University of Virginia Library

Now why weep ye by the shrine,
Ye two maidens? Wherefore twine
Roses red and sprigs of pine,
With a busy absent air,
Round the pilgrim-staffs ye bear?
From Vienna with high heart
Ye set forward to take part
In the pilgrimage of grace
To St. Mary's sylvan place,—
Three fair sisters, loveliest three
In the pilgrim company.
See! encased in many a gem
Mary with her diadem,
And, sweet thought! the Mother mild
Lifts on high her holy Child:
As the pensive artist thought
So hath he the limewood wrought.
Why stand ye thus sorrow-bound,
While the train is kneeling round?
And the little Margaret too,
With her eyes of merry blue,
Wherefore is she not with you?
And the staff she was so long
In selecting from the throng
In the Graben, weeks ago
'Ere the flowers began to blow,
And then took it to be blessed
At Saint Stephen's by the priest,—
Hath it failed her, faint and weary,
In some Styrian pinewood dreary?
Ah! she felt the dogstar rage,
And she fain her thirst would swage—
It was her first pilgrimage—
At a cold and brilliant spring
By the wayside murmuring.
Ah sweet child! bright, happy flower!
She was broken from that hour.
They have left her on the steep
Of green Annaberg asleep.
With crossed hands upon her breast
Her choice staff is lightly pressed.
Margaret will awake no more,
Save upon a calmer shore.

Oh what can the sisters say
To the couple far away?
What will the old burgher do,
Since those eyes of merry blue,
The truest sunlight of his home,
Never, never more can come?
See! they sing not, but they gaze
Deep into the jewelled blaze,
And the thought within them swells,—
Mary hath worked miracles!
And they weep and gaze alway,
As though they were fain to say,
“Mother Mary, couldst thou make
Gretchen from her sleep awake?”

Thus often fares it upon earth
With a long-expected mirth:
And when hope is strained too much,
Lo! it shivers at the touch.
Even from a holy rite
There may fade the cheering light,
When for long its single thought
Deep within the heart hath wrought.
This will sometimes quell the ray
Even of an Easter Day.
Deem not thou no grace is there,
Though the rite seem cold and bare,
Though it be a weary thing,
A dull, and formal offering.
It may lodge a light within,
Wrestling with the shades of sin,
And like frankincense may be
To think of in our memory.

When the gay procession passed
I knew not what sad cloud was cast
On these sisters, sorrow-laden,
By the death of that fair maiden.
When it drew itself along,
As one creature, bright and strong,
All instinct with life and song,
Like a child I did not think
That each bending joint and link
Of the sinuous pageant could
Be real hearts of flesh and blood,
Fountains of true hopes and fears,
With ebb and flow of smiles and tears,
Each a separate orb that moves
In a sphere of pains and loves.
To mine eye it did but seem
As a very fluent dream,
And it filled me with a sense
Of joy, and not of reverence.

Ah! to many this great world
Is a pageant thus unfurled,
Banners waving in the air,
Catching sunlight here and there,
O'er uneven places swaying,
Or in quiet woods delaying,
Everywhere fresh shapes displaying,
As the clouds their forms unbind
To new figures in the wind;
And aye man's voiceful destinies,
Like the surge of meeting seas,
Are to them but some wild song
Breathing from the gilded throng.
Thus do idle poets stand
Lonely on the tide-ribbed sand,
Watching the bright waters roll
As a beauty without soul,
Knowing nothing of the worth
Of a human woe or mirth,
Or of that true dignity
Which in love and sorrow lie.
And the books they write are all
But a mute processional,
Lifeless rubrics, canons dull
Of the bright and beautiful,
Formal wisdom, without stir
Of passion-tempered character,
Or imperial instincts meeting,
Or a hot heart in it beating.
But the masters of true song,
Who would sway the various throng,
Must in the procession walk,
To their fellow-pilgrims talk,
Weep or smile on every thing
With a kindly murmuring,
And that murmur so shall be
An immortal melody.

Sisters twain! though now ye sorrow,
Ye shall have a calmer morrow;
Mariazell shall become
In long years a placid home
For remembrances, and tears
Which spring not out of pains or fears;
And this pilgrimage that seems
Broken up like baffled dreams,
Then shall be a very haunt
For your spirits when they want
Of soft feeling deep to drink:
It shall be a joy to think
How the merry Margaret sleeps
Mid the Styrian pinewood steeps,
Safe with childhood's sinless charms
In her Mother Mary's arms.