  JOHN A'VAR'S LAST LAY(He becomes a Carmelite) TAKE not from me my lute! There is a spirit caught among its wires That sentient thrills as if with living fires,— FrÈres! let me keep my lute. It may not be? ah, well,— Once more ere yet thou diest, O breathing string! That plainest like the heart of sad sea-shell, And talk'st to me with voice of living thing. Sad now art thou and I— Loved lute, ring out, ring out ere yet we die. Ring out the clash of swords! The meeting shock! ring out the victor's strain! Or dirge, when peasants tramp o'er knights and lords,— Jarring when the war trumpet blows amain, And scattered all afield The shivered lance-shaft and the shattered shield. Ring out to ladies' eyes! To love's wild ecstasy of joy and woe, To morning's mantling blush, to passionate sighs That heave the rose-tipped mamelons of snow, To gage d'amor, I ween, That wakes the rapturous thought of—once hath been. Ring out the words of fire! 'Gainst pride and hate and tyranny the strong, 'Gainst proud man's arrogance, and weak man's ire, And all the lusts that work the world wrong, 'Gainst envy, lie and ill Ring out protest once more, and then be still! Wake gently softer themes! Of white-frocked children dead on cottage floors, Of dances 'neath the jasmine-clustered beams, Of greybeards drinking at the trellised doors, Of immortelles on graves, Of red-cheeked lasses where the ripe corn waves. This world hath been so fair, So full of joyousness! Then what am I That I should thankless spurn God's blessËd air And shut my lids against the sunshine sky? But that is idle breath, Life may be quiet, even if life in death. Dying as echo dies, Faint, and more faint, loved lute, expires my lay, And though my Lays have not been overwise Yet now methinks with thee I best could pray. Our mission now is o'er, O Soul of Song! fly free! No more. No more. Loved lute, farewell. Farewell with other things. But though, for me, I henceforth am the Lord's, No meaner hand shall ever touch thy chords— Thus—thus—I rive thy strings! IN the Rheingan standeth Aix, And in Aix is La Chapelle; On a royal marble daÏs, Underneath a vaulted dome, With his feet upon a tomb, Sits a dread and fearsome Thing As ever minstrel-poet sang! Dead two hundred years! a King On his throne sits Charlemagne In his capital of Aix! In awful state that mighty Shade Sitteth in its chair of stone; In the hand, long ages dead, The sword with unsheathed blade And sceptre bright with gems; On the breast a cross of lead, On the form a golden gown, And circling on his head The French and German diadems And the Lombard crown! And throughout the centuries old, Underneath the vaulted dome, With his feet upon a tomb, Alone and ghastly, stern and cold, In silence save when midnight tolls And its heavy murmur rolls All among the columns round With a solemn measured clang,— In the silentness profound, Sits the shade of Charlemagne Armed and crowned! NILUS! Nilus! and before them rolled The mystic river, while a barge of gold Lay moored with its carved prow against a pier, From which the King embarked with all his train. The reis on the fore-deck drew the spear From out the ringbolt and cast off the chain, And they were floating upon Nile the old. Full bravely led the galley of the King, And all at once, like flap of ibis' wing, Flashed out the gilt and crimson-bladed oars And lightly o'er the molten surface skimmed; While slow unrolled the low and level shores, Like to a landscape on a curtain limned, And blended with the shadows, lessening. Music was on the Nile boats: conch and horn, Flute answering flute, while zittern and lycorn Took up the keynote from the leading barge, And part and counterpart in measured strain, In gathering volume, rolled on to the marge, The while the swelling chorus grew amain And inland o'er the standing rice was borne. Along the shore, as down the mystic river Floated the King, the boughs without a shiver Drooped in the breathless air, and ibises And birds of scarlet plumage waded grave; While small deer, timorous as their nature is, And panthers, to the brink came down to lave, But drew back as they saw the oar-blades quiver. Along the burnished water meadow flowers Floated, and buds with berries, which the scours Of melted torrents, moons ago, had shred From Afric's inland mountain range of snows, And torn up with the rich mould from its bed And brought to Egypt when the waters rose To pour into her lap full harvest dowers. The cortege passed the swamp of crocodiles, And labyrinth of submerged bulrush isles, With matted lilies growing on the ooze, While round the shallow bars the eddies swum, All changeless, as in old time when the Jews Mustered at beat of the Egyptian drum And laid their tale of brick upon the piles. Upon the left bank of the river loomed A massive wall where Pharaohs lay entombed With their deeds vaguely limned in hieroglyph, In tincts of vivid azure, green and red, Ochre and vermeil,—standing stark and stiff Their rigid forms; while 'mong the mummied dead The frogs croaked and the woeful bittern boomed. As they swept on they saw a form of stone Cleaving the yellow sky-line, stern and lone And awful, so no man might bear to dwell 'Neath its eyes glaring with unwinking lids, As if of beings it alone could tell The giant mystery of the pyramids Ere centuries of sand had round them blown. Now on the left bank of the river's flow, Where sentinelled with watch-towers and aglow With half-mooned vanes all flickering like jets Uprose a city walled, in proud estate, Full of domed roofs and tall white minarets The King's fleet veered towards a water-gate And anchored 'neath the walls of Cairo. |
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