THE INFANT BRIDAL.
In the Middle Ages the marriage of children was no infrequent
mode of reconciling nations. The custom was natural
in a time when belief insisted on expressing itself in symbols,
and when the whole of earthly life was regarded as a rehearsal
of, and betrothal to, a Life Divine.
PART I.
1
Of old between two nations was great war:
Its cause no mortal knew; nor when begun;
Therefore they combated so much the more,
The sire his sword bequeathing to the son;
Till gentleness and joy had wholly fled,
And wellnigh every hand with blood was red.
2
In vain the mother wept; her sighs were blown
Away by the loud gust of popular rage;
In vain the young fair widow made her moan;
In vain the tender virgin would engage
Her love to gentler thoughts; he rushed to arms,
Proud of her beauty pale and loud alarms.
3
Glory, for Honour a blind substitute
In hearts aspiring and a servile will,
On to the battle chased them. Man and brute,
Horseman and horse, by the same trumpet-thrill
Were borne into the frenzy of red fields,
Ghastly ere night with dead, upstaring from their shields.
4
Glory at first, and after Glory, Shame;
Shame to propose the compact, first to bend;
And Fear, which masks full oft in Valour's name,
And doth false honour like a shade attend—
Fear to be thought to fear—these plagues did urge
The maniacs forward with a threefold scourge.
5
Both kingdoms raging thus in fever fit,
More direful every hour became their spleen:
The sleeping boy full oft his brow would knit
Against a foeman he had never seen;
Full oft the man of venerable hairs
Bowed to the dust his head depressed by griefs and cares.
6
Valley and town lay drowned in tears and sorrow;
Each noontide trembled with perturbed annoy,
And no one dared expect a kinder morrow:
To be a mother was no more a joy:
Hope no more hovered o'er the cradle. Love
Wept; and no friend had heart such anguish to reprove.
7
How often to a little sleeping child,
Smiling, and sleeping on the mother's knee,
That mother thus complained; ‘Ah, little child!
God only knows if it be good for thee,
My comforter, my solace, to have come
Down to this world so harsh and wearisome
8
‘Happy awhile with me thy spirit dwells;’
Awhile contented 'mid thy petty range
Of daily things, to thee all miracles;
For arms thou dost not sigh, nor pant for change;
Thy dreams are bloodless: thou dost smile when sleeping,
In Eden founts thy newborn fancies steeping.
9
‘Ah, must that brow, so clear, so smooth, so white,
By a hard ruthless helm be one day pressed?
Ah, must the red lance in its murderous might
One day pierce through and gore that tender breast?
Ah, little infant! must thou lie one day
Far, far from me, cold clay upon cold clay?
10
‘Wherefore so fast do these thy ringlets grow?
Stay, little child, be alway what thou art,
That I may ever, while the rough winds blow,
Clasp thee as now, and hide thee in my heart.
Who taught thee those new words? I fear each day,
To hear thee cry, “Mother, I must away.”
11
‘Is this to be a mother? I am none—
And yet I fear to lose a gift not prized.
Is this, ah God, to have a little son?
Are these my prayers? my dreams thus realized?
Defrauded of my own while visibly here,
How can I hope, O child, to deck far off thy bier?’
PART II.
1
The hosts, in silence marching all the night,
At sunrise met upon the battle plain.
The monarchs there engaged in single fight:
There by a rival's hand was either slain.
Long time men stood in gloom, stern, and sad-hearted;
Then, bound by solemn vows, homeward in peace departed.
2
A counsel went there forth. Each king had left
Behind a blooming infant; one a boy,
A girl the other; both alike bereft;
Both innocent; both meet for love and joy;
Both heirs of sorrow. ‘Holy Church these twain
Shall join in one,’ men cried; ‘and peace be ours again.’
3
Who first devised the expedient no one knows.
Perhaps old sages, after long debate,
And loud lament of immemorial woes,
Bending their deep brows in a hall of state,
Conceived the project; and from Fancy sought
A cure for ills by rage fantastic wrought.
4
Some chief perhaps, of all his sons bereft,
And now half blind in his forlorn old age,
Cried loud in anguish, while his tower he left
To hide him in a moss-grown hermitage,
‘Hear ye my words, and on your hearts engrain them,
Love gave me many children: Hate hath slain them.’
5
Haply some maiden, for the war deserted,
Exclaimed, ‘I would that little warlike pair
Had loved as long as war the loved hath parted.’
Perhaps kind angels called her wish a prayer.
Enough: I tell an ancient legend, told
By better men than I, long dead and cold.
6
While the young bride in triumph home was led,
They strewed beneath her litter branches green;
And kissed light flowers, then rained them on a head
Unconscious as the flowers what all might mean.
Men, as she past them, knelt; and women raised
Their children in their arms, who laughed and gazed.
7
That pomp approaching woodland villages,
Or shadowing convents piled near rivers dim,
The church-bells from gray towers begirt with trecs
Reiterated their loud, wordless hymn;
And golden cross, and snowy choir serene
Moved on, old trunks and older towers between.
8
An hour ere sunset from afar they spied
The city walls, dark myriads round them clinging:
Now o'er a carpeted expanse they glide,
Now the old bridge beneath their tread is ringing:
They reach the gate—they pass the towers below—
And now once more emerge, a glittering show!
9
O what a rapturous shout receives them, blending
Uncounted bells with chime of human voices!
That fortress old, as on thy wind ascending,
Like the mother of some victor chief rejoices.
From every window tapestries wave: among
The steep and glittering roofs group after group they throng.
10
The shrine is gained. Two mighty gates expanding
Let forth a breeze of music onward gushing,
In pathos lulled, yet awful and commanding;
Down sink the crowds, at once their murmur hushing.
Filled with one soul, the smooth procession slowly
Advances with joined palms, cross-led and slowly.
11
Lo! where they stand in yon high, fan-roofed chamber—
Martyrs and Saints in dyed and mystic glass
With sumptuous haloes, vermeil, green and amber,
Flood the far aisles, and all that by them pass:
Rich like their painter's visions—in those gleams
Blazoning the burden of his Patmian dreams!
12
A forest of tall lights in mystic cluster
Like fire-topped reeds, from their aerial station
Pour on the group a mild and silver lustre:
Beneath the blessing of that constellation
The rite proceeds—pure source whence rich increase
Of love henceforth, and piety and peace.
13
Small was the ring, and small in truth the finger!
What then? the faith was large that dropped it down:
A faith that scorned on this base earth to linger,
And won from Heaven a perdurable crown.
A germ of Love, at plighting of that troth
Into each bosom sank; and grew there with its growth.
14
The ladies held aloft the bridal pair:
They on each other smiled, and gazed around
With lofty mien benign and debonair,
Their infant brows with golden circlet bound:
The prelates blessed them, and the nobles swore
True faith and fealty by the swords they bore.
15
Home to the palace, still in order keeping,
That train returned; and in the stateliest room
Laid down their lovely burden, all but sleeping,
Together in one cradle's curtained gloom:
And lulled them with low melody and song,
And jest past lightly 'mid the courtly throng.
PART III.
1
Ah, lovely sight! behold them—creatures twain,
Hand in hand wandering through some verdant alley,
Or sunny lawn of their serene domain,
Their wind-caught laughter echoing musically;
Or skimming, in pursuit of bird-cast shadows,
With feet immaculate the enamelled meadows.
2
Tiptoe now stand they by some towering lily,
And fain would peer into its snowy cave:
Now, the boy bending o'er some current chilly,
The feebler backward draws him from the wave;
But he persists, and gains for her at last
Some bright flower from the dull weeds hurrying past.
3
Oft if some agèd priest the cloister crossed,
Both hands they caught; and bade him explicate,
That nought of good through idlesse might be lost,
At large all duties of the nuptial state;
And oft each other kissed with infant glee,
As though this were some great solemnity.
4
In some old missal sometimes would they look,
Touching with awe the illuminated page;
And scarce for tears the spectacle might brook
Of babes destroyed by Herod's murderous rage.
Here sank a Martyr in ensanguined vest:
With more familiar smile there beamed the Virgin blest.
5
Growing, their confidence as quickly grew;
Light pet and childish quarrel seldom came:
To make them lighter yet and yet more few,
Their nurse addressed them thus—an ancient dame—
‘Children, what perfect love should dwell, I ween,
'Twixt husband and young wife, 'twixt King and Queen.
6
‘The turtle, widowed of her mate, no more
Lifts her lone head, but pines, and pining dies:
In many a tomb 'mid yon Cathedral hoar
Monarch or Knight beside his lady lies;
Such tenderness and truth they showed, that fate
No power was given their dust to separate.
7
‘Rachel not less, and Ruth, whereof men read
In book ordained our life below to guide,
Loved her own husband each, in word and deed,
Loved him full well, nor any loved beside:
And Orpheus too, and Pyramus, men say,
Though Paynim born, lived true, and so shall live for aye.
8
‘What makes us, children, to good Angels dear?
Unblemished Truth and hearts in pure accord:
These also draw the people to revere
With stronger faith their King and Sovereign Lord.
Then perfect make your love and amity
Alway: but most of all if men are by.’
9
Such lore receiving ofttimes, hand in hand
Those babes walked gravely: at the garden gates
Meantime the multitude would flock and stand,
And hooded nuns looked downward from their grates.
These when the Princes marked, they moved awhile
With loftier step and more majestic smile;
10
Or sat enthroned upon some broidered bank
(The lowlier flowers in wrecks around them thrown)
Shadowed with roses rising rank on rank:
And there, now wreathed, now leaning into one,
They talked, and kissed, again and yet again,
To please good Angels thus, and win good men.
11
Swift rolled the years. The boy now twelve years old,
Vowed to the Cross and honourable war,
For Palestine deserts our northland cold.
Her husband—playmate—is he hers no more?
Up to his hand, now timid first she crept,—
‘Farewell,’ he said: she sighed; he kissed her and she wept.
12
A milk-white steed; a crest whose snowy pride
Like wings, or maiden tresses drooped apart;
A Cross between; and (every day new dyed),
Fair emblem on his shield, a bleeding heart,
Marked him far off from all. Not mine to tell
What fields his valour won, what foes before him fell.
13
No barbarous rage that host impelled; but zeal
For Christian faith and sacred rites profaned;
And Triumph smiled upon the avenging steel
That smote the haughty and set free the chained.
Foremost he fought. In Victory's final hour
Star-bright he shone from Salem's topmost tower!
14
Swift as that Fame, which like an Angel ran
Before him on a glory-smitten road,
Homeward the princely boy returned, a man.
A lovelier angel graced their old abode—
But where his youthful playmate? where? half dazed,
Each on the other's beauty wondering gazed.
15
Strange joy they found all day in wandering over
The spots in which their childish sports had been;
Husband and wife whilome, now loved and lover,
A broken light brightened yet more the scene.
Night came: a gay yet startled bride he led,
Old rites scarce trusting, to the bridal bed.
16
No more remains of all this ancient story.
They loved with love eternal: spent their days
In peace, in good to man, in genuine glory:
No spoils unjust they sought, nor unjust praise.
Their children loved them and their people blessed—
God grant us all such lives—in Heaven for aye such rest!
