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

Where foams and flows the glorious Rhine,
Many a ruin, wan and gray,
O'erlooks the corn-field and the vine,
Majestic in its dark decay.
Among their dim clouds, long ago,
They mocked the battles that raged below,
And greeted the guests in arms that came,
With hissing arrow and scalding flame.
But there is not one of the homes of pride
That frown on the breast of the peaceful tide,
Whose leafy walls more proudly tower
Than these, the walls of Belmont Tower.

Where foams and flows the glorious Rhine,
Many a fierce and fiery lord
Did carve the meat, and pour the wine,
For all that revelled at his board.

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Father and son, they were all alike,
Firm to endure, and fast to strike;
Little they loved but a Frau or a feast,
Nothing they feared but a prayer or a priest;
But there was not one in all the land
More trusty of heart, more stout of hand,
More valiant in field, or more courteous in bower
Than Otto, the Lord of Belmont Tower.

His eyes were bright, his eyes were blue,
As summer's sun, as summer's heaven;
His age was barely twenty-two;
His height was just five feet eleven:
His hounds were of the purest strain,
His hawks the best from every nation;
His courser's tail, his courser's mane,
Was all the country's admiration:
His frowns were lightnings, charged with fate;
His smiles were shafts from Cupid's quiver;
He had a very old estate,
And the best vineyards on the river.
So ancient dames, you need not doubt,
Would wink and nod their pride and pleasare,
Whene'er the youthful Count led out
Their eldest or their youngest treasure,
Take notes of what his Lordship said
On shapes and colours, songs and dances,

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And make their maidens white or red,
According to his Lordship's fancies.
They whispered, too, from time to time,
What might escape the Count's inspection;
That Linda's soul was all sublime;
That Gertrude's taste was quite perfection:
Or blamed some people's forward tricks,
And very charitably hinted,
Their neighbour's niece was twenty-six,
Their cousin's clever daughter squinted.

Are you rich, single, and “your Grace”?
I pity your unhappy case.
Before you launch your first new carriage,
The women have arranged your marriage;
Where'er your weary wit may lead you,
They pet you, praise you, fret you, feed you;
Consult your taste in wreaths and laces,
And make you make their books at races:
Your little pony, Tam O'Shanter,
Is found to have the sweetest canter;
Your curricle is quite reviving,
And Jane's so bold when you are driving!
One recollects your father's habits,
And knows the warren, and the rabbits!
The place is really princely-only
They're sure you'll find it vastly lonely:

160

Another, in more tender phrases,
Records your sainted mother's praises;
Pronounces her the best of creatures,
And finds in you her tones and features.
You go to Cheltenham for the waters,
And meet the Countess and her daughters;
You take a cottage at Geneva—
Lo! Lady Anne and Lady Eva.
After a struggle of a session,
You just surrender at discretion,
And live to curse the frauds of mothers,
And envy all your younger brothers.

Count Otto bowed, Count Otto smiled,
When my Lady praised her darling child;
Count Otto smiled, Count Otto bowed,
When the child those praises disavowed;
But out on the cold one! he cared not a rush
For the motherly pride, or the maidenly blush.
As a knight should gaze, Count Otto gazed,
Where Bertha in all her beauty blazed;
As a knight should hear, Count Otto heard,
When Liba sang like a forest bird;
But he thought, I trow, about as long
Of Bertha's beauty and Liba's song,
As the sun may think of the clouds that play
O'er his radiant path on a summer day.

161

Many a maid had dreams of state,
As the Count rode up to her father's gate;
Many a maid shed tears of pain,
As the Count rode back to his tower again;
But little he cared, as it should seem,
For the sad, sad tear, or the fond, fond dream;
Alone he lived—alone and free
As the owl that dwells in the hollow tree;
And belles and barons said and swore,
That never was knight so shy before!

It was almost the first of May:
The sun all smiles had passed away;
The moon was beautifully bright;
Earth, heaven, as usual in such cases,
Looked up and down with happy faces;—
In short, it was a charming night.
And all alone, at twelve o'clock,
The young Count clambered down the rock,
Unfurled the sail, unchained the oar,
And pushed the shallop from the shore.
The holiness that sweet time flings
Upon all human thoughts and things,
When Sorrow checks her idle sighs,
And Care shuts fast her wearied eyes,—
The splendour of the hues that played
Fantastical o'er hill and glade,

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As verdant slope and barren cliff
Seemed darting by the tiny skiff,—
The flowers, whose faint tips, here and there,
Breathed out such fragrance, you might swear
That every soundless gale that fanned
The tide came fresh from fairy-land,—
The music of the mountain rill,
Leaping in glee from hill to hill,
To which some wild bird, now and then,
Made answer from her darksome glen,—
All this to him had rarer pleasure
Than jester's wit or minstrel's measure;
And, if you ever loved romancing,
Or felt extremely tired of dancing,
You'll hardly wonder that Count Otto
Left, for the scene my muse is painting,
The Lady Hildebrand's ridotto,
Where all the Rhenish world was fainting.

What melody glides o'er the star-lit stream?
“Lurley!—Lurley!”
Angels of grace! does the young Count dream?
“Lurley!—Lurley!”
Or is the scene indeed so fair
That a nymph of the sea or a nymph of the air
Has left the home of her own delight,
To sing to our roses and rocks to-night?
“Lurley!—Lurley!”

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Words there are none; but the waves prolong
The notes of that mysterious song:
He listens, he listens; and all around
Ripples the echo of that sweet sound,
“Lurley!—Lurley!”
No form appears on the river side;
No boat is borne on the wandering tide;
And the tones ring on, with nought to show
Or whence they come or whither they go;—
“Lurley!—Lurley!”
As fades one murmur on the ear,
There comes another, just as clear;
And the present is like to the parted strain,
As link to link of a golden chain:
“Lurley!—Lurley!”
Whether the voice be sad or gay,
'Twere very hard for the Count to say;
But pale are his cheeks, and pained his brow,
And the boat drifts on, he recks not how;
His pulse is quick, and his heart is wild,
And he weeps, he weeps, like a little child.

O mighty music! they who know
The witchery of thy wondrous bow,
Forget, when thy strange spells have bound them,
The visible world that lies around them.
When Lady Mary sings Rossini,
Or stares at spectral Paganini,

164

To Lady Mary does it matter
Who laugh, who love, who frown, who flatter?
Oh no! she cannot heed or hear
Reason or rhyme from prince or peer:
In vain for her Sir Charles denounces
The horror of the last new flounces;
In vain her friend the Member raves
Of ballot, bullion, sugars, slaves;
Predicts the nation's future glories,
And chants the requiem of the Tories;
And if some fond and foolish lisper
Recites, in passion's softest whisper,
The raptures which young love imparts
To mutual minds and kindred hearts,—
Poor boy,—she minds him just as much
As if'twere logic, or High Dutch.

As little did the young Knight care,—
While still he listened to the air
Breathed by some melodist unseen,
Much wondering what it all might mean,—
For those odd changes of the sky,
To dark from bright, to moist from dry,
Which furnish to the British nation
Three quarters of its conversation.
Meantime a gust, a drop, a flash
Had warned, perhaps, a youth less rash,

165

To shun a storm of fiercer fury,
Than ever stunned the gods of Drury.

Hid was the bright heaven's loveliness
Beneath a sudden cloud,
As a bride might doff her bridal dress
To don her funeral shroud;
And over flood and over fell,
With a wild and wicked shout,
From the secret cell where in chains they dwell,
The joyous winds rushed out;
And, the tall hills through, the thunder flew,
And down the fierce hail came;
And from peak to peak the lightning threw
Its shafts of liquid flame.
The boat went down; without delay,
The luckless boatman swooned away:
And when, as a clear spring morning rose,
He woke in wonder from repose,
The river was calm as the river could be,
And the thrush was awake on the gladsome tree,
And there he lay, in a sunny cave,
On the margin of the tranquil wave,
Half deaf with that infernal din,
And wet, poor fellow, to the skin.

He looked to the left and he looked to the right:
Why hastened he not, the noble Knight,

166

To dry his aged nurse's tears,
To calm the hoary butler's fears.
To listen to the prudent speeches
Of half a dozen loquacious leeches,
To swallow cordials circumspectly,
And change his dripping cloak directly?
With foot outstretched, with hand upraised.
In vast surprise he gazed and gazed.
Within a deep and damp recess
A maiden lay in her loveliness!
Lived she?—in sooth 'twere hard to tell,
Sleep counterfeited Death so well.
A shelf of the rock was all her bed;
A ceiling of crystal was o'er her head;
Silken veil, nor satin vest,
Shrouded her form in its silent rest;
Only her long long golden hair
About her lay like a thin robe there.
Up to her couch the young Knight crept:
How very sound the maiden slept!
Fearful and faint the young Knight sighed:
The echoes of the cave replied.
He leaned to look upon her face;
He clasped her hand in a wild embrace;
Never was form of such fine mould;
But the hands and the face were as white and cold
As they of the Parian stone were made,
To which, in great Minerva's shade,

167

The Athenian sculptor's toilsome knife
Gave all of loveliness but life.
On her fair neck there seemed no stain
Where the pure blood coursed through the delicate vein;
And her breath, if breath indeed it were,
Flowed in a current so soft and rare,
It would scarcely have stirred the young moth's wing
On the path of his noonday wandering—
Never on earth a creature trod,
Half so lovely, or half so odd.

Count Otto stares till his eyelids ache,
And wonders when she'll please to wake;
While fancy whispers strange suggestions,
And wonder prompts a score of questions.
Is she a nymph of another sphere?
How came she hither? what doth she here?
Or if the morning of her birth
Be registered on this our earth,
Why hath she fled from her father's halls?
And where hath she left her cloaks and shawls?
There was no time for reason's lectures,
There was no time for wit's conjectures;
He threw his arm with timid haste
Around the maiden's slender waist,
And raised her up, in a modest way,
From the cold bare rock on which she lay:

168

He was but a mile from his castle gate,
And the lady was scarcely five stone weight;
He stopped in less than half an hour,
With his beauteous burden, at Belmont Tower.

Gaily, I ween, was the chamber drest,
As the Count gave order, for his guest;
But scarcely on the couch, 'tis said,
That gentle guest was fairly laid,
When she opened at once her great blue eyes,
And, after a glance of brief surprise,
Ere she had spoken, and ere she had heard
Of wisdom or wit a single word,
She laughed so long, and laughed so loud,
That Dame Ulrica often vowed
A dirge is a merrier thing by half
Than such a senseless soulless laugh.
Around the tower the elfin crew
Seemed shouting in mirthful concert too;
And echoed roof, and trembled rafter,
With that unsentimental laughter.

As soon as that droll tumult passed,
The maiden's tongue, unchained at last,
Asserted all its female right,
And talked and talked with all its might.
Oh, how her low and liquid voice
Made the rapt hearer's soul rejoice!

169

'Twas full of those clear tones that start
From innocent childhood's happy heart,
Ere passion and sin disturb the well
In which their mirth and music dwell.
But man nor master could make out
What the eloquent maiden talked about;
The things she uttered like did seem
To the babbling waves of a limpid stream;
For the words of her speech, if words they might be,
Were the words of a speech of a far countrie;
And when she had said them o'er and o'er,
Count Otto understood no more
Than you or I of the slang that falls
From dukes and dupes at Tattersall's,
Of Hebrew from a bearded Jew,
Or metaphysics from a Blue.

Count Otto swore,—Count Otto's reading
Might well have taught him better breeding,—
That, whether the maiden should fume or fret,
The maiden should not leave him yet;
And so he took prodigious pains
To make her happy in her chains.
From Paris came a pair of cooks,
From Gottingen a load of books,
From Venice stores of gorgeous suits,
From Florence minstrels and their lutes:

170

The youth himself had special pride
In breaking horses for his bride;
And his old tutor, Dr. Hermann,
Was brought from Bonn to teach her German.

He who with curious step hath strayed
Alone through some suburban shade,
To rural Chelsea sauntering down,
Or wandering over Camden Town,
The sacred mansions oft has seen,
Whose walls are white, whose gates are green,
Where ladies with respected names,
Miss Black, Miss Brown, Miss Jenks, Miss James,
For fifty pounds a year or so
Teach beauty all it ought to know,—
How long have been the reigns and lives
Of British monarchs and their wives,—
How fast the twinkling planets run,
From age to age, about the sun,—
The depths of lakes, the heights of hills,
The rule of three, the last quadrilles,
Italian airs, Parisian phrases,
The class and sex of shells and daisies,
The rules of grammar and of grace,
Right sentiments, and thorough-bass.
There quick the young idea shoots,
And bears its blossoms and its fruits.

171

The rosy nymph, who nothing knows
But just to scream a noisy ballad
To mend her little brother's hose.
To make a cake, or mix a salad,
Tormented for a year or two,
(So fast the female wit advances)
Shall grow superlatively blue,
And print a volume of romances.

But ne'er did any forward child,
In any such sequestered college,
Trip faster than my maiden wild
Through every path of useful knowledge.
In May o'er grassy hill and vale
Like some young fawn's her footsteps bounded;
In May upon the morning gale
Like some blithe bird's her carols sounded:
June came;—she practised pirouettes
That might have puzzled Bigottini,
And decked her simple canzonets
With shakes that would have charmed Rossini.
In spring to her the A. B. C.
Appeared a mystery quite as murky
As galvanism to Owhyhee,
Or annual Parliaments to Turkey;
But when upon the flood and fell
Brown autumn's earliest storms were low'ring.

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She was quite competent to spell
Through all the books of Doctor Bowring.

No cheerful friend, no quiet guest,
Doth Wisdom come to human breast;
She brings the day-beam, but in sooth
She brings its trouble with its truth.
With every cloud that flits and flies
Some dear delusion fades and dies;
With every flash of perfect light
Some loveless prospect blasts the sight.
Shut up the page; for in its lore
Are fears and doubts unfelt before:
Fling down the wreath; for sorrow weaves
Amid the laurel cypress leaves.

Moons waxed and waned; and you might trace
In the captive maiden gradual change;
Ever and ever of form and face
Some charm seemed fresh and new and strange:
Over her cold and colourless cheek
The blush of the rose began to glow,
And her quickened pulse began to speak
Of human bliss and human woe;
Her features kept their beauty still,
But a graver shade was o'er them thrown;
Her voice had yet its clear soft thrill,
But its echo took a sadder tone.

173

Oft, till the Count came up from wine,
She sat alone by the lattice high,
Tracing the course of the rolling Rhine
With a moody brow and a wistful eye;
Still, as the menials oft averred,
Talking and talking, low and long,
In that droll language which they heard,
At her first coming, from her tongue.
None but the Pope of Rome, they deemed,
Could construe what the damsel said;
But this they knew, by turns she seemed
To soothe, to threaten, to upbraid.
And oft on a crag at dawn she stood,
Her golden harp in her pretty hand,
And sang such songs to the gurgling flood
As an exile sings to his native land;
Till, if a listener dared intrude,
She hastened back to the postern-gate,
Blushing, as if her solitude
Were as dear and as wrong as a tête-à-tête.

'Twas wondrous all; but most of all,
That, held in strict though gentle thrall,
She seemed so slow to take upon her
The style and state of threatened honour.
For often, when on bended knee
Count Otto pressed his amorous plea,

174

And begged, before his heart should break,
She'd be a Countess for his sake,
Without the slightest show of flurry,
She chid his heat, and checked his hurry:
He might allow her time, she said,
To learn the life his Lordship led;
Such hawking, hunting, dining, drinking,—
At times she felt her poor heart sinking!
At home, in bed the livelong day,
She lived in such a different way;
So calm, so cool,—her father's daughter
Was ne'er a minute in hot water.
Then their acquaintance, she must state,
Was of a very recent date;
They met in May, he should remember,
And now were hardly in December;
Such eyes as hers, she had a notion,
Were worth at least a year's devotion.
Her kindred had their fancies too
Of what young ladies ought to do:
All sorts of mischief might befall,
If rashly in her father's hall
Before twelve months of courtship ended
She showed her face with her intended.—
But where that father's hall?—vain, vain;
She turned her eyes in silence down;
And if you dared to ask again,
Her only answer was a frown.

175

Some people have a knack, we know,
Of saying things mal-à-propos,
And making all the world reflect
On what it hates to recollect.
They talk to misers of their heir,
To women of the days that were,
To ruined gamblers of the box,
To thin defaulters of the stocks,
To poets of the wrong Review,
And to the French of Waterloo.
The Count was not of these; he never
Was half so clumsy, half so clever;
And when he found the girl would rather
Say nothing more about her father,
He changed the subject—told a fable—
Believed that dinner was on table—
Or hinted, with an air of sorrow,
The certainty of rain to-morrow.

Meantime the world began to prate
Of young Count Otto's purposed marriage;
Discussed the jewels and the plate,
Described the dresses and the carriage.
The lady's rank, the lady's name,
As usual in such curious cases,
Were asked by many a noble dame,
With most expressive tones and faces;

176

The grave and gay, the old and young,
Looked very arch, or very serious;
Some whispered something that was wrong,
Some murmured much that was mysterious.
One aunt, a strict old maiden, thought,—
And could not bear the thought to smother,—
Young persons positively ought
To have a father and a mother;
And wondered, with becoming scorn,
How far presumption might be carried,
When hussies who had ne'er been born
Began to think of being married:
Another, fair, and kind as fair,
Was heard by many to protest
It was her daily wish and prayer
That she might see her nephew blest;
And though, as matters stood, of course
'Twas quite impossible to call
On somebody, whom she perforce
Considered nobody at all,
When once the Church had done its part.
And ratified the Count's selection,
She'd clasp the Countess to her heart,
Impromptu, with profound affection.

The winter storms went darkly by,
And, from a blue and cloudless sky,

177

Again the sun looked cheerfully
Upon the rolling Rhine;
And spring brought back to the budding flowers
Its genial light and freshening showers,
And music to the shady bowers,
And verdure to the vine.
And now it is the first of May;
For twenty miles round all is gay;
Cottage and castle keep holiday;
For how should sorrow lower
On brow of rustic or of knight,
When heaven itself looks all so bright,
Where Otto's wedding feast is dight
In the hall of Belmont Tower?
For the maiden's hair the wreath is wrought;
For the maiden's hand the ring is bought;
Be she a Fiend, or be she a Fay,
She shall be Otto's bride to-day.
And he,—for he at last discovers
That “no” is a word unfit for lovers,—
Has promised, as soon as the priest has done
The terrible rite that makes them one,
To step with her to the carriage and four
That waits e'en now at the castle-door,
And post to visit, “although,” saith she,
“A very odd road our road may be,”
Her father, her mother, and two or three dozens
Of highly respectable aunts and cousins:

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And he has sanctioned his consent,
Lest he should happen to repent,
By a score or more of the oaths that slip,
As matters of course, from a bridegroom's lip

Stately matron and warrior tall
Come to the joyous festival;
Gladly Otto welcomes all,
As through the gate they throng;
He fills to the brim the wassail cup;
In the bright wine pleasure sparkles up,
And draughts and tales grow long;
But grizzly knights are still and mute,
And dames set down the untasted fruit,
When the bride awakes her golden lute,
And charms them all with song.

“The dawn is past, the dusk comes fast,
No longer may I roam;
Full soon, full soon, the young May moon
Will guide the truant home:
Hasten we, hasten, groom and bride;
How merry we shall be!
Now open, father, open wide.
Let in my lord with me.

“Though treasures old of silver and gold
Lie in thy secret store,

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I bring thee to-night, to charm thy sight,
Gifts thou wilt value more;
Knightly valour, and lordly pride,
Leal heart, and spirit free;—
Now open, father, open wide,
Let in my lord with me.

“I hear, I hear, with joy and fear,
The old familiar tone;
I hear him call to his ancient hall
His favourite, his own:
How will he chafe and how will he chide!
For a fretful mood hath he;—
Now open, father, open wide,
Let in my lord with me!”

The nurses to the children say
That, as the maiden sang that day,
The Rhine to the heights of the beetling tower
Sent up a cry of fiercer power,
And again the maiden's cheek was grown
As white as ever was marble stone,
And the bridesmaid her hand could hardly hold,
Its fingers were so icy cold.

Rose Count Otto from the feast,
As entered the hall the hoary Priest.

180

A stalwart warrior, well I ween,
That hoary Priest in his youth had been;
But the might of his manhood he had given
To penance and prayer, the Church and Heaven.
For he had travelled o'er land and wave;
He had kneeled on many a martyr's grave;
He had prayed in the meek St. Jerome's cell,
And had tasted St. Anthony's blessed well;
And reliques round his neck had he,
Each worth a haughty kingdom's fee;
Scrapings of bones, and points of spears,
And vials of authentic tears,
From a prophet's coffin a hallowed nail,
And a precious shred of our Lady's veil.
And therefore at his awful tread
The powers of darkness shrank with dread;
And Satan felt that no disguise
Could hide him from those chastened eyes.
He looked on the bridegroom, he looked on the bride,
The young Count smiled, but the old Priest sighed.

“Fields with the father I have won;
I am come in my cowl to bless the son.
Count Otto, ere thou bend thy knee,
What shall the hire of my service be?”

“Greedy hawk must gorge his prey;
Pious priest must grasp his pay.

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Name the guerdon, and so to the task;
Thine it is, ere thy lips can ask!”

He frowned as he answered—“Gold and gem,
Count Otto, little I reck of them;
But your bride has skill of the lute, they say.
Let her sing me the song I shall name to-day.”

Loud laughed the Count: “And if she refuse
The ditty, Sir Priest, thy whim shall choose,
Row back to the house of old St. Goar;
I never bid priest to a bridal more.”

Beside the maiden he took his stand;
He gave the lute to her trembling hand;
She gazed around with a troubled eye;
The guests all shuddered, and knew not why;
It seemed to them as if a gloom
Had shrouded all the banquet-room,
Though over its boards and over its beams
Sunlight was glowing in merry streams.

The stern Priest throws an angry glance
On that pale creature's countenance;
Unconsciously her white hand flings
Its soft touch o'er the answering strings;
The good man starts with a sudden thrill,
And half relents from his purposed will;

182

But he signs the Cross on his aching brow,
And arms his soul for its warfare now.

“Mortal maid or goblin fairy,
Sing me, I pray thee, an Ave Mary!”

Suddenly the maiden bent
O'er the gorgeous instrument;
But of song the listeners heard
Only one wild mournful word—
“Lurley,—Lurley!”
And when the sound in the liquid air
Of that brief hymn had faded,
Nothing was left of the nymph who there
For a year had masqueraded,
But the harp in the midst of the wide hall set
Where her last strange word was spoken;—
The golden frame with tears was wet,
And all the strings were broken.