The Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed :: :: University of Virginia Library

In sooth it was a glorious day
For vassal and for lord,
When Cœur de Lion had the sway
In battle and at board.
He was indeed a royal one,
A Prince of Paladins;
Hero of triumph and of tun,
Of noisy fray and noisy fun,
Broad shoulders and broad grins.
You might have looked from east to west,
And then from north to south,
And never found an ampler breast,
Never an ampler mouth,
A softer tone for lady's ear,
A daintier lip for syrup,
Or a ruder grasp for axe and spear,
Or a firmer foot in stirrup.
A ponderous thing was Richard's can,
And so was Richard's boot;

And Saracens and liquor ran,
Where'er he set his foot.
So fiddling here, and fighting there,
And murdering time and tune,
With sturdy limb, and listless air,
And gauntleted hand, and jewelled hair,
Half monarch, half buffon,
He turned away from feast to fray,
From quarrelling to quaffing,
So great in prowess and in pranks,
So fierce and funny in the ranks,
That Saladin the Soldan said,
Whene'er that mad-cap Richard led,
Alla! he held his breath for dread,
And burst his sides for laughing!

At court, the humour of a king
Is always voted “quite the thing;”
Morals and cloaks are loose or laced
According to the Sovereign's taste,
And belles and banquets both are drest
Just as his majesty thinks best.
Of course in that delightful age,
When Richard ruled the roast,
Cracking of craniums was the rage,
And beauty was the toast.
Ay! all was laugh, and life, and love;
And lips and shrines were kissed;

And vows were ventured in the grove,
And lances in the list;
And boys roamed out in sunny weather
To weave a wreath and rhyme together,
While dames in silence, and in satin,
Lay listening to the soft French-Latin,
And flung their sashes and their sighs
From odour-breathing balconies.

From those bright days of love and glory
I take the hero of my story.
A wandering Troubadour was he;
He bore a name of high degree,
And learned betimes to slay and sue,
As knights of high degree should do.
While vigour nerved his buoyant arm,
And youth was his to cheat and charm,
Being immensely fond of dancing,
And somewhat given to romancing,
He roamed about through towers and towns,
Apostrophizing smiles and frowns,
Singing sweet staves to beads and bonnets,
And dying, day by day, in sonnets.
Flippant and fair, and fool enough,
And careless where he met rebuff.
Poco-curante in all cases
Of furious foes, or pretty faces,
With laughing lip, and jocund eye,

And studied tear, and practised sigh,
And ready sword, and ready verse,
And store of ducats in his purse,
He sinned few crimes, loved many times,
And wrote a hundred thousand rhymes!

Summers twice eight had passed away
Since in his nurse's arms he lay,
A rosy, roaring child,
While all around was noisy mirth,
And logs blazed up upon the hearth,
And bonfires on the wild;
And vassals drank the brown bowl dry,
And cousins knew “the mother's eye,”
And wrinkled crones spoke prophecy,
And his brave father smiled.
Summers twice eight had passed away;
His sire's thin locks grew very gray;
He lost his song, and then his shout,
And seldom saw his bottle out.
Then all the menials straight began
To sorrow for “the poor old man,”
Took thought about his shirts and shoe-ties,
And pestered him with loves and duties.
Young Roger laced a crimson row
Of cushions on his saddle-bow;
Red Wyke at Christmas mingled up
More sugar in the wassail-cup;

Fair Margaret laid finer sheets;
Fat Catharine served richer sweets;
And all, from scullion up to squire,
Who stirred his cup or kitchen fire,
Seemed by their doings to determine
The knight should ne'er be food for vermin.
All would not do; the knight grew thinner,
And loved his bed, and loathed his dinner;
And when he muttered—“Becket—beast,
Bring me the posset—and a priest,”
Becket looked grave, and said “good lack!”
And went to ask the price of black.

Masses and medicines both were bought,
Masses and medicines both were naught;
Sir Hubert's race was run;
As best beseemed a warrior tall,
He died within his ancient hall:
And he was blest by Father Paul,
And buried by his son.
'Twere long to tell the motley gear
That waited on Sir Hubert's bier;
For twenty good miles round
Maiden and matron, knave and knight,
All rode or ran to see the sight;
Yeomen with horse and hound,
Gossips in grief and grogram clad,
Young warriors galloping like mad,

Priors and pedlars, pigs and pyxes,
Cooks, choristers, and crucifixes,
Wild urchins cutting jokes and capers,
And taper shapes, and shapely tapers.
The mighty barons of the land
Brought pain in heart, and four-in-hand;
And village maids, with looks of woe,
Turned out their mourning, and their toe.
The bell was rung, the hymn was sung,
On the oak chest the dust was flung;
And then, beneath the chapel-stones,
With a gilt scutcheon o'er his bones,
Escaped from feather-beds and fidget,
Sir Hubert slept with Lady Bridget.

The mob departed: cold and cloud
Shed on the vault their icy shroud,
And night came dark and dreary;
But there young Vidal lingered still,
And kept his fast, and wept his fill,
Though the wind in the chapel was very chill,
And Vidal very weary.
Low moaned the bell; the torch-light fell
In fitful and faint flashes;
And he lay on the stones, where his father's bones
Were mouldering now to ashes;
And vowed to be, on earth and sea,
Whatever stars shone o'er him,

A trusty knight, in love and fight
As his father had been before him
Then in the silence of the night
Passionate grief was his delight;
He thought of all the brave and fair
Who slept their shadowy slumber there;
And that sweet dotage held him long.
Ere sorrow found her voice in song.

It was an ancient thing; a song
His heart had sung in other years,
When boyhood had its idle throng
Of guiltless smiles, and guileless tears;
But never had its music seemed
So sweet to him, as when to-night
All lorn and lone, he kneeled and dreamed,
Before the taper's holy light,
Of many and mysterious things,
His cradle's early visitings,
The melancholy tones, that blest
The pillow of his sinless rest,
The melody, whose magic numbers
Broke in by snatches on his slumbers,
When earth appeared so brightly dim,
And all was bliss, and all for him,
And every sight and every sound
Had heaven's own day-light flowing round.

“My mother's grave, my mother's grave!
Oh! dreamless is her slumber there,
And drowsily the banners wave
O'er her that was so chaste and fair;
Yea! love is dead, and memory faded!
But when the dew is on the brake,
And silence sleeps on earth and sea.
And mourners weep, and ghosts awake,
Oh! then she cometh back to me,
In her cold beauty darkly shaded!

“I cannot guess her face or form;
But what to me is form or face?
I do not ask the weary worm
To give me back each buried grace
Of glistening eyes, or trailing tresses!
I only feel that she is here,
And that we meet, and that we part;
And that I drink within mine ear,
And that I clasp around my heart,
Her sweet still voice, and soft caresses:

“Not in the waking thought by day,
Not in the sightless dream by night,
Do the mild tones and glances play,
Of her who was my cradle's light!
But in some twilight of calm weather

She glides, by fancy dimly wrought,
A glittering cloud, a darkling beam,
With all the quiet of a thought,
And all the passion of a dream,
Linked in a golden spell together!”

Oh! Vidal's very soul did weep
Whene'er that music, like a charm,
Brought back from their unlistening sleep
The kissing lip and clasping arm.
But quiet tears are worth, to some,
The richest smiles in Christendom;
And Vidal, though in folly's ring
He seemed so weak and wild a thing,
Had yet an hour, when none were by,
For reason's thought, and passion's sigh,
And knew and felt, in heart and brain,
The Paradise of buried pain!

And Vidal rose at break of day,
And found his heart unbroken;
And told his beads, and went away,
On a steed he had bespoken;
His bonnet he drew his eyelids o'er,
For tears were like to blind him;
And he spurred Sir Guy o'er mount and moor,
With a long dull journey all before,
And a short gay squire behind him.

And the neighbourhood much marvel had;
And all who saw did say,
The weather and the roads were bad,
And either Vidal had run mad,
Or Guy had run away!
Oh! when a cheek is to be dried,
All pharmacy is folly;
And Vidal knew, for he had tried,
There's nothing like a rattling ride
For curing melancholy!

Three days he rode all mad and mute;
And when the sun did pass,
Three nights he supped upon dry fruit,
And slept upon wet grass.
Beneath an oak, whose hundred years
Had formed fit shade for talk or tears,
On the fourth day he lay at noon,
And put his gilt guitar in tune;
When suddenly swept by,
In gold and silver all arrayed,
A most resplendent cavalcade;
Baron and Beauty, Knave and Knight,
And lips of love, and eyes of light,
All blended dazzlingly.
Ah! all the world that day came out,
With horse and horn, and song and shout;
And belles and bouquets gaily bloomed,

And all were proud, and all perfumed,
And gallants, as the humour rose,
Talked any nonsense that they chose,
And damsels gave the reins for fun
Alike to palfrey and to pun.
It chanced no lady had been thrown,
No heir had cracked his collar-bone,
So pleasure laughed on every cheek,
And nought, save saddles, dreamed of pique.
And brightest of that brilliant train,
With jewelled bit, and gilded rein,
And pommel clothed in gorgeous netting,
And courser daintily curvetting,
Girt round with gallant Cavaliers,
Some deep in love, and some in years,
Half exquisites and half absurds,
All babbling of their beasts and birds,
Quite tired of trumpeting and talking,
The Baroness returned from hawking.

The Lady halted; well she might;
For Vidal was so fair,
You would have thought some god of light
Had walked to take the air;
Bare were both his delicate hands,
And the hue on his cheek was high,
As woman's when she understands
Her first fond lover's sigh;

And desolate very, and very dumb,
And rolling his eyes of blue,
And rubbing his forehead, and biting his thumb,
As lyrists and lovers do.
Like Queen Titania's darling pet,
Or Oberon's wickedest elf,
He lay beside a rivulet,
And looked beside himself;
And belles full blown, and beaux full drest,
Stood there with smirk and smile,
And many a finger, and many a jest,
Were pointed all the while.

Then Vidal came, and bent his knees
Before the Lady there,
And raised his bonnet, that the breeze
Might trifle with his hair;
And said, he was a nameless youth,
Had learned betimes to tell the truth,
Could greet a friend, and grasp a foe,
Could take a jest, and give a blow,
Had no idea of false pretences,
Had lost his father, and his senses,
Was travelling over land and sea,
Armed with guitar and gallantry;
And if her will found aught of pleasure
In trifling soul, and tinkling measure,

He prayed that she would call her own
His every thought, and every tone.

“Bonne grace, good Mary, and sweet St. John!”
That haughty dame did say;
“A goodly quarry I have won,
In this our sport to-day!
A precious page is this of mine,
To carve my meat and pour my wine,
To loose my greyhound's ringing chain,
And hold my palfrey's gaudy rein,
And tell strange tales of moody sprites,
Around the hearth, on winter nights.
Marry! a wilful look, and wild!
But we shall tame the wayward child,
And dress his roving locks demurely,
And tie his jesses on securely.”

She took from out her garment's fold
A dazzling gaud of twisted gold;
She raised him from his knee;
The diamond cross she gravely kissed,
And twined the links around his wrist
With such fine witchery,
That there he kneeled, and met her glance
In silence and a moveless trance,
And saw no sight, and heard no sound,
And knew himself more firmly bound

Than if a hundred weight of steel
Had fettered him from head to heel!

And from that moment Vidal gave
His childish fancy up,
Became her most peculiar slave,
And wore her scarf, and whipped her knave
And filled her silver cup.
She was a widow: on this earth
It seemed her only task was mirth;
She had no nerves and no sensations,
No troubling friends nor poor relations;
No gnawing grief to feel a care for,
No living soul to breathe a prayer for.
Ten years ago her lord and master
Had chanced upon a sad disaster;
One night his servants found him lying
Speechless or senseless, dead or dying,
With shivered sword and dabbled crest,
And a small poniard in his breast,
And nothing further to supply
The slightest hint of how or why.
As usual, in such horrid cases,
The men made oath, the maids made faces:
All thought it most immensely funny
The murderer should have left the money,
And showed suspicions in dumb crambo,
And buried him with fear and flambeau.

Clotilda shrieked and swooned, of course,
Grew very ill, and very hoarse,
Put on a veil, put off a rout,
Turned all her cooks and courtiers out,
And lived two years on water-gruel,
And drank no wine, and used no fuel.
At last, when all the world had seen
How very virtuous she had been,
She left her chamber, dried her tears,
Kept open house for Cavaliers,
New furnished all the cobwebbed rooms,
And burned a fortune in perfumes.
She had seen six-and-thirty springs,
And still her blood's warm wanderings
Told tales in every throbbing vein
Of youth's high hope, and passion's reign,
And dreams from which that lady's heart
Had parted, or had seemed to part.
She had no wiles from cunning France,
Too cold to sing, too tall to dance;
But yet, where'er her footsteps went.
She was the Queen of Merriment:
She called the quickest at the table,
For Courcy's song, or Comine's fable,
Bade Barons quarrel for her glove,
And talked with Squires of ladie-love,
And hawked and hunted in all weathers,
And stood six feet—including feathers.

Her suitors, men of swords and banners,
Were very guarded in their manners,
And e'en when heated by the jorum
Knew the strict limits of decorum.
Well had Clotilda learned the glance
That checks a lover's first advance;
That brow to her was given
That chills presumption in its birth,
And mars the madness of our mirth,
And wakes the reptile of the earth
From the vision he hath of Heaven.
And yet for Vidal she could find
No word or look that was not kind:
With him she walked in shine or shower,
And quite forgot the dinner hour,
And gazed upon him, till he smiled,
As doth a mother on a child.
Oh! when was dream so purely dreamed!
A mother and a child they seemed:
In warmer guise he loved her not;—
And if, beneath the stars and moon,
He lingered in some lonely spot
To play her fond and favourite tune,
And if he fed her petted mare,
And made acquaintance with her bear,
And kissed her hand whene'er she gave it,
And kneeled him down, sometimes, to crave it,

'Twas partly pride, and partly jest,
And partly 'twas a boyish whim,
And that he liked to see the rest
Look angrily on her and him.
And that—in short, he was a boy,
And doted on his last new toy.

It chanced that late, one summer's gloaming,
The Lady and the youth were roaming,
In converse close of those and these,
Beneath a long arcade of trees;
Tall trunks stood up on left and right,
Like columns in the gloom of night,
Breezeless and voiceless; and on high,
Where those eternal pillars ended,
The silent boughs so closely blended
Their mirk, unstirring majesty,
That Superstition well might run
To wander there from twelve to one,
And call strange shapes from heaven or hell
Of cowl and candle, book and bell,
And kneel as in the vaulted aisle
Of some time-honoured Gothic pile
To pay her weary worship there
Of counted beads, and pattered prayer.

Clotilda had, for once, the vapours,
And when the stars lit up their tapers,

She said that she was very weary,—
She liked the place, it was so dreary.—
The dew was down on grass and flower,
'Twas very wet—'twas very wrong—
But she must rest for half an hour,
And listen to another song.

Then many a tale did Vidal tell
Of warrior's spear, and wizard's spell;
How that Sir Brian le Bleu had been
Cup-bearer to a fairy queen;
And how that a hundred years did pass,
And left his brow as smooth as glass;
Time on his form marked no decay,
He stole not a single charm away,
He could not blight
That eye of light,
Nor turn those raven ringlets gray.

But Brian's love for a mortal maid,
Was written and read in a magic sign,
When Brian slipped on the moonlight glade,
And spilled the fairy's odorous wine;
And she dipped her fingers in the can,
And sprinkled him with seven sprinkles,
And he went from her presence a weary man,
A withering lump of rheum and wrinkles.

And how that Satan made a bond
With Armonell of Trebizond—
A bond that was written at first in tears,
And torn at last in laughter—
To be his slave for a thousand years,
And his sovereign ever after.

And oh! those years, they fleeted fast,
And a single year remained at last,
A year for crouching and for crying,
Between his frolic and his frying.

“Toil yet another toil,” quoth he,
“Or else thy prey I will not be;
Come hither, come hither, servant mine,
And call me back
The faded track
Of years nine hundred and ninety-nine!”
And Satan hied to his home again
On the wings of a blasting hurricane,
And left old Armonell to die,
And sleep in the odour of sanctity.

In mockery of the Minstrel's skill
The Lady's brow grew darker still;
She trembled as she lay,
And o'er her face, like fitful flame,
The feverish colour went and came.

And, in the pauses of the tune,
Her black eyes stared upon the moon
With an unearthly ray.

“Good Vidal,”—as she spoke she leant
So wildly o'er the instrument
That wondering Vidal started back,
For fear the strings should go to wrack,—
“Good Vidal, I have read and heard
Of many a haunted heath and dell,
Where potency of wand or word,
Or chanted rhyme, or written spell,
Hath burst, in such an hour as this,
The cerements of the rotting tomb,
And waked from woe, or torn from bliss,
The heritors of chill and gloom,
Until they walked upon the earth,
Unshrouded, in a ghastly mirth,
And frightened men with soundless cries,
And hueless cheeks, and rayless eyes.
Such power there is!—if such be thine,
Why, make to-night that sound or sign;
And while the vapoury sky looks mirk
In horror at our midnight work,
We two will sit on two green knolis,
And jest with unembodied souls,
And mock at every moody sprite
That wanders from his bed to-night.”

The boy jumped up in vast surprise,
And rubbed his forehead and his eyes,
And, quite unable to reflect,
Made answer much to this effect:
“Lady!—the saints befriend a sinner!—
Lady!—she drank too much at dinner!—
I know a rhyme, and—ghosts forsooth!—
I used to sing it in my youth;
'Twas taught me—curse my foolish vanity!—
By an old wizard—stark insanity!—
Who came from Tunis—'tis the hock!—
At a great age and—twelve o'clock!—
He wore—O Lord!—a painted girdle,
For which they burnt him on a hurdle;
He had a charm, but—what the deuce!
It wasn't of the slightest use;
There's not a single ghost that cares
For—mercy on me! how she stares!”
And then again he sate him down,
For fiercer fell Clotilda's frown,
And played, abominably ill,
And horribly against his will.

“Spirits, that walk and wail to-night,
I feel, I feel that ye are near;
There is a mist upon my sight,
There is a murmur in mine ear,

And a dark dark dread
Of the lonely dead,
Creeps through the whispering atmosphere!

“Ye hover o'er the hoary trees,
And the old oaks stand bereft and bare;
Ye hover o'er the moonlight seas,
And the tall masts rot in the poisoned air;
Ye gaze on the gate
Of earthly state,
And the ban-dog shivers in silence there.

“Come hither to me upon your cloud,
And tell me of your bliss or pain,
And let me see your shadowy shroud,
And colourless lip, and bloodless vein;
Where do ye dwell,
In heaven or hell?
And why do ye wander on earth again?

“Tell to me where and how ye died,
Fell ye in darkness, or fell ye in day,
On lorn hill-side, or roaring tide,
In gorgeous feast, or rushing fray?
By bowl or blow,
From friend or foe,
Hurried your angry souls away?

“Mute ye come, and mute ye pass,
Your tale untold, your shrift unshriven;
But ye have blighted the pale grass,
And scared the ghastly stars from heaven;
And guilt hath known
Your voiceless moan,
And felt that the blood is unforgiven!”

He paused; for silently and slow
The Lady left his side;
It seemed her blood had ceased to flow,
For her cheek was as white as the morning snow,
And the light of her eyes had died.
She gazed upon some form of fright,—
But it was not seen of Vidal's sight;
She drank some sound of hate or fear,—
But it was not heard of Vidal's ear;
“Look! look!” she said; and Vidal spoke:
“Why! zounds! it's nothing but an oak!”

“Valence!” she muttered, “I will rise;
Ay! turn not those dead orbs on mine;
Fearless to-night are these worn eyes,
And nerveless is that arm of thine.
Thrice hast thou fleeted o'er my path;
And I would hear thy dull lips say,
Is it in sorrow, or in wrath,
That thou dost haunt my lonely way?

Ay! frown not! heaven may blast me now,
In this dark hour, in this cold spot;
And then—I can but be as thou,
And hate thee still, and fear thee not!”
She strode two steps, and stretched her hand
In attitude of stern command;
The tremor of her voice and tread
Had more of passion than of dread,
The net had parted from her hair,
The locks fell down in the powerless air,
Her frame with strange convulsion rocked—
And Vidal was intensely shocked.

The Lady drew a long low sigh,
As if some voice had made reply,
Though Vidal could not catch a word
And thought it horribly absurd.
“Remember it?—avenging power!
I ask no word, I need no sign,
To teach me of that withering hour
That linked this wasted hand in thine!
He was not there!—I deemed him slain:—
And thine the guilt,—and mine the pain!
There are memorials of that day
Which time shall never blot away,
Unheeded prayer, unpardoned sin,
And smiles without, and flames within.

And broken heart, and ruined fame,
And glutted hate, and dreaded shame,
And late remorse, and dreams, and fears
And bitter and enduring tears!”

She listened there another space,
And stirred no feature of her face,
Though big drops, ere she spoke again,
Fell from her clammy brow like rain:
At last she glanced a wilder stare,
And stamped her foot, and tore her hair.
“False fiend! thou liest, thou hast lied!
He was, what thou couldst never be—
In anguish true, in danger tried—
Their friend to all—my god to me!
He loved—as thou couldst never love—
Long years—and not, till then, in guilt;
Nay! point not to the wailing grove,
I know by whom the blood was spilt,
I saw the tomb, and heard the knell,
And life to me was lorn and blighted,—
He died—and vengeance watches well!
He died—and thou wert well requited!”

Again she listened:—full five score
You might have counted duly o'er—
And then she laughed; so fierce and shrill
That laughter echoed o'er the hill,

That Vidal deemed the very ground
Did shake at its unearthly sound.
“I do not tremble! be it so!—
Or here or there! in bliss or woe!—
Yea! let it be! and we will meet,
Where never—” and at Vidal's feet
She sank, as senseless and as cold
As if her death were two days old;
And Vidal, who an hour before
Had voted it a horrid bore,
His silken sash with speed unlaced,
And bound it round her neck and waist,
And bore her to her castle-gate,
And never stopped to rest or bait,
Speeding as swiftly on his track
As if nine fiends were at his back.

Then rose from fifty furious lungs
A Babel of discordant tongues:
“Jesu! the Baroness is dead!”—
“Shouldn't her Ladyship be bled?”—
“Her fingers are as cold as stone!”—
“And look how white her lips are grown!
A dreadful thing for all who love her
'Tis ten to one she won't recover!”—
“Ten?”—“did you ever, Mrs. Anne?
Ten rogues against one honest man!”—
“How master Vidal must have fought!

It's what I never should have thought;
He seems the sickliest thing alive;”—
“They say he killed and wounded five!”—
“Is master Vidal killed and wounded?
I trust the story is unfounded!”—
“I saw him on his legs just now,”—
“What! sawed his legs off? well, I vow”—
“Peace, babbler, peace! you see you've shocked her!
Help! ho!”—“cold water for the Doctor!
Her eyes are open!”—“how they blink!
Why, Doctor, do you really think,”—
“My Lord, we never think at all;
I'll trouble you to clear the hall,
And check all tendency to riot,
And keep the Castle very quiet;
Let none but little Bertha stay;
And—try to keep the Friar away!”
Poor Vidal, who amid the rout
Had crept in cautious silence out,
Reeled to his chamber in the staggers,
And thought of home, and dreamed of daggers

Day dawned: the Baroness was able
To beam upon the breakfast table,
As well as could be well expected,
Before the guests were half collected.
“A fainting fit;—a thing of course;—
In sooth it might have ended worse;

Exceedingly obliged to Vidal;—
Pray, had the groom repaired her bridle?
She walked too late;—it was a warning;
And—who was for the chase this morning?”

Days past, and weeks: Clotilda's mien
Was gay as it before had been,
And only once or twice her glance
Fell darkly on his countenance,
And gazed into his eyes of blue,
As if she read his young heart through:
At length she mildly hinted—“Surely
Vidal was looking very poorly,—
He never talked,—had parted quite
With spirits, and with appetite;
She thought he wanted change of air;—
It was a shame to keep him there
She had remarked the change with sorrow,
And—well, he should set out to-morrow.”

The morrow came, 'twas glorious weather,
And all the household flocked together
To hold his stirrup and his rein,
And say, “Heaven speed!” with might and mam
Clotilda only said “Farewell!”
And gave her hand to kiss and clasp;
He thought it trembled, as it fell
In silence from his lip and grasp,

And yet upon her cheek and brow
There dwelt no flush of passion now;
Only the kind regret was there
Which severed friends at parting wear,
And the sad smile and glistening eye
Seemed nought to shun, and nought defy.

“Farewell!” she said, and so departed;
And Vidal from his reverie started,
And blessed his soul, and cleared his throat,
And crossed his forehead—and the moat.

END OF CANTO I.

CANTO II.

All milliners who start from bed
To gaze upon a coat of red,
Or listen to a drum,
Know very well the Paphian Queen
Was never yet at Paphos seen,
That Cupid's all a hum,
That minstrels forge confounded lies
About the Deities and skies,
That torches all go out sometimes,
That flowers all fade except in rhymes,
That maids are seldom shot with arrows,
And coaches never drawn by sparrows.

And yet, fair cousin, do not deem
That all is false which poets tell,
Of Passion's first and dearest dream,
Of haunted spot, and silent spell,
Of long low musing, such as suits
The terrace on your own dark hill,
Of whispers which are sweet as lutes,
And silence which is sweeter still;
Believe, believe,—for May shall pass,
And summer sun and winter shower

Shall dim the freshness of the grass,
And mar the fragrance of the flower,—
Believe it all, whate'er you hear
Of plighted vow, and treasured token,
And hues which only once appear,
And words which only once are spoken,
And prayers whose natural voice is song,
And schemes that die in wild endeavour,
And tears so pleasant, you will long
To weep such pleasant tears for ever:
Believe it all, believe it all!
Oh! Virtue's frown is all divine;
And Folly hides his happy thrall
In sneers as cold and false as mine;
And Reason prates of wrong and right,
And marvels hearts can break or bleed,
And flings on all that's warm and bright
The winter of his icy creed;
But when the soul has ceased to glow,
And years and cares are coming fast,
There's nothing like young love! no, no!
There's nothing like young love at last!

The Convent of St. Ursula
Has been in a marvellous fright to-day;
The nuns are all in a terrible pother,
Scolding and screaming at one another;
Two or three pale, and two or three red;

Two or three frightened to death in bed;
Two or three waging a wordy war
With the wide-eared saints of the calendar.
Beads and lies have both been told,
Tempers are hot, and dishes are cold;
Celandine rends her last new veil,
Leonore babbles of horns and tail;
Celandine proses of songs and slips,
Violette blushes and bites her lips:
Oh! what is the matter, the matter to-day,
With the Convent of St. Ursula?

But the Abbess has made the chiefest din,
And cried the loudest cry;
She has pinned her cap with a crooked pin,
And talked of Satan and of sin,
And set her coif awry;
And she can never quiet be;
But ever since the matins,
In gallery and scullery,
And kitchen and refectory,
She tramps it in her pattens;
Oh! what is the matter, the matter to-day,
With the Abbess of St. Ursula?

Thrice in the silence of eventime
A desperate foot has dared to climb
Over the Convent gate;

Thrice a venturous voice and lute
Have dared to wake their amorous suit,
Among the Convent flowers and fruit,
Abominably late;
And thrice, the beldames know it well,
From out the lattice of her cell,
To listen to that murmured measure
Of life, and love, and hope, and pleasure,
With throbbing heart and eyelid wet,
Hath leaned the novice Violette;
And oh! you may tell from her mournful gaze,
Her vision hath been of those dear days,
When happily o'er the quiet lawn,
Bright with the dew's most heavenly sprinkles,
She scared the pheasant, and chased the fawn,
Till a smile came o'er her father's wrinkles;
Or stood beside that water fair,
Where moonlight slept with a ray so tender,
That every star which glistened there,
Glistened, she thought, with a double splendour;
And oh! she loved the ripples' play,
As to her feet the truant rovers
Wandered and went with a laugh away,
Kissing but once, like wayward lovers.
And oh! she loved the night-wind's moan,
And the dreary watch-dog's lonely yelling,
And the sentinel's unchanging tone,
And the chapel chime so sadly knelling,

And the echoes from the Castle hall
Of circling song and noisy gladness,
And, in some silent interval,
The nightingale's deep voice of sadness.
Alas! there comes a winter bleak
On the lightest joy, and the loveliest flower;
And the smiles have faded on Violette's cheek,
And the roses have withered in Violette's bower;
But now by the beautiful turf and tide
Poor Violette's heart in silence lingers,
And the thrilling tears of memory glide
Thro' the trembling veil and the quivering fingers.
Yet not for these—for these alone—
That innocent heart beats high to-day;
And not for these the stifled moan
Is breathed in such thick passionate tone,
That—not the lips appear to pray,—
But you may deem those murmurs start
Forth from the life-strings of the heart,
So wild and strange is that long sigh,
So full of bliss and agony!

She thinks of him, the lovely boy,
Sweet Vidal, with his face of joy,
The careless mate of all the glee
That shone upon her infancy,
The baby-lover, who had been
The sceptred King, where she was Queen,

On Childhood's dream-encircled strand,
The undisputed Fairy-land!
She thinks of him, she thinks of him,
The lord of every wicked whim,
Who dared Sir Prinsamour to battle,
And drove away De Clifford's cattle,
And sang an Ave at the feast,
And made wry faces at the Priest,
And ducked the Duchess in the sea,
And tore Sir Roland's pedigree.

She thinks of him,—the forehead fair,
The ruddy lip, and glossy hair,—
The mountains, where they roved together
In life's most bright and witching weather,—
The wreck they watched upon the coast,—
The ruin where they saw the ghost,—
The fairy tale he loved to tell,—
The serenade he sang so well;
And then she turns and sees again
The naked wall, and grated pane,
And frequent winks and frequent frowns,
And 'broidered books, and 'broidered gowns,
And plaster saints and plaster patrons,
And three impracticable matrons.

She was a very pretty nun:
Sad, delicate, and five feet one;

Her face was oval, and her eye
Looked like the heaven in Italy,
Serenely blue, and softly bright,
Made up of languish and of light!
And her neck, except where the locks of brown,
Like a sweet summer mist, fell droopingly down,
Was as chill and as white as the snow, ere the earth
Has sullied the hue of its heavenly birth;
And through the blue veins you might see
The pure blood wander silently,
Like noiseless eddies, that far below
In the glistening depths of a calm lake flow:
Her cold hands on her bosom lay;
And her ivory crucifix, cold as they,
Was clasped in a fearful and fond caress,
As if she shrank from its holiness,
And felt that hers was the only guilt
For which no healing blood was spilt:
And tears were bursting all the while;
Yet now and then a vacant smile
Over her lips would come and go,—
A very mockery of woe,—
A brief, wan smile,—a piteous token
Of a warm love crushed, and a young heart broken!

“Marry come up!” said Celandine,
Whose nose was ruby red,—

“From venomous cates and wicked wine
A deadly sin is bred.
Darkness and anti-phlogistic diet,
These will keep the pulses quiet;
Silence and solitude, bread and water,—
So must we cure our erring daughter!”
I have dined at an Alderman's board,
I have drunk with a German lord,
But richer was Celandine's own paté
Than Sir William's soup on Christmas day,
And sweeter the flavour of Celandine's flask
Than the loveliest cup from a Rhenish cask!

“Saints keep us!” said old Winifrede,
“Saints keep and cure us all!
And let us hie to our book and bead,
Or sure the skies will fall!
Is she a Heathen, or is she a Hindoo,
To talk with a silly boy out of the window?
Was ever such profaneness seen?
Pert minx!—and only just sixteen!”
I have talked with a fop who has fought twelve duels,
Six for an heiress, and six for her jewels;
I have prosed with a reckless bard, who rehearses
Every day a thousand verses;
But oh! more marvellous twenty times
Than the bully's lies, or the blockhead's rhymes,

Were the scurrilous tales, which Scandal told
Of Winifrede's loves in the days of old!

The Abbess lifted up her eye,
And laid her rosary down,
And sighed a melancholy sigh,
And frowned an angry frown.
“There is a cell in the dark cold ground,
Where sinful passions wither:
Vapoury dews lie damp around,
And merriment of sight or sound
Can work no passage thither:
Other scene is there, I trow,
Than suits a love-sick maiden's vow;
For a death-watch makes a weary tune,
And a glimmering lamp is a joyiess moon,
And a couch of stone is a dismal rest,
And an aching heart is a bitter guest!
Maiden of the bosom light,
There shall thy dwelling be to-night;
Mourn and meditate, fast and pray,
And drive the evil one away.
Axe and cord were fitter doom,
Desolate grave and mouldering tomb;
But the merciful faith, that speaks the sentence,
Joys in the dawn of a soul's repentance,
And the eyes may shed sweet tears for them,
Whom the hands chastise, and the lips condemn!’

I have set my foot on the hallowed spot
Where the dungeon of trampled France is not;
I have heard men talk of Mr. Peel;
I have seen men walk on the Brixton wheel;
And 'twere better to feed on frogs and fears,
Guarded by griefs and grenadiers,
And 'twere better to tread all day and night,
With a rogue on the left, and a rogue on the right,
Than lend our persons or our purses
To that old lady's tender mercies!

“Ay! work your will!” the young girl said;
And as she spoke she raised her head,
And for a moment turned aside
To check the tear she could not hide;—
“Ay! work your will!—I know you all,
Your holy aims and pious arts.
And how you love to fling a pall
On fading joys, and blighted hearts;
And if these quivering lips could tell
The story of our bliss and woe,
And how we loved—oh! loved, as well
As ever mortals loved below,—
And how in purity and truth
The flower of early joy was nurst,
Till sadness nipped its blushing youth,
And holy mummery called it curst,—

You would but watch my sobs and sighs
With shaking head, and silent sneers,
And deck with smiles those soulless eyes,
When mine should swell with bitter tears!
But work your will! Oh! life and limb
May wither in that house of dread,
Where horrid shapes and shadows dim
Walk nightly round the slumberer's head;
The sight may sink, the tongue may fail,
The shuddering spirit long for day,
And fear may make these features pale,
And turn these boasted ringlets gray;
But not for this, oh! not for this,
The heart will lose its dream of gladness;
And the fond thought of that last kiss
Will live in torture—yea! in madness!
And look! I will not fear or feel
The all your hate may dare or do;
And, if I ever pray and kneel,
I will not kneel and pray to you!”

If you had seen that tender cheek,
Those eyes of melting blue,
You would not have thought in a thing so weak
Such a fiery spirit grew.
But the trees which summer's breezes shake
Are shivered in winter's gale;

And a meek girl's heart will bear to break,
When a proud man's truth would fail.

Never a word she uttered more;
They have led her down the stair,
And left her on the dungeon floor
To find repentance there;
And nought have they set beside her bed,
Within that chamber dull,
But a lonely lamp, and a loaf of bread,
A rosary and skull.
The breast is bold that grows not cold,
With a strong convulsive twinge,
As the slow door creeps to its sullen hold
Upon its mouldering hinge.
That door was made by the cunning hand
Of an artist from a foreign land;
Human skill and heavenly thunder
Shall not win its wards asunder.
The chain is fixed, and the bolt is fast,
And the kind old Abbess lingers last,
To mutter a prayer on her bended knee,
And clasp to her girdle the iron key.

But then, oh! then began to run
Horrible whispers from nun to nun:
“Sister Amelia,”—“Sister Anne,”—
“Do tell us how it all began;”

“The youth was a handsome youth, that's certain,
For Bertha peeped from behind the curtain:”—
“As sure as I have human eyes,
It was the Devil in disguise;
His hair hanging down like threads of wire,
And his mouth breathing smoke, like a haystack on fire.
And the ground beneath his footstep rocking!”—
“Lord! Isabel! how very shocking!”
“Poor Violette! she was so merry!
I'm very sorry for her!—very!”
“Well! it was worth a silver tester,
To see how she frowned when the Abbess blessed her;”—
“Was Father Anselm there to shrive?
For I'm sure she'll never come out alive!”—
“Dear Elgitha, don't frighten us so!”—
“It's just a hundred years ago
Since Father Peter was put in the cell
For forgetting to ring the vesper bell;
Let us keep ourselves from mortal sin!
He went not out as he went in!”—
“No! and he lives there still, they say,
In his cloak of black, and his cowl of gray,
Weeping, and wailing, and walking about,
With an endless grief, and an endless gout,
And wiping his eyes with a kerchief of lawn,
And ringing his bell from dusk to dawn!”—
“Let us pray to be saved from love and spectres!”—
“From the haunted cell!”—“and the Abbess's lectures!”

The garish sun has gone away,
And taken with him the toils of day;
Foul ambition's hollow schemes,
Busy labour's golden dreams,
Angry strife, and cold debate,
Plodding care, and plotting hate.
But in the nunnery sleep is fled
From many a vigilant hand and head;
A watch is set of friars tall,
Jerome and Joseph and Peter and Paul;
And the chattering girls are all locked up;
And the wrinkled old Abbess is gone to sup
On mushrooms and sweet muscadel,
In the fallen one's deserted cell.

And now 'tis love's most lovely hour,
And silence sits on earth and sky,
And moonlight flings on turf and tower
A spell of deeper witchery;
And in the stillness and the shade
All things and colours seem to fade;
And the garden queen, the blushing rose,
Has bowed her head in a soft repose;
And weary Zephyr has gone to rest
In the flowery grove he loves the best.
Nothing is heard but the long, long snore,
Solemn and sad, of the watchmen four,

And the voice of the rivulet rippling by,
And the nightingale's evening melody,
And the drowsy wing of the sleepless bat,
And the mew of the gardener's tortoise-shell cat

Dear cousin! a harp like yours has power
Over the soul in every hour;
And after breakfast, when Sir G.
Has been discussing news and tea,
And eulogised his coals and logs,
And told the breeding of his dogs,
And hurled anathemas of pith
Against the sect of Adam Smith,
And handed o'er to endless shame
The voters for the sale of game,
'Tis sweet to fly from him and vapours,
And those interminable papers,
And waste an idle hour or two
With dear Rossini, and with you.

But those sweet sounds are doubly sweet
In the still nights of June,
When song and silence seem to meet
Beneath the quiet moon;
When not a single leaf is stirred
By playful breeze or joyous bird,
And Echo shrinks, as if afraid
Of the faint murmur she has made.

Oh then the Spirit of music roves
With a delicate step through the myrtle groves,
And still, wherever he flits, he flings
A thousand charms from his purple wings.
And where is that discourteous wight,
Who would not linger through the night,
Listening ever, lone and mute,
To the murmur of his mistress' lute,
And courting those bright phantasies,
Which haunt the dreams of waking eyes?

He came that night, the Troubadour,
While the four fat friars slept secure,
And gazed on the lamp that sweetly glistened,
Where he thought his mistress listened;
Low and clear the silver note
On the thrilled air seemed to float;
Such might be an angel's moan,
Half a whisper, half a tone.

“So glad a life was never, love,
As that which childhood leads,
Before it learns to sever, love,
The roses from the weeds;
When to be very duteous, love,
Is all it has to do;
And every flower is beauteous, love,
And every folly true.

“And you can still remember, love,
The buds that decked our play,
Though Destiny's December, love,
Has whirled those buds away:
And you can smile through tears, love,
And feel a joy in pain,
To think upon those years, love,
You may not see again.

“When we mimicked the Friar's howls, love,
Cared nothing for his creeds,
Made bonnets of his cowls, love,
And bracelets of his beads;
And gray-beards looked not awful, love,
And grandames made no din,
And vows were not unlawful, love,
And kisses were no sin.

“And do you never dream, love,
Of that enchanted well,
Where under the moon-beam, love,
The Fairies wove their spell?
How oft we saw them greeting, love,
Beneath the blasted tree,
And heard their pale feet beating, love,
To their own minstrelsy!

“And do you never think, love,
Of the shallop, and the wave,
And the willow on the brink, love,
Over the poacher's grave?
Where always in the dark, love,
We heard a heavy sigh,
And the dogs were wont to bark, love,
Whenever they went by?

“Then gaily shone the heaven, love,
On life's untroubled sea,
And Vidal's heart was given, love,
In happiness to thee;
The sea is all benighted, love,
The heaven has ceased to shine;
The heart is seared and blighted, love,
But still the heart is thine!”

He paused and looked; he paused and sighed;
None appeared, and none replied:
All was still but the waters' wail,
And the tremulous voice of the nightingale,
And the insects buzzing among the briars,
And the nasal note of the four fat friars.

100

“Oh fly with me! 'tis Passion's hour;
The world is gone to sleep;
And nothing wakes in brake or bower,
But those who love and weep:
This is the golden time and weather,
When songs and sighs go out together,
And minstrels pledge the rosy wine
To lutes like this, and lips like thine!

“Oh fly with me! my courser's flight
Is like the rushing breeze,
And the kind moon has said ‘Good night!
And sunk behind the trees:
The lover's voice—the loved one's ear—
There's nothing else to speak and hear;
And we will say, as on we glide,
That nothing lives on earth beside!

“Oh fly with me! and we will wing
Our white skiff o'er the waves,
And hear the Tritons revelling,
Among their coral caves;
The envious Mermaid, when we pass,
Shall cease her song, and drop her glass;
For it will break her very heart,
To see how fair and dear thou art.

101

“Oh fly with me! and we will dwell
Far over the green seas,
Where sadness rings no parting knell
For moments such as these!
Where Italy's unclouded skies
Look brightly down on brighter eyes,
Or where the wave-wed City smiles,
Enthroned upon her hundred isles.

“Oh fly with me! by these sweet strings
Swept o'er by Passion's fingers,
By all the rocks, and vales, and springs
Where Memory lives and lingers,
By all the tongue can never tell,
By all the heart has told so well,
By all that has been or may be,
And by Love's self—Oh fly with me!”

He paused again—no sight or sound!
The still air rested all around;
He looked to the tower, and he looked to the tree,
Night was as still as night could be;
Something he muttered of Prelate and Pope,
And took from his mantle a silken rope;
Love dares much, and Love climbs well!
He stands by the Abbess in Violette's cell.

102

He put on a mask, and he put out the light;
The Abbess was dressed in a veil of white;
Not a look he gave, not a word he said;
The pages are ready, the blanket is spread;
He has clasped his arm her waist about,
And lifted the screaming Abbess out:
“My horse is fleet, and my hand is true,
And my Squire has a bow of deadly yew;
Away, and away, over mountain and moor!
Good luck to the love of the gay Troubadour!”

“What! rode away with the Abbess behind!
Lord! sister! is the Devil blind?”—
“Full fourscore winters!”—“Fast and pray!
For the powers of darkness fight to-day!”—
“I shan't get over the shock for a week!”—
“Did any one hear our Mother shriek?”—
“Do shut your mouth!”—“do shut the cell!”—
“What a villanous, odious, sulphury smell!”—
“Has the Evil One taken the Mass-book too?”—
“Ah me! what will poor little Violette do?
She has but one loaf since seven o'clock;
And no one can open that horrible lock;
And Satan will grin with a fiendish glee,
When he finds the Abbess has kept the key!”—
“How shall we manage to sleep to-night?”—
“I wouldn't for worlds put out my light!”—

103

“I'm sure I shall die if I hear but a mole stir!”—
“I'll clap St. Ursula under my bolster!”

But oh! the pranks that Vidal played,
When he found what a bargain his blindness had made!
Wilful and wild,—half in fun, half on fire,
He stared at the Abbess, and stormed at the Squire!
Consigned to perdition all silly romancers,
Asked twenty strange questions, and stayed for no answers,
Raving, and roaring, and laughing by fits,
And driving the old woman out of her wits.

There was a jousting at Chichester;
It had made in the country a mighty stir,
And all that was brave, and all that was fair,
And all that was neither, came trooping there;
Scarfs and scars, and frays and frowns,
And flowery speeches, and flowery crowns.
A hundred knights set spear in rest
For the lady they deemed the loveliest,
And Vidal broke a lance that day
For the Abbess of St. Ursula.

There was a feast at Arundel;
The town-clerk tolled a ponderous bell,
And nothing was there but row and rout,
And toil to get in, and toil to get out,

104

And Sheriffs fatter than their venison,
And belles that never stayed for benison.
The red red wine was mantling there
To the health of the fairest of the fair,
And Vidal drained the cup that day
To the Abbess of St. Ursula.

There was a wedding done at Bramber;
The town was full of myrrh and amber;
And the boors were roasting valorous beeves,
And the boys were gathering myrtle leaves,
And the bride was choosing her finest flounces,
And the bridegroom was scattering coin by ounces;
And every stripling danced on the green
With the girl he had made his idol queen,
And Vidal led the dance that day
With the Abbess of St. Ursula.

Three days had passed when the Abbess came back;
Her voice was out of tune,
And her new white veil was gone to wrack,
And so were her sandal shoon.
No word she said; they put her to bed,
With a pain in her heels, and a pain in her head,
And she talked in her delirious fever
Of a high-trotting horse, and a black deceiver;
Of music and merriment, love and lances,
Bridles and blasphemy, dishes and dances.

105

They went with speed to the dungeon door;
The air was chill and damp;
And the pale girl lay on the marble floor,
Beside the dying lamp.
They kissed her lips, they called her name,
No kiss returned, no answer came;
Motionless, lifeless, there she lay,
Like a statue rent from its base away!
They said by famine she had died;
Yet the bread untasted lay beside;
And her cheek was as full, and fresh, and fair,
As it had been when warmth was there,
And her eyes were unclosed, and their glassy rays
Were fixed in a desolate, dreamy gaze,
As if before their orbs had gone
Some sight they could not close upon;
And her bright brown locks all gray were grown;
And her hands were clenched, and cold as stone;
And the veins upon her neck and brow—
But she was dead!—what boots it how?

In holy ground she was not laid;
For she had died in sin,
And good St. Ursula forbade
That such should enter in;
But in a calm and cold retreat
They made her place of rest,

106

And laid her in her winding-sheet,
And left her there unblessed;
And set a small stone at her head,
Under a spreading tree;
“Orate”—that was all it said—
“Orate hic pro me!”

And Vidal came at night, alone,
And tore his shining hair,
And laid him down beside the stone,
And wept till day-break there.

“Fare thee well, fare thee well,
Most beautiful of earthly things!
I will not bid thy spirit stay,
Nor link to earth those glittering wings,
That burst like light away!
I know that thou art gone to dwell
In the sunny home of the fresh day-beam,
Before decay's unpitying tread
Hath crept upon the dearest dream
That ever came and fled;
Fare thee well, fare thee well;
And go thy way, all pure and fair,
Into the starry firmament;
And wander there with the spirits of air,
As bright and innocent!

107

“Fare thee well, fare thee well!
Strange feet will be upon thy clay,
And never stop to sigh or sorrow;
Yet many wept for thee to-day,
And one will weep to-morrow:
Alas! that melancholy knell
Shall often wake my wondering ear,
And thou shalt greet me, for a while,
Too beautiful to make me fear,
Too sad to let me smile!
Fare thee well, fare thee well!
I know that heaven for thee is won;
And yet I feel I would resign
Whole ages of my life, for one—
One little hour, of thine!

“Fare thee well, fare thee well!
See, I have been to the sweetest bowers,
And culled from garden and from heath
The tenderest of all tender flowers,
And blended in my wreath
The violet and the blue harebell,
And one frail rose in its earliest bloom;
Alas! I meant it for thy hair,
And now I fling it on thy tomb,
To weep and wither there!
Fare ye well, fare ye well!

108

Sleep, sleep, my love, in fragrant shade,
Droop, droop to-night, thou blushing token;
A fairer flower shall never fade,
Nor a fonder heart be broken!”

END OF CANTO II

109

CANTO III.
[_]

The Troubadour was never finished. Fragments only of the third Canto have been found, written upon stray leaves of paper.

It is the hour, the lonely hour,
Which desolate rhymers love to praise,
When listless they lie in brake or bower,
In dread of their duns, or in dreams of their bays;
The glowing sun has gone away
To cool his face in the ocean spray,
And the stars shine out in the liquid blue,
And the beams of the moon in silence fall
On rock and river, wood and wall,
Flinging alike on each and all
A silver ray and a sober hue.
The village casements all are dark,
The chase is done in the princely park,
The scholar has closed the volume old,
And the miser has counted the buried gold;
There is not a foot and there is not a gale
To shake the roses in Ringmore Vale;
There is not a bird, the groves along,
To wake the night with his gushing song;
Nothing is heard but sounds that render
The rest which they disturb more tender;

110

The glassy river wanders still
Making low music round the hill;
And the last faint drops of the shower that fell
While the monks were ringing the vesper bell
Are trickling yet from leaf to leaf,
Like the big slow drops of an untold grief.

At that late hour a little boat
Came dancing down the wave;
There were none but the Moon to see it float;
And she, so very grave,
Looked down upon the quiet spot
As if she heard and heeded not
The eloquent vows which passion drew
From lips of beauty's tenderest hue,
And saw without the least surprise
The glances of the youthful eyes,
Which, in the warm and perilous weather,
Were gazing by night on the stream together.
[OMITTED]
[OMITTED]

Sometimes, upon a gala night,
Beneath the torches' festal light,
When I have seen your footsteps glance,
Sweet sister, through the merry dance,
Light as the wind that scarcely heaves

111

The softest of the soft roseleaves
In summer's sunniest hour,—
Sometimes, upon the level shore
Washed by the sea wave just before,
When I have seen your palfrey glide
Along the margin of the tide,
As fleet as some imagined form
That smiles in calm, or frowns in storm,
Before the minstrel's bower,—
One moment I have ceased to doubt
The tales which poets pass about,
Of Fairies and their golden wings,
Their earthward whims and wanderings,
The mummeries in which they traded,
The houses where they masqueraded,
The half unearthly tone they spoke,
The half unearthly thought they woke,
The rich they plagued, the poor they righted,
The heads they posed, the hearts they blighted!

So fancied Vidal, when he gazed
Upon a hundred glancing eyes,
While high in hall the torches blazed,
And all the blended witcheries
That clothe the revel of the night,
The dance's most voluptuous rounds,
And Beauty's most enthralling light,
And music's most entrancing sounds,

112

And many a tale, and many a song,
Which only passion sings and tells,
And dreams, most dazzling when most wrong,
Wove o'er him their delicious spells.
It was a long and spacious hall;
The limner's hand had wandered there,
And peopled half the lofty wall
With wondrous forms of great and fair;
And in small niches shapes of stone
Looked soft and white, like winter snow,
Queen Venus with her haunted zone,
Prince Cupid with his bended bow;
And there were brooks of essenced waters;
And mighty mirrors half a score
To tell the Baron's lovely daughters
What all their maids had told before;
And here an amorous lord was singing
Of honour's reign, or battle's rout;
And there a giggling page was flinging
Handfuls of odorous flowers about;
And wine and wit were poured together
From many a lip, from many a can;
And barons bowed beneath a feather,
And beauties blushed behind a fan;
And all were listening, laughing, chattering,
Playing the fiddle and the fool,
And metaphorically flattering,
According to established rule.

113

“If that bright glance did gleam on me,
How scarred and scorched my soul would be!
For even as the golden sun”—
“My Lord of Courcy, pray have done!”—
“I would I were a little bird,
That I might evermore be heard
Discoursing love, when morning's air”—
“Bonne grace, Sir Knight, I would you were!”—
“Mort de ma vie! the sea is deep,
And Dover cliffs are very steep,
And if I spring into the main,”—
“Sir Knight, you'll scarce spring out again!”
“This breast of mine is all a book;
And if her beauteous eyes would look
Upon the pale transparent leaves,
And mark how all the volume grieves,”—
“Sweet Count, who cares what tales it tells?
The title's all your mistress spells.”—
“My faithful shield, my faithful heart!
Oh! both are pierced with many a dart;
And, Lady, both, through flood and flame,
Bear uneffaced thy beauteous name;
And both are stainless as a lake,”—
“And both are very hard to break!”

Thus deftly all did play their part,
The valiant and the fair,

114

And Vidal's was the lightest heart,
Of all that trifled there.
Some six-and-twenty springs had past
In more of smiles than tears;
And boyhood's dreams had fleeted fast
With boyhood's fleeting years!
His voice was sweet, but deeper now
Than when its songs were new;
And o'er his cheek, and o'er his brow,
There fell a darker hue;
His eye had learned a calmer ray,
By browner ringlets shaded;
And from his lips the sunny play
Of their warm smile had faded:
And, out alas! the perished thrill
Of feeling's careless flashes,
The glistening flames, that now were chill
In darkness, dust, and ashes,
The joys that wound, the pains that bless,
Were all, were all departed;
And he was wise and passionless,
And happy and cold-hearted.
It was not that the brand of sin
Had stamped its deadly blot within;
That riches had been basely won,
Or midnight murder darkly done;
That Valour's ardent glow had died,
Or Honour lost its truth and pride:

115

Oh no! but Vidal's joy and grief
Had been too common, and too brief!
The weariness of human things
Had dried affection's silent springs,
And round his very heart had curled
The poisons of the drowsy world.
And he had conned the bitter lie
Of Fashion's dull philosophy;
How friendship is a schoolboy's theme,
And constancy a madman's dream,
And majesty a mouldering bust,
And loveliness a pinch of dust.
And so,—for when the wicked jest
The renegade blasphemes the best,—
He crushed the hopes which once he felt,
And mocked the shrines where once he knelt,
And taught that only fools endure
To find aught human good and pure.

And yet his heart was very light,
His taste was very fine;
His rapier and his wit were bright,
His attitudes divine:
He taught how snowy arms should rise,
How snowy plumes should droop;
And published rhapsodies on sighs,
And lectures upon soup;

116

He was the arbiter of bets,
The fashioner of phrases;
And harpers sang his canzonets,
And peeresses his praises.
And when, at some high dame's command,
Upon the lyre he laid his hand,
As now to-night, and flung aside
His silken mantle's crimson pride,
And o'er the strings so idly leant,
That you might think the instrument
Unwaked by any touch replied
To all its master said or sighed,
All other occupations ceased;
The revellers rose from cup and feast,
Young pages paused from scattering posies,
Old knights forgot to blow their noses,
And daughters smiled, and mothers frowned,
And peers beat time upon the ground;
And beauty bowed her silent praise,
Which is so dear to minstrel lays;
And envy dropped her whispered gall,
Which is the dearest praise of all.

That night, amid the motley crowd,
In graver than his wonted mood,
When other lips were gay and loud,
The Troubadour had silent stood:

117

Perhaps some dreams of those young hours
Whose light was now all cold and dim,
Some visions of the faded flowers
Whose buds had bloomed their last for him,
Came in their secret beauty back,
Like fairy elves, whose footsteps steal
Unseen, unheard, upon their track,
Except to those they harm or heal.
Oh! often will a look or sigh,
Unmarked by other eyes or ears,
Recall, we know not whence or why,
Sad thoughts that have been dead for years:
For sunset leaves the river warm
Through evening's most benumbing chill;
And when the present cannot charm,
The past can live and torture still!

Yet now, as if the secret spell
That bound his inmost soul were broken,
He taught his harp a lighter swell
Than ever yet its strings had spoken;
And those who saw, and watched the while,
The smile that came, the frown that faded,
Could hardly tell if frown, or smile,
Or both, or neither, masqueraded.

“Clotilda! many hearts are light,
And many lips dissemble;

118

But I am thine till priests shall fight,
Or Cœur de Lion tremble!—
Hath Jerome burned his rosary,
Or Richard shrunk from slaughter?
Oh! no, no,
Dream not so!
But till you mean your hopes to die,
Engrave them not in water!

“Sweet Ida, on my lonely way
Those tears I will remember,
Till icicles shall cling to May,
Or roses to December!—
Are snow-wreaths bound on Summer's brow?
Is drowsy Winter waking?
Oh! no, no,
Dream not so!
But lances, and a lover's vow,
Were only made for breaking.

“Lenora, I am faithful still,
By all the saints that listen,
Till this warm heart shall cease to thrill,
Or these wild veins to glisten!—
This bosom,—is its pulse less high?
Or sleeps the stream within it?
Oh! no, no,
Dream not so!

119

But lovers find eternity
In less than half a minute.

“And thus to thee I swear to-night,
By thine own lips and tresses,
That I will take no further flight,
Nor break again my jesses:
And wilt thou trust the faith I vowed,
And dream in spite of warning?
Oh! no, no,
Dream not so!
But go and lure the midnight cloud,
Or chain the mist of morning.

“These words of mine, so false and bland,
Forget that they were spoken!
The ring is on thy radiant hand,—
Dash down the faithless token!
And will they say that Beauty sinned,
That Woman turned a rover?
Oh! no, no,
Dream not so!
But lover's vows are like the wind.
And Vidal is a Lover!”

Ere the last echo of the words
Died on the lip and on the chords,

120

The Baron's jester, who was clever
At blighting characters for ever,
And whom all people thought delightful,
Because he was so very spiteful,
Stooped down to tie his sandal's string,
And found by chance a lady's ring;
So small and slight, it scarce had spanned
The finger of a fairy's hand,—
Or thine, sweet Rose, whose hand and wrist
Are much the least I ever kissed:—
Upon the ruby it enclosed
A bleeding heart in peace reposed,
And round was graved in letters clear:
“Let by the month, or by the year.”
Young Pacolet, from ring and song,
Thought something might be somewhere wrong,
And round the room in transport flitted
To find whose hand the bauble fitted.

He was an ugly dwarfish knave,
Most gravely wild, most wildly grave;
It seemed that Nature, in a whim,
Had mixed a dozen shapes in him;
One arm was longer than the other,
One leg was running from his brother,
And one dark eye, with fondest labour,
Coquetted with his fairer neighbour:

121

His colour ever came and went,
Like clouds upon the firmament,
And yet his cheeks, in any weather,
Were never known to blush together:
To-day his voice was shrill and harsh,
Like homilies from Doctor Marsh;
To-morrow from his rosy lip
The sweetest of sweet sounds would trip;
Far sweeter than the song of birds,
Or the first lisp of Childhood's words,
Or Zephyrs soft, or waters clear,
Or Love's own vow to Love's own ear.
Such were the tones he murmured now,
As, wreathing lip and cheek and brow
Into a smile of wicked glee,
He begged upon his bended knee
That maid and matron, young and old,
Would try the glittering hoop of gold.

But then, as usual in such cases,
All sorts of pretty airs and graces
Were played by nymphs, whose hands and arms
Had, or had not, a host of charms:
And there were frowns, as wrists were bared,
And wonderings “how some people dared,”
And much reluctance and disdain,
Which some might feel, and all could feign,

122

And witty looks, and whispered guesses,
And running into dark recesses,
And pointless gibes, and toothless chuckles,
And pinching disobedient knuckles,
And cunning thefts by watchful lovers,
Which filled the pockets of the glovers.
'Twas very vain; it seemed that all,
Except the mistress of the Hall,
Had done the utmost they could do,
And made their fingers black and blue,
And there they were, the gem and donor,
Without a mistress, or an owner.

But while the toy was vainly tried,
The ugly Baron's handsome bride
Had sate apart from that rude game
And listened to the sighs of flame,
Which followed her from night to morning,
In spite of frowning and of scorning.
Bred up from youth with nought before her
But humble slave and fond adorer,
Ill could that haughty Lady brook
A bantering phrase or brazen look;
[OMITTED]
[OMITTED]

123

Day passed, and Night came hurrying down
With her heaviest step, and her darkest frown;
Not witchingly mild, as when she hushes
The first warm thrill of woman's blushes,
Or mellows the eloquent murmur made
By some mad minstrel's serenade;
But robed in the clouds her anger flings
O'er the murderer's midnight wanderings,
The stealthy step, and the naked knife,
The sudden blow, and the parting life!—
On the snow that was sleeping its frozen sleep
Round cabin and castle, white and deep,
The love-stricken boy might have wandered far
Ere he found for his sonnet a single star;
And over the copse, and over the dell,
The mantle of mist so drearily fell,
That the fondest and bravest could hardly know
The smile of his queen from the sneer of his foe.
In the lonely cot on the lorn hill-side
The serf grew pale as he looked on his bride;
And oft, as the Baron's courtly throng
Were loud in the revel of wine and song,
The blast at the gate made such a din
As changed to horror the mirth within! [OMITTED]

University of Virginia Library

THE TROUBADOUR.

CANTO I.

CANTO II.

CANTO III.[_] The Troubadour was never finished. Fragments only of the third Canto have been found, written upon stray leaves of paper.

CANTO III.
[_]

The Troubadour was never finished. Fragments only of the third Canto have been found, written upon stray leaves of paper.