 | The Serpent Play |  |
Scene I.
—The Banquet-room in the Castle of CœlisCœlis, Voragine, Volupsa, Vivia.
Within those legend-bearing walls
Whose age the world's great age recals,
Two blushing maids with love elate
By Voragine and Cœlis sate,
All feasting there in high baronial state.
The warrior now has doffed his crest;
No armature is on his breast;
He revels in his well-earned rest.
A feast of love! Some long-gone day
Drawn back into the happy scene
They tell of in such merry way
That much seems left of what has been.
Then startled, all have ceased to speak:
Sounds of sweet music on them break.
A Minstrel at the gate is singing,
The harp rebounds, the wires are ringing
As he, the deep-voiced Troubadour,
Attunes them to the tale of war.
What words he utters well he feels,
And to the warrior his song appeals!
Whose age the world's great age recals,
Two blushing maids with love elate
By Voragine and Cœlis sate,
All feasting there in high baronial state.
The warrior now has doffed his crest;
No armature is on his breast;
He revels in his well-earned rest.
A feast of love! Some long-gone day
Drawn back into the happy scene
They tell of in such merry way
That much seems left of what has been.
Then startled, all have ceased to speak:
Sounds of sweet music on them break.
A Minstrel at the gate is singing,
The harp rebounds, the wires are ringing
As he, the deep-voiced Troubadour,
Attunes them to the tale of war.
67
And to the warrior his song appeals!
‘'Twas at the meeting of the dead
The fallen bade our slaughters cease;
We mourned their blood that we had shed,
We hailed the better day of peace,
And now one boon we ask that Heaven
Hath ever to the wretched given.’
The fallen bade our slaughters cease;
We mourned their blood that we had shed,
We hailed the better day of peace,
And now one boon we ask that Heaven
Hath ever to the wretched given.’
The words were few but many times
O'er varying keys he spread the rhymes.
The warrior was at Vivia's side:
She shed the tears that he must hide,
Sad in the sorrow of the song;
While deep emotions in him throng
At some awakened sense of wrong.
For lands had he to deserts turned,
And herdsmen slain, and many dwellings burned.
Volupsa watches every thought
The Minstrel's words o'er Cœlis brought,
Thinking, in her silent woe,
Her brother's love would from her turn
To Vivia, and that Cœlis yet might spurn
The heart she gave him long ago.
O'er varying keys he spread the rhymes.
The warrior was at Vivia's side:
She shed the tears that he must hide,
Sad in the sorrow of the song;
While deep emotions in him throng
At some awakened sense of wrong.
For lands had he to deserts turned,
And herdsmen slain, and many dwellings burned.
Volupsa watches every thought
The Minstrel's words o'er Cœlis brought,
Thinking, in her silent woe,
Her brother's love would from her turn
To Vivia, and that Cœlis yet might spurn
The heart she gave him long ago.
Now the Minstrel sings again,
And in the same soul-searching strain.
All hasten to the gateway fain to hear
What they may lose not being there.
They gather on the parapet
Where valleys dip and mountains rise
Around a poet's paradise;
Where strangest deeds may happen yet.
O Minstrel! Canst thou prophesy?
Peace is to-day and war is of the past!
But curses every blessing underlie,
And all things bend before a winter's blast.
And in the same soul-searching strain.
All hasten to the gateway fain to hear
What they may lose not being there.
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Where valleys dip and mountains rise
Around a poet's paradise;
Where strangest deeds may happen yet.
O Minstrel! Canst thou prophesy?
Peace is to-day and war is of the past!
But curses every blessing underlie,
And all things bend before a winter's blast.
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