{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_10490/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_10490","id":"gutenberg_10490","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10490","summary":null,"tags":["American poetry -- 19th century","Category: British Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Poetry"],"text":"THE\n\nGOLDEN LEGEND\n\nBY\n\nHENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW\n\n\n\n\nTHE GOLDEN LEGEND\n\n\nPROLOGUE.\n\n\n\nTHE SPIRE OF STRASBURG CATHEDRAL.\n\n\n_Night and storm._ LUCIFER, _with the Powers of the\nAir, trying to tear down the Cross._\n\n _Lucifer._ HASTEN! hasten!\nO ye spirits!\nFrom its station drag the ponderous\nCross of iron, that to mock us\nIs uplifted high in air!\n\n _Voices._ O, we cannot!\nFor around it\nAll the Saints and Guardian Angels\nThrong in legions to protect it;\nThey defeat us everywhere!\n\n _The Bells._ Laudo Deum verum\n Plebem voco!\n Congrego clerum!\n\n _Lucifer._ Lower! lower!\nHover downward!\nSeize the loud, vociferous bells, and\nClashing, clanging, to the pavement\nHurl them from their windy tower!\n\n _Voices._ All thy thunders\nHere are harmless!\nFor these bells have been anointed,\nAnd baptized with holy water!\nThey defy our utmost power.\n\n _The Bells._ Defunctos ploro!\n Pestem fugo!\n Festa decoro!\n\n _Lucifer._ Shake the casements!\nBreak the painted\nPanes that flame with gold and crimson!\nScatter them like leaves of Autumn,\nSwept away before the blast!\n\n _Voices._ O, we cannot!\nThe Archangel\nMichael flames from every window,\nWith the sword of fire that drove us\nHeadlong, out of heaven, aghast!\n\n _The Bells._ Funera plango!\n Fulgora frango!\n Sabbata pango!\n\n _Lucifer._ Aim your lightnings\nAt the oaken,\nMassive, iron-studded portals!\nSack the house of God, and scatter\nWide the ashes of the dead!\n\n _Voices._ O, we cannot!\nThe Apostles\nAnd the Martyrs, wrapped in mantles,\nStand as wardens at the entrance,\nStand as sentinels o'erhead!\n\n _The Bells._ Excito lentos!\n Dissipo ventos!\n Paco cruentos!\n\n _Lucifer._ Baffled! baffled!\nInefficient,\nCraven spirits! leave this labor\nUnto Time, the great Destroyer!\nCome away, ere night is gone!\n\n _Voices._ Onward! onward!\nWith the night-wind,\nOver field and farm and forest,\nLonely homestead, darksome hamlet,\nBlighting all we breathe upon!\n\n (_They sweep away. Organ and Gregorian Chant._)\n\n _Choir._ Nocte surgentes\n Vig lemus omnes!\n\n * * * * *\n\nI.\n\n\nTHE CASTLE OF VAUTSBERG ON THE RHINE.\n\n * * * * *\n\n_A chamber in a tower._ PRINCE HENRY, _sitting alone,\nill and restless._\n\n _Prince Henry._ I cannot sleep! my fervid brain\nCalls up the vanished Past again,\nAnd throws its misty splendors deep\nInto the pallid realms of sleep!\nA breath from that far-distant shore\nComes freshening ever more and more,\nAnd wafts o'er intervening seas\nSweet odors from the Hesperides!\nA wind, that through the corridor\nJust stirs the curtain, and no more,\nAnd, touching the aeolian strings,\nFaints with the burden that it brings!\nCome back! ye friendships long departed!\nThat like o'erflowing streamlets started,\nAnd now are dwindled, one by one,\nTo stony channels in the sun!\nCome back! ye friends, whose lives are ended!\nCome back, with all that light attended,\nWhich seemed to darken and decay\nWhen ye arose and went away!\nThey come, the shapes of joy and woe,\nThe airy crowds of long-ago,\nThe dreams and fancies known of yore,\nThat have been, and shall be no more.\nThey change the cloisters of the night\nInto a garden of delight;\nThey make the dark and dreary hours\nOpen and blossom into flowers!\nI would not sleep! I love to be\nAgain in their fair company;\nBut ere my lips can bid them stay,\nThey pass and vanish quite away!\n\nAlas! our memories may retrace\nEach circumstance of time and place,\nSeason and scene come back again,\nAnd outward things unchanged remain;\nThe rest we cannot reinstate;\nOurselves we cannot re-create,\nNor set our souls to the same key\nOf the remembered harmony!\n\nRest! rest! O, give me rest and peace!\nThe thought of life that ne'er shall cease\nHas something in it like despair,\nA weight I am too weak to bear!\nSweeter to this afflicted breast\nThe thought of never-ending rest!\nSweeter the undisturbed and deep\nTranquillity of endless sleep!\n\n\n(_A flash of lightning, out of which_ LUCIFER _appears,\nin the garb of a travelling Physician._)\n\n _Lucifer_. All hail Prince Henry!\n\n _Prince Henry_ (_starting_). Who is it speaks?\nWho and what are you?\n\n _Lucifer_. One who seeks\nA moment's audience with the Prince.\n\n _Prince Henry_. When came you in?\n\n _Lucifer_. A moment since.\nI found your study door unlocked,\nAnd thought you answered when I knocked.\n\n _Prince Henry_. I did not hear you.\n\n _Lucifer_. You heard the thunder;\nIt was loud enough to waken the dead.\nAnd it is not a matter of special wonder\nThat, when God is walking overhead,\nYou should not have heard my feeble tread.\n\n _Prince Henry_. What may your wish or purpose be?\n\n _Lucifer_. Nothing or everything, as it pleases\nYour Highness. You behold in me\nOnly a traveling Physician;\nOne of the few who have a mission\nTo cure incurable diseases,\nOr those that are called so.\n\n _Prince Henry_. Can you bring\nThe dead to life?\n\n _Lucifer_. Yes; very nearly.\nAnd, what is a wiser and better thing,\nCan keep the living from ever needing\nSuch an unnatural, strange proceeding,\nBy showing conclusively and clearly\nThat death is a stupid blunder merely,\nAnd not a necessity of our lives.\nMy being here is accidental;\nThe storm, that against your casement drives,\nIn the little village below waylaid me.\nAnd there I heard, with a secret delight,\nOf your maladies physical and mental,\nWhich neither astonished nor dismayed me.\nAnd I hastened hither, though late in the night,\nTo proffer my aid!\n\n _Prince Henry (ironically)_ For this you came!\nAh, how can I ever hope to requite\nThis honor from one so erudite?\n\n _Lucifer_. The honor is mine, or will be when\nI have cured your disease.\n\n _Prince Henry_. But not till then.\n\n _Lucifer_. What is your illness?\n\n _Prince Henry_. It has no name.\nA smouldering, dull, perpetual flame,\nAs in a kiln, burns in my veins,\nSending up vapors to the head,\nMy heart has become a dull lagoon,\nWhich a kind of leprosy drinks and drains;\nI am accounted as one who is dead,\nAnd, indeed, I think that I shall be soon.\n\n _Lucifer_ And has Gordonius the Divine,\nIn his famous Lily of Medicine,--\nI see the book lies open before you,--\nNo remedy potent enough to restore you?\n\n _Prince Henry_. None whatever!\n\n _Lucifer_ The dead are dead,\nAnd their oracles dumb, when questioned\nOf the new diseases that human life\nEvolves in its progress, rank and rife.\nConsult the dead upon things that were,\nBut the living only on things that are.\nHave you done this, by the appliance\nAnd aid of doctors?\n\n _Prince Henry_. Ay, whole schools\nOf doctors, with their learned rules,\nBut the case is quite beyond their science.\nEven the doctors of Salern\nSend me back word they can discern\nNo cure for a malady like this,\nSave one which in its nature is\nImpossible, and cannot be!\n\n _Lucifer_ That sounds oracular!\n\n _Prince Henry_ Unendurable!\n\n _Lucifer_ What is their remedy?\n\n _Prince Henry_ You shall see;\nWrit in this scroll is the mystery.\n\n _Lucifer (reading)._ \"Not to be cured, yet not incurable!\nThe only remedy that remains\nIs the blood that flows from a maiden's veins,\nWho of her own free will shall die,\nAnd give her life as the price of yours!\"\nThat is the strangest of all cures,\nAnd one, I think, you will never try;\nThe prescription you may well put by,\nAs something impossible to find\nBefore the world itself shall end!\nAnd yet who knows? One cannot say\nThat into some maiden's brain that kind\nOf madness will not find its way.\nMeanwhile permit me to recommend,\nAs the matter admits of no delay,\nMy wonderful Catholicon,\nOf very subtile and magical powers!\n\n _Prince Henry._ Purge with your nostrums and drugs infernal\nThe spouts and gargoyles of these towers,\nNot me! My faith is utterly gone\nIn every power but the Power Supernal!\nPray tell me, of what school are you?\n\n _Lucifer._ Both of the Old and of the New!\nThe school of Hermes Trismegistus,\nWho uttered his oracles sublime\nBefore the Olympiads, in the dew\nOf the early dawn and dusk of Time,\nThe reign of dateless old Hephaestus!\nAs northward, from its Nubian springs,\nThe Nile, forever new and old,\nAmong the living and the dead,\nIts mighty, mystic stream has rolled;\nSo, starting from its fountain-head\nUnder the lotus-leaves of Isis,\nFrom the dead demigods of eld,\nThrough long, unbroken lines of kings\nIts course the sacred art has held,\nUnchecked, unchanged by man's devices.\nThis art the Arabian Geber taught,\nAnd in alembics, finely wrought,\nDistilling herbs and flowers, discovered\nThe secret that so long had hovered\nUpon the misty verge of Truth,\nThe Elixir of Perpetual Youth,\nCalled Alcohol, in the Arab speech!\nLike him, this wondrous lore I teach!\n\n _Prince Henry._ What! an adept?\n\n _Lucifer._ Nor less, nor more!\n\n _Prince Henry._ I am a reader of such books,\nA lover of that mystic lore!\nWith such a piercing glance it looks\nInto great Nature's open eye,\nAnd sees within it trembling lie\nThe portrait of the Deity!\nAnd yet, alas! with all my pains,\nThe secret and the mystery\nHave baffled and eluded me,\nUnseen the grand result remains!\n\n _Lucifer (showing a flask)._ Behold it here! this little flask\nContains the wonderful quintessence,\nThe perfect flower and efflorescence,\nOf all the knowledge man can ask!\nHold it up thus against the light!\n\n _Prince Henry._ How limpid, pure, and crystalline,\nHow quick, and tremulous, and bright\nThe little wavelets dance and shine,\nAs were it the Water of Life in sooth!\n\n _Lucifer._ It is! It assuages every pain,\nCures all disease, and gives again\nTo age the swift delights of youth.\nInhale its fragrance.\n\n _Prince Henry._ It is sweet.\nA thousand different odors meet\nAnd mingle in its rare perfume,\nSuch as the winds of summer waft\nAt open windows through a room!\n\n _Lucifer._ Will you not taste it?\n\n _Prince Henry._ Will one draught\nSuffice?\n\n _Lucifer._ If not, you can drink more.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Into this crystal goblet pour\nSo much as safely I may drink.\n\n _Lucifer (pouring)._ Let not the quantity alarm you:\nYou may drink all; it will not harm you.\n\n _Prince Henry._ I am as one who on the brink\nOf a dark river stands and sees\nThe waters flow, the landscape dim\nAround him waver, wheel, and swim,\nAnd, ere he plunges, stops to think\nInto what whirlpools he may sink;\nOne moment pauses, and no more,\nThen madly plunges from the shore!\nHeadlong into the dark mysteries\nOf life and death I boldly leap,\nNor fear the fateful current's sweep,\nNor what in ambush lurks below!\nFor death is better than disease!\n\n (_An_ ANGEL _with an aeolian harp hovers in the air_.)\n\n _Angel._ Woe! woe! eternal woe!\nNot only the whispered prayer\nOf love,\nBut the imprecations of hate,\nReverberate\nForever and ever through the air\nAbove!\nThis fearful curse\nShakes the great universe!\n\n _Lucifer (disappearing)._ Drink! drink!\nAnd thy soul shall sink\nDown into the dark abyss,\nInto the infinite abyss,\nFrom which no plummet nor rope\nEver drew up the silver sand of hope!\n\n _Prince Henry (drinking)._ It is like a draught of fire!\nThrough every vein\nI feel again\nThe fever of youth, the soft desire;\nA rapture that is almost pain\nThrobs in my heart and fills my brain!\nO joy! O joy! I feel\nThe band of steel\nThat so long and heavily has pressed\nUpon my breast\nUplifted, and the malediction\nOf my affliction\nIs taken from me, and my weary breast\nAt length finds rest.\n\n _The Angel._ It is but the rest of the fire, from which the air\n has been taken!\nIt is but the rest of the sand, when the hour-glass is not shaken!\nIt is but the rest of the tide between the ebb and the flow!\nIt is but the rest of the wind between the flaws that blow!\nWith fiendish laughter,\nHereafter,\nThis false physician\nWill mock thee in thy perdition.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Speak! speak!\nWho says that I am ill?\nI am not ill! I am not weak!\nThe trance, the swoon, the dream, is o'er!\nI feel the chill of death no more!\nAt length,\nI stand renewed in all my strength!\nBeneath me I can feel\nThe great earth stagger and reel,\nAs it the feet of a descending God\nUpon its surface trod,\nAnd like a pebble it rolled beneath his heel!\nThis, O brave physician! this\nIs thy great Palingenesis!\n\n (_Drinks again_.)\n\n _The Angel._ Touch the goblet no more!\nIt will make thy heart sore\nTo its very core!\nIts perfume is the breath\nOf the Angel of Death,\nAnd the light that within it lies\nIs the flash of his evil eyes.\nBeware! O, beware!\nFor sickness, sorrow, and care\nAll are there!\n\n _Prince Henry (sinking back)._ O thou voice within my breast!\nWhy entreat me, why upbraid me,\nWhen the steadfast tongues of truth\nAnd the flattering hopes of youth\nHave all deceived me and betrayed me?\nGive me, give me rest, O, rest!\nGolden visions wave and hover,\nGolden vapors, waters streaming,\nLandscapes moving, changing, gleaming!\nI am like a happy lover\nWho illumines life with dreaming!\nBrave physician! Rare physician!\nWell hast thou fulfilled thy mission!\n\n (_His head falls On his book_.)\n\n _The Angel (receding)._ Alas! alas!\nLike a vapor the golden vision\nShall fade and pass,\nAnd thou wilt find in thy heart again\nOnly the blight of pain,\nAnd bitter, bitter, bitter contrition!\n\n * * * * *\n\nCOURT-YARD OF THE CASTLE.\n\n * * * * *\n\nHUBERT _standing by the gateway._\n\n _Hubert._ How sad the grand old castle looks!\nO'erhead, the unmolested rooks\nUpon the turret's windy top\nSit, talking of the farmer's crop;\nHere in the court-yard springs the grass,\nSo few are now the feet that pass;\nThe stately peacocks, bolder grown,\nCome hopping down the steps of stone,\nAs if the castle were their own;\nAnd I, the poor old seneschal,\nHaunt, like a ghost, the banquet-hall.\nAlas! the merry guests no more\nCrowd through the hospital door;\nNo eyes with youth and passion shine,\nNo cheeks glow redder than the wine;\nNo song, no laugh, no jovial din\nOf drinking wassail to the pin;\nBut all is silent, sad, and drear,\nAnd now the only sounds I hear\nAre the hoarse rooks upon the walls,\nAnd horses stamping in their stalls!\n\n (_A horn sounds_.)\n\nWhat ho! that merry, sudden blast\nReminds me of the days long past!\nAnd, as of old resounding, grate\nThe heavy hinges of the gate,\nAnd, clattering loud, with iron clank,\nDown goes the sounding bridge of plank,\nAs if it were in haste to greet\nThe pressure of a traveler's feet!\n\n (_Enter_ WALTER _the Minnesinger_.)\n\n _Walter._ How now, my friend! This looks quite lonely!\nNo banner flying from the walls,\nNo pages and no seneschals,\nNo wardens, and one porter only!\nIs it you, Hubert?\n\n _Hubert._ Ah! Master Walter!\n\n _Walter._ Alas! how forms and faces alter!\nI did not know you. You look older!\nYour hair has grown much grayer and thinner,\nAnd you stoop a little in the shoulder!\n\n _Hubert._ Alack! I am a poor old sinner,\nAnd, like these towers, begin to moulder;\nAnd you have been absent many a year!\n\n _Walter._ How is the Prince?\n\n _Hubert._ He is not here;\nHe has been ill: and now has fled.\n\n_Walter._ Speak it out frankly: say he's dead!\nIs it not so?\n\n _Hubert._ No; if you please;\nA strange, mysterious disease\nFell on him with a sudden blight.\nWhole hours together he would stand\nUpon the terrace, in a dream,\nResting his head upon his hand,\nBest pleased when he was most alone,\nLike Saint John Nepomuck in stone,\nLooking down into a stream.\nIn the Round Tower, night after night,\nHe sat, and bleared his eyes with books;\nUntil one morning we found him there\nStretched on the floor, as if in a swoon\nHe had fallen from his chair.\nWe hardly recognized his sweet looks!\n\n _Walter._ Poor Prince!\n\n _Hubert._ I think he might have mended;\nAnd he did mend; but very soon\nThe Priests came flocking in, like rooks,\nWith all their crosiers and their crooks,\nAnd so at last the matter ended.\n\n _Walter._ How did it end?\n\n _Hubert._ Why, in Saint Rochus\nThey made him stand, and wait his doom;\nAnd, as if he were condemned to the tomb,\nBegan to mutter their hocus pocus.\nFirst, the Mass for the Dead they chaunted.\nThen three times laid upon his head\nA shovelful of church-yard clay,\nSaying to him, as he stood undaunted,\n\"This is a sign that thou art dead,\nSo in thy heart be penitent!\"\nAnd forth from the chapel door he went\nInto disgrace and banishment,\nClothed in a cloak of hodden gray,\nAnd bearing a wallet, and a bell,\nWhose sound should be a perpetual knell\nTo keep all travelers away.\n\n _Walter._ O, horrible fate! Outcast, rejected,\nAs one with pestilence infected!\n\n _Hubert._ Then was the family tomb unsealed,\nAnd broken helmet, sword and shield,\nBuried together, in common wreck,\nAs is the custom, when the last\nOf any princely house has passed,\nAnd thrice, as with a trumpet-blast,\nA herald shouted down the stair\nThe words of warning and despair,--\n\"O Hoheneck! O Hoheneck!\"\n\n _Walter_. Still in my soul that cry goes on,--\nForever gone! forever gone!\nAh, what a cruel sense of loss,\nLike a black shadow, would fall across\nThe hearts of all, if he should die!\nHis gracious presence upon earth\nWas as a fire upon a hearth;\nAs pleasant songs, at morning sung,\nThe words that dropped from his sweet tongue\nStrengthened our hearts; or, heard at night,\nMade all our slumbers soft and light.\nWhere is he?\n\n _Hubert._ In the Odenwald.\nSome of his tenants, unappalled\nBy fear of death, or priestly word,--\nA holy family, that make\nEach meal a Supper of the Lord,--\nHave him beneath their watch and ward,\nFor love of him, and Jesus' sake!\nPray you come in. For why should I\nWith outdoor hospitality\nMy prince's friend thus entertain?\n\n _Walter._ I would a moment here remain.\nBut you, good Hubert, go before,\nFill me a goblet of May-drink,\nAs aromatic as the May\nFrom which it steals the breath away,\nAnd which he loved so well of yore;\nIt is of him that I would think\nYou shall attend me, when I call,\nIn the ancestral banquet hall.\nUnseen companions, guests of air,\nYou cannot wait on, will be there;\nThey taste not food, they drink not wine,\nBut their soft eyes look into mine,\nAnd their lips speak to me, and all\nThe vast and shadowy banquet-hall\nIs full of looks and words divine!\n\n (_Leaning over the parapet_.)\n\nThe day is done; and slowly from the scene\nThe stooping sun upgathers his spent shafts,\nAnd puts them back into his golden quiver!\nBelow me in the valley, deep and green\nAs goblets are, from which in thirsty draughts\nWe drink its wine, the swift and mantling river\nFlows on triumphant through these lovely regions,\nEtched with the shadows of its sombre margent,\nAnd soft, reflected clouds of gold and argent!\nYes, there it flows, forever, broad and still,\nAs when the vanguard of the Roman legions\nFirst saw it from the top of yonder hill!\nHow beautiful it is! Fresh fields of wheat,\nVineyard, and town, and tower with fluttering flag,\nThe consecrated chapel on the crag,\nAnd the white hamlet gathered round its base,\nLike Mary sitting at her Saviour's feet,\nAnd looking up at his beloved face!\nO friend! O best of friends! Thy absence more\nThan the impending night darkens the landscape o'er!\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nA FARM IN THE ODENWALD\n\n * * * * *\n\n_A garden; morning;_ PRINCE HENRY _seated, with a\nbook_. ELSIE, _at a distance, gathering flowers._\n\n _Prince Henry (reading)._ One morning, all alone,\nOut of his convent of gray stone,\nInto the forest older, darker, grayer,\nHis lips moving as if in prayer,\nHis head sunken upon his breast\nAs in a dream of rest,\nWalked the Monk Felix. All about\nThe broad, sweet sunshine lay without,\nFilling the summer air;\nAnd within the woodlands as he trod,\nThe twilight was like the Truce of God\nWith worldly woe and care;\nUnder him lay the golden moss;\nAnd above him the boughs of hemlock-tree\nWaved, and made the sign of the cross,\nAnd whispered their Benedicites;\nAnd from the ground\nRose an odor sweet and fragrant\nOf the wild flowers and the vagrant\nVines that wandered,\nSeeking the sunshine, round and round.\nThese he heeded not, but pondered\nOn the volume in his hand,\nA volume of Saint Augustine;\nWherein he read of the unseen\nSplendors of God's great town\nIn the unknown land,\nAnd, with his eyes cast down\nIn humility, he said:\n\"I believe, O God,\nWhat herein I have read,\nBut alas! I do not understand!\"\n\nAnd lo! he heard\nThe sudden singing of a bird,\nA snow-white bird, that from a cloud\nDropped down,\nAnd among the branches brown\nSat singing\nSo sweet, and clear, and loud,\nIt seemed a thousand harp strings ringing.\nAnd the Monk Felix closed his book,\nAnd long, long,\nWith rapturous look,\nHe listened to the song,\nAnd hardly breathed or stirred,\nUntil he saw, as in a vision,\nThe land Elysian,\nAnd in the heavenly city heard\nAngelic feet\nFall on the golden flagging of the street.\nAnd he would fain\nHave caught the wondrous bird,\nBut strove in vain;\nFor it flew away, away,\nFar over hill and dell,\nAnd instead of its sweet singing\nHe heard the convent bell\nSuddenly in the silence ringing\nFor the service of noonday.\nAnd he retraced\nHis pathway homeward sadly and in haste.\n\nIn the convent there was a change!\nHe looked for each well known face,\nBut the faces were new and strange;\nNew figures sat in the oaken stalls,\nNew voices chaunted in the choir,\nYet the place was the same place,\nThe same dusky walls\nOf cold, gray stone,\nThe same cloisters and belfry and spire.\n\nA stranger and alone\nAmong that brotherhood\nThe Monk Felix stood\n\"Forty years,\" said a Friar.\n\"Have I been Prior\nOf this convent in the wood,\nBut for that space\nNever have I beheld thy face!\"\n\nThe heart of the Monk Felix fell:\nAnd he answered with submissive tone,\n\"This morning, after the hour of Prime,\nI left my cell,\nAnd wandered forth alone,\nListening all the time\nTo the melodious singing\nOf a beautiful white bird,\nUntil I heard\nThe bells of the convent ringing\nNoon from their noisy towers,\nIt was as if I dreamed;\nFor what to me had seemed\nMoments only, had been hours!\"\n\n\"Years!\" said a voice close by.\nIt was an aged monk who spoke,\nFrom a bench of oak\nFastened against the wall;--\nHe was the oldest monk of all.\nFor a whole century\nHad he been there,\nServing God in prayer,\nThe meekest and humblest of his creatures.\nHe remembered well the features\nOf Felix, and he said,\nSpeaking distinct and slow:\n\"One hundred years ago,\nWhen I was a novice in this place,\nThere was here a monk, full of God's grace,\nWho bore the name\nOf Felix, and this man must be the same.\"\n\nAnd straightway\nThey brought forth to the light of day\nA volume old and brown,\nA huge tome, bound\nWith brass and wild-boar's hide,\nTherein were written down\nThe names of all who had died\nIn the convent, since it was edified.\nAnd there they found,\nJust as the old monk said,\nThat on a certain day and date,\nOne hundred years before,\nHad gone forth from the convent gate\nThe Monk Felix, and never more\nHad entered that sacred door.\nHe had been counted among the dead!\nAnd they knew, at last,\nThat, such had been the power\nOf that celestial and immortal song,\nA hundred years had passed,\nAnd had not seemed so long\nAs a single hour!\n\n (ELSIE _comes in with flowers._)\n\n _Elsie._ Here are flowers for you,\nBut they are not all for you.\nSome of them are for the Virgin\nAnd for Saint Cecilia.\n\n _Prince Henry._ As thou standest there,\nThou seemest to me like the angel\nThat brought the immortal roses\nTo Saint Cecilia's bridal chamber.\n\n _Elsie._ But these will fade.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Themselves will fade,\nBut not their memory,\nAnd memory has the power\nTo re-create them from the dust.\nThey remind me, too,\nOf martyred Dorothea,\nWho from celestial gardens sent\nFlowers as her witnesses\nTo him who scoffed and doubted.\n\n _Elsie._ Do you know the story\nOf Christ and the Sultan's daughter?\nThat is the prettiest legend of them all.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Then tell it to me.\nBut first come hither.\nLay the flowers down beside me.\nAnd put both thy hands in mine.\nNow tell me the story.\n\n _Elsie._ Early in the morning\nThe Sultan's daughter\nWalked in her father's garden,\nGathering the bright flowers,\nAll full of dew.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Just as thou hast been doing\nThis morning, dearest Elsie.\n\n _Elsie._ And as she gathered them,\nShe wondered more and more\nWho was the Master of the Flowers,\nAnd made them grow\nOut of the cold, dark earth.\n\"In my heart,\" she said,\n\"I love him; and for him\nWould leave my father's palace,\nTo labor in his garden.\"\n\n _Prince Henry._ Dear, innocent child!\nHow sweetly thou recallest\nThe long-forgotten legend,\nThat in my early childhood\nMy mother told me!\nUpon my brain\nIt reappears once more,\nAs a birth-mark on the forehead\nWhen a hand suddenly\nIs laid upon it, and removed!\n\n _Elsie._ And at midnight,\nAs she lay upon her bed,\nShe heard a voice\nCall to her from the garden,\nAnd, looking forth from her window,\nShe saw a beautiful youth\nStanding among the flowers.\nIt was the Lord Jesus;\nAnd she went down to him,\nAnd opened the door for him;\nAnd he said to her, \"O maiden!\nThou hast thought of me with love,\nAnd for thy sake\nOut of my Father's kingdom\nHave I come hither:\nI am the Master of the Flowers.\nMy garden is in Paradise,\nAnd if thou wilt go with me,\nThy bridal garland\nShall be of bright red flowers.\"\nAnd then he took from his finger\nA golden ring,\nAnd asked the Sultan's daughter\nIf she would be his bride.\nAnd when she answered him with love,\nHis wounds began to bleed,\nAnd she said to him,\n\"O Love! how red thy heart is,\nAnd thy hands are full of roses,\"\n\"For thy sake,\" answered he,\n\"For thy sake is my heart so red,\nFor thee I bring these roses.\nI gathered them at the cross\nWhereon I died for thee!\nCome, for my Father calls.\nThou art my elected bride!\"\nAnd the Sultan's daughter\nFollowed him to his Father's garden.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Wouldst thou have done so, Elsie?\n\n _Elsie._ Yes, very gladly.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Then the Celestial Bridegroom\nWill come for thee also.\nUpon thy forehead he will place,\nNot his crown of thorns,\nBut a crown of roses.\nIn thy bridal chamber,\nLike Saint Cecilia,\nThou shall hear sweet music,\nAnd breathe the fragrance\nOf flowers immortal!\nGo now and place these flowers\nBefore her picture.\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n\nA ROOM IN THE FARM-HOUSE.\n\n * * * * *\n\n_Twilight._ URSULA _spinning._ GOTTLIEB _asleep in his\nchair._\n\n _Ursula._ Darker and darker! Hardly a glimmer\nOf light comes in at the window-pane;\nOr is it my eyes are growing dimmer?\nI cannot disentangle this skein,\nNor wind it rightly upon the reel.\nElsie!\n\n _Gottlieb (starting)_. The stopping of thy wheel\nHas wakened me out of a pleasant dream.\nI thought I was sitting beside a stream,\nAnd heard the grinding of a mill,\nWhen suddenly the wheels stood still,\nAnd a voice cried \"Elsie\" in my ear!\nIt startled me, it seemed so near.\n\n _Ursula._ I was calling her: I want a light.\nI cannot see to spin my flax.\nBring the lamp, Elsie. Dost thou hear?\n\n _Elsie (within)._ In a moment!\n\n _Gottlieb._ Where are Bertha and Max?\n\n _Ursula._ They are sitting with Elsie at the door.\nShe is telling them stories of the wood,\nAnd the Wolf, and Little Red Ridinghood.\n\n _Gottlieb_. And where is the Prince?\n\n _Ursula_. In his room overhead;\nI heard him walking across the floor,\nAs he always does, with a heavy tread.\n\n(ELSIE _comes in with a lamp_. MAX _and_ BERTHA _follow her;\nand they all sing the Evening Song on the lighting of the lamps_.)\n\n\n EVENING SONG.\n\n O gladsome light\n Of the Father Immortal,\n And of the celestial\n Sacred and blessed\n Jesus, our Saviour!\n\n Now to the sunset\n Again hast thou brought us;\n And, seeing the evening\n Twilight, we bless thee,\n Praise thee, adore thee!\n\n Father omnipotent!\n Son, the Life-giver!\n Spirit, the Comforter!\n Worthy at all times\n Of worship and wonder!\n\n\n _Prince Henry (at the door)_. Amen!\n\n _Ursula_. Who was it said Amen?\n\n _Elsie_. It was the Prince: he stood at the door,\nAnd listened a moment, as we chaunted\nThe evening song. He is gone again.\nI have often seen him there before.\n\n _Ursula_. Poor Prince!\n\n _Gottlieb_. I thought the house was haunted!\nPoor Prince, alas! and yet as mild\nAnd patient as the gentlest child!\n\n _Max._ I love him because he is so good,\nAnd makes me such fine bows and arrows,\nTo shoot at the robins and the sparrows,\nAnd the red squirrels in the wood!\n\n _Bertha._ I love him, too!\n\n _Gottlieb._ Ah, yes! we all\nLove him, from the bottom of our hearts;\nHe gave us the farm, the house, and the grange,\nHe gave us the horses and the carts,\nAnd the great oxen in the stall,\nThe vineyard, and the forest range!\nWe have nothing to give him but our love!\n\n _Bertha._ Did he give us the beautiful stork above\nOn the chimney-top, with its large, round nest?\n\n _Gottlieb._ No, not the stork; by God in heaven,\nAs a blessing, the dear, white stork was given;\nBut the Prince has given us all the rest.\nGod bless him, and make him well again.\n\n _Elsie._ Would I could do something for his sake,\nSomething to cure his sorrow and pain!\n\n _Gottlieb._ That no one can; neither thou nor I,\nNor any one else.\n\n _Elsie._ And must he die?\n\n _Ursula._ Yes; if the dear God does not take\nPity upon him, in his distress,\nAnd work a miracle!\n\n _Gottlieb._ Or unless\nSome maiden, of her own accord,\nOffers her life for that of her lord,\nAnd is willing to die in his stead.\n\n _Elsie._ I will!\n\n _Ursula._ Prithee, thou foolish child, be still!\nThou shouldst not say what thou dost not mean!\n\n _Elsie._ I mean it truly!\n\n _Max._ O father! this morning,\nDown by the mill, in the ravine,\nHans killed a wolf, the very same\nThat in the night to the sheepfold came,\nAnd ate up my lamb, that was left outside.\n\n _Gottlieb._ I am glad he is dead. It will be a warning\nTo the wolves in the forest, far and wide.\n\n _Max._ And I am going to have his hide!\n\n _Bertha._ I wonder if this is the wolf that ate\nLittle Red Ridinghood!\n\n _Ursula._ O, no!\nThat wolf was killed a long while ago.\nCome, children, it is growing late.\n\n _Max._ Ah, how I wish I were a man,\nAs stout as Hans is, and as strong!\nI would do nothing else, the whole day long,\nBut just kill wolves.\n\n _Gottlieb._ Then go to bed,\nAnd grow as fast as a little boy can.\nBertha is half asleep already.\nSee how she nods her heavy head,\nAnd her sleepy feet are so unsteady\nShe will hardly be able to creep upstairs.\n\n _Ursula._ Good-night, my children. Here's the light.\nAnd do not forget to say your prayers\nBefore you sleep.\n\n _Gottlieb._ Good-night!\n\n _Max and Bertha._ Good-night!\n\n (_They go out with_ ELSIE.)\n\n _Ursula, (spinning)._ She is a strange and wayward child,\nThat Elsie of ours. She looks so old,\nAnd thoughts and fancies weird and wild\nSeem of late to have taken hold\nOf her heart, that was once so docile and mild!\n\n _Gottlieb._ She is like all girls.\n\n _Ursula._ Ah no, forsooth!\nUnlike all I have ever seen.\nFor she has visions and strange dreams,\nAnd in all her words and ways, she seems\nMuch older than she is in truth.\nWho would think her but fourteen?\nAnd there has been of late such a change!\nMy heart is heavy with fear and doubt\nThat she may not live till the year is out.\nShe is so strange,--so strange,--so strange!\n\n _Gottlieb._ I am not troubled with any such fear!\nShe will live and thrive for many a year.\n\n * * * * *\n\nELSIE'S CHAMBER.\n\n * * * * *\n\n_Night._ ELSIE _praying._\n\n _Elsie._ My Redeemer and my Lord,\nI beseech thee, I entreat thee,\nGuide me in each act and word,\nThat hereafter I may meet thee,\nWatching, waiting, hoping, yearning,\nWith my lamp well trimmed and burning!\n\nInterceding\nWith these bleeding\nWounds upon thy hands and side,\nFor all who have lived and erred\nThou hast suffered, thou hast died,\nScourged, and mocked, and crucified,\nAnd in the grave hast thou been buried!\n\nIf my feeble prayer can reach thee,\nO my Saviour, I beseech thee,\nEven as thou hast died for me,\nMore sincerely\nLet me follow where thou leadest,\nLet me, bleeding as thou bleedest,\nDie, if dying I may give\nLife to one who asks to live,\nAnd more nearly,\nDying thus, resemble thee!\n\n * * * * *\n\nTHE CHAMBER OF GOTTLIEB AND URSULA.\n\n * * * * *\n\n_Midnight._ ELSIE _standing by their bedside, weeping._\n\n _Gottlieb._ The wind is roaring; the rushing rain\nIs loud upon roof and window-pane,\nAs if the Wild Huntsman of Rodenstein,\nBoding evil to me and mine,\nWere abroad to-night with his ghostly train!\nIn the brief lulls of the tempest wild,\nThe dogs howl in the yard; and hark!\nSome one is sobbing in the dark,\nHere in the chamber!\n\n _Elsie._ It is I.\n\n _Ursula._ Elsie! what ails thee, my poor child?\n\n _Elsie._ I am disturbed and much distressed,\nIn thinking our dear Prince must die,\nI cannot close mine eyes, nor rest.\n\n _Gottlieb._ What wouldst thou? In the Power Divine\nHis healing lies, not in our own;\nIt is in the hand of God alone.\n\n _Elsie._ Nay, he has put it into mine,\nAnd into my heart!\n\n _Gottlieb._ Thy words are wild!\n\n _Ursula._ What dost thou mean? my child! my child!\n\n _Elsie._ That for our dear Prince Henry's sake\nI will myself the offering make,\nAnd give my life to purchase his.\n\n _Ursula_ Am I still dreaming, or awake?\nThou speakest carelessly of death,\nAnd yet thou knowest not what it is.\n\n _Elsie._ 'T is the cessation of our breath.\nSilent and motionless we lie;\nAnd no one knoweth more than this.\nI saw our little Gertrude die,\nShe left off breathing, and no more\nI smoothed the pillow beneath her head.\nShe was more beautiful than before.\nLike violets faded were her eyes;\nBy this we knew that she was dead.\nThrough the open window looked the skies\nInto the chamber where she lay,\nAnd the wind was like the sound of wings,\nAs if angels came to bear her away.\nAh! when I saw and felt these things,\nI found it difficult to stay;\nI longed to die, as she had died,\nAnd go forth with her, side by side.\nThe Saints are dead, the Martyrs dead,\nAnd Mary, and our Lord, and I\nWould follow in humility\nThe way by them illumined!\n\n _Ursula._ My child! my child! thou must not die!\n\n _Elsie_ Why should I live? Do I not know\nThe life of woman is full of woe?\nToiling on and on and on,\nWith breaking heart, and tearful eyes,\nAnd silent lips, and in the soul\nThe secret longings that arise,\nWhich this world never satisfies!\nSome more, some less, but of the whole\nNot one quite happy, no, not one!\n\n _Ursula._ It is the malediction of Eve!\n\n _Elsie._ In place of it, let me receive\nThe benediction of Mary, then.\n\n _Gottlieb._ Ah, woe is me! Ah, woe is me!\nMost wretched am I among men!\n\n _Ursula._ Alas! that I should live to see\nThy death, beloved, and to stand\nAbove thy grave! Ah, woe the day!\n\n _Elsie._ Thou wilt not see it. I shall lie\nBeneath the flowers of another land,\nFor at Salerno, far away\nOver the mountains, over the sea,\nIt is appointed me to die!\nAnd it will seem no more to thee\nThan if at the village on market-day\nI should a little longer stay\nThan I am used.\n\n _Ursula._ Even as thou sayest!\nAnd how my heart beats, when thou stayest!\nI cannot rest until my sight\nIs satisfied with seeing thee.\nWhat, then, if thou wert dead?\n\n _Gottlieb_ Ah me!\nOf our old eyes thou art the light!\nThe joy of our old hearts art thou!\nAnd wilt thou die?\n\n _Ursula._ Not now! not now!\n\n _Elsie_ Christ died for me, and shall not I\nBe willing for my Prince to die?\nYou both are silent; you cannot speak.\nThis said I, at our Saviour's feast,\nAfter confession, to the priest,\nAnd even he made no reply.\nDoes he not warn us all to seek\nThe happier, better land on high,\nWhere flowers immortal never wither,\nAnd could he forbid me to go thither?\n\n _Gottlieb._ In God's own time, my heart's delight!\nWhen he shall call thee, not before!\n\n _Elsie._ I heard him call. When Christ ascended\nTriumphantly, from star to star,\nHe left the gates of heaven ajar.\nI had a vision in the night,\nAnd saw him standing at the door\nOf his Father's mansion, vast and splendid,\nAnd beckoning to me from afar.\nI cannot stay!\n\n _Gottlieb._ She speaks almost\nAs if it were the Holy Ghost\nSpake through her lips, and in her stead!\nWhat if this were of God?\n\n _Ursula._ Ah, then\nGainsay it dare we not.\n\n _Gottlieb._ Amen!\nElsie! the words that thou hast said\nAre strange and new for us to hear,\nAnd fill our hearts with doubt and fear.\nWhether it be a dark temptation\nOf the Evil One, or God's inspiration,\nWe in our blindness cannot say.\nWe must think upon it, and pray;\nFor evil and good in both resembles.\nIf it be of God, his will be done!\nMay he guard us from the Evil One!\nHow hot thy hand is! how it trembles!\nGo to thy bed, and try to sleep.\n\n _Ursula._ Kiss me. Good-night; and do not weep!\n\n (ELSIE _goes out._)\n\nAh, what an awful thing is this!\nI almost shuddered at her kiss.\nAs if a ghost had touched my cheek,\nI am so childish and so weak!\nAs soon as I see the earliest gray\nOf morning glimmer in the east,\nI will go over to the priest,\nAnd hear what the good man has to say!\n\n * * * * *\n\nA VILLAGE CHURCH.\n\n * * * * *\n\n_A woman kneeling at the confessional.\n\n The Parish Priest (from within)_. Go, sin no\nmore! Thy penance o'er,\nA new and better life begin!\nGod maketh thee forever free\nFrom the dominion of thy sin!\nGo, sin no more! He will restore\nThe peace that filled thy heart before,\nAnd pardon thine iniquity!\n\n(_The woman goes out. The Priest comes forth, and\n walks slowly up and down the church_.)\n\nO blessed Lord! how much I need\nThy light to guide me on my way!\nSo many hands, that, without heed,\nStill touch thy wounds, and make them bleed!\nSo many feet, that, day by day,\nStill wander from thy fold astray!\nUnless thou fill me with thy light,\nI cannot lead thy flock aright;\nNor, without thy support, can bear\nThe burden of so great a care,\nBut am myself a castaway!\n\n (_A pause_.)\n\nThe day is drawing to its close;\nAnd what good deeds, since first it rose,\nHave I presented, Lord, to thee,\nAs offerings of my ministry?\nWhat wrong repressed, what right maintained\nWhat struggle passed, what victory gained,\nWhat good attempted and attained?\nFeeble, at best, is my endeavor!\nI see, but cannot reach, the height\nThat lies forever in the light,\nAnd yet forever and forever,\nWhen seeming just within my grasp,\nI feel my feeble hands unclasp,\nAnd sink discouraged into night!\nFor thine own purpose, thou hast sent\nThe strife and the discouragement!\n\n (_A pause_.)\n\nWhy stayest thou, Prince of Hoheneck?\nWhy keep me pacing to and fro\nAmid these aisles of sacred gloom,\nCounting my footsteps as I go,\nAnd marking with each step a tomb?\nWhy should the world for thee make room,\nAnd wait thy leisure and thy beck?\nThou comest in the hope to hear\nSome word of comfort and of cheer.\nWhat can I say? I cannot give\nThe counsel to do this and live;\nBut rather, firmly to deny\nThe tempter, though his power is strong,\nAnd, inaccessible to wrong,\nStill like a martyr live and die!\n\n (_A pause_.)\n\nThe evening air grows dusk and brown;\nI must go forth into the town,\nTo visit beds of pain and death,\nOf restless limbs, and quivering breath,\nAnd sorrowing hearts, and patient eyes\nThat see, through tears, the sun go down,\nBut never more shall see it rise.\nThe poor in body and estate,\nThe sick and the disconsolate.\nMust not on man's convenience wait.\n\n(_Goes out. Enter_ LUCIFER, _as a Priest_. LUCIFER,\n _with a genuflexion, mocking_.)\n\nThis is the Black Pater-noster.\nGod was my foster,\nHe fostered me\nUnder the book of the Palm-tree!\nSt. Michael was my dame.\nHe was born at Bethlehem,\nHe was made of flesh and blood.\nGod send me my right food,\nMy right food, and shelter too,\nThat I may to yon kirk go,\nTo read upon yon sweet book\nWhich the mighty God of heaven shook.\nOpen, open, hell's gates!\nShut, shut, heaven's gates!\nAll the devils in the air\nThe stronger be, that hear the Black Prayer!\n\n (_Looking round the church_.)\n\nWhat a darksome and dismal place!\nI wonder that any man has the face\nTo call such a hole the House of the Lord,\nAnd the Gate of Heaven,--yet such is the word.\nCeiling, and walls, and windows old,\nCovered with cobwebs, blackened with mould;\nDust on the pulpit, dust on the stairs,\nDust on the benches, and stalls, and chairs!\nThe pulpit, from which such ponderous sermons\nHave fallen down on the brains of the Germans,\nWith about as much real edification\nAs if a great Bible, bound in lead,\nHad fallen, and struck them on the head;\nAnd I ought to remember that sensation!\nHere stands the holy water stoup!\nHoly-water it may be to many,\nBut to me, the veriest Liquor Gehennae!\nIt smells like a filthy fast day soup!\nNear it stands the box for the poor;\nWith its iron padlock, safe and sure,\nI and the priest of the parish know\nWhither all these charities go;\nTherefore, to keep up the institution,\nI will add my little contribution!\n\n (_He puts in money._)\n\nUnderneath this mouldering tomb,\nWith statue of stone, and scutcheon of brass,\nSlumbers a great lord of the village.\nAll his life was riot and pillage,\nBut at length, to escape the threatened doom\nOf the everlasting, penal fire,\nHe died in the dress of a mendicant friar,\nAnd bartered his wealth for a daily mass.\nBut all that afterward came to pass,\nAnd whether he finds it dull or pleasant,\nIs kept a secret for the present,\nAt his own particular desire.\n\nAnd here, in a corner of the wall,\nShadowy, silent, apart from all,\nWith its awful portal open wide,\nAnd its latticed windows on either side,\nAnd its step well worn by the bended knees\nOf one or two pious centuries,\nStands the village confessional!\nWithin it, as an honored guest,\nI will sit me down awhile and rest!\n\n (_Seats himself in the confessional_.)\n\nHere sits the priest, and faint and low,\nLike the sighing of an evening breeze,\nComes through these painted lattices\nThe ceaseless sound of human woe,\nHere, while her bosom aches and throbs\nWith deep and agonizing sobs,\nThat half are passion, half contrition,\nThe luckless daughter of perdition\nSlowly confesses her secret shame!\nThe time, the place, the lover's name!\nHere the grim murderer, with a groan,\nFrom his bruised conscience rolls the stone,\nThinking that thus he can atone\nFor ravages of sword and flame!\nIndeed, I marvel, and marvel greatly,\nHow a priest can sit here so sedately,\nReading, the whole year out and in,\nNaught but the catalogue of sin,\nAnd still keep any faith whatever\nIn human virtue! Never! never!\n\nI cannot repeat a thousandth part\nOf the horrors and crimes and sins and woes\nThat arise, when with palpitating throes\nThe graveyard in the human heart\nGives up its dead, at the voice of the priest,\nAs if he were an archangel, at least.\nIt makes a peculiar atmosphere,\nThis odor of earthly passions and crimes,\nSuch as I like to breathe, at times,\nAnd such as often brings me here\nIn the hottest and most pestilential season.\nTo-day, I come for another reason;\nTo foster and ripen an evil thought\nIn a heart that is almost to madness wrought,\nAnd to make a murderer out of a prince,\nA sleight of hand I learned long since!\nHe comes In the twilight he will not see\nthe difference between his priest and me!\nIn the same net was the mother caught!\n\n (_Prince Henry entering and kneeling at the confessional._)\n\nRemorseful, penitent, and lowly,\nI come to crave, O Father holy,\nThy benediction on my head.\n\n _Lucifer_. The benediction shall be said\nAfter confession, not before!\n'T is a God speed to the parting guest,\nWho stands already at the door,\nSandalled with holiness, and dressed\nIn garments pure from earthly stain.\nMeanwhile, hast thou searched well thy breast?\nDoes the same madness fill thy brain?\nOr have thy passion and unrest\nVanished forever from thy mind?\n\n _Prince Henry_. By the same madness still made blind,\nBy the same passion still possessed,\nI come again to the house of prayer,\nA man afflicted and distressed!\nAs in a cloudy atmosphere,\nThrough unseen sluices of the air,\nA sudden and impetuous wind\nStrikes the great forest white with fear,\nAnd every branch, and bough, and spray\nPoints all its quivering leaves one way,\nAnd meadows of grass, and fields of grain,\nAnd the clouds above, and the slanting rain,\nAnd smoke from chimneys of the town,\nYield themselves to it, and bow down,\nSo does this dreadful purpose press\nOnward, with irresistible stress,\nAnd all my thoughts and faculties,\nStruck level by the strength of this,\nFrom their true inclination turn,\nAnd all stream forward to Salem!\n\n _Lucifer_. Alas! we are but eddies of dust,\nUplifted by the blast, and whirled\nAlong the highway of the world\nA moment only, then to fall\nBack to a common level all,\nAt the subsiding of the gust!\n\n _Prince Henry_. O holy Father! pardon in me\nThe oscillation of a mind\nUnsteadfast, and that cannot find\nIts centre of rest and harmony!\nFor evermore before mine eyes\nThis ghastly phantom flits and flies,\nAnd as a madman through a crowd,\nWith frantic gestures and wild cries,\nIt hurries onward, and aloud\nRepeats its awful prophecies!\nWeakness is wretchedness! To be strong\nIs to be happy! I am weak,\nAnd cannot find the good I seek,\nBecause I feel and fear the wrong!\n\n _Lucifer_. Be not alarmed! The Church is kind--\nAnd in her mercy and her meekness\nShe meets half-way her children's weakness,\nWrites their transgressions in the dust!\nThough in the Decalogue we find\nThe mandate written, \"Thou shalt not kill!\"\nYet there are cases when we must.\nIn war, for instance, or from scathe\nTo guard and keep the one true Faith!\nWe must look at the Decalogue in the light\nOf an ancient statute, that was meant\nFor a mild and general application,\nTo be understood with the reservation,\nThat, in certain instances, the Right\nMust yield to the Expedient!\nThou art a Prince. If thou shouldst die,\nWhat hearts and hopes would prostrate he!\nWhat noble deeds, what fair renown,\nInto the grave with thee go down!\nWhat acts of valor and courtesy\nRemain undone, and die with thee!\nThou art the last of all thy race!\nWith thee a noble name expires,\nAnd vanishes from the earth's face\nThe glorious memory of thy sires!\nShe is a peasant. In her veins\nFlows common and plebeian blood;\nIt is such as daily and hourly stains\nThe dust and the turf of battle plains,\nBy vassals shed, in a crimson flood,\nWithout reserve, and without reward,\nAt the slightest summons of their lord!\nBut thine is precious, the fore-appointed\nBlood of kings, of God's anointed!\nMoreover, what has the world in store\nFor one like her, but tears and toil?\nDaughter of sorrow, serf of the soil,\nA peasant's child and a peasant's wife,\nAnd her soul within her sick and sore\nWith the roughness and barrenness of life!\nI marvel not at the heart's recoil\nFrom a fate like this, in one so tender,\nNor at its eagerness to surrender\nAll the wretchedness, want, and woe\nThat await it in this world below,\nFor the unutterable splendor\nOf the world of rest beyond the skies.\nSo the Church sanctions the sacrifice:\nTherefore inhale this healing balm,\nAnd breathe this fresh life into thine;\nAccept the comfort and the calm\nShe offers, as a gift divine,\nLet her fall down and anoint thy feet\nWith the ointment costly and most sweet\nOf her young blood, and thou shall live.\n\n _Prince Henry._ And will the righteous Heaven forgive?\nNo action, whether foul or fair,\nIs ever done, but it leaves somewhere\nA record, written by fingers ghostly,\nAs a blessing or a curse, and mostly\nIn the greater weakness or greater strength\nOf the acts which follow it, till at length\nThe wrongs of ages are redressed,\nAnd the justice of God made manifest!\n\n _Lucifer_ In ancient records it is stated\nThat, whenever an evil deed is done,\nAnother devil is created\nTo scourge and torment the offending one!\nBut evil is only good perverted,\nAnd Lucifer, the Bearer of Light,\nBut an angel fallen and deserted,\nThrust from his Father's house with a curse\nInto the black and endless night.\n\n _Prince Henry._ If justice rules the universe,\nFrom the good actions of good men\nAngels of light should be begotten,\nAnd thus the balance restored again.\n\n _Lucifer._ Yes; if the world were not so rotten,\nAnd so given over to the Devil!\n\n _Prince Henry._ But this deed, is it good or evil?\nHave I thine absolution free\nTo do it, and without restriction?\n\n _Lucifer._ Ay; and from whatsoever sin\nLieth around it and within,\nFrom all crimes in which it may involve thee,\nI now release thee and absolve thee!\n\n _Prince Henry._ Give me thy holy benediction.\n\n _Lucifer._ (_stretching forth his hand and muttering_),\n Maledictione perpetua\n Maledicat vos\n Pater eternus!\n\n_The Angel_ (_with the aeolian harp_). Take heed! take heed!\nNoble art thou in thy birth,\nBy the good and the great of earth\nHast thou been taught!\nBe noble in every thought\nAnd in every deed!\nLet not the illusion of thy senses\nBetray thee to deadly offences.\nBe strong! be good! be pure!\nThe right only shall endure,\nAll things else are but false pretences!\nI entreat thee, I implore,\nListen no more\nTo the suggestions of an evil spirit,\nThat even now is there,\nMaking the foul seem fair,\nAnd selfishness itself a virtue and a merit!\n\n\n * * * * *\n\nA ROOM IN THE FARM-HOUSE.\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n _Gottlieb_. It is decided! For many days,\nAnd nights as many, we have had\nA nameless terror in our breast,\nMaking us timid, and afraid\nOf God, and his mysterious ways!\nWe have been sorrowful and sad;\nMuch have we suffered, much have prayed\nThat he would lead us as is best,\nAnd show us what his will required.\nIt is decided; and we give\nOur child, O Prince, that you may live!\n\n _Ursula_. It is of God. He has inspired\nThis purpose in her; and through pain,\nOut of a world of sin and woe,\nHe takes her to himself again.\nThe mother's heart resists no longer;\nWith the Angel of the Lord in vain\nIt wrestled, for he was the stronger.\n\n _Gottlieb_. As Abraham offered long ago\nHis son unto the Lord, and even\nThe Everlasting Father in heaven\nGave his, as a lamb unto the slaughter,\nSo do I offer up my daughter!\n\n (URSULA _hides her face_.)\n\n _Elsie_. My life is little,\nOnly a cup of water,\nBut pure and limpid.\nTake it, O my Prince!\nLet it refresh you,\nLet it restore you.\nIt is given willingly,\nIt is given freely;\nMay God bless the gift!\n\n _Prince Henry._ And the giver!\n\n _Gottlieb._ Amen!\n\n _Prince Henry._ I accept it!\n\n _Gottlieb._ Where are the children?\n\n _Ursula._ They are already asleep.\n\n _Gottlieb._ What if they were dead?\n\n * * * * *\n\nIN THE GARDEN.\n\n * * * * *\n\n _Elsie._ I have one thing to ask of you.\n\n _Prince Henry._ What is it?\nIt is already granted.\n\n _Elsie._ Promise me,\nWhen we are gone from here, and on our way\nAre journeying to Salerno, you will not,\nBy word or deed, endeavor to dissuade me\nAnd turn me from my purpose, but remember\nThat as a pilgrim to the Holy City\nWalks unmolested, and with thoughts of pardon\nOccupied wholly, so would I approach\nThe gates of Heaven, in this great jubilee,\nWith my petition, putting off from me\nAll thoughts of earth, as shoes from off my feet.\nPromise me this.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Thy words fall from thy lips\nLike roses from the lips of Angelo: and angels\nMight stoop to pick them up!\n\n _Elsie._ Will you not promise?\n\n _Prince Henry._ If ever we depart upon this journey,\nSo long to one or both of us, I promise.\n\n _Elsie._ Shall we not go, then? Have you lifted me\nInto the air, only to hurl me back\nWounded upon the ground? and offered me\nThe waters of eternal life, to bid me\nDrink the polluted puddles of this world?\n\n _Prince Henry._ O Elsie! what a lesson thou dost teach me!\nThe life which is, and that which is to come,\nSuspended hang in such nice equipoise\nA breath disturbs the balance; and that scale\nIn which we throw our hearts preponderates,\nAnd the other, like an empty one, flies up,\nAnd is accounted vanity and air!\nTo me the thought of death is terrible,\nHaving such hold on life. To thee it is not\nSo much even as the lifting of a latch;\nOnly a step into the open air\nOut of a tent already luminous\nWith light that shines through its transparent walls!\nO pure in heart! from thy sweet dust shall grow\nLilies, upon whose petals will be written\n\"Ave Maria\" in characters of gold!\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nA STREET IN STRASBURG.\n\n * * * * *\n\n_Night._ PRINCE HENRY _wandering alone, wrapped in a cloak._\n\n _Prince Henry._ Still is the night. The sound of feet\nHas died away from the empty street,\nAnd like an artisan, bending down\nHis head on his anvil, the dark town\nSleeps, with a slumber deep and sweet.\nSleepless and restless, I alone,\nIn the dusk and damp of these wails of stone,\nWander and weep in my remorse!\n\n _Crier of the dead (ringing a bell)._ Wake! wake!\n All ye that sleep!\n Pray for the Dead!\n Pray for the Dead!\n\n _Prince Henry._ Hark! with what accents loud and hoarse\nThis warder on the walls of death\nSends forth the challenge of his breath!\nI see the dead that sleep in the grave!\nThey rise up and their garments wave,\nDimly and spectral, as they rise,\nWith the light of another world in their eyes!\n\n _Crier of the dead._ Wake! wake!\n All ye that sleep!\n Pray for the Dead!\n Pray for the Dead!\n\n _Prince Henry._ Why for the dead, who are at rest?\nPray for the living, in whose breast\nThe struggle between right and wrong\nIs raging terrible and strong,\nAs when good angels war with devils!\nThis is the Master of the Revels,\nWho, at Life's flowing feast, proposes\nThe health of absent friends, and pledges,\nNot in bright goblets crowned with roses,\nAnd tinkling as we touch their edges,\nBut with his dismal, tinkling bell,\nThat mocks and mimics their funeral knell!\n\n _Crier of the dead._ Wake! wake!\n All ye that sleep!\n Pray for the Dead!\n Pray for the Dead!\n\n _Prince Henry._ Wake not, beloved! be thy sleep\nSilent as night is, and as deep!\nThere walks a sentinel at thy gate\nWhose heart is heavy and desolate,\nAnd the heavings of whose bosom number\nThe respirations of thy slumber,\nAs if some strange, mysterious fate\nHad linked two hearts in one, and mine\nWent madly wheeling about thine,\nOnly with wider and wilder sweep!\n\n _Crier of the dead (at a distance)._ Wake! wake!\n All ye that sleep!\n Pray for the Dead!\n Pray for the Dead!\n\n _Prince Henry._ Lo! with what depth of blackness thrown\nAgainst the clouds, far up the skies,\nThe walls of the cathedral rise,\nLike a mysterious grove of stone,\nWith fitful lights and shadows bleeding,\nAs from behind, the moon, ascending,\nLights its dim aisles and paths unknown!\nThe wind is rising; but the boughs\nRise not and fall not with the wind\nThat through their foliage sobs and soughs;\nOnly the cloudy rack behind,\nDrifting onward, wild and ragged,\nGives to each spire and buttress jagged\nA seeming motion undefined.\nBelow on the square, an armed knight,\nStill as a statue and as white,\nSits on his steed, and the moonbeams quiver\nUpon the points of his armor bright\nAs on the ripples of a river.\nHe lifts the visor from his cheek,\nAnd beckons, and makes as he would speak.\n\n _Walter the Minnesinger_ Friend! can you tell me where alight\nThuringia's horsemen for the night?\nFor I have lingered in the rear,\nAnd wander vainly up and down.\n\n _Prince Henry_ I am a stranger in the town,\nAs thou art, but the voice I hear\nIs not a stranger to mine ear.\nThou art Walter of the Vogelweid!\n\n _Walter_ Thou hast guessed rightly; and thy name\nIs Henry of Hoheneck!\n\n _Prince Henry_ Ay, the same.\n\n _Walter_ (_embracing him_). Come closer, closer to my side!\nWhat brings thee hither? What potent charm\nHas drawn thee from thy German farm\nInto the old Alsatian city?\n\n _Prince Henry_. A tale of wonder and of pity!\nA wretched man, almost by stealth\nDragging my body to Salern,\nIn the vain hope and search for health,\nAnd destined never to return.\nAlready thou hast heard the rest\nBut what brings thee, thus armed and dight\nIn the equipments of a knight?\n\n _Walter_. Dost thou not see upon my breast\nThe cross of the Crusaders shine?\nMy pathway leads to Palestine.\n\n _Prince Henry_. Ah, would that way were also mine!\nO noble poet! thou whose heart\nIs like a nest of singing birds\nRocked on the topmost bough of life,\nWilt thou, too, from our sky depart,\nAnd in the clangor of the strife\nMingle the music of thy words?\n\n _Walter_. My hopes are high, my heart is proud,\nAnd like a trumpet long and loud,\nThither my thoughts all clang and ring!\nMy life is in my hand, and lo!\nI grasp and bend it as a bow,\nAnd shoot forth from its trembling string\nAn arrow, that shall be, perchance,\nLike the arrow of the Israelite king\nShot from the window toward the east,\nThat of the Lord's deliverance!\n\n _Prince Henry_. My life, alas! is what thou seest!\nO enviable fate! to be\nStrong, beautiful, and armed like thee\nWith lyre and sword, with song and steel;\nA hand to smite, a heart to feel!\nThy heart, thy hand, thy lyre, thy sword,\nThou givest all unto thy Lord,\nWhile I, so mean and abject grown,\nAm thinking of myself alone.\n\n _Walter_. Be patient: Time will reinstate\nThy health and fortunes.\n\n _Prince Henry_. 'T is too late!\nI cannot strive against my fate!\n\n _Walter_. Come with me; for my steed is weary;\nOur journey has been long and dreary,\nAnd, dreaming of his stall, he dints\nWith his impatient hoofs the flints.\n\n _Prince Henry_ (_aside_). I am ashamed, in my disgrace,\nTo look into that noble face!\nTo-morrow, Walter, let it be.\n\n _Walter_. To-morrow, at the dawn of day,\nI shall again be on my way\nCome with me to the hostelry,\nFor I have many things to say.\nOur journey into Italy\nPerchance together we may make;\nWilt thou not do it for my sake?\n\n _Prince Henry_. A sick man's pace would but impede\nThine eager and impatient speed.\nBesides, my pathway leads me round\nTo Hirsehau, in the forest's bound,\nWhere I assemble man and steed,\nAnd all things for my journey's need.\n\n (_They go out_. LUCIFER, _flying over the city_.)\n\nSleep, sleep, O city! till the light\nWakes you to sin and crime again,\nWhilst on your dreams, like dismal rain,\nI scatter downward through the night\nMy maledictions dark and deep.\nI have more martyrs in your walls\nThan God has; and they cannot sleep;\nThey are my bondsmen and my thralls;\nTheir wretched lives are full of pain,\nWild agonies of nerve and brain;\nAnd every heart-beat, every breath,\nIs a convulsion worse than death!\nSleep, sleep, O city! though within\nThe circuit of your walls there lies\nNo habitation free from sin,\nAnd all its nameless miseries;\nThe aching heart, the aching head,\nGrief for the living and the dead,\nAnd foul corruption of the time,\nDisease, distress, and want, and woe,\nAnd crimes, and passions that may grow\nUntil they ripen into, crime!\n\n\n\n\nSQUARE IN FRONT OF THE CATHEDRAL.\n\n * * * * *\n\n_Easter Sunday_. FRIAR CUTHBERT _preaching to the\ncrowd from a pulpit in the open air_. PRINCE\nHENRY _and_ ELSIE _crossing the square_.\n\n _Prince Henry_. This is the day, when from the dead\nOur Lord arose; and everywhere,\nOut of their darkness and despair,\nTriumphant over fears and foes,\nThe hearts of his disciples rose,\nWhen to the women, standing near,\nThe Angel in shining vesture said,\n\"The Lord is risen; he is not here!\"\nAnd, mindful that the day is come,\nOn all the hearths in Christendom\nThe fires are quenched, to be again\nRekindled from the sun, that high\nIs dancing in the cloudless sky.\nThe churches are all decked with flowers.\nThe salutations among men\nAre but the Angel's words divine,\n\"Christ is arisen!\" and the bells\nCatch the glad murmur, as it swells,\nAnd chaunt together in their towers.\nAll hearts are glad; and free from care\nThe faces of the people shine.\nSee what a crowd is in the square,\nGaily and gallantly arrayed!\n\n _Elsie_. Let us go back; I am afraid!\n\n _Prince Henry_. Nay, let us mount the church-steps here,\nUnder the doorway's sacred shadow;\nWe can see all things, and be freer\nFrom the crowd that madly heaves and presses!\n\n _Elsie._ What a gay pageant! what bright dresses!\nIt looks like a flower besprinkled meadow.\nWhat is that yonder on the square?\n\n _Prince Henry_ A pulpit in the open air,\nAnd a Friar, who is preaching to the crowd\nWith a voice so deep and clear and loud,\nThat, if we listen, and give heed,\nHis lowest words will reach the ear.\n\n _Friar Cuthbert (gesticulating and cracking a postilion's\nwhip)_ What ho! good people! do you not hear?\nDashing along at the top of his speed,\nBooted and spurred, on his jaded steed,\nA courier comes with words of cheer.\nCourier! what is the news, I pray?\n\"Christ is arisen!\" Whence come you? \"From court.\"\nThen I do not believe it; you say it in sport.\n\n (_Cracks his whip again._)\n\nThere comes another, riding this way;\nWe soon shall know what he has to say.\nCourier! what are the tidings to-day?\n\"Christ is arisen!\" Whence come you? \"From town.\"\nThen I do not believe it; away with you, clown.\n\n (_Cracks his whip more violently._)\n\nAnd here comes a third, who is spurring amain;\nWhat news do you bring, with your loose-hanging rein,\nYour spurs wet with blood, and your bridle with foam?\n\"Christ is arisen!\" Whence come you? \"From Rome.\"\nAh, now I believe. He is risen, indeed.\nRide on with the news, at the top of your speed!\n\n (_Great applause among the crowd._)\n\nTo come back to my text! When the news was first spread\nThat Christ was arisen indeed from the dead,\nVery great was the joy of the angels in heaven;\nAnd as great the dispute as to who should carry\nThe tidings, thereof to the Virgin Mary,\nPierced to the heart with sorrows seven.\nOld Father Adam was first to propose,\nAs being the author of all our woes;\nBut he was refused, for fear, said they,\nHe would stop to eat apples on the way!\nAbel came next, but petitioned in vain,\nBecause he might meet with his brother Cain!\nNoah, too, was refused, lest his weakness for wine\nShould delay him at every tavern sign;\nAnd John the Baptist could not get a vote,\nOn account of his old fashioned, camel's-hair coat;\nAnd the Penitent Thief, who died on the cross,\nWas reminded that all his bones were broken!\nTill at last, when each in turn had spoken,\nThe company being still at a loss,\nThe Angel, who had rolled away the stone,\nWas sent to the sepulchre, all alone,\nAnd filled with glory that gloomy prison,\nAnd said to the Virgin, \"The Lord is arisen!\"\n\n (_The Cathedral bells ring_.)\n\nBut hark! the bells are beginning to chime;\nAnd I feel that I am growing hoarse.\nI will put an end to my discourse,\nAnd leave the rest for some other time.\nFor the bells themselves are the best of preachers;\nTheir brazen lips are learned teachers,\nFrom their pulpits of stone, in the upper air,\nSounding aloft, without crack or flaw,\nShriller than trumpets under the Law,\nNow a sermon and now a prayer.\nThe clangorous hammer is the tongue,\nThis way, that way, beaten and swung,\nThat from mouth of brass, as from Mouth of Gold,\nMay be taught the Testaments, New and Old.\nAnd above it the great crossbeam of wood\nRepresenteth the Holy Rood,\nUpon which, like the bell, our hopes are hung.\nAnd the wheel wherewith it is swayed and rung\nIs the mind of man, that round and round\nSways, and maketh the tongue to sound!\nAnd the rope, with its twisted cordage three,\nDenoteth the Scriptural Trinity\nOf Morals, and Symbols, and History;\nAnd the upward and downward motions show\nThat we touch upon matters high and low;\nAnd the constant change and transmutation\nOf action and of contemplation,\nDownward, the Scripture brought from on high,\nUpward, exalted again to the sky;\nDownward, the literal interpretation,\nUpward, the Vision and Mystery!\n\nAnd now, my hearers, to make an end,\nI have only one word more to say;\nIn the church, in honor of Easter day,\nWill be represented a Miracle Play;\nAnd I hope you will all have the grace to attend.\nChrist bring us at last So his felicity!\nPax vobiscum! et Benedicite!\n\n\n\n\nIN THE CATHEDRAL.\n\n * * * * *\n\nCHAUNT.\n Kyrie Eleison!\n Christe Eleison!\n\n _Elsie._ I am at home here in my Father's house!\nThese paintings of the Saints upon the walls\nHave all familiar and benignant faces.\n\n _Prince Henry._ The portraits of the family of God!\nThine own hereafter shall be placed among them.\n\n _Elsie._ How very grand it is and wonderful!\nNever have I beheld a church so splendid!\nSuch columns, and such arches, and such windows,\nSo many tombs and statues in the chapels,\nAnd under them so many confessionals.\nThey must be for the rich. I should not like\nTo tell my sins in such a church as this.\nWho built it?\n\n _Prince Henry._ A great master of his craft,\nErwin von Steinbach; but not he alone,\nFor many generations labored with him.\nChildren that came to see these Saints in stone,\nAs day by day out of the blocks they rose,\nGrew old and died, and still the work went on,\nAnd on, and on, and is not yet completed.\nThe generation that succeeds our own\nPerhaps may finish it. The architect\nBuilt his great heart into these sculptured stones,\nAnd with him toiled his children, and their lives\nWere builded, with his own, into the walls,\nAs offerings unto God. You see that statue\nFixing its joyous, but deep-wrinkled eyes\nUpon the Pillar of the Angels yonder.\nThat is the image of the master, carved\nBy the fair hand of his own child, Sabina.\n\n _Elsie._ How beautiful is the column that he looks at!\n\n _Prince Henry._ That, too, she sculptured. At the base of it\nStand the Evangelists; above their heads\nFour Angels blowing upon marble trumpets,\nAnd over them the blessed Christ, surrounded\nBy his attendant ministers, upholding\nThe instruments of his passion.\n\n _Elsie._ O my Lord!\nWould I could leave behind me upon earth\nSome monument to thy glory, such as this!\n\n _Prince Henry._ A greater monument than this thou leavest\nIn thine own life, all purity and love!\nSee, too, the Rose, above the western portal\nFlamboyant with a thousand gorgeous colors,\nThe perfect flower of Gothic loveliness!\n\n _Elsie._ And, in the gallery, the long line of statues,\nChrist with his twelve Apostles watching us.\n\n(_A_ BISHOP _in armor, booted and spurred, passes with\nhis train._)\n\n_Prince Henry._ But come away; we have not time to look.\nThe crowd already fills the church, and yonder\nUpon a stage, a herald with a trumpet,\nClad like The Angel Gabriel, proclaims\nThe Mystery that will now be represented.\n\n\n\n\nTHE NATIVITY.\n\n * * * * *\n\nA MIRACLE PLAY.\n\n * * * * *\n\nTHE NATIVITY.\n\nINTROITUS.\n\n _Pr\u00e6co._ Come, good people, all and each,\nCome and listen to our speech!\nIn your presence here I stand,\nWith a trumpet in my hand,\nTo announce the Easter Play,\nWhich we represent to-day!\nFirst of all we shall rehearse,\nIn our action and our verse,\nThe Nativity of our Lord,\nAs written in the old record\nOf the Protevangelion,\nSo that he who reads may run!\n\n (_Blows his trumpet._)\n\n * * * * *\n\nI. HEAVEN.\n\n _Mercy_ (_at the feet of God_). Have pity, Lord be not afraid\nTo save mankind, whom thou hast made,\nNor let the souls that were betrayed\n Perish eternally!\n\n _Justice._ It cannot be, it must not be!\nWhen in the garden placed by thee,\nThe fruit of the forbidden tree\n He ate, and he must die!\n\n _Mercy._ Have pity, Lord! let penitence\nAtone for disobedience,\nNor let the fruit of man's offence\n Be endless misery!\n\n _Justice._ What penitence proportionate\nCan e'er be felt for sin so great?\nOf the forbidden fruit he ate,\n And damned must he be!\n\n _God._ He shall be saved, if that within\nThe bounds of earth one free from sin\nBe found, who for his kith and kin\n Will suffer martyrdom.\n\n _The Four Virtues._ Lord! we have searched the world around,\nFrom centre to the utmost bound,\nBut no such mortal can be found;\n Despairing, back we come.\n\n _Wisdom._ No mortal, but a God made man,\nCan ever carry out this plan,\nAchieving what none other can,\n Salvation unto all!\n\n _God._ Go, then, O my beloved Son;\nIt can by thee alone be done;\nBy thee the victory shall be won\n O'er Satan and the Fall!\n\n(_Here the_ ANGEL GABRIEL _shall leave Paradise and\nfly toward the earth; the jaws of Hell open below,\nand the Devils walk about, making a great noise._)\n\n * * * * *\n\n\nII. MARY AT THE WELL.\n\n _Mary._ Along the garden walk, and thence\nThrough the wicket in the garden fence,\n I steal with quiet pace,\nMy pitcher at the well to fill,\nThat lies so deep and cool and still\n In this sequestered place.\nThese sycamores keep guard around;\nI see no face, I hear no sound,\n Save babblings of the spring,\nAnd my companions, who within\nThe threads of gold and scarlet spin,\n And at their labor sing.\n\n _The Angel Gabriel._ Hail, Virgin Mary, full of grace!\n\n(_Here_ MARY _looketh around her, trembling, and\nthen saith:_)\n\n _Mary._ Who is it speaketh in this place,\nWith such a gentle voice?\n\n _Gabriel._ The Lord of heaven is with thee now!\nBlessed among all women thou,\n Who art his holy choice!\n\n _Mary_ (setting down the pitcher). What can this mean?\nNo one is near,\nAnd yet, such sacred words I hear,\n I almost fear to stay.\n\n (_Here the_ ANGEL, _appearing to her, shall say:_)\n\n _Gabriel._ Fear not, O Mary! but believe!\nFor thou, a Virgin, shalt conceive\n A child this very day.\n\nFear not, O Mary! from the sky\nThe majesty of the Most High\n Shall overshadow thee!\n\n _Mary._ Behold the handmaid of the Lord!\nAccording to thy holy word,\n So be it unto me!\n\n (_Here the Devils shall again make a great noise,\n under the stage._)\n\n\n\n\nIII. THE ANGELS OF THE SEVEN PLANETS,\n _bearing the Star of Bethlehem._\n\n _The Angels._ The Angels of the Planets Seven\nAcross the shining fields of heaven\n The natal star we bring!\nDropping our sevenfold virtues down,\nAs priceless jewels in the crown\n Of Christ, our new-born King.\n\n _Raphael._ I am the Angel of the Sun,\nWhose flaming wheels began to run\n When God's almighty breath\nSaid to the darkness and the Night,\nLet there be light! and there was light!\n I bring the gift of Faith.\n\n _Gabriel._ I am the Angel of the Moon,\nDarkened, to be rekindled soon\n Beneath the azure cope!\nNearest to earth, it is my ray\nThat best illumes the midnight way.\n I bring the gift of Hope!\n\n _Anael._ The Angel of the Star of Love,\nThe Evening Star, that shines above\n The place where lovers be,\nAbove all happy hearths and homes,\nOn roofs of thatch, or golden domes,\n I give him Charity!\n\n _Zobiachel._ The Planet Jupiter is mine!\nThe mightiest star of all that shine,\n Except the sun alone!\nHe is the High Priest of the Dove,\nAnd sends, from his great throne above,\n Justice, that shall atone!\n\n _Michael._ The Planet Mercury, whose place\nIs nearest to the sun in space,\n Is my allotted sphere!\nAnd with celestial ardor swift\nI bear upon my hands the gift\n Of heavenly Prudence here!\n\n _Uriel._ I am the Minister of Mars,\nThe strongest star among the stars!\n My songs of power prelude\nThe march and battle of man's life,\nAnd for the suffering and the strife,\n I give him Fortitude!\n\n _Anachiel._ The Angel of the uttermost\nOf all the shining, heavenly host,\n From the far-off expanse\nOf the Saturnian, endless space\nI bring the last, the crowning grace,\n The gift of Temperance!\n\n (_A sudden light shines from the windows of the stable\n in the village below._)\n\n\n\n\nIV. THE WISE MEN OF THE EAST.\n\n _The stable of the Inn. The_ VIRGIN _and_ CHILD.\n _Three Gypsy Kings,_ GASPAR, MELCHIOR, _and_ BELSHAZZAR,\n _shall come in._\n\n _Gaspar._ Hail to thee, Jesus of Nazareth!\nThough in a manger thou drawest thy breath,\nThou art greater than Life and Death,\n Greater than Joy or Woe!\nThis cross upon the line of life\nPortendeth struggle, toil, and strife,\nAnd through a region with dangers rife\n In darkness shall thou go!\n\n _Melchior._ Hail to thee, King of Jerusalem\nThough humbly born in Bethlehem,\nA sceptre and a diadem\n Await thy brow and hand!\nThe sceptre is a simple reed,\nThe crown will make thy temples bleed,\nAnd in thy hour of greatest need,\n Abashed thy subjects stand!\n\n_Belshazzar_. Hail to thee, Christ of Christendom!\nO'er all the earth thy kingdom come!\nFrom distant Trebizond to Rome\n Thy name shall men adore!\nPeace and good-will among all men,\nThe Virgin has returned again,\nReturned the old Saturnian reign\n And Golden Age once more.\n\n_The Child Christ_. Jesus, the Son of God, am I,\nBorn here to suffer and to die\nAccording to the prophecy,\n That other men may live!\n\n_The Virgin_. And now these clothes, that wrapped him, take\nAnd keep them precious, for his sake;\nFor benediction thus we make,\n Naught else have we to give.\n\n (_She gives them swaddling-clothes and they depart_.)\n\n\n\n\nV. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.\n\n\n_Here shall_ JOSEPH _come in, leading an ass, on which\nare seated_ MARY _and the_ CHILD.\n\n_Mary_. Here will we rest us, under these\nUnderhanging branches of the trees,\nWhere robins chant their Litanies,\n And canticles of joy.\n\n_Joseph_. My saddle-girths have given way\nWith trudging through the heat to-day\nTo you I think it is but play\n To ride and hold the boy.\n\n _Mary_. Hark! how the robins shout and sing,\nAs if to hail their infant King!\nI will alight at yonder spring\n To wash his little coat.\n\n _Joseph_. And I will hobble well the ass,\nLest, being loose upon the grass,\nHe should escape; for, by the mass.\n He is nimble as a goat.\n\n (_Here_ MARY _shall alight and go to the spring._)\n\n _Mary_. O Joseph! I am much afraid,\nFor men are sleeping in the shade;\nI fear that we shall be waylaid,\n And robbed and beaten sore!\n\n (_Here a band of robbers shall be seen sleeping, two of\n whom shall rise and come forward_.)\n\n _Dumachus_. Cock's soul! deliver up your gold!\n\n _Joseph_. I pray you, Sirs, let go your hold!\nOf wealth I have no store.\n\n _Dumachus_. Give up your money!\n\n _Titus_. Prithee cease!\nLet these good people go in peace!\n\n _Dumachus_. First let them pay for their release,\nAnd then go on their way.\n\n _Titus_. These forty groats I give in fee,\nIf thou wilt only silent be.\n\n _Mary_. May God be merciful to thee\nUpon the Judgment Day!\n\n _Jesus_. When thirty years shall have gone by,\nI at Jerusalem shall die,\nBy Jewish hands exalted high\n On the accursed tree.\nThen on my right and my left side,\nThese thieves shall both be crucified\nAnd Titus thenceforth shall abide\n In paradise with me.\n\n (_Here a great rumor of trumpets and horses, like the\n noise of a king with his army, and the robbers shall\n take flight._)\n\n\n\n\nVI. THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS.\n\n _King Herod._ Potz-tausend! Himmel-sacrament!\nFilled am I with great wonderment\n At this unwelcome news!\nAm I not Herod? Who shall dare\nMy crown to take, my sceptre bear,\n As king among the Jews?\n\n (_Here he shall stride up and down and flourish his sword._)\n\nWhat ho! I fain would drink a can\nOf the strong wine of Canaan!\n The wine of Helbon bring,\nI purchased at the Fair of Tyre,\nAs red as blood, as hot as fire,\n And fit for any king!\n\n (_He quaffs great goblets of wine._)\n\nNow at the window will I stand,\nWhile in the street the armed band\n The little children slay:\nThe babe just born in Bethlehem\nWill surely slaughtered be with them,\n Nor live another day!\n\n (_Here a voice of lamentation shall be heard in the street._)\n\n _Rachel._ O wicked king! O cruel speed!\nTo do this most unrighteous deed!\n My children all are slain!\n\n _Herod._ Ho seneschal! another cup!\nWith wine of Sorek fill it up!\n I would a bumper drain!\n\n _Rahab._ May maledictions fall and blast\nThyself and lineage, to the last\n Of all thy kith and kin!\n\n _Herod._ Another goblet! quick! and stir\nPomegranate juice and drops of myrrh\n And calamus therein!\n\n _Soldiers (in the street)_. Give up thy child into our hands!\nIt is King Herod who commands\n That he should thus be slain!\n\n _The Nurse Medusa._ O monstrous men! What have ye done!\nIt is King Herod's only son\n That ye have cleft in twain!\n\n _Herod._ Ah, luckless day! What words of fear\nAre these that smite upon my ear\n With such a doleful sound!\nWhat torments rack my heart and head!\nWould I were dead! would I were dead,\n And buried in the ground!\n\n (_He falls down and writhes as though eaten by worms.\n Hell opens, and_ SATAN _and_ ASTAROTH _come forth,\n and drag him down._)\n\n\n\n\nVII. JESUS AT PLAY WITH HIS SCHOOLMATES.\n\n _Jesus._ The shower is over. Let us play,\nAnd make some sparrows out of clay,\n Down by the river's side.\n\n _Judas._ See, how the stream has overflowed\nIts banks, and o'er the meadow road\n Is spreading far and wide!\n\n (_They draw water out of the river by channels, and\n form little pools_ JESUS _makes twelve sparrows of\n clay, and the other boys do the same._)\n\n _Jesus._ Look! look! how prettily I make\nThese little sparrows by the lake\n Bend down their necks and drink!\nNow will I make them sing and soar\nSo far, they shall return no more\n Into this river's brink.\n\n _Judas._ That canst thou not! They are but clay,\nThey cannot sing, nor fly away\n Above the meadow lands!\n\n _Jesus._ Fly, fly! ye sparrows! you are free!\nAnd while you live, remember me,\n Who made you with my hands.\n\n (_Here_ JESUS _shall clap his hands, and the sparrows\n shall fly away, chirruping._)\n\n _Judas._ Thou art a sorcerer, I know;\nOft has my mother told me so,\n I will not play with thee!\n\n (_He strikes_ JESUS _on the right side._)\n\n _Jesus._ Ah, Judas! thou has smote my side,\nAnd when I shall be crucified,\n There shall I pierced be!\n\n (_Here_ JOSEPH _shall come in, and say:_)\n\n _Joseph._ Ye wicked boys! why do ye play,\nAnd break the holy Sabbath day?\nWhat, think ye, will your mothers say\n To see you in such plight!\nIn such a sweat and such a heat,\nWith all that mud-upon your feet!\nThere's not a beggar in the street\n Makes such a sorry sight!\n\n\n\n\nVIII. THE VILLAGE SCHOOL.\n\n_The_ RABBI BEN ISRAEL, _with a long beard, sitting on\n a high stool, with a rod in his hand._\n\n _Rabbi._ I am the Rabbi Ben Israel,\nThroughout this village known full well,\nAnd, as my scholars all will tell,\n Learned in things divine;\nThe Kabala and Talmud hoar\nThan all the prophets prize I more,\nFor water is all Bible lore,\n But Mishna is strong wine.\n\nMy fame extends from West to East,\nAnd always, at the Purim feast,\nI am as drunk as any beast\n That wallows in his sty;\nThe wine it so elateth me,\nThat I no difference can see\nBetween \"Accursed Haman be!\"\n And \"Blessed be Mordecai!\"\n\nCome hither, Judas Iscariot.\nSay, if thy lesson thou hast got\nFrom the Rabbinical Book or not.\n Why howl the dogs at night?\n\n _Judas._ In the Rabbinical Book, it saith\nThe dogs howl, when with icy breath\nGreat Samma\u00ebl, the Angel of Death,\n Takes through the town his flight!\n\n _Rabbi._ Well, boy! now say, if thou art wise,\nWhen the Angel of Death, who is full of eyes,\nComes where a sick man dying lies,\n What doth he to the wight?\n\n _Judas._ He stands beside him, dark and tall,\nHolding a sword, from which doth fall\nInto his mouth a drop of gall,\n And so he turneth white.\n\n _Rabbi._ And now, my Judas, say to me\nWhat the great Voices Four may be,\nThat quite across the world do flee,\n And are not heard by men?\n\n _Judas._ The Voice of the Sun in heaven's dome,\nThe Voice of the Murmuring of Rome,\nThe Voice of a Soul that goeth home,\n And the Angel of the Rain!\n\n _Rabbi._ Well have ye answered every one\nNow little Jesus, the carpenter's son,\nLet us see how thy task is done.\n Canst thou thy letters say?\n\n _Jesus._ Aleph.\n\n _Rabbi._ What next? Do not stop yet!\nGo on with all the alphabet.\nCome, Aleph, Beth; dost thou forget?\n Cock's soul! thou'dst rather play!\n\n _Jesus._ What Aleph means I fain would know,\nBefore I any farther go!\n\n _Rabbi._ O, by Saint Peter! wouldst thou so?\nCome hither, boy, to me.\nAnd surely as the letter Jod\nOnce cried aloud, and spake to God,\nSo surely shalt thou feel this rod,\n And punished shalt thou be!\n\n (_Here_ RABBI BEN ISRAEL _shall lift up his rod to strike_\n JESUS, _and his right arm shall be paralyzed._)\n\n\n\n\nIX. CROWNED WITH FLOWERS.\n\nJESUS _sitting among his playmates, crowned with\nflowers as their King._\n\n _Boys._ We spread our garments on the ground'\nWith fragrant flowers thy head is crowned,\nWhile like a guard we stand around,\n And hail thee as our King!\nThou art the new King of the Jews!\nNor let the passers-by refuse\nTo bring that homage which men use\n To majesty to bring.\n\n (_Here a traveller shall go by, and the boys shall lay\n hold of his garments and say:_)\n\n _Boys._ Come hither! and all reverence pay\nUnto our monarch, crowned to-day!\nThen go rejoicing on your way,\n In all prosperity!\n\n _Traveller._ Hail to the King of Bethlehem,\nWho weareth in his diadem\nThe yellow crocus for the gem\n Of his authority!\n\n (_He passes by; and others come in, bearing on a litter\n a sick child._)\n\n _Boys._ Set down the litter and draw near!\nThe King of Bethlehem is here!\nWhat ails the child, who seems to fear\n That we shall do him harm?\n\n _The Bearers._ He climbed up to the robin's nest,\nAnd out there darted, from his rest,\nA serpent with a crimson crest,\n And stung him in the arm.\n\n _Jesus._ Bring him to me, and let me feel\nThe wounded place; my touch can heal\nThe sting of serpents, and can steal\n The poison from the bite!\n\n (_He touches the wound, and the boy begins to cry._)\n\nCease to lament! I can foresee\nThat thou hereafter known shalt be,\nAmong the men who follow me,\n As Simon the Canaanite!\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n EPILOGUE.\n\nIn the after part of the day\nWill be represented another play,\nOf the Passion of our Blessed Lord,\nBeginning directly after Nones!\nAt the close of which we shall accord,\nBy way of benison and reward,\nThe sight of a holy Martyr's bones!\n\n\n\n\nIV. THE ROAD HIRSCHAU.\n\nPRINCE HENRY _and_ ELSIE, _with their attendants, on\nhorseback._\n\n _Elsie._ Onward and onward the highway runs\n to the distant city, impatiently bearing\nTidings of human joy and disaster, of love and of\n hate, of doing and daring!\n\n _Prince Henry._ This life of ours is a wild aeolian\n harp of many a joyous strain,\nBut under them all there runs a loud perpetual wail,\n as of souls in pain.\n\n _Elsie._ Faith alone can interpret life, and the heart\n that aches and bleeds with the stigma\nOf pain, alone bears the likeness of Christ, and can\n comprehend its dark enigma.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Man is selfish, and seeketh pleasure\n with little care of what may betide;\nElse why am I travelling here beside thee, a demon\n that rides by an angel's side?\n\n _Elsie._ All the hedges are white with dust, and\n the great dog under the creaking wain\nHangs his head in the lazy heat, while onward the\n horses toil and strain\n\n _Prince Henry._ Now they stop at the wayside inn,\n and the wagoner laughs with the landlord's daughter,\nWhile out of the dripping trough the horses distend\n their leathern sides with water.\n\n _Elsie._ All through life there are wayside inns,\n where man may refresh his soul with love;\nEven the lowest may quench his thirst at rivulets fed\n by springs from above.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Yonder, where rises the cross of\n stone, our journey along the highway ends,\nAnd over the fields, by a bridle path, down into the\n broad green valley descends.\n\n _Elsie._ I am not sorry to leave behind the beaten\n road with its dust and heat;\nThe air will be sweeter far, and the turf will be softer\n under our horses' feet.\n\n (_They turn down a green lane._)\n\n _Elsie._ Sweet is the air with the budding haws,\n and the valley stretching for miles below\nIs white with blossoming cheery trees, as if just covered\n with lightest snow.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Over our heads a white cascade is\n gleaming against the distant hill;\nWe cannot hear it, nor see it move, but it hangs like\n a banner when winds are still.\n\n _Elsie._ Damp and cool is this deep ravine, and\n cool the sound of the brook by our side!\nWhat is this castle that rises above us, and lords it\n over a land so wide?\n\n_Prince Henry._ It is the home of the Counts of\n Calva; well have I known these scenes of old,\nWell I remember each tower and turret, remember the\n brooklet, the wood, and the wold.\n\n _Elsie._ Hark! from the little village below us the\n bells of the church are ringing for rain!\nPriests and peasants in long procession come forth\n and kneel on the arid plain.\n\n _Prince Henry._ They have not long to wait, for I\n see in the south uprising a little cloud,\nThat before the sun shall be set will cover the sky\n above us as with a shroud.\n\n (_They pass on._)\n\n * * * * *\n\n\nTHE CONVENT OF HIRSCHAU IN THE\nBLACK FOREST.\n\n * * * * *\n\n_The Convent cellar._ FRIAR CLAUS _comes in with a\nlight and a basket of empty flagons._\n\n _Friar Claus._ I always enter this sacred place\nWith a thoughtful, solemn, and reverent pace,\nPausing long enough on each stair\nTo breathe an ejaculatory prayer,\nAnd a benediction on the vines\nThat produce these various sorts of wines!\n\nFor my part, I am well content\nThat we have got through with the tedious Lent!\nFasting is all very well for those\nWho have to contend with invisible foes;\nBut I am quite sure it does not agree\nWith a quiet, peaceable man like me,\nWho am not of that nervous and meagre kind\nThat are always distressed in body and mind!\nAnd at times it really does me good\nTo come down among this brotherhood,\nDwelling forever under ground,\nSilent, contemplative, round and sound;\nEach one old, and brown with mould,\nBut filled to the lips with the ardor of youth,\nWith the latent power and love of truth,\nAnd with virtues fervent and manifold.\n\nI have heard it said, that at Easter-tide,\nWhen buds are swelling on every side,\nAnd the sap begins to move in the vine.\nThen in all the cellars, far and wide,\nThe oldest, as well as the newest, wine\nBegins to stir itself, and ferment,\nWith a kind of revolt and discontent\nAt being so long in darkness pent,\nAnd fain would burst from its sombre tun\nTo bask on the hillside in the sun;\nAs in the bosom of us poor friars,\nThe tumult of half-subdued desires\nFor the world that we have left behind\nDisturbs at times all peace of mind!\nAnd now that we have lived through Lent,\nMy duty it is, as often before,\nTo open awhile the prison-door,\nAnd give these restless spirits vent.\n\nNow here is a cask that stands alone,\nAnd has stood a hundred years or more,\nIts beard of cobwebs, long and hoar,\nTrailing and sweeping along the floor,\nLike Barbarossa, who sits in his cave,\nTaciturn, sombre, sedate, and grave,\nTill his beard has grown through the table of stone!\nIt is of the quick and not of the dead!\nIn its veins the blood is hot and red,\nAnd a heart still beats in those ribs of oak\nThat time may have tamed, but has not broke;\nIt comes from Bacharach on the Rhine,\nIs one of the three best kinds of wine,\nAnd costs some hundred florins the ohm;\nBut that I do not consider dear,\nWhen I remember that every year\nFour butts are sent to the Pope of Rome.\nAnd whenever a goblet thereof I drain,\nThe old rhyme keeps running in my brain:\n\n At Bacharach on the Rhine,\n At Hochheim on the Main,\n And at W\u00fcrzburg on the Stein,\n Grow the three best kinds of wine!\n\nThey are all good wines, and better far\nThan those of the Neckar, or those of the Ahr\nIn particular, W\u00fcrzburg well may boast\nOf its blessed wine of the Holy Ghost,\nWhich of all wines I like the most.\nThis I shall draw for the Abbot's drinking,\nWho seems to be much of my way of thinking.\n\n (_Fills a flagon._)\n\nAh! how the streamlet laughs and sings!\nWhat a delicious fragrance springs\nFrom the deep flagon, while it fills,\nAs of hyacinths and daffodils!\nBetween this cask and the Abbot's lips\nMany have been the sips and slips;\nMany have been the draughts of wine,\nOn their way to his, that have stopped at mine;\nAnd many a time my soul has hankered\nFor a deep draught out of his silver tankard,\nWhen it should have been busy with other affairs,\nLess with its longings and more with its prayers.\nBut now there is no such awkward condition,\nNo danger of death and eternal perdition;\nSo here's to the Abbot and Brothers all,\nWho dwell in this convent of Peter and Paul!\n\n (_He drinks._)\n\nO cordial delicious! O soother of pain!\nIt flashes like sunshine into my brain!\nA benison rest on the Bishop who sends\nSuch a fudder of wine as this to his friends!\n\nAnd now a flagon for such as may ask\nA draught from the noble Bacharach cask,\nAnd I will be gone, though I know full well\nThe cellar's a cheerfuller place than the cell.\nBehold where he stands, all sound and good,\nBrown and old in his oaken hood;\nSilent he seems externally\nAs any Carthusian monk may be;\nBut within, what a spirit of deep unrest!\nWhat a seething and simmering in his breast!\nAs if the heaving of his great heart\nWould burst his belt of oak apart!\nLet me unloose this button of wood,\nAnd quiet a little his turbulent mood.\n\n (_Sets it running._)\n\nSee! how its currents gleam and shine,\nAs if they had caught the purple hues\nOf autumn sunsets on the Rhine,\nDescending and mingling with the dews;\nOr as if the grapes were stained with the blood\nOf the innocent boy, who, some years back,\nWas taken and crucified by the Jews,\nIn that ancient town of Bacharach;\nPerdition upon those infidel Jews,\nIn that ancient town of Bacharach!\nThe beautiful town, that gives us wine\nWith the fragrant odor of Muscadine!\nI should deem it wrong to let this pass\nWithout first touching my lips to the glass,\nFor here in the midst of the current I stand,\nLike the stone Pfalz in the midst of the river\nTaking toll upon either hand,\nAnd much more grateful to the giver.\n\n (_He drinks._)\n\nHere, now, is a very inferior kind,\nSuch as in any town you may find,\nSuch as one might imagine would suit\nThe rascal who drank wine out of a boot,\nAnd, after all, it was not a crime,\nFor he won thereby Dorf H\u00fcffelsheim.\nA jolly old toper! who at a pull\nCould drink a postilion's jack boot full,\nAnd ask with a laugh, when that was done,\nIf the fellow had left the other one!\nThis wine is as good as we can afford\nTo the friars, who sit at the lower board,\nAnd cannot distinguish bad from good,\nAnd are far better off than if they could,\nBeing rather the rude disciples of beer\nThan of anything more refined and dear!\n\n (_Fills the other flagon and departs._)\n\n * * * * *\n\n\nTHE SCRIPTORIUM.\n\nFRIAR PACIFICUS _transcribing and illuminating._\n\n _Friar Pacificus_ It is growing dark! Yet one line more,\nAnd then my work for today is o'er.\nI come again to the name of the Lord!\nEre I that awful name record,\nThat is spoken so lightly among men,\nLet me pause awhile, and wash my pen;\nPure from blemish and blot must it be\nWhen it writes that word of mystery!\n\nThus have I labored on and on,\nNearly through the Gospel of John.\nCan it be that from the lips\nOf this same gentle Evangelist,\nThat Christ himself perhaps has kissed,\nCame the dread Apocalypse!\nIt has a very awful look,\nAs it stands there at the end of the book,\nLike the sun in an eclipse.\nAh me! when I think of that vision divine,\nThink of writing it, line by line,\nI stand in awe of the terrible curse,\nLike the trump of doom, in the closing verse!\nGod forgive me! if ever I\nTake aught from the book of that Prophecy,\nLest my part too should be taken away\nFrom the Book of Life on the Judgment Day.\n\nThis is well written, though I say it!\nI should not be afraid to display it,\nIn open day, on the selfsame shelf\nWith the writings of St Thecla herself,\nOr of Theodosius, who of old\nWrote the Gospels in letters of gold!\nThat goodly folio standing yonder,\nWithout a single blot or blunder,\nWould not bear away the palm from mine,\nIf we should compare them line for line.\n\nThere, now, is an initial letter!\nKing Ren\u00e9 himself never made a better!\nFinished down to the leaf and the snail,\nDown to the eyes on the peacock's tail!\nAnd now, as I turn the volume over,\nAnd see what lies between cover and cover,\nWhat treasures of art these pages hold,\nAll ablaze with crimson and gold,\nGod forgive me! I seem to feel\nA certain satisfaction steal\nInto my heart, and into my brain,\nAs if my talent had not lain\nWrapped in a napkin, and all in vain.\nYes, I might almost say to the Lord,\nHere is a copy of thy Word,\nWritten out with much toil and pain;\nTake it, O Lord, and let it be\nAs something I have done for thee!\n\n (_He looks from the window._)\n\nHow sweet the air is! How fair the scene!\nI wish I had as lovely a green\nTo paint my landscapes and my leaves!\nHow the swallows twitter under the eaves!\nThere, now, there is one in her nest;\nI can just catch a glimpse of her head and breast,\nAnd will sketch her thus, in her quiet nook,\nIn the margin of my Gospel book.\n\n (_He makes a sketch._)\n\nI can see no more. Through the valley yonder\nA shower is passing; I hear the thunder\nMutter its curses in the air,\nThe Devil's own and only prayer!\nThe dusty road is brown with rain,\nAnd speeding on with might and main,\nHitherward rides a gallant train.\nThey do not parley, they cannot wait,\nBut hurry in at the convent gate.\nWhat a fair lady! and beside her\nWhat a handsome, graceful, noble rider!\nNow she gives him her hand to alight;\nThey will beg a shelter for the night.\nI will go down to the corridor,\nAnd try to see that face once more;\nIt will do for the face of some beautiful Saint,\nOr for one of the Maries I shall paint.\n\n (_Goes out._)\n\n * * * * *\n\n\nTHE CLOISTERS.\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n_The_ ABBOT ERNESTUS _pacing to and fro._\n\n _Abbot._ Slowly, slowly up the wall\nSteals the sunshine, steals the shade;\nEvening damps begin to fall,\nEvening shadows are displayed.\nRound me, o'er me, everywhere,\nAll the sky is grand with clouds,\nAnd athwart the evening air\nWheel the swallows home in crowds.\nShafts of sunshine from the west\nPaint the dusky windows red;\nDarker shadows, deeper rest,\nUnderneath and overhead.\nDarker, darker, and more wan,\nIn my breast the shadows fall;\nUpward steals the life of man,\nAs the sunshine from the wall.\nFrom the wall into the sky,\nFrom the roof along the spire;\nAh, the souls of those that die\nAre but sunbeams lifted higher.\n\n (_Enter_ PRINCE HENRY.)\n\n _Prince Henry._ Christ is arisen!\n\n _Abbot._ Amen! he is arisen!\nHis peace be with you!\n\n _Prince Henry._ Here it reigns forever!\nThe peace of God, that passeth understanding,\nReigns in these cloisters and these corridors,\nAre you Ernestus, Abbot of the convent?\n\n _Abbot._ I am.\n\n _Prince Henry._ And I Prince Henry of Hoheneck,\nWho crave your hospitality to-night.\n\n _Abbot._ You are thrice welcome to our humble walls.\nYou do us honor; and we shall requite it,\nI fear, but poorly, entertaining you\nWith Paschal eggs, and our poor convent wine,\nThe remnants of our Easter holidays.\n\n _Prince Henry._ How fares it with the holy monks of Hirschau?\nAre all things well with them?\n\n _Abbot._ All things are well.\n\n _Prince Henry._ A noble convent! I have known it long\nBy the report of travellers. I now see\nTheir commendations lag behind the truth.\nYou lie here in the valley of the Nagold\nAs in a nest: and the still river, gliding\nAlong its bed, is like an admonition\nHow all things pass. Your lands are rich and ample,\nAnd your revenues large. God's benediction\nRests on your convent.\n\n _Abbot._ By our charities\nWe strive to merit it. Our Lord and Master,\nWhen he departed, left us in his will,\nAs our best legacy on earth, the poor!\nThese we have always with us; had we not,\nOur hearts would grow as hard as are these stones.\n\n _Prince Henry._ If I remember right, the Counts of Calva\nFounded your convent.\n\n _Abbot._ Even as you say.\n\n _Prince Henry._ And, if I err not, it is very old.\n\n _Abbot._ Within these cloisters lie already buried\nTwelve holy Abbots. Underneath the flags\nOn which we stand, the Abbot William lies,\nOf blessed memory.\n\n _Prince Henry._ And whose tomb is that,\nWhich bears the brass escutcheon?\n\n _Abbot._ A benefactor's.\nConrad, a Count of Calva, he who stood\nGodfather to our bells.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Your monks are learned\nAnd holy men, I trust.\n\n _Abbot._ There are among them\nLearned and holy men. Yet in this age\nWe need another Hildebrand, to shake\nAnd purify us like a mighty wind.\nThe world is wicked, and sometimes I wonder\nGod does not lose his patience with it wholly,\nAnd shatter it like glass! Even here, at times,\nWithin these walls, where all should be at peace,\nI have my trials. Time has laid his hand\nUpon my heart, gently, not smiting it,\nBut as a harper lays his open palm\nUpon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.\nAshes are on my head, and on my lips\nSackcloth, and in my breast a heaviness\nAnd weariness of life, that makes me ready\nTo say to the dead Abbots under us,\n\"Make room for me!\" Only I see the dusk\nOf evening twilight coming, and have not\nCompleted half my task; and so at times\nThe thought of my shortcomings in this life\nFalls like a shadow on the life to come.\n\n _Prince Henry._ We must all die, and not the old alone;\nThe young have no exemption from that doom.\n\n _Abbot._ Ah, yes! the young may die, but the old must!\nThat is the difference.\n\n _Prince Henry._ I have heard much laud\nOf your transcribers. Your Scriptorium\nIs famous among all, your manuscripts\nPraised for their beauty and their excellence.\n\n _Abbot._ That is indeed our boast. If you desire it,\nYou shall behold these treasures. And meanwhile\nShall the Refectorarius bestow\nYour horses and attendants for the night.\n\n (_They go in. The Vesper-bell rings._)\n\n * * * * *\n\nTHE CHAPEL.\n\n * * * * *\n\n_Vespers; after which the monks retire, a chorister\nleading an old monk who is blind_.\n\n _Prince Henry._ They are all gone, save one who lingers,\nAbsorbed in deep and silent prayer.\nAs if his heart could find no rest,\nAt times he beats his heaving breast\nWith clenched and convulsive fingers,\nThen lifts them trembling in the air.\nA chorister, with golden hair,\nGuides hitherward his heavy pace.\nCan it be so? Or does my sight\nDeceive me in the uncertain light?\nAh no! I recognize that face,\nThough Time has touched it in his flight,\nAnd changed the auburn hair to white.\nIt is Count Hugo of the Rhine,\nThe deadliest foe of all our race,\nAnd hateful unto me and mine!\n\n _The Blind Monk_. Who is it that doth stand so near\nHis whispered words I almost hear?\n\n _Prince Henry_. I am Prince Henry of Hoheneck,\nAnd you, Count Hugo of the Rhine!\nI know you, and I see the scar,\nThe brand upon your forehead, shine\nAnd redden like a baleful star!\n\n _The Blind Monk_. Count Hugo once, but now the wreck\nOf what I was. O Hoheneck!\nThe passionate will, the pride, the wrath\nThat bore me headlong on my path,\nStumbled and staggered into fear,\nAnd failed me in my mad career,\nAs a tired steed some evil-doer,\nAlone upon a desolate moor,\nBewildered, lost, deserted, blind,\nAnd hearing loud and close behind\nThe o'ertaking steps of his pursuer.\nThen suddenly, from the dark there came\nA voice that called me by my name,\nAnd said to me, \"Kneel down and pray!\"\nAnd so my terror passed away,\nPassed utterly away forever.\nContrition, penitence, remorse,\nCame on me, with o'erwhelming force;\nA hope, a longing, an endeavor,\nBy days of penance and nights of prayer,\nTo frustrate and defeat despair!\nCalm, deep, and still is now my heart.\nWith tranquil waters overflowed;\nA lake whose unseen fountains start,\nWhere once the hot volcano glowed.\nAnd you, O Prince of Hoheneck!\nHave known me in that earlier time,\nA man of violence and crime,\nWhose passions brooked no curb nor check.\nBehold me now, in gentler mood,\nOne of this holy brotherhood.\nGive me your hand; here let me kneel;\nMake your reproaches sharp as steel;\nSpurn me, and smite me on each cheek;\nNo violence can harm the meek,\nThere is no wound Christ cannot heal!\nYes; lift your princely hand, and take\nRevenge, if 't is revenge you seek,\nThen pardon me, for Jesus' sake!\n\n _Prince Henry._ Arise, Count Hugo! let there be\nNo farther strife nor enmity\nBetween us twain; we both have erred!\nToo rash in act, too wroth in word,\nFrom the beginning have we stood\nIn fierce, defiant attitude,\nEach thoughtless of the other's right,\nAnd each reliant on his might.\nBut now our souls are more subdued;\nThe hand of God, and not in vain,\nHas touched us with the fire of pain.\nLet us kneel down, and side by side\nPray, till our souls are purified,\nAnd pardon will not be denied!\n\n (_They kneel._)\n\n * * * * *\n\nTHE REFECTORY.\n\n * * * * *\n\n_Gaudiolum of Monks at midnight. LUCIFER disguised\nas a Friar._\n\n_Friar Paul (sings)._ Ave! color vini clari,\n Dulcis potus, non aman,\n Tua nos inebriari\n Digneris potentia!\n\n _Friar Cuthbert._ Not so much noise, my worthy freres,\nYou'll disturb the Abbot at his prayers.\n\n _Friar Paul (sings)._ O! quam placens in colore!\n O! quam fragrans in odore!\n O! quam sapidum in ore!\n Dulce linguse vinculum!\n\n _Friar Cuthbert._ I should think your tongue had\nbroken its chain!\n\n _Friar Paul (sings)._ Felix venter quern intrabis!\n Felix guttur quod rigabis!\n Felix os quod tu lavabis!\n Et beata labia!\n\n _Friar Cuthbert._ Peace! I say, peace!\nWill you never cease!\nYou will rouse up the Abbot, I tell you again!\n\n _Friar John._ No danger! to-night he will let us alone,\nAs I happen to know he has guests of his own.\n\n _Friar Cuthbert._ Who are they?\n\n _Friar John._ A German Prince and his train,\nWho arrived here just before the rain.\nThere is with him a damsel fair to see,\nAs slender and graceful as a reed!\nWhen she alighted from her steed,\nIt seemed like a blossom blown from a tree.\n\n _Friar Cuthbert._ None of your pale-faced girls for me!\n\n\n (_Kisses the girl at his side_.)\n\n _Friar John._ Come, old fellow, drink down to your peg!\ndo not drink any farther, I beg!\n\n _Friar Paul (sings)._ In the days of gold,\n The days of old,\n Cross of wood\n And bishop of gold!\n\n _Friar Cuthbert (to the girl)._ What an infernal racket and din!\nNo need not blush so, that's no sin.\nYou look very holy in this disguise,\nThough there's something wicked in your eyes!\n\n _Friar Paul (continues.)_ Now we have changed\n That law so good,\n To cross of gold\n And bishop of wood!\n\n _Friar Cuthbert._ I like your sweet face under a hood.\nSister! how came you into this way?\n\n _Girl._ It was you, Friar Cuthbert, who led me astray.\nHave you forgotten that day in June,\nWhen the church was so cool in the afternoon,\nAnd I came in to confess my sins?\nThat is where my ruin begins.\n\n _Friar John._ What is the name of yonder friar,\nWith an eye that glows like a coal of fire,\nAnd such a black mass of tangled hair?\n\n _Friar Paul._ He who is sitting there,\nWith a rollicking,\nDevil may care,\nFree and easy look and air,\nAs if he were used to such feasting and frollicking?\n\n _Friar John._ The same.\n\n _Friar Paul._ He's a stranger. You had better ask his name,\nAnd where he is going, and whence he came.\n\n _Friar John._ Hallo! Sir Friar!\n\n _Friar Paul._ You must raise your voice a little higher,\nHe does not seem to hear what you say.\nNow, try again! He is looking this way.\n\n _Friar John._ Hallo! Sir Friar,\nWe wish to inquire\nWhence you came, and where you are going,\nAnd anything else that is worth the knowing.\nSo be so good as to open your head.\n\n _Lucifer._ I am a Frenchman born and bred,\nGoing on a pilgrimage to Rome.\nMy home\nIs the convent of St. Gildas de Rhuys,\nOf which, very like, you never have heard.\n\n _Monks._ Never a word!\n\n _Lucifer._ You must know, then, it is in the diocese\nCalled the Diocese of Vannes,\nIn the province of Brittany.\nFrom the gray rocks of Morbihan\nIt overlooks the angry sea;\nThe very seashore where,\nIn his great despair,\nAbbot Abelard walked to and fro,\nFilling the night with woe,\nAnd wailing aloud to the merciless seas\nThe name of his sweet Heloise!\nWhilst overhead\nThe convent windows gleamed as red\nAs the fiery eyes of the monks within,\nWho with jovial din\nGave themselves up to all kinds of sin!\nHa! that is a convent! that is an abbey!\nOver the doors,\nNone of your death-heads carved in wood,\nNone of your Saints looking pious and good,\nNone of your Patriarchs old and shabby!\nBut the heads and tusks of boars,\nAnd the cells\nHung all round with the fells\nof the fallow-deer,\nAnd then what cheer!\nWhat jolly, fat friars,\nSitting round the great, roaring fires,\nRoaring louder than they,\nWith their strong wines,\nAnd their concubines,\nAnd never a bell,\nWith its swagger and swell,\nCalling you up with a start of affright\nIn the dead of night,\nTo send you grumbling down dark stairs,\nTo mumble your prayers,\nBut the cheery crow\nOf cocks in the yard below,\nAfter daybreak, an hour or so,\nAnd the barking of deep-mouthed hounds,\nThese are the sounds\nThat, instead of bells, salute the ear.\nAnd then all day\nUp and away\nThrough the forest, hunting the deer!\nAh, my friends! I'm afraid that here\nYou are a little too pious, a little too tame,\nAnd the more is the shame,\nIt is the greatest folly\nNot to be jolly;\nThat's what I think!\nCome, drink, drink,\nDrink, and die game!\n\n _Monks,_ And your Abbot What's-his-name?\n\n _Lucifer._ Abelard!\n\n _Monks._ Did he drink hard?\n\n _Lucifer._ O, no! Not he!\nHe was a dry old fellow,\nWithout juice enough to get thoroughly mellow.\nThere he stood,\nLowering at us in sullen mood,\nAs if he had come into Brittany\nJust to reform our brotherhood!\n\n (_A roar of laughter_.)\n\nBut you see\nIt never would do!\nFor some of us knew a thing or two,\nIn the Abbey of St. Gildas de Rhuys!\nFor instance, the great ado\nWith old Fulbert's niece,\nThe young and lovely Heloise!\n\n _Friar John._ Stop there, if you please,\nTill we drink to the fair Heloise.\n\n _All (drinking and shouting)._ Heloise! Heloise!\n\n (_The Chapel-bell tolls_.)\n\n _Lucifer (starting)._ What is that bell for? Are you such asses\nAs to keep up the fashion of midnight masses?\n\n_Friar Cuthbert._ It is only a poor, unfortunate brother,\nWho is gifted with most miraculous powers\nOf getting up at all sorts of hours,\nAnd, by way of penance and Christian meekness,\nOf creeping silently out of his cell\nTo take a pull at that hideous bell;\nSo that all the monks who are lying awake\nMay murmur some kind of prayer for his sake,\nAnd adapted to his peculiar weakness!\n\n _Friar John._ From frailty and fall--\n\n _All._ Good Lord, deliver us all!\n\n _Friar Cuthbert._ And before the bell for matins sounds,\nHe takes his lantern, and goes the rounds,\nFlashing it into our sleepy eyes,\nMerely to say it is time to arise.\nBut enough of that. Go on, if you please,\nWith your story about St. Gildas de Rhuys.\n\n _Lucifer._ Well, it finally came to pass\nThat, half in fun and half in malice,\nOne Sunday at Mass\nWe put some poison into the chalice.\nBut, either by accident or design,\nPeter Abelard kept away\nFrom the chapel that day,\nAnd a poor, young friar, who in his stead\nDrank the sacramental wine,\nFell on the steps of the altar, dead!\nBut look! do you see at the window there\nThat face, with a look of grief and despair,\nThat ghastly face, as of one in pain?\n\n _Monks._ Who? where?\n\n _Lucifer._ As I spoke, it vanished away again.\n\n _Friar Cuthbert._ It is that nefarious\nSiebald the Refectorarius.\nThat fellow is always playing the scout,\nCreeping and peeping and prowling about;\nAnd then he regales\nThe Abbot with Scandalous tales.\n\n _Lucifer_. A spy in the convent? One of the brothers\nTelling scandalous tales of the others?\nOut upon him, the lazy loon!\nI would put a stop to that pretty soon,\nIn a way he should rue it.\n\n _Monks_. How shall we do it?\n\n _Lucifer_. Do you, brother Paul,\nCreep under the window, close to the wall,\nAnd open it suddenly when I call.\nThen seize the villain by the hair,\nAnd hold him there,\nAnd punish him soundly, once for all.\n\n _Friar Cuthbert_. As St. Dustan of old,\nWe are told,\nOnce caught the Devil by the nose!\n\n _Lucifer_. Ha! ha! that story is very clever,\nBut has no foundation whatsoever.\nQuick! for I see his face again\nGlaring in at the window pane;\nNow! now! and do not spare your blows.\n\n (FRIAR PAUL _opens the window suddenly, and seizes_\n SIEBALD. _They beat him._)\n\n _Friar Siebald_. Help! help! are you going to slay me?\n\n _Friar Paul_. That will teach you again to betray me!\n\n _Friar Siebald_. Mercy! mercy!\n\n _Friar Paul_ (_shouting and beating_). Rumpas bellorum lorum,\n Vim confer amorum\n Morum verorum, rorun.\n Tu plena polorum!\n\n _Lucifer_. Who stands in the doorway yonder,\nStretching out his trembling hand,\nJust as Abelard used to stand,\nThe flash of his keen, black eyes\nForerunning the thunder?\n\n _The Monks (in confusion)_. The Abbot! the\nAbbot!\n\n _Friar Cuthbert (to the girl)_. Put on your disguise!\n\n _Friar Francis_. Hide the great flagon\nFrom the eyes of the dragon!\n\n _Friar Cuthbert_. Pull the brown hood over your face,\nLest you bring me into disgrace!\n\n _Abbot_. What means this revel and carouse?\nIs this a tavern and drinking-house?\nAre you Christian monks, or heathen devils,\nTo pollute this convent with your revels?\nWere Peter Damian still upon earth,\nTo be shocked by such ungodly mirth,\nHe would write your names, with pen of gall,\nIn his Book of Gomorrah, one and all!\nAway, you drunkards! to your cells,\nAnd pray till you hear the matin-bells;\nYou, Brother Francis, and you, Brother Paul!\nAnd as a penance mark each prayer\nWith the scourge upon your shoulders bare;\nNothing atones for such a sin\nBut the blood that follows the discipline.\nAnd you, Brother Cuthbert, come with me\nAlone into the sacristy;\nYou, who should be a guide to your brothers,\nAnd are ten times worse than all the others,\nFor you I've a draught that has long been brewing\nYou shall do a penance worth the doing!\nAway to your prayers, then, one and all!\nI wonder the very, convent wall\nDoes not crumble and crush you in its fall!\n\n * * * * *\n\n\nTHE NEIGHBORING NUNNERY.\n\n * * * * *\n\n_The_ ABBESS IRMINGARD _sitting with_ ELSIE _in the\nmoonlight._\n\n _Irmingard_ The night is silent, the wind is still,\nThe moon is looking from yonder hill\nDown upon convent, and grove, and garden;\nThe clouds have passed away from her face,\nLeaving behind them no sorrowful trace,\nOnly the tender and quiet grace\nOf one, whose heart had been healed with pardon!\n\nAnd such am I. My soul within\nWas dark with passion and soiled with sin.\nBut now its wounds are healed again;\nGone are the anguish, the terror, and pain;\nFor across that desolate land of woe,\nO'er whose burning sands I was forced to go,\nA wind from heaven began to blow;\nAnd all my being trembled and shook,\nAs the leaves of the tree, or the grass of the field,\nAnd I was healed, as the sick are healed,\nWhen fanned by the leaves of the Holy Book!\n\nAs thou sittest in the moonlight there,\nIts glory flooding thy golden hair,\nAnd the only darkness that which lies\nIn the haunted chambers of thine eyes,\nI feel my soul drawn unto thee,\nStrangely, and strongly, and more and more,\nAs to one I have known and loved before;\nFor every soul is akin to me\nThat dwells in the land of mystery!\nI am the Lady Irmingard,\nBorn of a noble race and name!\nMany a wandering Suabian bard,\nWhose life was dreary, and bleak, and hard,\nHas found through me the way to fame.\nBrief and bright were those days, and the night\nWhich followed was full of a lurid light.\nLove, that of every woman's heart\nWill have the whole, and not a part,\nThat is to her, in Nature's plan,\nMore than ambition is to man,\nHer light, her life, her very breath,\nWith no alternative but death,\nFound me a maiden soft and young,\nJust from the convent's cloistered school,\nAnd seated on my lowly stool,\nAttentive while the minstrels sung.\n\nGallant, graceful, gentle, tall,\nFairest, noblest, best of all,\nWas Walter of the Vogelweid,\nAnd, whatsoever may betide,\nStill I think of him with pride!\nHis song was of the summer-time\nThe very birds sang in his rhyme;\nThe sunshine, the delicious air,\nThe fragrance of the flowers, were there,\nAnd I grew restless as I heard,\nRestless and buoyant as a bird,\nDown soft, a\u00ebrial currents sailing,\nO'er blossomed orchards, and fields in bloom,\nAnd through the momentary gloom\nOf shadows o'er the landscape trailing,\nYielding and borne I knew not where,\nBut feeling resistance unavailing.\n\nAnd thus, unnoticed and apart,\nAnd more by accident than choice.\nI listened to that single voice\nUntil the chambers of my heart\nWere filled with it by night and day,\nOne night,--it was a night in May,--\nWithin the garden, unawares,\nUnder the blossoms in the gloom,\nI heard it utter my own name\nWith protestations and wild prayers;\nAnd it rang through me, and became\nLike the archangel's trump of doom,\nWhich the soul hears, and must obey;\nAnd mine arose as from a tomb.\nMy former life now seemed to me\nSuch as hereafter death may be,\nWhen in the great Eternity\nWe shall awake and find it day.\n\nIt was a dream, and would not stay;\nA dream, that in a single night\nFaded and vanished out of sight.\nMy father's anger followed fast\nThis passion, as a freshening blast\nSeeks out and fans the fire, whose rage\nIt may increase, but not assuage.\nAnd he exclaimed: \"No wandering bard\nShall win thy hand, O Irmingard!\nFor which Prince Henry of Hoheneck\nBy messenger and letter sues.\"\n\nGently, but firmly, I replied:\n\"Henry of Hoheneck I discard!\nNever the hand of Irmingard\nShall lie in his as the hand of a bride!\"\nThis said I, Walter, for thy sake:\nThis said I, for I could not choose.\nAfter a pause, my father spake\nIn that cold and deliberate tone\nWhich turns the hearer into stone,\nAnd seems itself the act to be\nThat follows with such dread certainty;\n\"This, or the cloister and the veil!\"\nNo other words than these he said,\nBut they were like a funeral wail;\nMy life was ended, my heart was dead.\n\nThat night from the castle-gate went down,\nWith silent, slow, and stealthy pace,\nTwo shadows, mounted on shadowy steeds,\nTaking the narrow path that leads\nInto the forest dense and brown,\nIn the leafy darkness of the place,\nOne could not distinguish form nor face,\nOnly a bulk without a shape,\nA darker shadow in the shade;\nOne scarce could say it moved or stayed,\nThus it was we made our escape!\nA foaming brook, with many a bound,\nFollowed us like a playful hound;\nThen leaped before us, and in the hollow\nPaused, and waited for us to follow,\nAnd seemed impatient, and afraid\nThat our tardy flight should be betrayed\nBy the sound our horses' hoof-beats made,\nAnd when we reached the plain below,\nHe paused a moment and drew rein\nTo look back at the castle again;\nAnd we saw the windows all aglow\nWith lights, that were passing to and fro;\nOur hearts with terror ceased to beat;\nThe brook crept silent to our feet;\nWe knew what most we feared to know.\nThen suddenly horns began to blow;\nAnd we heard a shout, and a heavy tramp,\nAnd our horses snorted in the damp\nNight-air of the meadows green and wide,\nAnd in a moment, side by side,\nSo close, they must have seemed but one,\nThe shadows across the moonlight run,\nAnd another came, and swept behind,\nLike the shadow of clouds before the wind!\n\nHow I remember that breathless flight\nAcross the moors, in the summer night!\nHow under our feet the long, white road\nBackward like a river flowed,\nSweeping with it fences and hedges,\nWhilst farther away, and overhead,\nPaler than I, with fear and dread,\nThe moon fled with us, as we fled\nAlong the forest's jagged edges!\n\nAll this I can remember well;\nBut of what afterward befell\nI nothing farther can recall\nThan a blind, desperate, headlong fall;\nThe rest is a blank and darkness all.\nWhen I awoke out of this swoon,\nThe sun was shining, not the moon,\nMaking a cross upon the wall\nWith the bars of my windows narrow and tall;\nAnd I prayed to it, as I had been wont to pray,\nFrom early childhood, day by day,\nEach morning, as in bed I lay!\nI was lying again in my own room!\nAnd I thanked God, in my fever and pain,\nThat those shadows on the midnight plain\nWere gone, and could not come again!\nI struggled no longer with my doom!\nThis happened many years ago.\nI left my father's home to come\nLike Catherine to her martyrdom,\nFor blindly I esteemed it so.\nAnd when I heard the convent door\nBehind me close, to ope no more,\nI felt it smite me like a blow,\nThrough all my limbs a shudder ran,\nAnd on my bruised spirit fell\nThe dampness of my narrow cell\nAs night-air on a wounded man,\nGiving intolerable pain.\n\nBut now a better life began,\nI felt the agony decrease\nBy slow degrees, then wholly cease,\nEnding in perfect rest and peace!\nIt was not apathy, nor dulness,\nThat weighed and pressed upon my brain,\nBut the same passion I had given\nTo earth before, now turned to heaven\nWith all its overflowing fulness.\n\nAlas! the world is full of peril!\nThe path that runs through the fairest meads,\nOn the sunniest side of the valley, leads\nInto a region bleak and sterile!\nAlike in the high-born and the lowly,\nThe will is feeble, and passion strong.\nWe cannot sever right from wrong;\nSome falsehood mingles with all truth;\nNor is it strange the heart of youth\nShould waver and comprehend but slowly\nThe things that are holy and unholy!\n\nBut in this sacred and calm retreat,\nWe are all well and safely shielded\nFrom winds that blow, and waves that beat,\nFrom the cold, and rain, and blighting heat,\nTo which the strongest hearts have yielded.\nHere we stand as the Virgins Seven,\nFor our celestial bridegroom yearning;\nOur hearts are lamps forever burning,\nWith a steady and unwavering flame,\nPointing upward, forever the same,\nSteadily upward toward the Heaven!\n\nThe moon is hidden behind a cloud;\nA sudden darkness fills the room,\nAnd thy deep eyes, amid the gloom,\nShine like jewels in a shroud.\nOn the leaves is a sound of falling rain;\nA bird, awakened in its nest,\nGives a faint twitter of unrest,\nThen smoothes its plumes and sleeps again.\n\nNo other sounds than these I hear;\nThe hour of midnight must be near.\nThou art o'erspent with the day's fatigue\nOf riding many a dusty league;\nSink, then, gently to thy slumber;\nMe so many cares encumber,\nSo many ghosts, and forms of fright,\nHave started from their graves to-night,\nThey have driven sleep from mine eyes away:\nI will go down to the chapel and pray.\n\n * * * * *\n\nV.\n\nA COVERED BRIDGE AT LUCERNE.\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n _Prince Henry_. God's blessing on the architects who build\nThe bridges o'er swift rivers and abysses\nBefore impassable to human feet,\nNo less than on the builders of cathedrals,\nWhose massive walls are bridges thrown across\nThe dark and terrible abyss of Death.\nWell has the name of Pontifex been given\nUnto the Church's head, as the chief builder\nAnd architect of the invisible bridge\nThat leads from earth to heaven.\n\n _Elsie_ How dark it grows!\nWhat are these paintings on the walls around us?\n\n _Prince Henry_ The Dance Macaber!\n\n _Elsie_ What?\n\n _Prince Henry_ The Dance of Death!\nAll that go to and fro must look upon it,\nMindful of what they shall be, while beneath,\nAmong the wooden piles, the turbulent river\nRushes, impetuous as the river of life,\nWith dimpling eddies, ever green and bright,\nSave where the shadow of this bridge falls on it.\n\n _Elsie._ O, yes! I see it now!\n\n _Prince Henry_ The grim musician\nLeads all men through the mazes of that dance,\nTo different sounds in different measures moving;\nSometimes he plays a lute, sometimes a drum,\nTo tempt or terrify.\n\n _Elsie_ What is this picture?\n\n _Prince Henry_ It is a young man singing to a nun,\nWho kneels at her devotions, but in kneeling\nTurns round to look at him, and Death, meanwhile,\nIs putting out the candles on the altar!\n\n _Elsie_ Ah, what a pity 't is that she should listen\nto such songs, when in her orisons\nShe might have heard in heaven the angels singing!\n\n _Prince Henry_ Here he has stolen a jester's cap and bells,\nAnd dances with the Queen.\n\n _Elsie_ A foolish jest!\n\n _Prince Henry_ And here the heart of the new-wedded wife,\nComing from church with her beloved lord,\nHe startles with the rattle of his drum.\n\n _Elsie_ Ah, that is sad! And yet perhaps 't is best\nThat she should die, with all the sunshine on her,\nAnd all the benedictions of the morning,\nBefore this affluence of golden light\nShall fade into a cold and clouded gray,\nThen into darkness!\n\n _Prince Henry_ Under it is written,\n\"Nothing but death shall separate thee and me!\"\n\n _Elsie._ And what is this, that follows close upon it?\n\n _Prince Henry_ Death, playing on a ducimer. Behind him,\nA poor old woman, with a rosary,\nFollows the sound, and seems to wish her feet\nWere swifter to o'ertake him. Underneath,\nThe inscription reads, \"Better is Death than Life.\"\n\n _Elsie._ Better is Death than Life! Ah yes! to thousands\nDeath plays upon a dulcimer, and sings\nThat song of consolation, till the air\nRings with it, and they cannot choose but follow\nWhither he leads. And not the old alone,\nBut the young also hear it, and are still.\n\n _Prince Henry_ Yes, in their sadder moments. 'T is the sound\nOf their own hearts they hear, half full of tears,\nWhich are like crystal cups, half filled with water.\nResponding to the pressure of a finger\nWith music sweet and low and melancholy.\nLet us go forward, and no longer stay\nIn this great picture-gallery of Death!\nI hate it! ay, the very thought of it!\n\n _Elsie._ Why is it hateful to you?\n\n _Prince Henry._ For the reason\nThat life, and all that speaks of life, is lovely,\nAnd death, and all that speaks of death, is hateful.\n\n _Elsie._ The grave is but a covered bridge,\nleading from light to light, through a brief darkness!\n\n _Prince Henry (emerging from the bridge)._ I breathe again more\n freely! Ah, how pleasant\nTo come once more into the light of day,\nOut of that shadow of death! To hear again\nThe hoof-beats of our horses on firm ground,\nAnd not upon those hollow planks, resounding\nWith a sepulchral echo, like the clods\nOn coffins in a churchyard! Yonder lies\nThe Lake of the Four Forest-Towns, apparelled\nIn light, and lingering, like a village maiden,\nHid in the bosom of her native mountains,\nThen pouring all her life into another's,\nChanging her name and being! Overhead,\nShaking his cloudy tresses loose in air,\nRises Pilatus, with his windy pines.\n\n (_They pass on_.)\n\n * * * * *\n\n\nTHE DEVIL'S BRIDGE.\n\n * * * * *\n\nPRINCE HENRY _and_ ELSIE _crossing, with attendants._\n\n _Guide._ This bridge is called the Devil's Bridge.\nWith a single arch, from ridge to ridge,\nIt leaps across the terrible chasm\nYawning beneath us, black and deep,\nAs if, in some convulsive spasm,\nthe summits of the hills had cracked,\nand made a road for the cataract,\nThat raves and rages down the steep!\n\n _Lucifer (under the bridge)._ Ha! ha!\n\n _Guide._ Never any bridge but this\nCould stand across the wild abyss;\nAll the rest, of wood or stone,\nBy the Devil's hand were overthrown.\nHe toppled crags from the precipice,\nAnd whatsoe'er was built by day\nIn the night was swept away;\nNone could stand but this alone.\n\n _Lucifer (under the bridge)._ Ha! ha!\n\n _Guide._ I showed you in the valley a boulder\nMarked with the imprint of his shoulder;\nAs he was bearing it up this way,\nA peasant, passing, cried, \"Herr J\u00e9!\"\nAnd the Devil dropped it in his fright,\nAnd vanished suddenly out of sight!\n\n _Lucifer (under the bridge)._ Ha! ha!\n\n _Guide._ Abbot Giraldus of Einsiedel,\nFor pilgrims on their way to Rome,\nBuilt this at last, with a single arch,\nUnder which, on its endless march,\nRuns the river, white with foam,\nLike a thread through the eye of a needle.\nAnd the Devil promised to let it stand,\nUnder compact and condition\nThat the first living thing which crossed\nShould be surrendered into his hand,\nAnd be beyond redemption lost.\n\n _Lucifer (under the bridge)._ Ha! ha! perdition!\n\n _Guide._ At length, the bridge being all completed,\nThe Abbot, standing at its head,\nThrew across it a loaf of bread,\nWhich a hungry dog sprang after,\nAnd the rocks reechoed with peals of laughter\nTo see the Devil thus defeated!\n\n (_They pass on_)\n\n _Lucifer_ (_under the bridge_) Ha! ha! defeated!\nFor journeys and for crimes like this\nTo let the bridge stand o'er the abyss!\n\n * * * * *\n\n\nTHE ST. GOTHARD PASS.\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n _Prince Henry._ This is the highest point. Two ways the rivers\nLeap down to different seas, and as they roll\nGrow deep and still, and their majestic presence\nBecomes a benefaction to the towns\nThey visit, wandering silently among them,\nLike patriarchs old among their shining tents.\n\n _Elsie._ How bleak and bare it is! Nothing but mosses\nGrow on these rocks.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Yet are they not forgotten;\nBeneficent Nature sends the mists to feed them.\n\n _Elsie._ See yonder little cloud, that, borne aloft\nSo tenderly by the wind, floats fast away\nOver the snowy peaks! It seems to me\nThe body of St. Catherine, borne by angels!\n\n _Prince Henry._ Thou art St. Catherine, and invisible angels\nBear thee across these chasms and precipices,\nLest thou shouldst dash thy feet against a stone!\n\n _Elsie._ Would I were borne unto my grave, as she was,\nUpon angelic shoulders! Even now\nI Seem uplifted by them, light as air!\nWhat sound is that?\n\n _Prince Henry_. The tumbling avalanches!\n\n _Elsie_ How awful, yet how beautiful!\n\n _Prince Henry_. These are\nThe voices of the mountains! Thus they ope\nTheir snowy lips, and speak unto each other,\nIn the primeval language, lost to man.\n\n _Elsie_. What land is this that spreads itself beneath us?\n\n _Prince Henry_ Italy! Italy!\n\n _Elsie_ Land of the Madonna!\nHow beautiful it is! It seems a garden\nOf Paradise!\n\n _Prince Henry_. Nay, of Gethsemane\nTo thee and me, of passion and of prayer!\nYet once of Paradise. Long years ago\nI wandered as a youth among its bowers,\nAnd never from my heart has faded quite\nIts memory, that, like a summer sunset,\nEncircles with a ring of purple light\nAll the horizon of my youth.\n\n _Guide_. O friends!\nThe days are short, the way before us long;\nWe must not linger, if we think to reach\nThe inn at Belinzona before vespers!\n\n (_They pass on_.)\n\n * * * * *\n\nAT THE FOOT OF THE ALPS.\n\n * * * * *\n\n_A halt under the trees at noon_.\n\n _Prince Henry_ Here let us pause a moment in the trembling\nShadow and sunshine of the roadside trees,\nAnd, our tired horses in a group assembling,\nInhale long draughts of this delicious breeze\nOur fleeter steeds have distanced our attendants;\nThey lag behind us with a slower pace;\nWe will await them under the green pendants\nOf the great willows in this shady place.\nHo, Barbarossa! how thy mottled haunches\nSweat with this canter over hill and glade!\nStand still, and let these overhanging branches\nFan thy hot sides and comfort thee with shade!\n\n _Elsie._ What a delightful landscape spreads before us,\nMarked with a whitewashed cottage here and there!\nAnd, in luxuriant garlands drooping o'er us,\nBlossoms of grapevines scent the sunny air.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Hark! what sweet sounds are those, whose accents holy\nFill the warm noon with music sad and sweet!\n\n _Elsie._ It is a band of pilgrims, moving slowly\nOn their long journey, with uncovered feet.\n\n _Pilgrims (chaunting the Hymn of St. Hildebert)_\n Me receptet Sion illa,\n Sion David, urbs tranquilla,\n Cujus faber auctor lucis,\n Cujus portae lignum crucis,\n Cujus claves lingua Petri,\n Cujus cives semper laeti,\n Cujus muri lapis vivus,\n Cujus custos Rex festivus!\n\n _Lucifer (as a Friar in the procession)._ Here am I, too, in the\n pious band,\nIn the garb of a barefooted Carmelite dressed!\nThe soles of my feet are as hard and tanned\nAs the conscience of old Pope Hildebrand,\nThe Holy Satan, who made the wives\nOf the bishops lead such shameful lives.\nAll day long I beat my breast,\nAnd chaunt with a most particular zest\nThe Latin hymns, which I understand\nQuite as well, I think, as the rest.\nAnd at night such lodging in barns and sheds,\nSuch a hurly-burly in country inns,\nSuch a clatter of tongues in empty heads,\nSuch a helter-skelter of prayers and sins!\nOf all the contrivances of the time\nFor sowing broadcast the seeds of crime,\nThere is none so pleasing to me and mine\nAs a pilgrimage to some far-off shrine!\n\n _Prince Henry._ If from the outward man we judge the inner,\nAnd cleanliness is godliness, I fear\nA hopeless reprobate, a hardened sinner,\nMust be that Carmelite now passing near.\n\n _Lucifer._ There is my German Prince again,\nThus far on his journey to Salern,\nAnd the lovesick girl, whose heated brain\nIs sowing the cloud to reap the rain;\nBut it's a long road that has no turn!\nLet them quietly hold their way,\nI have also a part in the play.\nBut first I must act to my heart's content\nThis mummery and this merriment,\nAnd drive this motley flock of sheep\nInto the fold, where drink and sleep\nThe jolly old friars of Benevent.\nOf a truth, it often provokes me to laugh\nTo see these beggars hobble along,\nLamed and maimed, and fed upon chaff,\nChanting their wonderful piff and paff,\nAnd, to make up for not understanding the song,\nSinging it fiercely, and wild, and strong!\nWere it not for my magic garters and staff,\nAnd the goblets of goodly wine I quaff,\nAnd the mischief I make in the idle throng,\nI should not continue the business long.\n\n _Pilgrims (chaunting)._ In h\u00e2c uibe, lux solennis,\n Ver aeternum, pax perennis,\n In h\u00e2c odor implens caelos,\n In h\u00e2c semper festum melos!\n\n _Prince Henry._ Do you observe that monk among the train,\nWho pours from his great throat the roaring bass,\nAs a cathedral spout pours out the rain,\nAnd this way turns his rubicund, round face?\n\n _Elsie._ It is the same who, on the Strasburg square,\nPreached to the people in the open air.\n\n _Prince Henry._ And he has crossed o'er mountain, field, and fell,\nOn that good steed, that seems to bear him well,\nThe hackney of the Friars of Orders Gray,\nHis own stout legs! He, too, was in the play,\nBoth as King Herod and Ben Israel.\nGood morrow, Friar!\n\n _Friar Cuthbert._ Good morrow, noble Sir!\n\n _Prince Henry._ I speak in German, for, unless I err,\nYou are a German.\n\n _Friar Cuthbert._ I cannot gainsay you.\nBut by what instinct, or what secret sign,\nMeeting me here, do you straightway divine\nThat northward of the Alps my country lies?\n\n _Prince Henry._ Your accent, like St, Peter's, would betray you,\nDid not your yellow beard and your blue eyes,\nMoreover, we have seen your face before,\nAnd heard you preach at the Cathedral door\nOn Easter Sunday, in the Strasburg square\nWe were among the crowd that gathered there,\nAnd saw you play the Rabbi with great skill,\nAs if, by leaning o'er so many years\nTo walk with little children, your own will\nHad caught a childish attitude from theirs,\nA kind of stooping in its form and gait,\nAnd could no longer stand erect and straight.\nWhence come you now?\n\n _Friar Cuthbert._ From the old monastery\nOf Hirschau, in the forest; being sent\nUpon a pilgrimage to Benevent,\nTo see the image of the Virgin Mary,\nThat moves its holy eyes, and sometimes speaks,\nAnd lets the piteous tears run down its cheeks,\nTo touch the hearts of the impenitent.\n\n _Prince Henry._ O, had I faith, as in the days gone by,\nThat knew no doubt, and feared no mystery!\n\n _Lucifer (at a distance)._ Ho, Cuthbert! Friar Cuthbert!\n\n _Friar Cuthbert._ Farewell, Prince!\nI cannot stay to argue and convince.\n\n _Prince Henry._ This is indeed the blessed Mary's land,\nVirgin and Mother of our dear Redeemer!\nAll hearts are touched and softened at her name;\nAlike the bandit, with the bloody hand,\nThe priest, the prince, the scholar, and the peasant,\nThe man of deeds, the visionary dreamer,\nPay homage to her as one ever present!\nAnd even as children, who have much offended\nA too indulgent father, in great shame,\nPenitent, and yet not daring unattended\nTo go into his presence, at the gate\nSpeak with their sister, and confiding wait\nTill she goes in before and intercedes;\nSo men, repenting of their evil deeds,\nAnd yet not venturing rashly to draw near\nWith their requests an angry father's ear,\nOffer to her their prayers and their confession,\nAnd she for them in heaven makes intercession.\nAnd if our Faith had given us nothing more\nThan this example of all womanhood,\nSo mild, so merciful, so strong, so good,\nSo patient, peaceful, loyal, loving, pure,\nThis were enough to prove it higher and truer\nThan all the creeds the world had known before.\n\n_Pilgrims (chaunting afar off)_. Urbs ccelestis, urbs beata,\n Supra petram collocata,\n Urbs in portu satis tuto\n De longinquo te saluto,\n Te saluto, te suspiro,\n Te affecto, te requiro!\n\n * * * * *\n\n\nTHE INN AT GENOA.\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n_A terrace overlooking the sea. Night._\n\n _Prince Henry._ It is the sea, it is the sea,\nIn all its vague immensity,\nFading and darkening in the distance!\nSilent, majestical, and slow,\nThe white ships haunt it to and fro,\nWith all their ghostly sails unfurled,\nAs phantoms from another world\nHaunt the dim confines of existence!\nBut ah! how few can comprehend\nTheir signals, or to what good end\nFrom land to land they come and go!\nUpon a sea more vast and dark\nThe spirits of the dead embark,\nAll voyaging to unknown coasts.\nWe wave our farewells from the shore,\nAnd they depart, and come no more,\nOr come as phantoms and as ghosts.\n\nAbove the darksome sea of death\nLooms the great life that is to be,\nA land of cloud and mystery,\nA dim mirage, with shapes of men\nLong dead, and passed beyond our ken.\nAwe-struck we gaze, and hold our breath\nTill the fair pageant vanisheth,\nLeaving us in perplexity,\nAnd doubtful whether it has been\nA vision of the world unseen,\nOr a bright image of our own\nAgainst the sky in vapors thrown.\n\n _Lucifer (singing from the sea)_. Thou didst not make it, thou\n canst not mend it,\nBut thou hast the power to end it!\nThe sea is silent, the sea is discreet,\nDeep it lies at thy very feet;\nThere is no confessor like unto Death!\nThou canst not see him, but he is near;\nThou needest not whisper above thy breath,\nAnd he will hear;\nHe will answer the questions,\nThe vague surmises and suggestions,\nThat fill thy soul with doubt and fear!\n\n _Prince Henry_. The fisherman, who lies afloat,\nWith shadowy sail, in yonder boat,\nIs singing softly to the Night!\nBut do I comprehend aright\nThe meaning of the words he sung\nSo sweetly in his native tongue?\nAh, yes! the sea is still and deep.\nAll things within its bosom sleep!\nA single step, and all is o'er;\nA plunge, a bubble, and no more;\nAnd thou, dear Elsie, wilt be free\nFrom martyrdom and agony.\n\n _Elsie (coming from her chamber upon the terrace)._\nThe night is calm and cloudless,\nAnd still as still can be,\nAnd the stars come forth to listen\nTo the music of the sea.\nThey gather, and gather, and gather,\nUntil they crowd the sky,\nAnd listen, in breathless silence,\nTo the solemn litany.\nIt begins in rocky caverns,\nAs a voice that chaunts alone\nTo the pedals of the organ\nIn monotonous undertone;\nAnd anon from shelving beaches,\nAnd shallow sands beyond,\nIn snow-white robes uprising\nThe ghostly choirs respond.\nAnd sadly and unceasing\nThe mournful voice sings on,\nAnd the snow-white choirs still answer\nChriste eleison!\n\n _Prince Henry._ Angel of God! thy finer sense perceives\nCelestial and perpetual harmonies!\nThy purer soul, that trembles and believes,\nHears the archangel's trumpet in the breeze,\nAnd where the forest rolls, or ocean heaves,\nCecilia's organ sounding in the seas,\nAnd tongues of prophets speaking in the leaves.\nBut I hear discord only and despair,\nAnd whispers as of demons in the air!\n\n * * * * *\n\n\nAT SEA.\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n _Il Padrone._ The wind upon our quarter lies,\nAnd on before the freshening gale,\nThat fills the snow-white lateen sail,\nSwiftly our light felucca flies.\nAround, the billows burst and foam;\nThey lift her o'er the sunken rock,\nThey beat her sides with many a shock,\nAnd then upon their flowing dome\nThey poise her, like a weathercock!\nBetween us and the western skies\nThe hills of Corsica arise;\nEastward, in yonder long, blue line,\nThe summits of the Apennine,\nAnd southward, and still far away,\nSalerno, on its sunny bay.\nYou cannot see it, where it lies.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Ah, would that never more mine eyes\nMight see its towers by night or day!\n\n _Elsie._ Behind us, dark and awfully,\nThere comes a cloud out of the sea,\nThat bears the form of a hunted deer,\nWith hide of brown, and hoofs of black,\nAnd antlers laid upon its back,\nAnd fleeing fast and wild with fear,\nAs if the hounds were on its track!\n\n _Prince Henry._ Lo! while we gaze, it breaks and falls\nIn shapeless masses, like the walls\nOf a burnt city. Broad and red\nThe fires of the descending sun\nGlare through the windows, and o'erhead,\nAthwart the vapors, dense and dun,\nLong shafts of silvery light arise,\nLike rafters that support the skies!\n\n _Elsie._ See! from its summit the lurid levin\nFlashes downward without warning,\nAs Lucifer, son of the morning,\nFell from the battlements of heaven!\n\n _Il Padrone._ I must entreat you, friends, below!\nThe angry storm begins to blow,\nFor the weather changes with the moon.\nAll this morning, until noon,\nWe had baffling winds, and sudden flaws\nStruck the sea with their cat's-paws.\nOnly a little hour ago\nI was whistling to Saint Antonio\nFor a capful of wind to fill our sail,\nAnd instead of a breeze he has sent a gale.\nLast night I saw St. Elmo's stars,\nWith their glimmering lanterns, all at play\nOn the tops of the masts and the tips of the spars,\nAnd I knew we should have foul weather to-day.\nCheerily, my hearties! yo heave ho!\nBrail up the mainsail, and let her go\nAs the winds will and Saint Antonio!\n\nDo you see that Livornese felucca,\nThat vessel to the windward yonder,\nRunning with her gunwale under?\nI was looking when the wind o'ertook her,\nShe had all sail set, and the only wonder\nIs that at once the strength of the blast\nDid not carry away her mast.\nShe is a galley of the Gran Duca,\nThat, through the fear of the Algerines,\nConvoys those lazy brigantines,\nLaden with wine and oil from Lucca.\nNow all is ready, high and low;\nBlow, blow, good Saint Antonio!\n\nHa! that is the first dash of the rain,\nWith a sprinkle of spray above the rails,\nJust enough to moisten our sails,\nAnd make them ready for the strain.\nSee how she leaps, as the blasts o'ertake her,\nAnd speeds away with a bone in her mouth!\nNow keep her head toward the south,\nAnd there is no danger of bank or breaker.\nWith the breeze behind us, on we go;\nNot too much, good Saint Antonio!\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\n\nTHE SCHOOL OF SALERNO.\n\n_A traveling Scholastic affixing his Theses to the gate\nof the College._\n\n _Scholastic._ There, that is my gauntlet, my banner, my shield,\nHung up as a challenge to all the field!\nOne hundred and twenty-five propositions,\nWhich I will maintain with the sword of the tongue\nAgainst all disputants, old and young.\nLet us see if doctors or dialecticians\nWill dare to dispute my definitions,\nOr attack any one of my learned theses.\nHere stand I; the end shall be as God pleases.\nI think I have proved, by profound research\nThe error of all those doctrines so vicious\nOf the old Areopagite Dionysius,\nThat are making such terrible work in the churches,\nBy Michael the Stammerer sent from the East,\nAnd done into Latin by that Scottish beast,\nErigena Johannes, who dares to maintain,\nIn the face of the truth, the error infernal,\nThat the universe is and must be eternal;\nAt first laying down, as a fact fundamental,\nThat nothing with God can be accidental;\nThen asserting that God before the creation\nCould not have existed, because it is plain\nThat, had he existed, he would have created;\nWhich is begging the question that should be debated,\nAnd moveth me less to anger than laughter.\nAll nature, he holds, is a respiration\nOf the Spirit of God, who, in breathing, hereafter\nWill inhale it into his bosom again,\nSo that nothing but God alone will remain.\nAnd therein he contradicteth himself;\nFor he opens the whole discussion by stating,\nThat God can only exist in creating.\nThat question I think I have laid on the shelf!\n\n (_He goes out. Two Doctors come in disputing, and\n followed by pupils._)\n\n _Doctor Serafino._ I, with the Doctor Seraphic, maintain,\nThat a word which is only conceived in the brain\nIs a type of eternal Generation;\nThe spoken word is the Incarnation.\n\n _Doctor Cherubino._ What do I care for the Doctor Seraphic,\nWith all his wordy chaffer and traffic?\n\n _Doctor Serafino._ You make but a paltry show of resistance;\nUniversals have no real existence!\n\n _Doctor Cherubino._ Your words are but idle and empty chatter;\nIdeas are eternally joined to matter!\n\n _Doctor Serafino_. May the Lord have mercy on your position,\nYou wretched, wrangling culler of herbs!\n\n _Doctor Cherubino_. May he send your soul to eternal perdition,\nFor your Treatise on the Irregular Verbs!\n\n (_They rush out fighting. Two Scholars come in._)\n\n _First Scholar_. Monte Cassino, then, is your College.\nWhat think you of ours here at Salern?\n\n _Second Scholar_. To tell the truth, I arrived so lately,\nI hardly yet have had time to discern.\nSo much, at least, I am bound to acknowledge:\nThe air seems healthy, the buildings stately,\nAnd on the whole I like it greatly.\n\n _First Scholar_. Yes, the air is sweet; the Calabrian hills\nSend us down puffs of mountain air;\nAnd in summer time the sea-breeze fills\nWith its coolness cloister, and court, and square.\nThen at every season of the year\nThere are crowds of guests and travellers here;\nPilgrims, and mendicant friars, and traders\nFrom the Levant, with figs and wine,\nAnd bands of wounded and sick Crusaders,\nComing back from Palestine.\n\n _Second Scholar_. And what are the studies you pursue?\nWhat is the course you here go through?\n\n _First Scholar_. The first three years of the college course\nAre given to Logic alone, as the source\nOf all that is noble, and wise, and true.\n\n _Second Scholar_. That seems rather strange, I must confess.\nIn a Medical School; yet, nevertheless,\nYou doubtless have reasons for that.\n\n _First Scholar_. Oh yes!\nFor none but a clever dialectician\nCan hope to become a great physician;\nThat has been settled long ago.\nLogic makes an important part\nOf the mystery of the healing art;\nFor without it how could you hope to show\nThat nobody knows so much as you know?\nAfter this there are five years more\nDevoted wholly to medicine,\nWith lectures on chirurgical lore,\nAnd dissections of the bodies of swine,\nAs likest the human form divine.\n\n _Second Scholar_. What are the books now most in vogue?\n\n _First Scholar_. Quite an extensive catalogue;\nMostly, however, books of our own;\nAs Gariopontus' Passionarius,\nAnd the writings of Matthew Platearius;\nAnd a volume universally known\nAs the Regimen of the School of Salern,\nFor Robert of Normandy written in terse\nAnd very elegant Latin verse.\nEach of these writings has its turn.\nAnd when at length we have finished these,\nThen comes the struggle for degrees,\nWith all the oldest and ablest critics;\nThe public thesis and disputation,\nQuestion, and answer, and explanation\nOf a passage out of Hippocrates,\nOr Aristotle's Analytics.\nThere the triumphant Magister stands!\nA book is solemnly placed in his hands,\nOn which he swears to follow the rule\nAnd ancient forms of the good old School;\nTo report if any confectionarius\nMingles his drugs with matters various,\nAnd to visit his patients twice a day,\nAnd once in the night, if they live in town,\nAnd if they are poor, to take no pay.\nHaving faithfully promised these,\nHis head is crowned with a laurel crown;\nA kiss on his cheek, a ring on his hand,\nThe Magister Artium et Physices\nGoes forth from the school like a lord of the land.\nAnd now, as we have the whole morning before us\nLet us go in, if you make no objection,\nAnd listen awhile to a learned prelection\nOn Marcus Aurelius Cassiodorus.\n\n (_They go in. Enter_ LUCIFER _as a Doctor._)\n\n _Lucifer_. This is the great School of Salern!\nA land of wrangling and of quarrels,\nOf brains that seethe, and hearts that burn,\nWhere every emulous scholar hears,\nIn every breath that comes to his ears,\nThe rustling of another's laurels!\nThe air of the place is called salubrious;\nThe neighborhood of Vesuvius lends it\nAn odor volcanic, that rather mends it,\nAnd the buildings have an aspect lugubrious,\nThat inspires a feeling of awe and terror\nInto the heart of the beholder,\nAnd befits such an ancient homestead of error,\nWhere the old falsehoods moulder and smoulder,\nAnd yearly by many hundred hands\nAre carried away, in the zeal of youth,\nAnd sown like tares in the field of truth,\nTo blossom and ripen in other lands.\nWhat have we here, affixed to the gate?\nThe challenge of some scholastic wight,\nWho wishes to hold a public debate\nOn sundry questions wrong or right!\nAh, now this is my great delight!\nFor I have often observed of late\nThat such discussions end in a fight.\nLet us see what the learned wag maintains\nWith such a prodigal waste of brains.\n\n (_Reads._)\n\n\"Whether angels in moving from place to place\nPass through the intermediate space.\nWhether God himself is the author of evil,\nOr whether that is the work of the Devil.\nWhen, where, and wherefore Lucifer fell,\nAnd whether he now is chained in hell.\"\n\nI think I can answer that question well!\nSo long as the boastful human mind\nConsents in such mills as this to grind,\nI sit very firmly upon my throne!\nOf a truth it almost makes me laugh,\nTo see men leaving the golden grain\nTo gather in piles the pitiful chaff\nThat old Peter Lombard thrashed with his brain,\nTo have it caught up and tossed again\nOn the horns of the Dumb Ox of Cologne!\n\nBut my guests approach! there is in the air\nA fragrance, like that of the Beautiful Garden\nOf Paradise, in the days that were!\nAn odor of innocence, and of prayer,\nAnd of love, and faith that never fails,\nWhich as the fresh-young heart exhales\nBefore it begins to wither and harden!\nI cannot breathe such an atmosphere!\nMy soul is filled with a nameless fear,\nThat, after all my trouble and pain,\nAfter all my restless endeavor,\nThe youngest, fairest soul of the twain,\nThe most ethereal, most divine,\nWill escape from my hands forever and ever.\nBut the other is already mine!\nLet him live to corrupt his race,\nBreathing among them, with every breath,\nWeakness, selfishness, and the base\nAnd pusillanimous fear of death.\nI know his nature, and I know\nThat of all who in my ministry\nWander the great earth to and fro,\nAnd on my errands come and go,\nThe safest and subtlest are such as he.\n\n (_Enter_ PRINCE HENRY _and_ ELSIE _with\n attendants_.)\n\n _Prince Henry._ Can you direct us to Friar Angelo?\n\n _Lucifer._ He stands before you.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Then you know our purpose.\nI am Prince Henry of Hoheneck, and this\nThe maiden that I spake of in my letters.\n\n _Lucifer._ It is a very grave and solemn business!\nWe must not be precipitate. Does she\nWithout compulsion, of her own free will,\nConsent to this?\n\n _Prince Henry._ Against all opposition,\nAgainst all prayers, entreaties, protestations.\nShe will not be persuaded.\n\n _Lucifer._ That is strange!\nHave you thought well of it?\n\n _Elsie._ I come not here\nTo argue, but to die. Your business is not\nto question, but to kill me. I am ready.\nI am impatient to be gone from here\nEre any thoughts of earth disturb again\nThe spirit of tranquillity within me.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Would I had not come here\n Would I were dead,\nAnd thou wert in thy cottage in the forest,\nAnd hadst not known me! Why have I done this?\nLet me go back and die.\n\n _Elsie._ It cannot be;\nNot if these cold, flat stones on which we tread\nWere coulters heated white, and yonder gateway\nFlamed like a furnace with a sevenfold heat.\nI must fulfil my purpose.\n\n _Prince Henry._ I forbid it!\nNot one step farther. For I only meant\nTo put thus far thy courage to the proof.\nIt is enough. I, too, have courage to die,\nFor thou hast taught me!\n\n _Elsie._ O my Prince! remember\nYour promises. Let me fulfill my errand.\nYou do not look on life and death as I do.\nThere are two angels, that attend unseen\nEach one of us, and in great books record\nOur good and evil deeds. He who writes down\nThe good ones, after every action closes\nHis volume, and ascends with it to God.\nThe other keeps his dreadful day-book open\nTill sunset, that we may repent; which doing,\nThe record of the action fades away,\nAnd leaves a line of white across the page.\nNow if my act be good, as I believe it,\nIt cannot be recalled. It is already\nSealed up in heaven, as a good deed accomplished.\nThe rest is yours. Why wait you? I am ready.\n\n (_To her attendants._)\n\nWeep not, my friends! rather rejoice with me.\nI shall not feel the pain, but shall be gone,\nAnd you will have another friend in heaven.\nThen start not at the creaking of the door\nThrough which I pass. I see what lies beyond it.\n\n (_To_ PRINCE HENRY.)\n\nAnd you, O Prince! bear back my benison\nUnto my father's house, and all within it.\nThis morning in the church I prayed for them,\nAfter confession, after absolution,\nWhen my whole soul was white, I prayed for them.\nGod will take care of them, they need me not.\nAnd in your life let my remembrance linger,\nAs something not to trouble and disturb it,\nBut to complete it, adding life to life.\nAnd if at times beside the evening fire\nYou see my face among the other faces,\nLet it not be regarded as a ghost\nThat haunts your house, but as a guest that loves you.\nNay, even as one of your own family,\nWithout whose presence there were something wanting.\nI have no more to say. Let us go in.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Friar Angelo! I charge you on your life,\nBelieve not what she says, for she is mad,\nAnd comes here not to die, but to be healed.\n\n _Elsie._ Alas! Prince Henry!\n\n _Lucifer._ Come with me; this way.\n\n (ELSIE _goes in with_ LUCIFER, _who thrusts_ PRINCE\n HENRY _back and closes the door._)\n\n _Prince Henry._ Gone! and the light of all my life gone with her!\nA sudden darkness falls upon the world!\n\n _Forester._ News from the Prince!\n\n _Ursula._ Of death or life?\n\n _Forester._ You put your questions eagerly!\n\n _Ursula._ Answer me, then! How is the Prince?\n\n _Forester._ I left him only two hours since\nHomeward returning down the river,\nAs strong and well as if God, the Giver,\nHad given him back in his youth again.\n\n _Ursula (despairing)._ Then Elsie, my poor child, is dead!\n\n _Forester._ That, my good woman, I have not said.\nDon't cross the bridge till you come to it,\nIs a proverb old, and of excellent wit.\n\n _Ursula._ Keep me no longer in this pain!\n\n _Forester._ It is true your daughter is no more;--\nThat is, the peasant she was before.\n\n _Ursula._ Alas! I am simple and lowly bred\nI am poor, distracted, and forlorn.\nAnd it is not well that you of the court\nShould mock me thus, and make a sport\nOf a joyless mother whose child is dead,\nFor you, too, were of mother, born!\n\n _Forester._ Your daughter lives, and the Prince is well!\nYou will learn ere long how it all befell.\nHer heart for a moment never failed;\nBut when they reached Salerno's gate,\nThe Prince's nobler self prevailed,\nAnd saved her for a nobler fate,\nAnd he was healed, in his despair,\nBy the touch of St. Matthew's sacred bones;\nThough I think the long ride in the open air,\nThat pilgrimage over stocks and stones,\nIn the miracle must come in for a share!\n\n _Ursula._ Virgin! who lovest the poor and lonely,\nIf the loud cry of a mother's heart\nCan ever ascend to where thou art,\nInto thy blessed hands and holy\nReceive my prayer of praise and thanksgiving!\nLet the hands that bore our Saviour bear it\nInto the awful presence of God;\nFor thy feet with holiness are shod,\nAnd if thou bearest it he will hear it.\nOur child who was dead again is living!\n\n _Forester._ I did not tell you she was dead;\nIf you thought so 'twas no fault of mine;\nAt this very moment, while I speak,\nThey are sailing homeward down the Rhine,\nIn a splendid barge, with golden prow,\nAnd decked with banners white and red\nAs the colors on your daughter's cheek.\nThey call her the Lady Alicia now;\nFor the Prince in Salerno made a vow\nThat Elsie only would he wed.\n\n _Ursula._ Jesu Maria! what a change!\nAll seems to me so weird and strange!\n\n _Forester._ I saw her standing on the deck,\nBeneath an awning cool and shady;\nHer cap of velvet could not hold\nThe tresses of her hair of gold,\nThat flowed and floated like the stream,\nAnd fell in masses down her neck.\nAs fair and lovely did she seem\nAs in a story or a dream\nSome beautiful and foreign lady.\nAnd the Prince looked so grand and proud,\nAnd waved his hand thus to the crowd\nThat gazed and shouted from the shore,\nAll down the river, long and loud.\n\n _Ursula._ We shall behold our child once more;\nShe is not dead! She is not dead!\nGod, listening, must have overheard\nThe prayers, that, without sound or word,\nOur hearts in secrecy have said!\nO, bring me to her; for mine eyes\nAre hungry to behold her face;\nMy very soul within me cries;\nMy very hands seem to caress her,\nTo see her, gaze at her, and bless her;\nDear Elsie, child of God and grace!\n\n (_Goes out toward the garden._)\n\n _Forester._ There goes the good woman out of her head;\nAnd Gottlieb's supper is waiting here;\nA very capacious flagon of beer,\nAnd a very portentous loaf of bread.\nOne would say his grief did not much oppress him.\nHere's to the health of the Prince, God bless him!\n\n (_He drinks._)\n\nHa! it buzzes and stings like a hornet!\nAnd what a scene there, through the door!\nThe forest behind and the garden before,\nAnd midway an old man of threescore,\nWith a wife and children that caress him.\nLet me try still further to cheer and adorn it\nWith a merry, echoing blast of my cornet!\n\n (_Goes out blowing his horn._)\n\n * * * * *\n\n\nTHE CASTLE OF VAUTSBERG ON THE RHINE.\n\n\n * * * * *\n\nPRINCE HENRY _and_ ELSIE _standing on the terrace at\nevening. The sound of bells heard from a distance._\n\n\n _Prince Henry._ We are alone. The wedding guests\nRide down the hill, with plumes and cloaks,\nAnd the descending dark invests\nThe Niederwald, and all the nests\nAmong its hoar and haunted oaks.\n\n _Elsie._ What bells are those, that ring so slow,\nSo mellow, musical, and low?\n\n _Prince Henry._ They are the bells of Geisenheim,\nThat with their melancholy chime\nRing out the curfew of the sun.\n\n _Elsie._ Listen, beloved.\n\n _Prince Henry._ They are done!\nDear Elsie! many years ago\nThose same soft bells at eventide\nRang in the ears of Charlemagne,\nAs, seated by Fastrada's side\nAt Ingelheim, in all his pride\nHe heard their sound with secret pain.\n\n _Elsie._ Their voices only speak to me\nOf peace and deep tranquillity,\nAnd endless confidence in thee!\n\n _Prince Henry._ Thou knowest the story of her ring,\nHow, when the court went back to Aix,\nFastrada died; and how the king\nSat watching by her night and day,\nTill into one of the blue lakes,\nThat water that delicious land,\nThey cast the ring, drawn from her hand;\nAnd the great monarch sat serene\nAnd sad beside the fated shore,\nNor left the land forever more.\n\n _Elsie._ That was true love.\n\n _Prince Henry._ For him the queen\nNe'er did what thou hast done for me.\n\n _Elsie._ Wilt thou as fond and faithful be?\nWilt thou so love me after death?\n\n _Prince Henry._ In life's delight, in death's dismay,\nIn storm and sunshine, night and day,\nIn health, in sickness, in decay,\nHere and hereafter, I am thine!\nThou hast Fastrada's ring. Beneath\nThe calm, blue waters of thine eyes\nDeep in thy steadfast soul it lies,\nAnd, undisturbed by this world's breath,\nWith magic light its jewels shine!\nThis golden ring, which thou hast worn\nUpon thy finger since the morn,\nIs but a symbol and a semblance,\nAn outward fashion, a remembrance,\nOf what thou wearest within unseen,\nO my Fastrada, O my queen!\nBehold! the hilltops all aglow\nWith purple and with amethyst;\nWhile the whole valley deep below\nIs filled, and seems to overflow,\nWith a fast-rising tide of mist.\nThe evening air grows damp and chill;\nLet us go in.\n\n _Elsie._ Ah, not so soon.\nSee yonder fire! It is the moon\nSlow rising o'er the eastern hill.\nIt glimmers on the forest tips,\nAnd through the dewy foliage drips\nIn little rivulets of light,\nAnd makes the heart in love with night.\n\n _Prince Henry._ Oft on this terrace, when the day\nWas closing, have I stood and gazed,\nAnd seen the landscape fade away,\nAnd the white vapors rise and drown\nHamlet and vineyard, tower and town\nWhile far above the hilltops blazed.\nBut men another hand than thine\nWas gently held and clasped in mine;\nAnother head upon my breast\nWas laid, as thine is now, at rest.\nWhy dost thou lift those tender eyes\nWith so much sorrow and surprise?\nA minstrel's, not a maiden's hand,\nWas that which in my own was pressed.\nA manly form usurped thy place,\nA beautiful, but bearded face,\nThat now is in the Holy Land,\nYet in my memory from afar\nIs shining on us like a star.\nBut linger not. For while I speak,\nA sheeted spectre white and tall,\nThe cold mist climbs the castle wall,\nAnd lays his hand upon thy cheek!\n\n (_They go in._)\n\n * * * * *\n\n\nEPILOGUE.\n\n\n * * * * *\n\nTHE TWO RECORDING ANGELS ASCENDING.\n\n _The Angel of Good Deeds (with closed book_). God sent his\n messenger the rain,\nAnd said unto the mountain brook,\n\"Rise up, and from thy caverns look\nAnd leap, with naked, snow-white feet.\nFrom the cool hills into the heat\nOf the broad, arid plain.\"\n\nGod sent his messenger of faith,\nAnd whispered in the maiden's heart,\n\"Rise up, and look from where thou art,\nAnd scatter with unselfish hands\nThy freshness on the barren sands\nAnd solitudes of Death.\"\nO beauty of holiness,\nOf self-forgetfulness, of lowliness!\nO power of meekness,\nWhose very gentleness and weakness\nAre like the yielding, but irresistible air!\nUpon the pages\nOf the sealed volume that I bear,\nThe deed divine\nIs written in characters of gold,\nThat never shall grow old,\nBut all through ages\nBurn and shine,\nWith soft effulgence!\nO God! it is thy indulgence\nThat fills the world with the bliss\nOf a good deed like this!\n\n _The Angel of Evil Deeds (with open book)._ Not yet, not yet\nIs the red sun wholly set,\nBut evermore recedes,\nWhile open still I bear\nThe Book of Evil Deeds,\nTo let the breathings of the upper air\nVisit its pages and erase\nThe records from its face!\nFainter and fainter as I gaze\nOn the broad blaze\nThe glimmering landscape shines,\nAnd below me the black river\nIs hidden by wreaths of vapor!\nFainter and fainter the black lines\nBegin to quiver\nAlong the whitening surface of the paper;\nShade after shade\nThe terrible words grow faint and fade,\nAnd in their place\nRuns a white space!\n\nDown goes the sun!\nBut the soul of one,\nWho by repentance\nHas escaped the dreadful sentence,\nShines bright below me as I look.\nIt is the end!\nWith closed Book\nTo God do I ascend.\n\nLo! over the mountain steeps\nA dark, gigantic shadow sweeps\nBeneath my feet;\nA blackness inwardly brightening\nWith sullen heat,\nAs a storm-cloud lurid with lightning.\nAnd a cry of lamentation,\nRepeated and again repeated,\nDeep and loud\nAs the reverberation\nOf cloud answering unto cloud,\nSwells and rolls away in the distance,\nAs if the sheeted\nLightning retreated,\nBaffled and thwarted by the wind's resistance.\n\nIt is Lucifer,\nThe son of mystery;\nAnd since God suffers him to be,\nHe, too, is God's minister,\nAnd labors for some good\nBy us not understood!","title":"The Golden Legend","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":28369}