Fra Dolcino, and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Vercelli smiles—the warm June day has made
In all that little town a feast of light;
Deep into narrow streets, a tangled braid
Of walls and tall grey towers and vaults like night,
And grated windows, and round wide-arched doors,
Letting dim daylight in on stony floors,
And steep stone steps of some mysterious stair,
Dive golden shafts, and dazzle through the screen
Of vine-leaves climbing, trailing everywhere,
Weaving a curled entanglement of green
Round the grey squalors and the frescoes old,
And sharp black shadow-lines, and squares of gold.
Vercelli smiles—and so from street to street
She watches, with the sunshine's burning eye,—
On to the knoll where two white torrents meet,—
Her son, her priest, her prophet, led to die.

2.

He passed the tall, white bell-tower, whence a crowd
Of lovely holy fancies like a cloud
Of angels in a pictured sky, of yore
Had dropped a crown on him, and made him proud
That he the robe of Christ's own weaving wore.
And now, that garb, that glory disavowed,—

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He heard his death-knell from those silver chimes
That he had worshipped to in long lost times—
Those bells that rang him back from swoon divine
On the mosaic pavement of the shrine.
Then thronged adorers in—and now, behold!
The streets are full, yea, fuller than of old.

3.

The priests are there, austerely jubilant,
In cope and chasuble, with cross and chaunt.
And men whom once that eye of Truth could reach,
Who, set on fire by those swift flames of speech,
Had scoffed at what a worn-out Church could teach,
But, setting now two years of war and waste
Against that fruitless eloquence, make haste
To shrive their souls, the slaughtering bishop bless,
And damn the heresy of ill-success.

4.

And they, sweet maiden-buds ten years ago,
Who, at his feet their innocent sins confest,
Now come all gaily ribboned to the show,
Bringing their infants with a mother's zest,
And hold them up to see the pinioned Friar,
And watch with little laughs the crackling fire,
Yea, make the small vague hands throw on a stick
To burn the wretch, the priest, the heretic.

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5.

The Priest, the Heretic! he stood a stern
Unhumbled figure, yet perchance within
Fought hand to hand such passions as might turn
Heaven into chaos, yet that could not burn
Through stony features nor deliverance win
From downcast eyes, that thro' a dark profound
Saw worlds break open worlds, yet nothing round,
And yet that mob which, by their holiday
Made mirthful, followed to the dreadful ground
Hooting and pelting all that cruel way,
Nor cursed nor blessed him to the stake when bound.
They looked, as though by wonder silenced, or
Awestruck, at more than they had bargained for.

6.

For by his side his Margaret stood to bear
The doom she made a triumph by her share.
When desolate in the car of death she went,
The white, pale figure, shadowy, softly bent,
To spell-struck watchers in choked windows pent,
A spirit seemed, on spirit-pathways driven,
And those strange eyes, so clear, so pure, so cold,
Shone with a far-off light like stars in heaven,
Too high for men to read the tales they told.
But when by hard prompt hands the knots were tied,
And, made once more a Bridegroom and a Bride,
The branded Two were standing side by side,

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To those sky-stars the human light returned,
One human form was all that they discerned.
Her eyes in their long living on his face,
Held soul and body in a mute embrace.
To that intense farewell all words were faint—
And still she gazed,—no trembling, no complaint—
A solemn, beautiful, passionate Saint!

7.

Few and low words, and simple, they exchange,
As those to whom could happen nothing strange.
“How hast thou done, dear, since I saw thee last?”—
“O love! I dreamt of thee this sweet night past,
And I feel brave for death.”—“We're soon in heaven;
God's strength to thee, my only care! be given.”

8.

For now through swooning noontide, swift and bright,
Spired quivering, strengthening up a lance of flame,
And fanned her with impatient sigh, alight
With the hot death that toward her stirless frame
Like a wild beast still near and nearer came.
And for one moment's agony her face
Was blanched to its own ghost; on that live grace
Seemed the nigh doom already to impress
Its seal of torture turned to rigidness.
Yet through the sudden lonely horror still,
Like a blind face fixed by a voice, did she

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Keep her face turned to him whose look would be
A hand to hold and draw her where it will—
Since all the same to her were Fate and he!

9.

“Keep thine eyes on me, and I shall not quail,”
She said—in such a tone—tho' words must fail,
He, when that strange enchantment reached his ear,
Raised eyes, whose solemn splendour slew all fear.
She saw in them the very heaven that lay
Just past those gates of noon whose light turned dim
In that excess of rapture—but for him—
The sweet sounds ringing back love's April day,
The violet breath of love's surprise, betray
One moment to a human rapture vain—
The next to God's feet is brought back again.
One word says “Margaret” and his look adds “wife!”
And she is ready for immortal life.

10.

As there he stood—no statue's frozen pride
More steadfast—yet with feet about to slide
Off the world's brink, while these winged seconds fly,
Into the abysses of Eternity,
A woman by him, killed for him, with more
Than hideous death—with infamies of shame;
A world behind him left to bid his fame
Go blackening down the years—a heaven before,

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To which his parent Church annuls his claim;
The martyr of his mission or his dream,
The vanquished hero of a losing game;
What lit upon his cheek that smile's grave gleam?
Was it the presage of a star-bright name?
Or the past passion of a burning fight
With wrongful strength for undefended right?
Or, framed between the death-gates, has he caught
A glimpse thro' skyland of a clear gold shrine?
And thinks he of the ten spent years that brought
A second time the trance and sight divine
To God's forsaken and forgotten seer,
When, wafted to the land abhorred and dear,
He saw upon the long-polluted sod,
All measured by a cherub's dazzling rod,
New Temple towers and walls built up to God;
Saw all the glory, once by Chebar's flood,
Revealed him at the temple-gate of yore,
Entered the inner court, enraptured stood,
And knew God's holy house was His once more!—
So sees he now the Church he dies for, shine
Once more a Temple for the Form divine,
Where the sweet solemn services should wait
The new immortal Priest, glad trembling at the gate?

11.

Or did e'en then the one strong love that bore
The tenderest form God's love made human frames,
Shake one last pulse in that heart's steadfast core
Just ere it fall to ashes in the flames?

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God knows—the look was patient, as of one
Who draws a long and deep, contented breath,
After a fight with floods, so hardly won,
The languishment and rapture seem like death.
So death with him seemed rest—e'en so a wave,
Victorious, wins the shore and breaks and dies;
One look of care—the last before the grave,
For her whom Love brought there to agonize;
One ache of fear lest that delivering fire
Should tear her all too roughly from her clay—
And now, God judge them!—fiercer flames the pyre,
And those two royal spirits are away.