Songs at the Start :: :: University of Virginia Library

Brother Bartholomew, working-time,
Would fall into musing and drop his tools;
Brother Bartholomew cared for rhyme
More than for theses of the schools;
And sighed, and took up his burden so,
Vowed to the Muses, for weal or woe.

At matins he sat, the book on his knees,
But his thoughts were wandering far away;
And chanted the evening litanies
Watching the roseate skies grow gray,
Watching the brightening starry host
Flame like the tongues at Pentecost.

“A foolish dreamer, and nothing more;
The idlest fellow a cell could hold;”

So murmured the worthy Isidor,
Prior of ancient Nithiswold;
Yet pitiful, with dispraise content,
Signed never the culprit's banishment.

Meanwhile Bartholomew went his way
And patiently wrote in his sunny cell;
His pen fast travelled from day to day;
His books were covered, the walls as well.
“But O for the monk that I miss, instead
Of this listless rhymer!” the Prior said.

Bartholomew dying, as mortals must,
Not unbelov'd of the cowlèd throng,
Thereafter, they took from the dark and dust
Of shelves and of corners, many a song
That cried loud, loud to the farthest day,
How a bard had arisen,—and passed away.

Wonderful verses! fair and fine,
Rich in the old Greek loveliness;

The seer-like vision, half divine;
Pathos and merriment in excess.
And every perfect stanza told
Of love and of labor manifold.

The King came out and stood beside
Bartholomew's taper-lighted bier,
And turning to his lords, he sighed:
“How worn and wearied doth he appear,—
Our noble poet,—now he is dead!”
“O tireless worker!” the Prior said.