Katharine Lee Bates

Here you will find thePoemSpainof poet Katharine Lee Bates

Spain

Across New England snows Flash visions from afar, Lithe gipsies on their toes Dancing to gay guitar; With gesture fierce, bizarre, They lilt some old refrain In whose wild measures are The witcheries of Spain. The stinging north wind blows, But with a ruddy jar Poised on her proud head goes A maiden like a star While, biting his cigar, Her lover, scorned again, Loads on his ass-drawn car The oranges of Spain. As keen as cameos Against yon gray cloud-bar Shine out a tower of rose, A spire like flaming spar, Gold shrines whose candles char The world to ashes, train Of pilgrims, globular Pomegranates flushed with Spain. What freak of calendar, What frostwork on the pane, What angry sleet can mar My picture-book of Spain?