Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

As the finest crystal still
Bides the most exposed to ill,
As the finest crystal ever,
Brittlest, may the soonest shiver,
So in this world fares no less
With some rarer happiness:
Such a happiness was thine,
Siegfried, Count and Palatine,
When thou leddest home thy bride,
When thou watchedst her in pride,
As all eyes did on her wait,
Moving in her queenly state—
Genoveva, loveliest flower
Blooming in Brabantine bower
Once, and now transferred to dwell
On the banks of fair Moselle.
'Twas in sooth a golden time,
And the world was in its prime
For them two;—the sun stood high
Of their rare felicity—
Standing right above their head,
Did no way a shadow shed.

But this might not always last;
Happy months too soon have past:

230

Charles has called from east and west
All who own his high behest;
Charles has bid from far and near
All his liegemen to appear.
For must now at length be met,
Now must have its limits set,
That wild tide of Moslem war,
Which has rolled so fierce and far,
Issuing from Arabian sands,
Overflowing mightiest lands,
Till it reached to western Spain,
And has burst o'er Aquitaine,
And is panting to advance
To the very heart of France.
At the gate are trumpets sounding,
And impatient chargers bounding,
And a numerous proud array
Only for their chieftain stay;
And he comes; in lady's bowers
'Tis no time to waste the hours.
Who this precious time would choose
In ignoble ease to lose,
While by others fields are fought,
Glorious deeds by others wrought,
While by other hearts and hands
France is freed from miscreant bands?
Nor would she her lord detain,
Though her arms are like a chain,
That will scarce relax again;
Though when now the latest note
Of the trump in air doth float,
By her maidens she is found
Without motion on the ground,

231

In a deep and heavy swoon;
But from thence reviving soon
Doth her widowed state beguile,
Cheers the sad and lonely while,
Not with shows or pageantries,
Not with pomps or revelries,
But with prayer and vigil long,
With the Church's solemn song,
Stirring so the malice fell
And the deepest hate of hell.

II

Well thou farest, gallant Count,
Foremost in the battle brunt,
Foremost on that famous field,
When to heaven two faiths appealed,
When seven times uprose the sun,
And the battle was not done,
And six times went down the day
On an undecided fray;
Well thou speedest; to thy king
No mean help thy hand did bring
On that last day, when he smote
Many a Moslem's mailëd coat,
When his ponderous blows so well
Like on ringing anvil fell,
That to him henceforth the name
Of ‘The Hammer’ justly came.
Well thou farest—better far
Than that sadly-gleaming star,
Thou didst leave to shine alone
In thy sphere, when thou wert gone—

232

Better than that lonely dove,
Fond of heart, and true of love,
Who within her widowed bowers
Counts the tardy-pacing hours.
What a mist of hell obscure
Gathers round thy planet pure!
What a serpent coils and clings
Round thy fair dove's silver wings!
What of hellish wiles are met
Round about her, to beset
First the honour, then the life
Of that ever-faithful wife!

Ill didst thou, O Count, provide,
Setting at thy lady's side,
For thine holy home to guard
And to keep due watch and ward,
One who there such watch doth keep
As the wolf on silly sheep:
Such a guard the kite would prove
To the weakness of the dove.
Evil man! who when there fell
On his bosom sparks of hell,
Did not, as alone was meet,
Stamp them underneath his feet,
With an indignation keen
That such thoughts should once have been;
But those sparks of foul desire
Left to kindle to a fire,
Fed and fanned them, till they grew
Such a mighty flame unto,
As will not be quenched, before
One it has consumed, or more.
—He has dared to tell his tale;
She, with fear and anger pale,

233

Twice must heart, but when the third
Time this suit of shame she heard,
Then exclaimed, ‘Thy lord shall know
Whom he has entrusted so:
Evil meed wilt thou have earned,
When thy lord has back returned;
Twice forgiven—but twice in vain —
Hence! nor see my face again.’
Forth the caitiff went, and told
To his mother, weird and old,
Full of evil plots and wiles,
Full of treacheries and guiles,
All his danger and his fear—
—‘Help me, or my death is near;
Give me counsel, or I die:
One must perish—she or I.’

III

Innocence is fearless still;
Means not and suspects not ill.
Of the band that waited near
Genoveva, one was dear,
For his piety beloved,
And with many signs approved
Of her grace: his tender age
Did he unto God engage,
Who, before her kneeling, read
From an open scroll outspread,
Where were written records high
Of the Christian chivalry;
Of young Agnes, tender flower,
Gathered in her childhood's hour;

234

And of patient Laurence, spread
Calmly on his fiery bed;
Of Eulalia, whose fair corse,
Flung abroad without remorse,
From the care of heaven must know
Its pure winding-sheet of snow;
And of them that bore so well
All the spite of earth and hell,
Whose dear ashes forth were thrown
To make rich her neighbouring Rhone;
And of many more beside,
In extremest tortures tried;
Names that never shall grow old,
Hearts to servile fear unsold,
Holy Virgins, Martyrs bold,
Lilies those of dazzling white,
Roses these with red hues dight,
In the garden of the Lord;—
With a pensive ear she heard,
With a spirit inly wrought,
Marvelling in secret thought,
How the holiest and most pure
Most were given to endure;
How it still was theirs to drain
Deepest cups of mortal pain.

But these musings must have end,
Must reveal what they portend.
Hark! a noise is heard without,
Then a rude inrushing rout,
Led of him who should no more
Dare to stand her face before.
Up she started in surprise;
All the coming on her eyes

235

Flashing in a moment rose—
The long order of her woes,
The foul tale, the hateful lie,
And the deep-laid villany.
Knew she now what cup of pain
Unto her was given to drain;
Her as well that cup had found,
Had unto her lips come round.
‘Ha!’ that faithless guardian cried,
When the wondering twain he spied,
‘It was this, even this I thought,
And my fears to proof are brought.
Have we not endured this wrong
Done against our lord too long?
Hence, away with both! away!
Hence, nor heed them, what they say;
Mine the charge, that without stain
My lord's honour should remain:
If this may not be, at least
Shall the rank offence have ceased.
Bear him to his death—her doom
She shall wait in dungeon gloom.’

IV

Such a mist of hell obscure
Gathers round that planet pure,
Such a serpent coils and clings
Round that fair dove's silver wings,
Such of hellish wiles are met,
And such treacheries to beset
First the honour, then the life
Of that ever-faithful wife;

236

While the Count do spaces wide,
Streams and mountains, still divide
From his perilled lady's side.
For with slow and sullen pace,
Turning oftentimes the face,
Afric's swarthy hosts retreat
From the field of their defeat;—
As with many a pause of pride
Ebbeth a reluctant tide,
Slowly on its refluent track,
Is with many a pause drawn back,
Oft with new-awakened roar
Winning ground again, before
It has quite left bare the shore—
As a lion from his prey
By the hunters scared away,
Who though now no more remaining,
Yet the show of flight disdaining,
Often turns, and makes his stand,
Glares on the pursuing band,
Till the shepherds back recoil,
Winning no unbloody spoil.
And the gallant Count of Treves,
Though by night and day he weaves
Visions of his happy home,
Though full oft his fancies roam
From the camp's tumultuous noise,
From the battle's heady joys,
To the banks of fair Moselle,
Where for him all good things dwell,
Though he yearns for quick release
Unto scenes of holy peace,
Yet will faithfully abide
By his noble captain's side,

237

Till into the western seas,
Or beyond the Pyrenees,
Is the latest foeman urged,
And the land is throughly purged.

Joy to him! for tidings come,
Letters from his distant home.
Joy it is not; he doth stand,
Those crushed letters in his hand,
And men speak, but meaning none
From their speech his ear has won;
O'er the world doth blackness pass,
Black the sunlight on the grass,
Black the sun itself—on all
Blackness falls, a murky pall.
The firm heavens are round him wheeling,
The fixed earth beneath him reeling;
Oh, the cunning web of hell:
Oh, the treachery woven too well!
—‘Genoveva! oh no, no—
Yet it is, it must be so.
Oh 'twas well and bravely done,
Thou thy master's praise hast won,
Who didst boldly use thy power
And didst cast her in that hour
To a dungeon out of sight.
Would that she had died outright,
Died with him, and shared his fate,
In this sin her guilty mate.
Better so—but let her die
With the child of infamy,
Child of infamy and scorn
That was in the dungeon born.’
With this message he in part
The wild tumult of his heart

238

Has assuaged—some ease has won:
—Yet, oh think, was this well done,
Was it with thine own heart well,
When in it such thoughts could dwell?
If thy spirit had drawn breath
In the worlds of loftiest faith,
Couldst thou have been so deceived?—
Wouldst thou not have then believed
Everything on earth, a lie
Ere thy lady's purity?

V

Lo! a woman strangely fair,
With her wildly-streaming hair,
All alone, companionless,
In a savage wilderness:—
Now she kneels with arms stretched out,
Now she strangely roams about;
Underneath a thorn-tree's shade
Wailing infant she has laid,
Like another Hagar flying,
That she may not see him dying.
—‘From that cry—that cry of pain—
Still I flee, but still in vain:
Whither, whither shall I fly?
All the fountains are drawn dry
Of my bosom utterly;
With its milk my child at first,
Till that wholly failed, I nursed:
Then the blood away it drew,
And now that has failed me too.
Oh! what helps it that the twain,
Who were charged to end my pain,

239

Have withheld the murderous knife
From my own and infant's life,
(While I promised never more
To appear men's eyes before,)
If they leave us here to die
With a longer agony?
—O my husband, other thought
Was it that within me wrought,
Then when from my height of place
Fell I to that strange disgrace,
And that scorn extreme must prove:
In thy faith and in thy love
Found I still a refuge strong
From that uttermost of wrong.
'Twas enough the hours were flowing,
'Twas enough the days were going,
That would bring thee to my side,
All that dark mist scattering wide.
—God and Saviour! and thine ear
Doth it not our crying hear?
God and Saviour! is thine eye
Closëd on our misery?
Are the springs of love divine
Dry as are these breasts of mine?
When my little one has died,
What have I on earth beside?’

Round she gazed, if anywhere
Dawned a glimpse of comfort there:
Not a human step was near,
Not a human voice to cheer,
And no Angel-comforter
In her anguish spake to her.
Oh! how darkly desolate,
Oh! how full of scorn and hate

240

At that moment seemed all nature—
Every mute and senseless creature;
All upon her misery
Gazing with unpitying eye.
Danced the light leaves in the air,
As deriding her despair;
Echoes came in idle mocks,
Tossed from the unfeeling rocks;
Merrily the stream tripped on,
Gloriously the gay sun shone,
Stretched the breadth of azure sky
Like a banner upon high:
But no pity anywhere
Might she find, no love, no care:
Dark the earth, forlorn of love,
But, oh! darker heaven above—
God's own heaven seemed darker yet.
But this deadliest thought is met:
She hath prayed, and doth repel
This the deadliest shaft of hell;
She hath prayed, and not in vain;
Faint returns to her again;
And when now the feeble crying,
The faint moanings of the dying,
Faint and fainter, wholly cease,
God she thanks that all is peace;
That her infant findeth rest
On a loving Saviour's breast.
She with all is reconciled;
Once will look upon her child,
Then its little body lay
In the deepest grave she may.

Near she draws, and yet more near,
Not a stirring may she hear:

241

But what other sight her eyes
Welcomed with a glad surprise!
Near the boy a gentle doe
Knelt, as white as mountain snow,
And with eager lips the child
From that loving creature mild
Drew the sweetest nourishment,
Which, for its own offspring sent,
Now to him it freely lent.
When the mother from above
Bent on him her looks of love,
He at length began to stir,
Did his little hands to her
Stretch, and turn in gladsome wise
On her face his laughing eyes;
What sweet tears from hers were shed!
What new faith in her was bred!
Here will she abide, until
Life shall finish, and life's ill.
Housing in a hollow cave,
Shelter when the wild winds rave;
Here, where God this grace did send,
She will calmly wait the end.

VI

Blindly, blindly, in the dark
Welters now his spirit's bark,
Who has blotted from his heaven
All the lights to guide him given,
So that now there doth endure
Unto him no good, no pure,
And no virtue seemeth sure;

242

While the fairest form wherein
Goodness did a body win,
Leprous all have showed with sin;
While the Star which he well nigh
Worshipped, where it shone on high,
Suddenly has left its height,
Treacherous meteor of the night.
Round his path is darkness spread;
But what thicker night is shed
Then, when he is undeceived,
And has all the web unweaved
Of that hateful treachery,
Of that foul and hideous lie;
When the traitor owns his guilt
And his blood is justly spilt—
And a murderer thou dost stand,
With her blood upon thy hand!
Oh! what profits now the force
Of thy measureless remorse?
What thy soul's strong agonies?
What thy tears of blood, thy cries
Underneath the midnight skies?
What a thousand anguished years,
An eternity of tears?
All were profitless to rue
What a single hour could do.
Wilt thou call her from the tomb?
Wilt thou bid her from the gloom
Of that forest, where she lies
Hidden deep from human eyes?

Faithful mother! truest wife!
Hardly she sustains her life
In that wasteful wilderness:
Oh unparalleled distress!

243

Who that paints it to his thought,
Would not unto tears be brought?
She, a child of Flanders’ Earl,
Lacking what the meanest churl,
Poorest beggar that did wait
At her sire's or husband's gate,
Had not lacked,—of which bereft
She had not the meanest left.
Changed she has her palace dome
For a cave of damp and gloom;
Maidens wait not her about,
But wild beasts go in and out;
And no other music more
Knows she than their sullen roar;
For a soft and downy bed
Sticks are underneath her spread;
She has left her dainty food
For the harsh roots of the wood;
Pearls she has not; in their place
Tears are on her woe-worn face:
Only jewels now she knew
Were the drops of chilly dew,
Hanging on the pointed thorn:
This is now her state forlorn.

While the days are summer-long
Then her pains are not so strong;
While the days are summer-warm,
She may shield her child from harm.
Oh! but when the leaves now sere
Told of pitiless winter near,
How she shuddered then to know
What she soon must undergo!
Ill with her it then did fare,
Then her pains were hard to bear.

244

She must melt within her mouth
Ice, when she would slake her drouth;
When her hunger would allay,
Must the hard snow scrape away,
Till the roots at length she found,
Buried deep in frozen ground.
How amid the long nights dark,
When the cold was stiff and stark,
When the icy north-wind blew,
Keen sword, piercing through and through,
Searching, as it fiercely drave,
Every corner of the cave,
Oh! how then that mother pressed
Her poor shiverer to her breast.
Though no moisture that could give,
Warmth not any there did live;
And herself forgetting quite,
Wailed for that poor shuddering wight;
Who, beholding her to weep,
And that long low wail to keep,
Wailed and wept himself as well,
Though his grief he could not tell.

Yet amid her keenest ill,
She in God found comfort still;
And when day by day the doe
Through the ice and through the snow
Came—a constant visitant,
To that poor child ministrant,—
Blest assurance, token clear
Of his grace she welcomed here:—
It may be, now thanked Him more
Than she ever thanked before,
Could his wondrous guidance praise,
That had from the world's vain ways,

245

From its flatteries and its wiles,
From its heart-deluding smiles
Her delivered, and had brought,
By rough paths she had not sought
But which now she could discern,
And their gracious meaning learn—
To this shelter safe, though stern.

VII

Mourned this painful hermitess
Of the lonely wilderness,—
Lowly kneeling, mourned one day,
Did with eyes uplifted pray,
In a trance-like agony
Sunken, when she seemed to see,
From that bright superior coast,
One of its angelic host
Stooping toward her;—awful fear
In his visage did appear,
And his front was bent before
That which in his hand he bore:
Only hands of Angels aught
Lovely as that cross had wrought,
With the image there suspended,
In which Love and Death contended:
And this cross he reached to her,—
This angelic comforter;
And her agony beguiled
With these soothing words and mild:
‘Genoveva, take thou this,
Take it for the boon it is.
Choicest blessing, costliest boon,
That God's treasure-house doth own,

246

Gift He keepeth for his friends,
And to thee at this time sends.
Hither be thy glances sent,
When thy soul with pangs is rent;
Set on this thine eyes and heart,
When impatient movements start;
This shall as a shield repel
All the fiery darts of hell;
This shall prove a golden key,
Heaven unlocking unto thee.’

Was it vision? was it truth?
Dream, or very waking sooth?
Did a heavenly Messenger,
Did an Angel talk with her?
She hath started from her trance,
Round she flings a timorous glance;
There doth no one now appear
By her side, far off or near:
Yet in rocky niche upright,
Plain before her waking sight,
Lo! a crucifix—it stands
Beauteous, as if angel hands
Had that ivory work divine
Wrought into salvation's sign.
This in summer she alway
Did adorn with flowery may,
Ever decked it as she could
With the wild flowers of the wood;
Nor in barest winter left
Of all ornament bereft,
But with mosses would entwine,
Or with dark unfading pine.
Here her solace found she still
In extremities of ill,

247

In her Saviour's five wounds laid
All her griefs, her anguish stayed:
Here, when once she did complain,
Uttering words of hasty pain,
‘Jesu, Saviour, what is this?
What have I so much amiss
Wrought, how sinnëd against Thee
More than all, that I should be
For a vile adulteress
Driven into this wilderness,
To this anguish and this shame?’
Seemed it then that accents came
From that cross, and named her name!
‘Genoveva, is it well
At my chastening to rebel?
Are thy sufferings more than mine?
Or had I more guilt than thine?
Yet was I put forth from heaven,
By my Father I was given
To my cross and mortal woe:
Look on Me, and looking, so
Learn to bear thy present ill,
And what thou must suffer still.’
This her Saviour's mild rebuke
To her heart with shame she took,
And no word of discontent,
Whatsoever griefs He sent,
Did she ever speak again,
But her passion and her pain
Did with meekest heart sustain,
Yea, did welcome and approve
For the gifts of highest love.

Then she found how wildest creatures—
How the wild wood's savage natures

248

At Heaven's bidding could be made
Ministers to yield her aid;
Came the wolf, yet not to harm,
But a shaggy sheepskin warm
In his teeth one day he bore:
This he cast the child before,
In its woolly folds henceforth
Shielded from the bitterest north;
And the beasts to him grew tame,
Round him without fear they came;
Came the gentle creatures near,
Without fierceness, without fear;
As he wandered through the wood,
With their speaking gestures showed
What were harmful herbs and good,—
With the boy made pastime; he
Of the wilderness was free—
Rode upon the wolf, and played
With the swift hare on the glade;
Round his head the birds would flit,
On his hand the birds alit;
And the mother and the child
Of their misery oft beguiled
With melodious descants wild.
And as he to more years grew
Lacked she not some comfort new;
Sweetest words with him she changed,
Whence her heart was oft estranged
From the grief which on it lay,—
Taught him in what words to pray,
How he should ‘Our Father’ say,
And his little hands above
Lift unto a God of love,

249

Who was watching for them still,
Who, in midst of all their ill,
For the desolate had cared:—
Thus with them long while it fared.

VIII

But the Count, whom prosperous hours
Back to his ancestral towers
Bring, and to his widowed bowers,
How shall he, this lone man, bear
The approach and entrance there?
Lonely man! though at his side
Troops of friends and vassals ride;
Lonely man! though at his gate
Him ten thousand welcomes wait;
Heart unwelcomed home, although
Thousand voices skyward go;
Thousand voices fill the air,
But the one is lacking there.
How shall he endure to pace
Those long echoing halls, and trace
Each remembered happy place,
Haunted each with its own ghost
Of some ancient splendour lost,
Each with its own vision bright
Of some forfeited delight
Rising clear upon his sight?
How beside a cold hearth stand,
Quenched by his own reckless hand?
He has borne it, man forlorn!
Borne—for all things may be borne;

250

And he lives, nor freedom asks
From life's ordinary tasks,
Him though oft the crowded hall,
And the thronging festival,
With that dreariest sense oppress
Of a peopled wilderness;
Though the crowds that to and fro
On their busy errands go,
Ofttimes seem with all their tasks
But so many gibbering masks;
Though he oft must contemplate
The strange mockeries of fate,
Which with hand profuse had shed
Gifts so many on his head,
Which had lent him splendour, fame,
And a glory round his name,
Honour, due to him whose hand
Helped to free his native land,
Yet withdrew the single thing
Which to all a worth would bring.—

And the years give no relief,
Mellowing an austerer grief:
But a melancholy dim,
Darker and darker, fell on him.
Round him, when his state they knew,
Friends and faithful kinsmen drew
With consoling words and speech,
Which his heart's wound cannot reach:
Yet he strives not, when the morn
They will greet with hawk and horn;
Still he yields a sad consent,
Is with everything content,
Feast, or chase, or tournament.
‘Brother,’ so to him one day
Did his faithful kinsman say—

251

‘Oft a milk-white hind is seen
On that belt of tender green,
Skirting the dark forest vast
We so many times have past;
Seen it flieth, but with flight
As it would pursuit invite;
Though remaining unpursued
In that deep and haunted wood
To this hour;—with hound and horn
We will rouse to-morrow morn:
And methinks we shall not there
Fail to find some quarry rare,
That or other, which shall greet
Friends that here to-morrow meet.

IX

It is day;—with hound and horn
They have roused that morrow morn—
Have the milk-white creature found
On that edge of grassy ground—
And with eager steps pursued
Far into the gloomy wood;
Till the hunters, one by one,
By the length of way foredone,
Rein their steeds—but onward still,
Thorough brake and over hill,
Down steep glen, through foaming river,
Doth Count Siegfried follow ever.
Wild and wilder grows the scene,
Seems it step of man hath been
Never in this savage place:
He too now foregoes the chase,
For he sees another sight

252

Which hath shook him with the might,
Brave albeit, of strange affright.
—‘Who art thou, by none befriended,
Only of that hind attended,
Which has fled with steps so fleet
To the refuge of thy feet—
Housing in the desert's heart,
From all Christian souls apart?
Who art thou? come forth and tell
If a sprite of heaven or hell?’
—‘Shall I in thy sight appear,
Cast me in thy mantle here,
Else I cannot without blame
Stand before thee;’ forth she came
Wrapt in it; there stood also
By her side the fearless doe;
—‘Here of free choice dwell I not,
But have still my God besought
He would guide of his good grace
Human steps to this drear place.
He has heard those prayers of mine,
And has guided even thine.
What of me thou fain wouldst know,
I too willingly will show—
I this wretched and forlorn
Woman, in Brabant was born;
No ignoble stock was mine,
For I came of princely line;
But must find in worst distress
Shelter in this wilderness,
When my husband erringly
Of my truth misdeemed, and me
With my infant would have then
Slain by hands of evil men.’

253

Then exceeding tremblings came
Over all Count Siegfried's frame.
On her face a fixed regard
Turned he—that was all so marred
He could read no history there—
‘But thy name and his declare:’
—‘If my own self I have not,
As the world has me, forgot,
I am Genoveva hight.’
From his steed he fell outright
On the moment when she came
To the syllabling that name,
Down upon his face he fell,
As by stroke invisible
Earthward smitten—there lay long,
And his sobs were thick and strong,
Choking utterance—till his head
He a little raising, said:
‘Genoveva, can it be
That I now should look on thee.
Thee, my own, my murdered wife,
Genevieve, my love, my life?
Oh how wan! how worn! how weak!
Oh that eye! that sunken cheek!
Oh the utter misery
That my guilt has brought on thee!
Canst thou, Genevieve, forgive?
Wilt thou bid this wretch to live?
Low before thy feet I lie;
Thousand deaths if I should die,
And in each a thousand years,—
Drain my heart's blood out in tears,
All were nothing to my sin—
Then free pardon let me win:

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Pardon for his sake I crave,
Who upon his cross forgave.’
—‘O my husband, all is past,
God is good, and He at last
Of his grace has brought this day.
If thou wishest, I will say
That I pardon—rise, oh rise!
With these sobs and agonies
Thou wilt kill my heart outright;
See too who appears in sight—
O my sweet child, come, you may
Fling those herbs and roots away.
Fear not, sweetest, you will find
That the man is good and kind.’
—‘Cause too just he has to fear;
Oh to think ye two were here
All this while, and I so near!
Thou, and he whom I am bold
To a father's heart to fold.’

But enough, what words can tell
Of a joy unspeakable?—
Of the trancëd long embrace,
(In his bosom hid her face,)
With its gush of mingling tears,
Worth a thousand torturing years.

Others have arrived, to share
In the holy gladness there;
Through the forest tidings fly,
And all draw in wonder nigh.
Near her timidly they draw,
And they kiss her feet in awe,
While to them she doth appear
Creature of another sphere.

255

Faith they scarcely will afford
To the assurance of the lord,
'Tis their mistress lost so long,
Overliving all her wrong.
Now a litter is in haste
Of green branches interlaced,
And on it their lady borne,
By her grief and joy outworn.
Yet or ever from that spot,
From that stern and rugged grot,
Genoveva turned away,
Lowly kneeling will she pay
Thankful vows from grateful heart,
Ere she from that cave depart,
For the mercy and the grace
Which had found her in that place,
Kissed with tears the holy rood,
Where in rocky niche it stood—
—‘Fare thee well!—I leave thee here,
For so many memories dear,
Thou a shield that didst repel
All the fiery darts of hell,
Thou that wast a golden key,
Heaven unlocking unto me.
With these tears once more I say,
Fare thee well—I go away,
But what here has been my gain
May it with me still remain!’

To the castle now doth hie
A rejoicing company,
While from village and from town
Others stream to meet them soon;
As in triumph one doth bear
High in arms the new-found heir;

256

Round his head the glad birds flit,
Singing on his hand they sit,
Glad farewells they seem to sing,
His new fortunes welcoming.
Nor doth not the fearless doe
In the glad procession go,
Has its own peculiar dower
In the glory of this hour:
Round it shouting children press,
Smooth its sides with fond caress,
Kiss its face, and slender neck
With their flowery garlands deck,
While all praise the gentle hind,
And its ministrations kind.

X

Joy is in Count Siegfried's bowers,
Joy upon those ancient towers,
Festal gladness in the room
Of that weight of brooding gloom;
Nor doth she whose presence bright
Chased the darkness of that night,
Bringing back return of light,
In this joy refuse her share:—
Yet another, holier care
Fills her heart—how best to keep
Those heights difficult and steep,
Which her spirit did attain
In its years of desert pain—
Him her pattern still to own,
Wearer of the thorny crown.
To the Count, as more he knows,
Ever loftier wonder grows

257

At her saintly virtues high—
Aye a sadder certainty,
That he will not long retain
His new-won and glorious gain.
She doth meekly undertake
All life's tasks for his dear sake;
Yet she evermore doth seem
Like one moving in a dream,
Or as one called back from death,
Strangely drawing vital breath;
All so wondrous does the stir
Of our life appear to her;
All so little to her mind
Can she now its pageants find.
And not many months have been,
Ere of every eye 'tis seen
That the hour is nearly come,
When the weary one will home;
Ere too plain the work appears
Of those cruel wasting years.
Every day her pale pale face
Wears a more unearthly grace:
Angel wings are o'er her head,
Angel feet about her bed:
She doth catch in trances high
Heaven's transcending harmony;
Enters by heaven's golden doors,
Treads upon heaven's sapphire floors,
And clear voices do not cease
Warning her of near release—
Sounds she may interpret well,
Wherefore sent, and what they tell;
Yet to him will not impart,
That she may not rend his heart:

258

For what anguish had they brought
To his soul, who well had thought
To atone that mighty wrong
By a life of service long,
By long years of service true
And devotion ever new—
But must now see torn and scattered,
By this stroke for ever shattered,
That fond vision, by whose art
He had many times in part
Spoken peace unto his heart.

XI

Gently speak and lightly tread,
'Tis the chamber of the dead:
Now thine earthly course is run,
Now thy weary day is done,
Genoveva, sainted one!
Happy flight thy sprite has taken,
From its plumes earth's last dust shaken;
On the earth is passionate weeping,
Round thy bier lone vigils keeping,—
In the heaven triumphant songs,
Welcome of angelic throngs,
As thou enterest on that day,
Which no tears nor fears allay,
No regrets nor pangs affray,
Hemmed not in by yesterday,
By to-morrow hemmed not in.
Weep not for her—she doth win
What we long for; now is she
That which all desire to be.

259

Bear her forth with solemn cheer,
Bear her forth on open bier,
That the wonder which hath been
May of every eye be seen.
Wonderful! that pale worn brow
Death hath scarcely sealed, and now
All the beauty that she wore
In the youthful years before,
All the freshness and the grace,
And the bloom upon her face,
Ere that seven-yeared distress
In the painful wilderness,
Ere that wasting sickness came,
Undermining quite her frame,
All come back—the light, the hue
Tinge her cheek and lip anew:
Far from her, oh! far away,
All that is so quick to say,
‘Man returneth to his clay:’
All that to our creeping fear
Whispers of corruption near.
Seems it as she would illume
With her radiance and her bloom
The dark spaces of the tomb.

XII

Once again thou art alone,
From that other sorrow thrown
All too quickly upon this:
Oh, few days of fleeting bliss!
Where shall they who fain would speak
Comfort now, the mourner seek?

260

'Mid his old ancestral towers,
His twice-desolated bowers?
On the battle-fields of Spain,
Where the hardy Goths maintain
Their Asturian mountains well,
Thrusting back the infidel?
Rather in the deep recess
Of a pathless wilderness,
Out of knowledge, out of sight,
Seek a lonely eremite.
Him has good Hidulphus blest,
Praised his purpose, and his quest
(Even before this life shall close)
Of a place of sure repose.
So a church in that wild wood
Rises, where that cross had stood:
Underneath the altar high
Genoveva's relics lie:
And that cross, of Angel hands
Wrought, above the altar stands.
He, within a rugged grot,
In the very self-same spot
Where she saw those cruel years,
Where she wept those many tears,
Dwells—where Genoveva knelt,
Kneels—where Genoveva knelt;
From the self-same spring doth take
Water for his thirst to slake,
Often knows no other food
Than the wild roots of the wood;
Well content to undergo
Some small portion of the woe,
Which so long he made her know,

261

There he waits for his release,
There in God finds perfect peace:—
Till the long years end at last,
And he too at length has past
From the sorrow and the fears,
From the anguish and the tears,
From the desolate distress
Of this world's great loneliness,
From the withering and the blight,
From the shadow of its night,
Into God's pure sunshine bright.