 | The Rosary. The Willow Island |  |
160
XII. The Willow Island.
I
Prince Amadis lay in a chestnut brakeBy the side of Locarno's silver lake:
It seems a very long while ago,
Or else it may be that time goes slow.
II
Those were the days when the world of spiritFilled the old earth to the brim, or near it;
And marvels were wrought by wizard elves,
Which happen but rarely among ourselves.
161
III
The heart of prince Amadis did not pantWith an indwelling love, or blameless want
Of chivalrous friendship, or thirst of power;
His youth was enough for its own bright hour.
IV
He floated o'er life like a noon-tide breeze,Or cradled vapor on sunny seas,
Or an exquisite cloud, in light arrayed,
Which sails through the sky and can throw no shade.
V
Wishes he had, but no hopes and no fears;He smiled, but his smiles were not gendered of tears:
Like a beautiful mute he played his part,
Too happy by far in his own young heart!
162
VI
His twentieth summer was well nigh past,Each was more golden and gay than the last;
The glory of earth, which to others grows dim,
Through his unclouded years glittered fresher to him.
VII
And oh how he loved! From the hour of his birth,He was gentle to all the bright insects of earth;
He sate by the green gilded lizards for hours,
And laughed, for pure love, at the shoals of pied flowers.
VIII
As he walked through the woods in the cool of the day,He stooped to each blossom that grew by the way
He tapped at the rind of the old cedar trees,
When its weak breath had sweetened the evening breeze.
163
IX
He knew all the huge oaks, the wide forest's gems,By their lightning-cleft branches or sisterly stems;
He knew the crowned pines where the starlight is best,
And the likeliest banks where the moon would rest.
X
He studied with joy the old mossy walls,And probed with his finger their cavernous halls,
Where the wren builds her nest and the lady-bird slumbers
While winter his short months of icy wind numbers.
XI
All things were holy and dear to his mind—All things,—except the hot heart of his kind,
And that seemed a flower in a withered hood,
Which the cold spring cankered within the bud.
164
XII
The wrongs of the peasant, the woes of the peerNe'er wrung from the prince a true sigh or a tear;
The strife of his fellows seemed heartlessly bright,
Like the laurels in winter in cold moonlight.
XIII
He cared for no sympathy, living in throngsOf his own sunny thoughts, and his mute inward songs;
And if in the sunset his spirit was weary,
Sleep was hard by him, young health's sanctuary.
XIV
'Twould not have been so had he e'er known his mother,Or had had, save the green earth, a playmate and brother;
For deep in his heart a most wonderful power
Of loving lay hid, like an unopened flower.
165
XV
Ah! luckless it is when a spirit is hauntedBy all kindly powers, but attractions are wanted,
Life's outward attractions, by calm, pensive law
Love, sorrow, and pity from shy hearts to draw!
XVI
Yet mid the voluptuous forms of delight,Whose footfalls stole round him by day or by night,
He was chaste as the white lily's dew-beaded cup,
Which, bold because stainless, to heaven looks up.
XVII
His mind was a fair desert temple of beauty,Unshaded by sorrow, unhallowed by duty;
A dream in a garden, a midsummer bliss
Was the youth, the bright youth, of prince Amadis.
166
XVIII
Prince Amadis lay in the chestnut shadeWhere the flickering light through the green leaves played,
And the summer lake, with its blue heart throbbing,
Chafed the white sand with a reedy sobbing.
XIX
He saw not the hills through his half-closed eye,But their presence was felt like a spirit nigh;
To the spell of the noon-tide he gave himself up,
And his heart overflowed like wine in a cup.
XX
He smiled at the silence that stole o'er the day,While the singing-birds slumbered upon the spray,
Till moss-scented airs o'er the green sward did creep,
And tremulous mallow-leaves fanned him asleep.
167
XXI
And dreams whispered to him, the tongues of sweet flowersStriking the chimes of the uncounted hours;
And, as though he were sinless, the wood-haunting creatures
Bent o'er the sleeper with love in their features.
XXII
Sleeping or waking, his vision was one,—That the knots of the world might by him be undone,
That the Natures below and the Spirits above
Might with man be confused in one Eden of love.
XXIII
Beautiful dreamer! how far hadst thou strayedFrom the love at thy doors by the meek earth laid,
And the household chains of our true love rent,
Which were forged for the soul's enfranchisement!
168
XXIV
The day drifted out, like the ebb of the ocean,From the havens of earth with a quiet motion;
And a cool flapping breeze grew out of the air
Which the mallow-leaves fanned to the sleeper there.
XXV
Prince Amadis rose from the flowery brake,While, imaged serenely in the lake,
The roseate sky, with gold bars freaked,
By a flight of wild swans was duskily streaked.
XXVI
In a stiff-bending line through the rich sunsetThey wavered like cloud-spots of glossy jet,
And with rude piping they marshalled their rear
In a phalanx above the tranquil mere.
169
XXVII
There for one moment their huge wings they shake,Then in wide spiral circuits drop down to the lake;
The dark water gurgles, thus suddenly cloven,
In wakes of white bubbles interwoven.
XXVIII
Are there deep instincts that lurk belowIn those dipping breasts of driven snow?
Or why do they steer their conscious way
To the prince in the mallow-curtained bay?
XXIX
A pale-feathered cygnet was with them, and heSwam centre of all the company,
And round him they anchored in that calm pool,
A vision solemn and beautiful.
170
XXX
He wore on his head a black diadem,Looped to a clasp of orange gem;
His plumage gleamed in the dusk star-bright,
Of purple but faintly muffled with white.
XXXI
There needed no voices: prince Amadis readA dream in that show interpreted;
He strode the fair cygnet, and rose from the ground
With those wild white swans on a voyage bound.
XXXII
Young prince! they will search for thee all through the night,And the lake and the bush will gleam wan with torchlight;
And there will be weeping and wailing then,
If monarchs have hearts like other men.
171
XXXIII
But away and away in the midnight blueThat fleet of white creatures went steering through;
And away and away through the sweet day-break,
From the white Alps flashed, their road they take:
XXXIV
Through the tingling noon and the evening vapor,Which Hesper lights with his little taper,
Through the tremulous smiles of moonlight mirth,
And the balmy descents of dew to the earth—
XXXV
Through the calms, through the winds, when the hailstones ring,The convoy passed with untiring wing,
And oft from their course for hours they drove
As though they winnowed the air for love.
172
XXXVI
And now they would mount, and now they would stoop,And almost to earth or ocean droop,
And harshly would pipe through the sheer delight
Of their boisterous wings, and the strength of flight.
XXXVII
They saw the young Save in the next night's moon,They were over Belgrade by the afternoon,
And ere the sun set their journey was o'er
On a yellow rock by the Danube's shore.
XXXVIII
They left the young prince, (for their mission was done,)There on the tall yellow summit alone;
And, in their hoarse language they bade him farewell,
And swept o'er the sun-bleached Bulgarian fell.
173
XXXIX
More and more sadly as daylight died,The breeze-troubled marsh-plants sobbed and sighed,
And the pulse of the river with bubbling sound
Beat in the swamps and the hollows round.
XL
But the stream travelled on like a pilgrim wearyIn search of his eastern sanctuary,
Through the heart of old Europe guiding his floods
From beneath the green boughs of the Freybourg woods.
| The Rosary. The Willow Island | |