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 | The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere |  |
Canossa!
The world will have the telling of that tale
At last will yield it credence. To Canossa
I bade not yonder boy; he came unsummoned:
If there the frost wind bit him 'twas his choice;
I bade him to depart. A year before
I summoned him to Rome to answer charges;
Reply he made not but convoked at Worms
Gathering of bishops few and false; through these
Deposed Christ's Vicar. I deposed the traitor:
The German Kings my sentence ratified
Unless within a year he purged his crime
By frank submission made. That year nigh ebbed
He rushed across the Alps; knelt at my gates;
I knew him false; I saw his aim: 'twas this,
My pardon won, the German league dissolved,
To break his pledge and mock his feigned submission.
This knowing I refused to see his face.
Three days he beat my gates in sackcloth clad:
The snow fell fast. At length through ceaseless prayer,
Matilda's, ay, and, Hugo, thine, whose hands
Had held the infant Emperor o'er his font,
Against my word reiterate, prescient bodings,
I bade him enter. At my feet he wept;
Tendered submission; pledged eternal faith.
Save for that fraud the lights of Candlemas
Had seen his crown in the dust!
The world will have the telling of that tale
At last will yield it credence. To Canossa
I bade not yonder boy; he came unsummoned:
If there the frost wind bit him 'twas his choice;
I bade him to depart. A year before
I summoned him to Rome to answer charges;
Reply he made not but convoked at Worms
Gathering of bishops few and false; through these
Deposed Christ's Vicar. I deposed the traitor:
The German Kings my sentence ratified
Unless within a year he purged his crime
By frank submission made. That year nigh ebbed
294
I knew him false; I saw his aim: 'twas this,
My pardon won, the German league dissolved,
To break his pledge and mock his feigned submission.
This knowing I refused to see his face.
Three days he beat my gates in sackcloth clad:
The snow fell fast. At length through ceaseless prayer,
Matilda's, ay, and, Hugo, thine, whose hands
Had held the infant Emperor o'er his font,
Against my word reiterate, prescient bodings,
I bade him enter. At my feet he wept;
Tendered submission; pledged eternal faith.
Save for that fraud the lights of Candlemas
Had seen his crown in the dust!
| The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere | |