Songs of A Wayfarer :: :: University of Virginia Library

The king sat enthroned in the palace hall, the courtiers standing around;
In robes of purple and ermine he sat, with gold and with jewels crowned:
His passionate eyes were ablaze with wrath; in anger he fiercely frowned.

‘What caitiff has stolen my daughter?’ he cried in thunder-accents, ‘I vow
‘And swear by the heaven above us bowed and the hell that yawns below,
‘Till this good steel blade shall have drunk his blood no rest or quiet to know.’

In silent amaze the courtiers stood: not a word did his barons speak
As each furious warrior grasped his sword and went out the felon to seek:
To traverse the land from end to end, by ford and valley and creek.

But the king, like a lion caged, stalked up and down the ringing hall,
With lips compressed, with lowering brows, pacing from wall to wall:
And Anger and Grief were lords of the land from morn to evenfall.

With lowering brows and with lips compressed, with a heart borne down with care,
He mourned till anguish had furrowed his face and sprinkled with grey his hair;
Till the fever of passion had died and left a frozen and blank despair.

Then a minstrel came to the city who a great renown did gain
For the power that lived in his wondrous skill to soothe all sorrow and pain:
To waken the weary in suffering to life and to joy again.

They brought him before the moody king as he sat on his glittering throne.
The singer he smote his harp and thence drew many a warbling tone;
And sometimes it seemed to be wild with delight, then sank to a sorrowful moan.

All voices e'er heard beneath the sky in his carol seemed to meet:
The song of the thrush, the nightingale and the robin sad and sweet;
The rippling brook and the roaring flood, and the stormy cataract's beat.

The wild bee's low, slow lullaby, the chirk of the grasshopper,
The tender undertone of the wind in a forest of birch and fir,
When it dies away on the lisping leaves that scarcely seem to stir;

Sinking away into whisperings of a heaven of spirit-song;
Rising in wreaths of raptured sounds, bearing each soul along,
Upwards, until it seemed to float the wondering stars among.

Their innermost hearts were thrilled and filled with the shrilling melody;
Trembling in breathless amazement when the music rose clear and high;
Drinking each note as it died away in realms of the uttermost sky.

Then the king with a tear upon his cheek and a smile in his eye rose up.
Through the dreary gloom of his soul was struck a sudden gleam of hope.
With his own right hand he offered the bard a wine-filled golden cup.

‘My kingdom, the half of my kingdom,’ he cried, ‘to this lord of music and song. ‘
Surely to him who has wakened my life my gratefullest gifts belong. ‘
Ask now, and whatever you ask you shall have: you have cancelled my grief and wrong.’

Then the minstrel bent low a loyal knee, as his harp beside him lay,
Bowing his head before the crown and the old head growing gray:
‘Your pardon, my royal father, I crave; for I stole your daughter away.’