Feeling himself unfitted for the strain
Of battles like the last he fought at sea,
This soldier, doomed to sordid usury,
Wandered unknown throughout his own harsh Spain.
To blot out or to mitigate the pain
Of all reality, he hid in dream;
A magic past was opened up to him
Through Roland and the tales of Ancient Britain.
At sunset he would contemplate the vast
Plain with its copper light lingering on;
He felt himself defeated, poor, alone,
Ignorant of what music he was master;
Already, in the still depths of some dream,
Don Quixote and Sancho were alive in him.