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

“Death be her doom! we must not spare,
Though the voice be sweet, though the face be fair,
When the looks deride and the lips blaspheme
The Serpent-God of our hallowed stream.

“Death be her doom! that the fearful King
May joy in the gift his votaries bring;
And smile on the valley, and smile on the rock,
To freshen the vine, and to fatten the flock.

“Death be her doom! ere the pitiless One
Leap from his rest at set of sun;
Seek from his crag his wonted prey,
And punish in wrath our long delay!”

It was a gray-haired Chief that said
The words of fate, the words of fear;

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A battered casque was on his head,
And in his grasp a broken spear:
It was a captive maid that met,
Sedate, serene, the stern command;
Around her neck her beads were set,
An ivory cross was in her hand.

“Lead me away! I am weak and young,
Captive the fierce and the proud among;
But I will pray a humble prayer,
That the feeble to strike may be firm to bear.

“Lead me away! the voice may fail,
And the lips grow white, and the cheeks turn pale;
Yet will ye know that nought but sin
Chafes or changes the soul within.

“Lead me away! oh, dear to mine eyes
Are the flowery fields and the sunny skies;
But I cannot turn from the Cross divine,
To bend my knee at an idol's shrine.”

They clothe her in such rich array
As a bride prepares for her bridal day;
Around her forehead, that shines so bright,
They wreathe a wreath of roses white,
And set on her neck a golden chain,
Spoil of her sire in combat slain.

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Over her head her doom is said;
And with folded arms, and measured tread,
In long procession, dark and slow,
Up the terrible hill they go,
Hymning their hymn, and crying their cry,
To him, their Demon Deity.—
Mary, Mother, sain and save!
The maiden kneels at the Dragon's cave!

Alas! 'tis frightful to behold
That thing of Nature's softest mould,
In whose slight shape and delicate hue
Life's loveliness beams fresh and new,
Bound on the bleak hill's topmost height,
To die, and by such death, to-night!
But yester-eve, when the red sun
His race of grateful toil had run,
And over earth the moon's soft rays
Lit up the hour of prayer and praise,
She bowed within the pleasant shade
By her own fragrant jasmine made;
And, while her clear and thrilling tone
Asked blessing from her Maker's throne,
Heard the notes echoed to her ear
From lips that were to her most dear.
Her sire, her kindred, round her knelt;
And the young Priestess knew and felt

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That deeper love than that of men
Was in their natural temple then.
That love,—is now its radiance chill?
Fear not; it guides, it guards her, still!

The temper of our stoutest mail
In battle's fiery shock may fail;
The trustiest anchor may betray
Our vessel in the treacherous spray;
The dearest friend we ever knew
In our worst need may prove untrue:
But come what may of doubt or dread
About our lonely path or bed,
On tented field, or stormy wave,
In dungeon cell, or mountain cave,
In want, in pain, in death,—where'er
One meek heart prays, God's love is there!

The crowd departed: her wandering eye
Followed their steps, as they left her to die.
Down the steep and stern descent,
Strangely mingled, the Heathen went,
Palsied dotard, and beardless boy,
Sharers to-night in their savage joy,
Hoary priest, and warrior grim,
Shaking the lance, and chaunting the hymn;
And ever and anxiously looking back
To watch if yet on his slimy track

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He rolled him forth, that ghastly guest,
To taste of the banquet he loved the best.

The crowd departed; and alone
She kneeled upon the rugged stone.
Alas! it was a dismal pause,
When the wild rabble's fierce applause
Died slowly on the answering air;
And, in the still and mute profound,
She started even at the sound
Of the half-thought half-spoken prayer
Her heart and lip had scarcely power
To feel or frame in that dark hour.
Fearful, yet blameless!—for her birth
Had been of Nature's common earth,
And she was nurst, in happier hours,
By Nature's common suns and showers;
And when one moment whirls away
Whate'er we know or trust to-day,
And opens that eternal book,
On which we long, and dread, to look,—
In that quick change of sphere and scope,
That rushing of the spirit's wings
From all we have to all we hope,
From mortal to immortal things,—
Though madly on the giddy brink
Despair may jest, and Guilt dissemble,

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White Innocence awhile will shrink,
And Piety be proud to tremble!

But quickly from her brow and cheek
The flush of human terror faded,
And she aroused, the maiden meek,
Her fainting spirit, self-upbraided,
And felt her secret soul renewed
In that her solemn solitude.
Unwonted strength to her was given
To bear the rod and drink the cup;
Her pulse beat calmer, and to Heaven
Her voice in firmer tone went up:
And as upon her gentle heart
The dew of holy peace descended,
She saw her last sunlight depart
With awe and hope so sweetly blended
Into a deep and tranquil sense
Of unpresuming confidence,
That if the blinded tribes, whose breath
Had doomed her to such dole and death,
Could but have caught one bright brief glance
Of that ungrieving countenance,
And marked the light of glory shed
Already o'er her sinless head,
The tears with which her eyes were full,—
Tears not of anguish,—and the smile
Of new-born rapture, which the while

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As with a lustrous veil arrayed
Her brow, her cheek, her lip, and made
Her beauty more than beautiful,—
Oh, would they not have longed to share
Her torture,—yea! her transport, there?

“Father, my sins are very great;
Thou readest them, whate'er they be:
But penitence is all too late;
And unprepared I come to thee,
Uncleansed, unblessed, unshriven!

“Yet thou, in whose all-searching sight
No human thing is undefiled,—
Thou, who art merciful in might,
Father, thou wilt forgive thy child,—
Father, thou hast forgiven!

“Thy will, not hers, be done to-day!
If in this hour, and on this spot,
Her soul indeed must pass away
Among fierce men who know thee not,—
Thine is the breath thou gavest!

“Or if thou wilt put forth thine hand
And shield her from the jaws of flame,
That she may live to teach the land
Whose people hath not heard thy name,—
Thine be the life thou savest!”

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So spoke the blessed maid, and now,
Crossing her hands upon her breast,
With quiet eye and placid brow
Awaited the destroying pest;
Not like a thing of sense and life
Soul-harassed in such bitter strife,
But tranquil, as a shape of stone
Upraised in ages long bygone
To mark where, closed her toilsome race,
Some sainted sister sleeps in grace.
Such might she seem: about her grew
Sweet wild-flowers, sweet of scent and hue;
And she had placed with pious care
Her crucifix before her there,
That her last look and thought might be
Of Christ and of the Holy Tree.

And now, methinks, at what my lay
Of this poor maid hath yet to say,
Will Wit assume a scornful look,
And Wisdom con a grave rebuke.
I heed them not; full oft there lies
In such time-honoured histories,
Hived through long ages in the store
Of the rude peasant's nursery lore,
A pathos of a deeper ruth.
A moral of a purer truth,

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Than aught we study in the page
Of lofty bard or learned sage;
Therefore, my gentle Muse, prolong
In faith thy legendary song.

The day was gone, but it was not night:—
Whither so suddenly fled the light?
Nature seemed sick with a sore disease;
Over her hills and streams and trees
Unnatural darkness fell;
The earth and the heaven, the river and shore,
In the lurid mist were seen no more;
And the voice of the mountain monster rose,
As he lifted him up from his noontide repose,
First in a hiss, and then in a cry,
And then in a yell that shook the sky;—
The eagle from high fell down to die
At the sound of that mighty yell:
From his wide jaws broke, as in wrath he woke,
Scalding torrents of sulphurous smoke,
And crackling coals in mad ascent
As from a red volcano went,
And flames, like the flames of hell.
But his scream of fury waxed more shrill,
When on the peak of the blasted hill
He saw his victim bound:
Forth the Devourer, scale by scale,

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Unveiled the folds of his steel-proof mail,
Stretching his throat, and stretching his tail,
And hither and thither rolling him o'er,
Till he covered fourscore feet and four
Of the wearied and wailing ground:
And at last he raised from his stony bed
The horrors of his speckled head;
Up like a comet the meteor went,
And seemed to shake the firmament,
And batter heaven's own walls!
For many a long mile, well I ween,
The fires that shot from those eyes were seen;
The Burschen of Bonn, if Bonn had been,
Would have shuddered in their halls.
Woe for the Virgin!—bootless here
Were glistening shield and whistling spear
Such battle to abide;
The mightiest engines that ever the trade
Of human homicide hath made,
Warwolf, balist, and catapult,
Would like a stripling's wand insult
That adamantine hide.
Woe for the Virgin!—

Lo! what spell
Hath scattered the darkness, and silenced the yell,
And quenched those fiery showers?—
Why turns the serpent from his prey?—

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The Cross hath barred his terrible way,
The Cross among the flowers.
As an eagle pierced on his cloudy throne,
As a column sent from its base of stone,
Backward the stricken monster dropped;
Never he stayed, and never he stopped,
Till deep in the gushing tide he sank,
And buried lay beneath the stream,
Passing away like a loathsome dream.
Well may you guess how either bank
As with an earthquake shook;
The mountains rocked from brow to base;
The river boiled with a hideous din
As the burning mass fell heavily in;
And the wide wide Rhine, for a moment's space,
Was scorched into a brook.

Night passed, ere the multitude dared to creep,
Huddled together, up the steep;
They came to the stone; in speechless awe
They fell on their face at the sight they saw:
The maiden was free from hurt or harm,
But the iron had passed from her neck and arm,
And the glittering links of the broken chain
Lay scattered about like drops of rain.

And deem ye that the rescued child
To her father-land would come,—

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That the remnant of her kindred smiled
Around her in her home,
And that she lived in love of earth,
Among earth's hopes and fears,
And gave God thanks for the daily birth
Of blessings in after years?—
Holy and happy, she turned not away
From the task her Saviour set that day;—
What was her kindred, her home, to her?
She had been Heaven's own messenger!

Short time went by from that dread hour
Of manifested wrath and power,
Ere from the cliff a rising shrine
Looked down upon the rolling Rhine.
Duly the virgin Priestess there
Led day by day the hymn and prayer;
And the dark Heathen round her pressed
To know their Maker, and be blessed.

L'ENVOI.

TO THE COUNTESS VON C---, BONN.

I

This is the Legend of the Drachenfels,—
Sweet theme, most feebly sung; and yet to me
My feeble song is grateful; for it tells
Of far-off smiles and voices. Though it be

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Unmeet, fair Lady, for thy breast or bower,
Yet thou wilt wear, for thou didst plant, the flower

II

It had been worthier of such birth and death
If it had bloomed where thou hadst watched its rise
Fanned by the zephyr of thy fragrant breath,
Warmed by the sunshine of thy gentle eyes,
And cherished by the love, in whose pure shade
No evil thing can live, no good thing fade.

III

It will be long ere thou wilt shed again
Thy praise or censure on my childish lays,—
Thy praise, which makes me happy more than vain,
Thy censure, kinder than another's praise.
Huge mountains frown between us, and the swell
Of the hoarse sea is mocking my farewell.

IV

Yet not the less, dear Friend. thy guiding light
Shines through the secret chambers of my thought;
Or when I waken, with revived delight,
The lute young Fancy to my cradle brought,
Or when I visit with a studious brow
The less-loved task, to which I turn me now.