  Brunhild, died A.D. 613 The intervention of women in the course of the world’s history has nearly always been attended by those events upon which poets delight to meditate: events of sinister and tragic significance, the chief value of which is to show in rude collision the ideals and the realities of life; the common humanity of the central figures in direct conflict with the inhuman march of circumstance; and the processes through which these central figures, like Lady Macbeth or Cleopatra, are made to transcend all conventional morality, and, though completely evil in the ordinary sense, to redeem themselves and win our sympathy by a moment of heroic fortitude, or of supreme and consuming anguish. Such events and processes, however, In a note at the end of the volume I have given some extracts from the Histoire de France, edited by M. Ernest Lavisse, which show the principal events of her life. F. M. THE VIGIL OF BRUNHILDBrunhild, with worn face framed in withered hands, Sate in her wounded royalty; and seemed Like an old eagle, taken in the toils, And fallen from the wide extended sway Of her dominion, whence the eye looks down On mountains shrunk to nothing, and the sea Fretting in vain against its boundaries. She sate, with chin thrust forward, listening To the loud shouting and the ring of swords On shields, that sounded from the crowded hall; Where all her ancient bards were emulous In praise, now, of her foes who feasted there. Her humid cell was strown with rotten straw, A roost of owls, and haunt of bats; the wind Blew the cold rain in, and made tremulous The smoking flame, on which her eyes were set; Her raiment was all torn, and stained with blood; Her hair had fallen, and she heeded not: She was alone and friendless, but her eyes Held something kingly that could outfrown Fate. Gray, haggard, wan, and yet with dignity, Which had been beauty once, and now was age, She sate in that foul cellar, as one sits To whom life owes no further injury, Whom no hopes cheat, and no despairs make pale; Though in her heart, and on her rigid face, Despair was throned in gaunt magnificence. A sound disturbed her thought; she turned her head, Waiting, while a strong hand unbarred the door, With hatred burning in her tearless eyes, Ready to front her foes. The huge door gave Creaking, unwillingly, to close again Behind a priest, whose melancholy eyes Were dropped before the anger of her own. “A priest!” she cried; “they send to me a priest! Mocking me, that my hand first helped these priests Till a priest’s hand was strong to strike me down.” He bent before her, swayed by grief and shame; Then spoke: “Brunhild, they sent me not to thee; But I came willingly, nor feared their wrath. Arnulf and Pippin feast their warriors In the high-raftered hall, and cheer the bards, Who sing of how they smote thee: so I crept Forth from the tumult. At the height of noon To-morrow they will tie thee to a horse That never has known bridle, to be dragged Over the stony ways till thou art dead; And I am come to shrive thee”: and he stayed His tongue; but sorrow filled his frightened eyes. “Go from me,” then she said; “thou knowest how My life has been as angry as a flame, Consumed with its own passions. Go from me: Thou couldst not bear the weight of all my sins. Yea, go. I will not call upon thy God; He is too far from me: could I again Have my old strength and beauty, I should waste Again the earth with my delight in war, And vex my body with the restless loves That my youth knew. A life of war and love; Passions that shake the soul; bright, ruddy flames Devouring speedily this fretful flesh: A life of clamour, shouting, dust and heat, The tumult of the battle, ringing shields, The hiss of sudden arrows through the air, And drumming hoofs of horses in the mad Thunderous fury of the charge, that breaks Baffled, like waves upon a wall of steel: Give me again that life of ecstasy And I shall leave your heaven to its sleep.” She wrapped her cloak about her, close; and frowned Once more upon the flame. He spoke again: “When I was long-haired, too, the windy joys Of battle wrought a madness in my blood; Yet never night came but mine eyes would close On sleep, that seemed a mother to my soul, In trustfulness as quiet as a child’s. Hast thou no need of quiet, of a sleep That stretches out its wings and shrouds thee close, Healing thee of all wounds, and wards the day Off from thine eyelids? There is peace in God, If we might find him; but the way is far And difficult of travel for our feet, Leading through all the sounding ways of life And silent ways of death, through whose domain Each blind soul voyages in loneliness: Nor ever has a man with undimmed eyes, Save he whom ravens fed, and he whose voice Sounded the note of triumph, even in Hell, While the dead flocked unto him, and the gates Were lifted up for gladness, travelled it. Wide regions filled with spirits numberless——” But Brunhild turned on him: “I see them now, Though Death has not yet claimed me, in that flame; And wouldst thou have me go to them in fear, With loosened knees and face untaught to frown? Would they for all my weeping pity me? Yea, there is Fredegonde with mocking eyes: I seem to see my life through smoking blood That she and I have spilt in quarrelling. Shall we too fill, with greater clamour, Hell; Battling like eagles through the gloomy air, That trembles at the passion of our wings? Go from me: I repent not anything.” “Nay, yet I shall not go; but rest and hear Thy story in the form it leaves thy lips; Nor question thee, but bless thee and depart. For surely all thy soul yearns backward now To half remembered days, that fill the flame, Even as you say, with floating memories, Purged of the dross, that was a part of them, Nought now but soft gold of thy plastic dreams, Wrought to what shape you will: so have I heard That we judge others and judge not ourselves By a stern measure; and therefore we fail Of perfect justice, which is charity.” “Ye, who are sheltered from the world, O priest,” Spake Brunhild, mocking him, “have time to pause Ere your minds fix the measure of pure truth And perfect justice; but our windy life Loses no time on niceties: for me, I gave such justice as I look for now; I swung a hammer on mine enemies, To forge the world anew unto my mind; My cause was justice in mine eyes, and those Who stood against me, enemies of God. Lo! I have failed of all my purposes, And age has come upon me like a cloud; And these old shoulders groan beneath the shame, The bitterness, the burden of defeat: Yet I have seen the star, where others saw Only the froth and spume of angry storms.” He gazed on her with patient, gentle eyes; Bowed, sate she, with her hands clasped round her knees, Incarnate sorrow: then her lion’s head She lifted; and spake once again to him: “When I came out of Spain to Sigebert The rude Franks wondered at my company, My Moorish falconers and deep-voiced hounds, My swift light-horsemen, harpers, lutanists; And prophesied my days would fly, like gold Out of the loose hands of a prodigal, With the delight of hunting and the glad Singing of minstrels in the crowded hall, Where the red torches mirror on the shields And burnished helmets their tempestuous lights: Ominous fires of slaughter, flickering, To flash out suddenly in angry flame. “But, for a while, my house was filled with smiles; And Love sate as a guest beside my hearth. Each morning heard the horns call to the chase The loud, glad music of the eager hounds, While huntsmen cheered them onward, and the rides Through woodlands, down the shadow-dappled ways, Woke, in the answering April of my youth, A pleasure that was one thing with the dawn. “So passed my days, in courtly wise, until Some whisper promised me another Spring Thrilling within my body, and I felt The first strange wakenings of motherhood, The pledge, and prophecy, of future Kings. And I went roaming through the woods no more; Intent on quiet business with my maids, Spinning new wool, or standing by the loom, Or broidering toy baldricks, with gold thread, Bright, to please baby eyes, that love bright things; Dreaming on all the promise, that I held, And all the storm and stress life held for him. “Then first I saw the doom that Nature laid On women, to be careful harvesters; To plan, and toil, and build for unborn sons, To shape the future out of their own time. These turbulent loud nobles with their feuds Carousing nightly, or in companies Changing their hunting-grounds from place to place, Vexed me with their unthrift and wantonness: I saw them as a hindrance to my son, And pitted craft against their stubborn strength, Fighting each step. They were dark, brooding days, Heavy with sullen menace of a storm; Yet found I friendly faces, in despite Of much unbodied anger, for mine eyes Held the soft light that tames the hearts of men. Yea, and I roused them up with angry words To ride with me for vengeance to the Court Of Hilperik and Fredegonde, who slew Galswith, the white-armed sister whom I loved, The slim, fair sister with deep, dreaming eyes As blue as harebells or calm waters are. “Ah! I remember that frost-silver dawn, Clouded with curtains of deep-billowing mist That rose to hide the first bright beams of day, In a white froth, out of the wooded plains— Delicate, wreathing, spiral broideries; And how the hoofs rang loud upon the road, Galloping o’er the drawbridge as if foes Pressed close behind; the trembling messenger Spent with hard riding, cold, and white with fear; The steaming flanks and withers of the horse; The soldiers pressing close to hear the news; Sigebert, with his knotted veins, and hands Fast-clenched, and anger flaming in his eyes, As Galswith’s servant cried aloud to us: ‘Galswith is slain; Galswith, the Queen, is slain!’ And then, confusedly, as of a dream Disordered, all the terror of the act He built out of his words before mine eyes: The sharp-cut shadows and the frosty light Showing each angle of my battlements And buttresses; and the light snow, that clung, Frozen, against the cloister’s slender shafts, Hanging them with light-splintering icicles: How clearly can I see it! and the gleam Of scarlet and of steel against the snow; And Galswith’s page, wild-eyed and tremulous, Telling us how, as soft as evil dreams, Hilperik and his harlot crept, by night, Into the shadowy chamber where she lay, Her sweet, frail body nestled close in sleep: Sleep, that alone drove sorrow from her soul; And he, the hairy hound, leaped on her bed, Kneeling on those twin breasts of ivory, And crushed the slender throat in his huge hands! “I think I swayed a little; and I know That something seemed to burn up all desire, Leaving me rigid, filled with winter frosts: For I remembered how, when we were young, And shared one chamber in the donjon keep, When she awoke, and felt the darkness, thick And fearful, on her sunshine-loving eyes, First she would call to me, and then, grown brave At her own tongue’s sweet music, cross the floor To creep into my bed, and cling to me, Telling me how she dreamed that she was dead. Think of that black and lustful ravening beast Spoiling the slim white body! Sigebert Would have lit up the land with war that day; But wisdom counselled patience. Bitterly I waited. But my hate was like a hound That, from afar, marks down his prey at dawn; Though the chase last till evening, he keeps His way through shadows, and the blazing noon, Following, tireless, till his throat has blood. Six years I waited, ere in armoured strength I came to reap their harvests with my sword; And hate to me was sweeter far than love. O priest, was that hate sin?” He answered not At once; but met her gaze with level eyes, Then answered: “Brunhild, thou must ask thy soul.” Perhaps she sought there, but no answer breathed Her unmoved lips, close shut with a strange smile; Then with a gesture, grave, magnificent, She spoke again: “What fools have done to me, Or enemies have planned; what shames and wounds Arnulf and Pippin keep for me, or gave: All that I do forgive. But answer, priest: I, who wrought wisely through long weary years To build a kingdom, where was turbulence, And mould a civil state out of this strife, Come at the last unto a shameful death; While Fredegonde, who wrought for her own lust, Died peacefully: has God been just to us? Bow not thy head; bear with my bitterness: Though God desert me in mine hour of need, Yet shall I carry a firm heart to death; Nor blame him, nor blame other than myself, Who never trusted other. These six years Of waiting over, Fredegonde and I Began our war; she, breaking out of bounds, And ravaging some parts of Aquitaine, Till some barbarians from Germany Came at the call of Sigebert, and slew And pillaged all the people up to Chartres, Turning aside to waste and burn the crops, Ploughing the fertile land with war, until Triumphant trumpets, through the startled night Carried our menaces, upon the wind, To Paris, safe among its flooded fields Of reeds, and purple irises, and gold Marsh-mallows, splendid in the light of noon. “Three years our storm of vengeance shook the land Ere Paris fell, and Sigebert in pomp Rode through the gateways, proudly triumphing, And bade me with our children follow him. Hilperik fled to Tournai; and his host Melted as snow in our sweet summer time. How like a bride I felt again that day! My little son beside me on his horse, Carrying high that royal head of his That the sun made more golden, smiled to see Crowding about us all my husband’s men, Who shouted as a welcome in mine ears: ‘Is Galswith now avenged? Have we done well?’ And the cry rippled on through all the ranks While I smiled gladly on them; but my heart Tormented me that Hilperik was fled, And Fredegonde in sanctuary safe, The church of God’s own mother sheltering her. “How thick the people pressed to gaze on me With sullen brows, or angry, wondering! Till suddenly a voice cried musical— Lo, what a pearl Spain gave unto the world! Then, turning at the well-remembered words, I saw, above the shifting, changing crowd, The poet Fortunatus wave to me From a high window, and his maddened eyes, Before the bending street hid him again. “There is a doom on poets; their fond thought Builds an ambitious phantasy, and calls The frail thing Life; this gossamer of dreams Each strong wind shatters. Priest, perchance it was My beauty, like a wind, had wrecked his web, So that his life became quite purposeless, The whole world being alien to him, And only I seemed to him like a star, Beckoning him. Alas! his errant brain Had clothed me, too, with grace that I had not, And then misjudged me. Yea, I know the world Imputes to me adultery and lust; There is a doom on queens as well, it seems, To have each action weighed by vulgar minds, Criticized by the multitude; their names, Toys, with which fools have grown familiar: Yet who would waste denial on this mob Of idle chatterers whose souls are slime. But, riding through this crowd, there came to me A moment when I saw the hopelessness In him, the hopelessness in all the world, Whose praises are as crowns corruptible, Born, as their worthless blame, of ignorance. “I paused not long upon this wintry thought. The world that I had won, before mine eyes Broke into colour, motion, victory, With banners breaking gay, and flashing steel In serried ranks, as Sigebert rode close To kiss me on the cheek, then drew our son From the huge horse that proudly carried him, To his own saddle-bow; and so they rode Through all the army while I followed them.” The grave voice slackened from its pitch, and fell Quavering, and the silence held them both. Then Brunhild raised again her head and spoke In a deep, even voice and passionless: “The swallows of our summer soon were fled. Sigebert left me with a slender guard In Paris, and left Hildebert with me: Then pressed on Tournai, after Hilperik, Who fled before him on to Vitry, where His nobles left him, laying down their arms, Crying aloud: ‘Lo, we are spent with wars, Let Sigebert be King of all the Franks.’ So the news came to me one warm eve when, As the sun dropped behind the western hills, I watched the bright stars one by one grow clear In the green lingering of the faded light, While swans came floating to me on the tide Of the strong Seine, which royally they rode With ruffled snowy plumage and arched necks Out of the distance sailing, like a fleet, And turned their course toward a reedy isle Where each one preened its plumage till soft eve With shuttered eyelids lulled them into sleep. So, even as this isle unto the swans, Peace seemed to me a welcome harbourage; I counted now each step beyond clear gain In the slow progress from our lawless state To an imperial dominion set Over the wreck of that old Roman power; And all my thoughts were eagles carrying The thunder of mine edicts through the world. The folk of Paris, too, had heard the news And gathered by the palace gate that night To see me pass them; as I entered in I thought their frowns had faded. Then I took My way toward the room where Galswith died Suddenly, in that terror-stricken night, To tell her that her kingdom now was mine, If haply her pure spirit still might haunt That mildewed chamber, stained and sanctified By her own blood: but by the arras paused, And through my tears looked on the little room Where she had housed so meanly; and it was To me the temple of her shame and wrongs. Then that old lust for blood, unsatisfied, Dried up the gentle sources of my tears, And I turned back; nor thought to enter in While Hilperik still lived, or Fredegonde. Sleep fell upon mine eyes that night, as soft As snow in April on half-opened buds That usher in the many-coloured months, Unvext by dim anxieties and fears Of misadventures, which had troubled sleep These many nights; and Hildebert, my son, Slept the calm sleep of children by my side, His sweet, warm body nestled close to mine, Sharing the same enchanted realm of dreams. “Then seemed it as if rude and angry sounds Rippled our visions, as a pebble thrown In water blurs the cool reflections there, Till growing louder, more tumultuous, A rumour rose above the huddled roofs That clustered round the palace, shattering The crystal of our dreams, and then a voice Shouted to me: ‘Brunhild, awake and fly! For Sigebert is slain by treachery. Even as we raised him on the kingly shield, Fredegonde’s pages smote on either side With poisoned daggers: all our strength dissolves Into small companies of plunderers Laden with spoil, their horses homeward turned.’ “The harsh voice shuddered through the darkened room Ere torches came, and in their ruddy light I saw the angry eyes of Gondovald Blazing before me with their baffled hate. I trembled by the bed, but mine eyes too Mirrored the angry torches. ‘Take the boy,’ I said to him: ‘I should but hinder you; But leave me in the refuge of the church.’ There by the sleeping saints I sat and watched, Fearing the dawn. So all my work was hurled By ruinous chance to nothing in an hour.” “Brunhild, not chance it was, but punishment: The retribution followed on thy pride; And on thy lust, and hunger for revenge.” But Brunhild turned on him: “Would God destroy A nation newly wakened into life, Because of my one sin; and give the palm Of victory to Fredegonde, whose life Was sin in all its many changing forms? How poor and futile are the sophistries Of schools when one is drawing close to death, That lies before us, silent, shadowy, With veiled horizons and no guiding stars, A vast, unfathomable, empty sea, Broken by no white gleam of friendly sails, Untravelled, claiming all our company, More secret than our wisdom may explore; Into which darkness all of us must go. I go untrammelled by mere selfishness, Conscious that many hopes converged on me, Till I became a symbol in men’s eyes; And still more conscious of the silent strife In mine own spirit when two courses lay Before me, and a voice cried: ‘Choose the best!’ By what I choose now let my soul abide. “One thing I learned, which is a part of hope With me: God knows how willing is man’s soul, Yet how his life is clouded o’er with doom, And hindered by innumerable things; So he will never judge by what I did, But read my soul, and know thence what I was, As no man knows me. Yet with tears I go; For I have loved the green lap of the earth, Its snowy toppling peaks with golden plumes Of sunset, or with sullen clouds of storm; Yea, I have loved the green fields of the earth, And the gray fields of the eternal sea, And night with its wide heavens, garlanded With the innumerable stars, the moon, Who sometimes like a blown sail in the sky, Voyages, or enchants with gentle beams Woodlands, and winding rivers, and still lakes. “And I have loved the seasons in their turn: Spring with her fragile flowers, virginal, Laughing beneath her coverlet of snow; Green Summer with her flocks of singing-birds, Cuckoos, and nightingales, and shrill-voiced lark, And swallows clamorous in crowded nests; Wild Autumn with his wind-swept avenues And fluttering of tawny golden leaves, His late warm ripeness in the apple-trees, The vagueness of his mourning, purple mists; And Winter, finally, with amber lights, His black boughs bare against the azure sky, Or on a gentle, rounded slope of woods, Clouded with purple bloom, his ivied trunks From which the lone owl calls with his deep voice, And, as the rooks pass homeward, overhead The multitudinous murmuring of wings. “All this I leave, and ways wherein my feet Have grown familiar, to voyage out Upon the darkness, void of any star. But in this little moment which is mine, While all my foes are sleeping, drunkenly, Among the dying lights, the broken meats, Which the dogs tear upon the rush-strewn floor While even the moonlight sleeps upon the hills, I build again, out of my memories, The storm and splendour of my troubled life. Even the narrow frontiers of this cell May in the crystal vision of the mind Hold my remembered royalty, and keep Dim memories of old magnificence, Pomp, courtly festivals, and crowded days, Of lovers who bent yearningly to me, Of poets, who made music at my touch As Memnon at the morning’s, of old kings Grave with their wisdom, and young warriors Whose wisdom was the lightness of their hearts; These haunt my solitude, and pay me court, Nor heed misfortune: but of all this state Only one face is there which fills my soul With some strong healing effluence, a grace Of twilight reveries when all things seem Merged in the peace of God, and we become Part of the clear, intense, eternal flame Whose motion is like music, and we lose Sense of ourselves in drawing close to God. Love, that has cleansed the heart of pettiness, Shows me the face of Merow in my dreams.” And, as she spoke, the face of Brunhild lit With radiance from that old love, her face Softened, and age was as a grace to her. “Yea, I loved Sigebert; but all that love Was but my childish wonder at the ways Of men; and I clung close unto his strength. Our friendship might have ripened slow like wine, To be a cheer and comfort to our age, Mellow with wisdom, tranquil, tolerant; Yet is it but a shadow. Happiness Is not the nurture of a steadfast soul; But sorrow binds us with the bonds of love. Love is a suffering, a sacrifice; A hand put out toward all human pain; A fellowship, through danger and the dark: So was the love that Merow taught to me. “The days of my delight had passed like wind Over the water, and had died away; My lutanists and falconers were far; And I sat lonely and a prisoner, With Praetextatus, guarded carefully, When Merow came to Rouen with a troop Of young, light-hearted warriors, the close Friends of his venturous youth and confidence. How could he look on me with gentle eyes Who had pursued his people like a hawk? Yet then his mind turned back to Andovere, Whom convent walls enclosed, and Fredegonde Seemed now so hateful in his sight, he found Companionship with me in hating her. He, with his friends, all day would hunt the boar, And the wild aurochs, but at night would sit Close to the blazing logs, and there I served The warm, spiced ale to them, or ruddy wine From Macon, till I moved them, every one, So that their eyes grew bright at my approach And faded when I left them; thus it was. But I and Merow had not yet drawn close To one another; for when one advanced The other tarried, so we vexed ourselves With sudden heats, and sudden coldnesses, Making each other sensitive and quick In our resentment. Then one evening There came a messenger from Fredegonde To Merow, and he left our company, So that I saw him not again that night; And in the morning back to Fredegonde Returned the messenger, but Merow went Alone, and brooded much in solitude, Nor heeded me, nor sought to speak with me, As he was wont to on the least pretence. “One morning to my room there came a page Of Merow’s, who, when I would talk to him At our chance meetings, blushed and hung his head, But, when I heeded not his presence, gazed Long on my face and fed his dreamings there. He came to me by stealth, in secrecy, And laid his hand upon my hand, and spake: ‘Brunhild, beware of Merow, for he thinks To poison thee, and so to make his peace With Fredegonde, who thus has tempted him. And she has sent him poisons, which the art Of Lapland sorcerers distilled for her, From herbs accursÉd, in the moon’s eclipse, Bidding him mix the draught into thy wine. So, if he bids thee drink, drink not, but rest Thy lips upon the rim, lest thou shouldst die.’ “Ah! how the sky seemed barren of all light But a new motive quickens in my mind, And all my old ambitions are astir; Fredegonde day and night may toil and spin, I am the fresher for that I have slept If Gondovald may threaten her from Metz With armies of my followers and friends, Sworn to my service, may not I from here Threaten as well and equally be heard? And when her fear of armies is aroused, May I not lull to sleep those other fears Born of my love for Merow, telling her That he was but a means to my escape. Love never hindered her in the pursuit Of her ambition; lovers are her dupes: So let her judge of me. Merow will stay In Tours with you, hiding his yellow hair And simulated sorrow in a cowl, Till I am firmly seated by my son. Then let him come to me, and we shall weld The kingdoms of the Franks into one crown Imperial, whose might will shake the world, And roll Mahomet back to his own place Before our banners blazoned with the Cross. Lend me thy help in this, and I shall bless Thy church and Rome with many precious gifts, Spoiled of the conquered.’ And he answered me: “‘Thou art a woman such as deserts breed: A prophetess among the elect of God, Who lays his mission on thee, with his hand, As even once on Judith, and on Jael, On Miriam, and Esther; such an one As burns with all the strength and wrath of God, Consumed with zeal, devoted unto death, A sword of hatred to the impious. Plough up this land again with bloody war; And I shall bless thy work. A Herod sits Supreme above us: reach to pluck him down, This Nero of our time, this hangman king, Who spoils our abbeys and the Church’s land: Let him be as the quarry to thy hounds. What matter if the ruin of the rain Cumber our garden-paths with fallen leaves Or ever autumn come, when nourished Earth But grows more fecund at its fertile touch, And germinates with new luxuriance? Let us not waste this night, but seek a means To freedom for thee. Merow stays with me Waiting until their vigilance be dulled, And rusted by slow time; till idleness Become a hunger after wanton sports; Till I have lured them into vain delights Of banqueting, and music, and the chase After such game, or fierce or amorous, As their lust shows them, perilously keen. But, meanwhile, I shall send to Fredegonde Two counsellors of subtile wit, to weave Light snares about her so she feel them not, Till, multiplied, they hold as fast as steel.’ “So planned we in the shadowy dim aisles, In confidence of time, as if it brought Ever expected gifts and no defeat: And ere another morn I fled, alone, By unfrequented ways: and many years Passed ere I looked on Gregory again.” No motion made the priest as Brunhild paused; His eyes avoided hers. She was as one Towering over the departed years, The sea of years her memory like a shell Held echoes of, and reminiscent sounds. And above all her insults and disgrace, The burden of her age, the bitter wrongs, She rose into a calm, majestic realm, That eagles might inhabit, with her mind Intent upon the spectacle of life, Yet heedless of her fate; no shame could touch The soul that breathed in so serene an air, Superior to mortal accidents. But the priest felt that effluence from her Shed a strange glory round the humid cell And fill him with a fearful sense of fate: The blind, remorseless progress of the world. Sombre and threatening, her figure cut Prow-like, and loomed through huge, tempestuous night, Toward a doom obscure and imminent. She spoke again in slow and weary words: “Merow remained with Gregory; but time Brought no release for his imprisoned feet Or the wild soul pent in that cloistral peace Among the gilt and painted images Of the dead saints, the effigies of stone, The prisoned light, the windless, silent air That came not fresh from out the heart of dawn, But hung upon him heavily as death, Damp with its charnels; and the solemn chants Filled him with longing for the loud-voiced larks, And he was eager for my lips again. “Ah, God! what ruin lurked within his love. He fled by night from that safe harbourage, On foot, into the woods, and careless roamed Through unknown ways, and couched with herds of deer In brakes and bowery hollows, that the sound Of their swift flight when wolves drew close at night, Warned and awakened him; or he would creep At evening to some lone sequestered farm, Hid in a fold of hills, and win his food, His place beside the fire, with merry songs Tuned to a rustic harp, deluding hosts With tales of how he lived by minstrelsy: Yet never rested longer than the night, But with the dawn departed, ere the birds Woke to their song, and man from healing sleep To his laborious struggle with the earth; Silent he slipped from them, that none might know The path he travelled, and next night would lie On some lone upland underneath the stars. While, as he wandered, drawing close to me, I dreamed him still at Tours, and had no hope To see him, for my lords were turbulent, Grown headstrong in mine absence, and my son Had not yet learned the art of governance: To play on rival jealousies, and split Alliances in factions; to dissolve Confederacies, as an acid eats Through base alloy of idols composite, Till the whole crumble; to lead many weak Against one strong, and win the name of Right, Come in full arms to succour the distressed, And break the bonds of tyranny; to pay The world with phrases; lead the ductile m |
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