

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