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 | The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere |  |
That eve at dusk,
Folk issuing slowly from the Judgment Hall,
Thus Beaufort spake to Beauvais: ‘Yonder girl
May be impostor; she's no Visionary.
Her words though strange have pith; and when she walks
Though light her tread her foot takes hold o' the ground.’
Beauvais made answer low: ‘Lord Cardinal
A King's son you and walk the world unquestioned;
There's not one street in Rouen I could tread
If I released that Maid!’ The Cardinal next
With thin lip curled, ‘The better for Barabbas!’
Folk issuing slowly from the Judgment Hall,
Thus Beaufort spake to Beauvais: ‘Yonder girl
May be impostor; she's no Visionary.
Her words though strange have pith; and when she walks
Though light her tread her foot takes hold o' the ground.’
Beauvais made answer low: ‘Lord Cardinal
A King's son you and walk the world unquestioned;
There's not one street in Rouen I could tread
350
With thin lip curled, ‘The better for Barabbas!’
Abortive thus nine days the judges met.
No witnesses were called or none made answer.
They baited her; 'twas vain. Not once she shewed
Distempered mind. It was not thus with them:
Writhing in wrath at last they shouted thus:
‘Full adjuration or the death by fire!’
She answered: ‘Sirs, deceive not your own hearts:
Sirs, it was God Who sent me. I appeal
To God, the Pope, and all the Church of Christ.’
The judges whispered; next advanced a clerk;
That clerk read low an act of abjuration
Suppressing half that act. She waived it back.
He read her next a brief unmeaning scroll;
It pledged her but to ride thenceforth no more
In war a knight steel-clad. Smiling she took it;
Glanced at it lightly; signed it with a cross;
That cross they placed upon a parchment new,
An abjuration full. The lie thus forged
Lived, a tradition long.
No witnesses were called or none made answer.
They baited her; 'twas vain. Not once she shewed
Distempered mind. It was not thus with them:
Writhing in wrath at last they shouted thus:
‘Full adjuration or the death by fire!’
She answered: ‘Sirs, deceive not your own hearts:
Sirs, it was God Who sent me. I appeal
To God, the Pope, and all the Church of Christ.’
The judges whispered; next advanced a clerk;
That clerk read low an act of abjuration
Suppressing half that act. She waived it back.
He read her next a brief unmeaning scroll;
It pledged her but to ride thenceforth no more
In war a knight steel-clad. Smiling she took it;
Glanced at it lightly; signed it with a cross;
That cross they placed upon a parchment new,
An abjuration full. The lie thus forged
Lived, a tradition long.
| The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere | |