Sometimes the sentiment is relieved by a realistic touch.
"Very anxious is the flea, Caught between finger and thumb. More anxious I, on watch for thee, Lest thou shouldst not come."
And occasionally the lover, flouted overmuch, retorts in kind.
"Don't blame me that eyes are wet, For I only pay my debt. I've taught you to cry and fret, But first you taught me to forget."
"I'll not have you, Little Torment, I don't want you, Little Witch. Let your mother light four candles And stand you in a niche."
The average Spaniard is well satisfied with his señora as she is. He did her extravagant homage as a suitor, he treats her with kindly indulgence as a husband, but he expects of her a life utterly bounded by the _casa_. "What is a woman?" we heard one say. "A bottle of wine." And those few words tell the story why, with all their charm, home-love, and piety, the Spanish women have not availed to keep the social life of the Peninsula sound and sweet.
"But to admire them as our gallants do, 'Oh, what an eye she hath! Oh, dainty hand! Rare foot and leg!' and leave the mind respectless, This is a plague that in both men and women Makes such pollution of our earthly being."
The life of the convent is attractive to girls of mystic temperament, like the _Maria_ of Valdés, but many of these lively daughters of the sun regard it with frank disfavor. One of the songs found in the mouths of little girls all over the Peninsula is amusingly expressive of the childish aversion to so dull a destiny.
"I wanted to be married To a sprightly barber-lad, But my parents wished to put me In the convent dim and sad.
"One afternoon of summer They walked me out in state, And as we turned a corner, I saw the convent gate.
"Out poured all the solemn nuns In black from toe to chin, Each with a lighted candle, And made me enter in.
"The file was like a funeral; The door shut out the day; They sat me on a marble stool And cut my hair away.
"The pendants from my ears they took, And the ring I loved to wear, But the hardest loss of all to brook Was my mat of raven hair.
"If I run out to the garden And pluck the roses red, I have to kneel in church until Twice twenty prayers are said.
"If I steal up to the tower And clang the convent bell, The holy Abbess utters words I do not choose to tell.