Poems by W. M. Praed.

“Soft songs to Julia’s cockatoo,Fierce odes to Famine and to Slaughter.”

Praed taught his contemporaries to be natural. He had a remarkable fluency of expression. He was humorous, witty, and good-natured; he was a man of the world, and knew his world well, gauged its weaknesses with accuracy, and judged them with the leniency of a good-humoured worldly philosopher, contriving, meanwhile, not to forfeit his own character for honesty and healthiness of mind. There is nothing very deep about Praed’s poetry, yet is it not entirely superficial. He had keen insight and plenty of discrimination, but for great passion or sustained power he had no capabilities. Lightly and gracefully he skated over thethin surface ice of sentiment, not ignorant of, yet with little desire to fathom, the unknown depths of passion and suffering that lay beneath. “The genius of gentleman” claimed for Horace by the late Lord Lytton, belonged to Praed in no common degree. No man equally witty and brilliant was ever more perfectly well-bred in his writings: without prudery, affectation, or cant, he was never slangy, suggestive, or irreverent: he even achieved the difficult art of writing political satires that lost none of their point from the fact of their being free from coarseness or personality. He was a typical society poet, compounded of wit, scholar, and gentleman. His world was not a very serious or a very earnest world, and he wrote of it pretty much as he found it, with some slight touches of half-sad, half-cynical, but never unkindly moralising; yet with all its faults it was a pleasant world to those whom it treated well, and a man laden with society’s favours, as was Praed, was not likely to develop into a Democritus. Few poets have been better treated by the world than he was: the paths of literature and politics were never thorny ones to him; his talents brought him reputation before he had ever struggled to attain it. Helping hands were freely held out to him from the hour of his first schoolboy success; he was popular in society, fortunate in friendship, and, above all things,happy in his family and domestic affections. Mr. Locker remarks of the qualities of his poetry, that “his fancy is less wild than Moore’s, while his sympathies are narrower than Thackeray’s.” Both statements (qualified by the further expression of opinion that has already been quoted) may be accepted without much demur. With regard to the latter remark, there are indeed few writers of the century of whom it might not, with equal justice, have been made. Admitting that his sympathies were neither very deep nor very wide, they are at least essentially and uniformly healthy and pure. Whatever might have been Praed’s matter, his manner, although not versatile, is always good. His fluency of expression is remarkable, and must have even been a source of weakness, since a man who wrote so much, so constantly, and with so little effort, must almost inevitably have perpetrated a good deal of inferior work in his time. What Praed published formed only a portion of what he wrote, for he was always ready to scribble verse on slight temptation; and that “inquisitive man with the note book,” Nathaniel Parker Willis, who met Praed at a country house, has left it on record that he was ever open to furnish contributions to the inevitable album that every fair one cherished in those days. Praed’s style, as has been said, is not versatile:he never hazarded possible harshness by metrical experiments, and the measures that he particularly affected have become intimately associated with the general characteristics of his style; his rhyme and rhythm are both perfect, and apparently instinctive, as if writing in metre were as effortless an exercise to him as writing in prose.

To conclude in the words of the Rev. Derwent Coleridge, “Not unknown, nor without mark in the arena of political conflict, the name of Praed is still remembered as at least that of a forward pupil in the school of statesmanship; and though his literary honours, won in earliest manhood, and sustained by the casual productions of a leisure hour, were worn carelessly, while he was preparing for more serious duties, yet now that years have gone by, and we have to audit the past with no expectation of any future account, we find that he has left behind him a permanent expression of wit and grace, refined and tender feeling, of inventive fancy and acute observation, unique in character, and his own by an undisputed title.”

FREDERICK COOPER.

“Oh flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified.”—Romeo and Juliet.

The Abbot arose, and closed his book,And donned his sandal shoon,And wandered forth, alone, to lookUpon the summer moon:A starlight sky was o’er his head,A quiet breeze around;And the flowers a thrilling fragrance shed,And the waves a soothing sound:It was not an hour, nor a scene, for aughtBut love and calm delight;Yet the holy man had a cloud of thoughtOn his wrinkled brow that night.He gazed on the river that gurgled by,But he thought not of the reeds;He clasped his gilded rosary,But he did not tell the beads;If he looked to the heaven, ’twas not to invokeThe Spirit that dwelleth there;If he opened his lips, the words they spokeHad never the tone of prayer.A pious priest might the Abbot seem,He had swayed the crozier well;But what was the theme of the Abbot’s dream,The Abbot were loth to tell.Companionless, for a mile or more,He traced the windings of the shore.Oh, beauteous is that river still,As it winds by many a sloping hill,And many a dim o’erarching grove,And many a flat and sunny cove,And terraced lawns, whose bright arcadesThe honeysuckle sweetly shades,And rocks, whose very crags seem bowers,So gay they are with grass and flowers!But the Abbot was thinking of sceneryAbout as much, in sooth,As a lover thinks of constancy,Or an advocate of truth.He did not mark how the skies in wrathGrew dark above his head;He did not mark how the mossy pathGrew damp beneath his tread;And nearer he came, and still more near,To a pool, in whose recessThe water had slept for many a year,Unchanged and motionless;From the river stream it spread awayThe space of half a rood;The surface had the hue of clayAnd the scent of human blood;The trees and the herbs that round it grewWere venomous and foul,And the birds that through the bushes flewWere the vulture and the owl;The water was as dark and rankAs ever a company pumped,And the perch, that was netted and laid on the bank,Grew rotten while it jumped;And bold was the man who thither cameAt midnight, man or boy,For the place was cursed with an evil name,And that name was “The Devil’s Decoy!”The Abbot was weary as abbot could be,And he sat down to rest on the stump of a tree:When suddenly rose a dismal tone—Was it a song, or was it a moan?“O ho! O ho!Above—below—Lightly and brightly they glide and go!The hungry and keen on the top are leaping,The lazy and fat in the depths are sleeping;Fishing is fine when the pool is muddy,Broiling is rich when the coals are ruddy.”In a monstrous fright, by the murky light,He looked to the left and he looked to the right,And what was the vision close before him,That flung such a sudden stupor o’er him?’Twas a sight to make the hair uprise,And the life blood colder run:The startled priest struck both his thighs,And the abbey clock struck one!All alone, by the side of the pool,A tall man sat on a three-legged stool,Kicking his heels on the dewy sod,And putting in order his reel and rod;Red were the rags his shoulders wore,And a high red cap on his head he bore;His arms and his legs were long and bare;And two or three locks of long red hairWere tossing about his scraggy neck,Like a tattered flag o’er a splitting wreck.It might be time, or it might be trouble,Had bent that stout back nearly double,Sunk in their deep and hollow socketsThat blazing couple of Congreve rockets,And shrunk and shrivelled that tawny skin,Till it hardly covered the bones within.The line the Abbot saw him throwHad been fashioned and formed long ages ago,And the hands that worked his foreign vestLong ages ago had gone to their rest:You would have sworn, as you looked on them,He had fished in the flood with Ham and Shem!There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks,As he took forth a bait from his iron box.Minnow or gentle, worm or fly—It seemed not such to the Abbot’s eye;Gaily it glittered with jewel and gem,And its shape was the shape of a diadem.It was fastened a gleaming hook aboutBy a chain within and a chain without;The fisherman gave it a kick and a spin,And the water fizzed as it tumbled in!From the bowels of the earthStrange and varied sounds had birth;Now the battle’s bursting peal,Neigh of steed, and clang of steel;Now an old man’s hollow groanEchoed from the dungeon stone;Now the weak and wailing cryOf a stripling’s agony!Cold by this was the midnight air;But the Abbot’s blood ran colder,When he saw a gasping knight lie there,With a gash beneath his clotted hair,And a hump upon his shoulder.And the loyal churchman strove in vainTo mutter a Pater Noster;For he who writhed in mortal painWas camped that night on Bosworth plain—The cruel Duke of Glo’ster!There was turning of keys and creaking of locks,As he took forth a bait from his iron box.It was a haunch of princely size,Filling with fragrance earth and skies.The corpulent Abbot knew full wellThe swelling form, and the steaming smell;Never a monk that wore a hoodCould better have guessed the very woodWhere the noble hart had stood at bay,Weary and wounded, at close of day.Sounded then the noisy gleeOf a revelling company—Sprightly story, wicked jest,Rated servant, greeted guest,Flow of wine and flight of cork,Stroke of knife, and thrust of fork:But, where’er the board was spread,Grace, I ween, was never said!Pulling and tugging the Fisherman sat;And the Priest was ready to vomit,When he hauled out a gentleman, fine and fat,With a belly as big as a brimming vat,And a nose as red as a comet.“A capital stew,” the Fisherman said,“With cinnamon and sherry!”And the Abbot turned away his head,For his brother was lying before him dead—The Mayor of St. Edmund’s Bury!There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks,As he took forth a bait from his iron box.It was a bundle of beautiful things—A peacock’s tail, and a butterfly’s wings,A scarlet slipper, an auburn curl,A mantle of silk, and a bracelet of pearl,And a packet of letters, from whose sweet foldSuch a stream of delicate odours rolled,That the Abbot fell on his face, and fainted,And deemed his spirit was half-way sainted.Sounds seemed dropping from the skies,Stifled whispers, smothered sighs,And the breath of vernal gales,And the voice of nightingales:But the nightingales were mute,Envious, when an unseen luteShaped the music of its chordsInto passion’s thrilling words:“Smile, Lady, smile! I will not setUpon my brow the coronet,Till thou wilt gather roses whiteTo wear around its gems of light.Smile, Lady, smile!—I will not seeRivers and Hastings bend the knee,Till those bewitching lips of thineWill bid me rise in bliss from mine.Smile, Lady, smile!—for who would winA loveless throne through guilt and sin?Or who would reign o’er vale and hill,If woman’s heart were rebel still?”One jerk, and there a lady lay,A lady wondrous fair;But the rose of her lip had faded away,And her cheek was as white and as cold as clay,And torn was her raven hair.“Ah, ha!” said the Fisher, in merry guise,“Her gallant was hooked before;”And the Abbot heaved some piteous sighs,For oft he had blessed those deep blue eyes,The eyes of Mistress Shore!There was turning of keys and creaking of locks,As he took forth a bait from his iron box.Many the cunning sportsman tried,Many he flung with a frown aside;A minstrel’s harp, and a miser’s chest,A hermit’s cowl, and a baron’s crest,Jewels of lustre, robes of price,Tomes of heresy, loaded dice,And golden cups of the brightest wineThat ever was pressed from the Burgundy vine.There was a perfume of sulphur and nitre,As he came at last to a bishop’s mitre!From top to toe the Abbot shook,As the Fisherman armed his golden hook,And awfully were his features wroughtBy some dark dream or wakened thought.Look how the fearful felon gazesOn the scaffold his country’s vengeance raises,When the lips are cracked and the jaws are dryWith the thirst which only in death shall die:Mark the manner’s frenzied frownAs the swirling wherry settles down,When peril has numbed the sense and will,Though the hand and the foot may struggle still:Wilder far was the Abbot’s glance,Deeper far was the Abbot’s trance:Fixed as a monument, still as air,He bent no knee, and he breathed no prayer;But he signed—he knew not why or how—The sign of the Cross on his clammy brow.There was turning of keys and creaking of locks,As he stalked away with his iron box.“O ho! O ho!The cock doth crow;It is time for the Fisher to rise and go.Fair luck to the Abbot, fair luck to the shrine!He hath gnawed in twain my choicest line; south,Let him swim to the north, let him swim to theThe Abbot will carry my hook in his mouth!”The Abbot had preached for many yearsWith as clear articulationAs ever was heard in the House of PeersAgainst Emancipation;His words had made battalions quake,Had roused the zeal of martyrs,Had kept the Court an hour awake,And the King himself three-quarters:But ever since that hour, ’tis said,He stammered and he stuttered,As if an axe went through his headWith every word he uttered.He stuttered o’er blessing, he stuttered o’er ban,He stuttered, drunk or dry;And none but he and the FishermanCould tell the reason why!

Companionless, for a mile or more,He traced the windings of the shore.Oh, beauteous is that river still,As it winds by many a sloping hill,And many a dim o’erarching grove,And many a flat and sunny cove,And terraced lawns, whose bright arcadesThe honeysuckle sweetly shades,And rocks, whose very crags seem bowers,So gay they are with grass and flowers!But the Abbot was thinking of sceneryAbout as much, in sooth,As a lover thinks of constancy,Or an advocate of truth.He did not mark how the skies in wrathGrew dark above his head;He did not mark how the mossy pathGrew damp beneath his tread;And nearer he came, and still more near,To a pool, in whose recessThe water had slept for many a year,Unchanged and motionless;From the river stream it spread awayThe space of half a rood;The surface had the hue of clayAnd the scent of human blood;The trees and the herbs that round it grewWere venomous and foul,And the birds that through the bushes flewWere the vulture and the owl;The water was as dark and rankAs ever a company pumped,And the perch, that was netted and laid on the bank,Grew rotten while it jumped;And bold was the man who thither cameAt midnight, man or boy,For the place was cursed with an evil name,And that name was “The Devil’s Decoy!”

The Abbot was weary as abbot could be,And he sat down to rest on the stump of a tree:When suddenly rose a dismal tone—Was it a song, or was it a moan?“O ho! O ho!Above—below—Lightly and brightly they glide and go!The hungry and keen on the top are leaping,The lazy and fat in the depths are sleeping;Fishing is fine when the pool is muddy,Broiling is rich when the coals are ruddy.”In a monstrous fright, by the murky light,He looked to the left and he looked to the right,And what was the vision close before him,That flung such a sudden stupor o’er him?’Twas a sight to make the hair uprise,And the life blood colder run:The startled priest struck both his thighs,And the abbey clock struck one!All alone, by the side of the pool,A tall man sat on a three-legged stool,Kicking his heels on the dewy sod,And putting in order his reel and rod;Red were the rags his shoulders wore,And a high red cap on his head he bore;His arms and his legs were long and bare;And two or three locks of long red hairWere tossing about his scraggy neck,Like a tattered flag o’er a splitting wreck.It might be time, or it might be trouble,Had bent that stout back nearly double,Sunk in their deep and hollow socketsThat blazing couple of Congreve rockets,And shrunk and shrivelled that tawny skin,Till it hardly covered the bones within.The line the Abbot saw him throwHad been fashioned and formed long ages ago,And the hands that worked his foreign vestLong ages ago had gone to their rest:You would have sworn, as you looked on them,He had fished in the flood with Ham and Shem!

There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks,As he took forth a bait from his iron box.Minnow or gentle, worm or fly—It seemed not such to the Abbot’s eye;Gaily it glittered with jewel and gem,And its shape was the shape of a diadem.It was fastened a gleaming hook aboutBy a chain within and a chain without;The fisherman gave it a kick and a spin,And the water fizzed as it tumbled in!From the bowels of the earthStrange and varied sounds had birth;Now the battle’s bursting peal,Neigh of steed, and clang of steel;Now an old man’s hollow groanEchoed from the dungeon stone;Now the weak and wailing cryOf a stripling’s agony!Cold by this was the midnight air;But the Abbot’s blood ran colder,When he saw a gasping knight lie there,With a gash beneath his clotted hair,And a hump upon his shoulder.And the loyal churchman strove in vainTo mutter a Pater Noster;For he who writhed in mortal painWas camped that night on Bosworth plain—The cruel Duke of Glo’ster!

There was turning of keys and creaking of locks,As he took forth a bait from his iron box.It was a haunch of princely size,Filling with fragrance earth and skies.The corpulent Abbot knew full wellThe swelling form, and the steaming smell;Never a monk that wore a hoodCould better have guessed the very woodWhere the noble hart had stood at bay,Weary and wounded, at close of day.

Sounded then the noisy gleeOf a revelling company—Sprightly story, wicked jest,Rated servant, greeted guest,Flow of wine and flight of cork,Stroke of knife, and thrust of fork:But, where’er the board was spread,Grace, I ween, was never said!Pulling and tugging the Fisherman sat;And the Priest was ready to vomit,When he hauled out a gentleman, fine and fat,With a belly as big as a brimming vat,And a nose as red as a comet.“A capital stew,” the Fisherman said,“With cinnamon and sherry!”And the Abbot turned away his head,For his brother was lying before him dead—The Mayor of St. Edmund’s Bury!

There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks,As he took forth a bait from his iron box.It was a bundle of beautiful things—A peacock’s tail, and a butterfly’s wings,A scarlet slipper, an auburn curl,A mantle of silk, and a bracelet of pearl,And a packet of letters, from whose sweet foldSuch a stream of delicate odours rolled,That the Abbot fell on his face, and fainted,And deemed his spirit was half-way sainted.

Sounds seemed dropping from the skies,Stifled whispers, smothered sighs,And the breath of vernal gales,And the voice of nightingales:But the nightingales were mute,Envious, when an unseen luteShaped the music of its chordsInto passion’s thrilling words:“Smile, Lady, smile! I will not setUpon my brow the coronet,Till thou wilt gather roses whiteTo wear around its gems of light.Smile, Lady, smile!—I will not seeRivers and Hastings bend the knee,Till those bewitching lips of thineWill bid me rise in bliss from mine.Smile, Lady, smile!—for who would winA loveless throne through guilt and sin?Or who would reign o’er vale and hill,If woman’s heart were rebel still?”

One jerk, and there a lady lay,A lady wondrous fair;But the rose of her lip had faded away,And her cheek was as white and as cold as clay,And torn was her raven hair.“Ah, ha!” said the Fisher, in merry guise,“Her gallant was hooked before;”And the Abbot heaved some piteous sighs,For oft he had blessed those deep blue eyes,The eyes of Mistress Shore!

There was turning of keys and creaking of locks,As he took forth a bait from his iron box.Many the cunning sportsman tried,Many he flung with a frown aside;A minstrel’s harp, and a miser’s chest,A hermit’s cowl, and a baron’s crest,Jewels of lustre, robes of price,Tomes of heresy, loaded dice,And golden cups of the brightest wineThat ever was pressed from the Burgundy vine.There was a perfume of sulphur and nitre,As he came at last to a bishop’s mitre!From top to toe the Abbot shook,As the Fisherman armed his golden hook,And awfully were his features wroughtBy some dark dream or wakened thought.Look how the fearful felon gazesOn the scaffold his country’s vengeance raises,When the lips are cracked and the jaws are dryWith the thirst which only in death shall die:Mark the manner’s frenzied frownAs the swirling wherry settles down,When peril has numbed the sense and will,Though the hand and the foot may struggle still:Wilder far was the Abbot’s glance,Deeper far was the Abbot’s trance:Fixed as a monument, still as air,He bent no knee, and he breathed no prayer;But he signed—he knew not why or how—The sign of the Cross on his clammy brow.

There was turning of keys and creaking of locks,As he stalked away with his iron box.“O ho! O ho!The cock doth crow;It is time for the Fisher to rise and go.Fair luck to the Abbot, fair luck to the shrine!He hath gnawed in twain my choicest line; south,Let him swim to the north, let him swim to theThe Abbot will carry my hook in his mouth!”

The Abbot had preached for many yearsWith as clear articulationAs ever was heard in the House of PeersAgainst Emancipation;His words had made battalions quake,Had roused the zeal of martyrs,Had kept the Court an hour awake,And the King himself three-quarters:But ever since that hour, ’tis said,He stammered and he stuttered,As if an axe went through his headWith every word he uttered.He stuttered o’er blessing, he stuttered o’er ban,He stuttered, drunk or dry;And none but he and the FishermanCould tell the reason why!

“Lead me away! I am weak and young,Captive the fierce and proud among;But I will pray a humble prayer,That the feeble to strike may be strong to bear.“Lead me away! oh, dear to mine eyesAre the flowery fields and the sunny skies;But I cannot turn from the Cross divine,To bend my knee at an idol’s shrine.”They clothe her in such rich arrayAs a bride prepares for her bridal day;Around her forehead, that shines so bright,They wreathe a wreath of roses white,And set on her neck a golden chain,Spoil of her sire in combat slain,Over her head her doom is said;And with folded arms and measured tread,In long procession, dark and slow,Up the terrible hill they go,Hymning their hymn, and crying their cry,To him, their Demon Deity—Mary, Mother, sain and save!The maiden kneels at the Dragon’s cave!Alas! ’tis frightful to beholdThat thing of Nature’s softest mould,In whose slight shape and delicate hueLife’s loveliness beams, fresh and new,Bound on the bleak hill’s topmost height,To die, and by such death, to-night!But yester-eve, when the red sunHis race of grateful toil had run,And over earth the moon’s soft raysLit up the hour of prayer and praise,She bowed within the pleasant shadeBy her own fragrant jasmine made;And while her clear and thrilling toneAsked blessing from her Maker’s throne,Heard the notes echoed to her earFrom lips that were to her most dear.Her sire, her kindred, round her knelt;And the young priestess knew and feltThat deeper love than that of menWas in their natural temple then.That love—is now its radiance chill?Oh! fear not! it is o’er her still!The crowd departed; and aloneShe kneeled upon the rugged stone.Alas! it was a dismal pause,When the wild rabble’s fierce applauseDied slowly on the answering air;And in the still and mute profound,She started even at the soundOf the half-thought, half-spoken prayerHer heart and lip had scarcely powerTo feel or frame in that dark hour,Fearful, yet blameless! for her birth,Fair victim, was of common earth,And she was nurst, in happier hours,By Nature’s common suns and showers;And when one moment whirls awayWhate’er we know or trust to-day,And opens that eternal book,On which we long, and dread, to look—In that quick change of sphere and scope,That rushing of the spirit’s wingsFrom all we have to all we hope,From mortal to immortal things—Though madly on the giddy brinkDespair may smile, and Guilt dissemble,White Innocence a while will shrink,And Piety be proud to tremble!But quickly from her brow and cheekThe flush of human terror faded,And she aroused, the maiden meek,Her fainting spirit, self-upbraided,And felt her secret soul renewedIn that her solemn solitude.Unwonted strength to her was givenTo bear the rod and drink the cup;Her pulse beat calmer, and to HeavenHer voice in firmer tone went up:And as upon her gentle heartThe dew of holy peace descended,She saw her last sunlight departWith awe and hope so meekly blendedInto a deep and tranquil senseOf unpresuming confidence,That if the blinded tribes, whose breathHad doomed her to such dole and death,Could but have caught one bright, brief glanceOf that ungrieving countenance,And marked the light of glory shedAlready o’er her sinless head,The tears with which her eyes were full—Tears not of anguish—and the smileOf new-born rapture, which the whileAs with a lustrous veil arrayedHer brow, her cheek, her lip, and madeHer beauty more than beautiful—Oh, would they not have longed to shareHer torture—yea! her transport, there?“Father, my sins are very great;Thou readest them, whate’er they be;But penitence is all too late;And unprepared I come to Thee,Uncleansed, unblessed, unshriven!“Yet Thou, in whose all-searching sightNo human thing is undefiled—Thou, who art merciful in might,Father, Thou wilt forgive Thy child—Father, Thou hast forgiven!“Thy will, not hers, be done to-day!If in this hour, and on this spot,Her soul indeed must pass awayAmong fierce men who know Thee not—Thine is the breath Thou gavest!“Or, if Thou wilt put forth Thine handAnd shield her from the jaws of flame,That she may live to teach the landWhose people hath not heard Thy name—Thine be the life Thou savest!”So spoke the blessed maid, and nowCrossing her hands upon her breast,With quiet eye and placid browAwaited the destroying pest;Not like a thing of sense and lifeSoul-harrassed in such bitter strife,But tranquil, as a shape of stoneUpraised in ages long bygoneTo mark where, closed her toilsome race,Some sainted sister sleeps in grace.Such Bertha seemed: about her grewSweet wild-flowers, sweet of scent and hue;And she had fixed with pious careHer crucifix before her there,That her last look and thought might beOf Christ and of the Holy Tree.The day was gone, but it was not night:—Whither so suddenly fled the light?Nature seemed sick with a sore disease;Over her hills and streams and treesUnnatural darkness fell;The earth and the heaven, the river and shore,In the lurid mist were seen no more;And the voice of the mountain monster rose,As he lifted him up from his noontide repose,First in a hiss and then in a cry,And then in a yell that shook the sky;The eagle from high fell down to dieAt the sound of that mighty yell:From his wide jaws broke, as in wrath he woke,Scalding torrents of sulphurous smoke,And crackling coals in mad ascentAs from a red volcano went,And flames, like the flames of hell.But his scream of fury waxed more shrill,When on the peak of the blasted hillHe saw his victim bound:Forth the Devourer, scale by scale,Uncoiled the folds of his steel-proof mail,Stretching his throat, and stretching his tail,And hither and thither rolling him o’er,Till he covered four score feet and fourOf the wearied and wailing ground:And at last he raised from his stony bedThe horrors of his speckled head;Up like a comet the meteor went,And seemed to shake the firmament,And batter heaven’s own walls!For many a long mile, well I ween,The fires that shot from those eyes were seen;The Burschen of Bonn, if Bonn had been,Would have shuddered in their halls.Woe for the Virgin!—bootless hereWere glistening shield and whistling spearSuch battle to abide;The mightiest engines that ever the tradeOf human homicide hath made,Warwolf, balist, and catapult,Would like a stripling’s wand insultThat adamantine hide.Woe for the Virgin!—Lo! what spellHath scattered the darkness, and silenced the yell,And quenched those fiery showers?—Why turns the serpent from his prey?—The Cross hath barred his terrible way,The Cross among the flowers.As an eagle pierced on his cloudy throne,As a column sent from its base of stone,Backward the stricken monster dropped;Never he stayed, and never he stopped,Till deep in the gushing tide he sankAnd buried lay beneath the stream,Passing away like a loathsome dream.Well may you guess how either bankAs with an earthquake shook;The mountains rocked from brow to base;The river boiled with a hideous din;As the burning mass fell heavily in;And the wide, wide Rhine, for a moment’s spaceWas scorched into a brook.Night passed, ere the multitude dared to creep,Huddled together, up the steep;They came to the stone; in speechless aweThey fell on their face at the sight they saw:The maiden was free from hurt or harm,But the iron had passed from her neck and arm,And the glittering links of the broken chainLay scattered about like drops of rain.And deem ye that the rescued childTo her father-land would come—That the remnant of her kindred smiledAround her in her home,And that she lived in love of earth,Among earth’s hopes and fears,And gave God thanks for the daily birthOf blessings in after years?—Holy and happy, she turned not awayFrom the task her Saviour set that day;What was her kindred, her home, to her?She had been Heaven’s own messenger!Short time went by from that dread hourOf manifested wrath and power,Ere from the cliff a little shrineLooked down upon the rolling Rhine.Duly the virgin Priestess thereLed day by day the hymn and prayer;And the dark heathen round her pressedTo know their Maker, and be blessed.

“Lead me away! I am weak and young,Captive the fierce and proud among;But I will pray a humble prayer,That the feeble to strike may be strong to bear.

“Lead me away! oh, dear to mine eyesAre the flowery fields and the sunny skies;But I cannot turn from the Cross divine,To bend my knee at an idol’s shrine.”

They clothe her in such rich arrayAs a bride prepares for her bridal day;Around her forehead, that shines so bright,They wreathe a wreath of roses white,And set on her neck a golden chain,Spoil of her sire in combat slain,Over her head her doom is said;And with folded arms and measured tread,In long procession, dark and slow,Up the terrible hill they go,Hymning their hymn, and crying their cry,To him, their Demon Deity—Mary, Mother, sain and save!The maiden kneels at the Dragon’s cave!

Alas! ’tis frightful to beholdThat thing of Nature’s softest mould,In whose slight shape and delicate hueLife’s loveliness beams, fresh and new,Bound on the bleak hill’s topmost height,To die, and by such death, to-night!But yester-eve, when the red sunHis race of grateful toil had run,And over earth the moon’s soft raysLit up the hour of prayer and praise,She bowed within the pleasant shadeBy her own fragrant jasmine made;And while her clear and thrilling toneAsked blessing from her Maker’s throne,Heard the notes echoed to her earFrom lips that were to her most dear.Her sire, her kindred, round her knelt;And the young priestess knew and feltThat deeper love than that of menWas in their natural temple then.That love—is now its radiance chill?Oh! fear not! it is o’er her still!

The crowd departed; and aloneShe kneeled upon the rugged stone.Alas! it was a dismal pause,When the wild rabble’s fierce applauseDied slowly on the answering air;And in the still and mute profound,She started even at the soundOf the half-thought, half-spoken prayerHer heart and lip had scarcely powerTo feel or frame in that dark hour,Fearful, yet blameless! for her birth,Fair victim, was of common earth,And she was nurst, in happier hours,By Nature’s common suns and showers;And when one moment whirls awayWhate’er we know or trust to-day,And opens that eternal book,On which we long, and dread, to look—In that quick change of sphere and scope,That rushing of the spirit’s wingsFrom all we have to all we hope,From mortal to immortal things—Though madly on the giddy brinkDespair may smile, and Guilt dissemble,White Innocence a while will shrink,And Piety be proud to tremble!But quickly from her brow and cheekThe flush of human terror faded,And she aroused, the maiden meek,Her fainting spirit, self-upbraided,And felt her secret soul renewedIn that her solemn solitude.Unwonted strength to her was givenTo bear the rod and drink the cup;Her pulse beat calmer, and to HeavenHer voice in firmer tone went up:And as upon her gentle heartThe dew of holy peace descended,She saw her last sunlight departWith awe and hope so meekly blendedInto a deep and tranquil senseOf unpresuming confidence,That if the blinded tribes, whose breathHad doomed her to such dole and death,Could but have caught one bright, brief glanceOf that ungrieving countenance,And marked the light of glory shedAlready o’er her sinless head,The tears with which her eyes were full—Tears not of anguish—and the smileOf new-born rapture, which the whileAs with a lustrous veil arrayedHer brow, her cheek, her lip, and madeHer beauty more than beautiful—Oh, would they not have longed to shareHer torture—yea! her transport, there?

“Father, my sins are very great;Thou readest them, whate’er they be;But penitence is all too late;And unprepared I come to Thee,Uncleansed, unblessed, unshriven!

“Yet Thou, in whose all-searching sightNo human thing is undefiled—Thou, who art merciful in might,Father, Thou wilt forgive Thy child—Father, Thou hast forgiven!

“Thy will, not hers, be done to-day!If in this hour, and on this spot,Her soul indeed must pass awayAmong fierce men who know Thee not—Thine is the breath Thou gavest!

“Or, if Thou wilt put forth Thine handAnd shield her from the jaws of flame,That she may live to teach the landWhose people hath not heard Thy name—Thine be the life Thou savest!”

So spoke the blessed maid, and nowCrossing her hands upon her breast,With quiet eye and placid browAwaited the destroying pest;Not like a thing of sense and lifeSoul-harrassed in such bitter strife,But tranquil, as a shape of stoneUpraised in ages long bygoneTo mark where, closed her toilsome race,Some sainted sister sleeps in grace.Such Bertha seemed: about her grewSweet wild-flowers, sweet of scent and hue;And she had fixed with pious careHer crucifix before her there,That her last look and thought might beOf Christ and of the Holy Tree.

The day was gone, but it was not night:—Whither so suddenly fled the light?Nature seemed sick with a sore disease;Over her hills and streams and treesUnnatural darkness fell;The earth and the heaven, the river and shore,In the lurid mist were seen no more;And the voice of the mountain monster rose,As he lifted him up from his noontide repose,First in a hiss and then in a cry,And then in a yell that shook the sky;The eagle from high fell down to dieAt the sound of that mighty yell:From his wide jaws broke, as in wrath he woke,Scalding torrents of sulphurous smoke,And crackling coals in mad ascentAs from a red volcano went,And flames, like the flames of hell.

But his scream of fury waxed more shrill,When on the peak of the blasted hillHe saw his victim bound:Forth the Devourer, scale by scale,Uncoiled the folds of his steel-proof mail,Stretching his throat, and stretching his tail,And hither and thither rolling him o’er,Till he covered four score feet and fourOf the wearied and wailing ground:And at last he raised from his stony bedThe horrors of his speckled head;Up like a comet the meteor went,And seemed to shake the firmament,And batter heaven’s own walls!For many a long mile, well I ween,The fires that shot from those eyes were seen;The Burschen of Bonn, if Bonn had been,Would have shuddered in their halls.Woe for the Virgin!—bootless hereWere glistening shield and whistling spearSuch battle to abide;The mightiest engines that ever the tradeOf human homicide hath made,Warwolf, balist, and catapult,Would like a stripling’s wand insultThat adamantine hide.Woe for the Virgin!—Lo! what spellHath scattered the darkness, and silenced the yell,And quenched those fiery showers?—Why turns the serpent from his prey?—The Cross hath barred his terrible way,The Cross among the flowers.As an eagle pierced on his cloudy throne,As a column sent from its base of stone,Backward the stricken monster dropped;Never he stayed, and never he stopped,Till deep in the gushing tide he sankAnd buried lay beneath the stream,Passing away like a loathsome dream.Well may you guess how either bankAs with an earthquake shook;The mountains rocked from brow to base;The river boiled with a hideous din;As the burning mass fell heavily in;And the wide, wide Rhine, for a moment’s spaceWas scorched into a brook.

Night passed, ere the multitude dared to creep,Huddled together, up the steep;They came to the stone; in speechless aweThey fell on their face at the sight they saw:The maiden was free from hurt or harm,But the iron had passed from her neck and arm,And the glittering links of the broken chainLay scattered about like drops of rain.

And deem ye that the rescued childTo her father-land would come—That the remnant of her kindred smiledAround her in her home,And that she lived in love of earth,Among earth’s hopes and fears,And gave God thanks for the daily birthOf blessings in after years?—Holy and happy, she turned not awayFrom the task her Saviour set that day;What was her kindred, her home, to her?She had been Heaven’s own messenger!

Short time went by from that dread hourOf manifested wrath and power,Ere from the cliff a little shrineLooked down upon the rolling Rhine.Duly the virgin Priestess thereLed day by day the hymn and prayer;And the dark heathen round her pressedTo know their Maker, and be blessed.

This the Legend of the Drachenfels—Sweet theme, most feebly sung; and yet to meMy feeble song is grateful; for it tellsOf far-off smiles and voices. Though it beUnmeet, fair Lady, for thy breast or bower,Yet thou wilt wear, for thou didst plant the flower.

It had been worthier of such birth and deathIf it had bloomed where thou didst watch its rise,Framed by the zephyr of the fragrant breath,Warmed by the sunshine of thy gentle eyes,And cherished by the love, in whose pure shadeNo evil thing can live, no good thing fade.

It will be long ere thou wilt shed againThy praise or censure on my childish lays—Thy praise, which makes me happy more than vain,Thy censure, kinder than another’s praise.Huge mountains frown between us, and the swellOf the loud sea is mocking my farewell.

Yet not the less, dear Friend, thy guiding lightShines through the secret chambers of my thought;Or when I waken, with revived delight,The lute young Fancy to my cradle brought,Or when I visit with a studious browThe less-loved task, to which I turn me now.

The way was lone, and the hour was late,And Sir Rudolph was far from his castle gate.The night came down by slow degreesOn the river stream, and the forest trees;And by the heat of the heavy air,And by the lightning’s distant glare,And by the rustling of the woods,And by the roaring of the floods,In half-an-hour, a man might say,The Spirit of Storm would ride that way.But little he cared, that stripling pale,For the sinking sun, or the rising gale;For he, as he rode, was dreaming now,Poor youth, of a woman’s broken vow,Of the cup dashed down, ere the wine was tasted,Of elegant speeches sadly wasted,Of a gallant heart all burnt to ashes,And the Baron of Katzberg’s long mustaches.So the earth below, and the heaven above,He saw them not;—those dreams of love,As some have found, and some will find,Make men extremely deaf and blind.At last he opened his great blue eyes,And looking about in vast surprise,Found that his hunter had turned his backAn hour ago on the beaten track,And now was threading a forest hoar,Where steed had never stepped before.“By Cæsar’s head,” Sir Rudolph said,“It were a sorry joke,If I to-night should make my bedOn the turf, beneath an oak!Poor Roland reeks from head to hoof;Now for thy sake, good roan,I would we were beneath a roof,Were it the foul fiend’s own!”Ere the tongue could rest, ere the lips could close,The sound of a listener’s laughter rose.It was not the scream of a merry boyWhen Harlequin waves his wand of joy;Nor the shout from a serious curate, wonBy a bending bishop’s annual pun;Nor the roar of a Yorkshire clown;—oh, no!It was a gentle laugh, and low;Half uttered, perhaps, and stifled half,A good old-gentlemanly laugh;Such as my uncle Peter’s are,When he tells you his tales of Dr. Parr.The rider looked to the left and the right,With something of marvel, and more of fright;But brighter gleamed his anxious eye,When a light shone out from a hill hard by.Thither he spurred, as gay and gladAs Mr. Macquill’s delighted lad,When he turns away from the Pleas of the Crown,Or flings, with a yawn, old Saunders down,And flies, at last, from all the mysteriesOf Plaintiff’s and Defendant’s histories,To make himself sublimely neat,For Mrs. Camac’s in Mansfield Street.At a lofty gate Sir Rudolph halted;Down from his seat Sir Rudolph vaulted:And he blew a blast with might and main,On a bugle that hung by an iron chain.The sound called up a score of sounds;—The screeching of owls, and the baying of hounds,The hollow toll of the turret bell,The call of the watchful sentinel,And a groan at last, like a peal of thunder,As the huge old portals rolled asunder,And gravely from the castle hallPaced forth the white-robed seneschal.He stayed not to ask of what degreeSo fair and famished a knight might be;But knowing that all untimely questionRuffles the temper, and mars the digestion,He laid his hand upon the crupper,And said—“You’re just in time for supper!”They led him to the smoking board,And placed him next the Castle’s Lord.He looked around with a hurried glance:You may ride from the border to fair Penzance,And nowhere, but at Epsom Races,Find such a group of ruffian facesAs thronged that chamber: some were talkingOf feats of hunting and of hawking,And some were drunk, and some were dreaming,And some found pleasure in blaspheming.He thought, as he gazed on the fearful crew,That the lamps that burned on the walls burned blue.They brought him a pasty of mighty size,To cheer his heart, and to charm his eyes;They brought the wine, so rich and old,And filled to the brim the cup of gold;The knight looked down, and the knight looked up,But he carved not the meat, and he drained not the cup.

Ere the tongue could rest, ere the lips could close,The sound of a listener’s laughter rose.It was not the scream of a merry boyWhen Harlequin waves his wand of joy;Nor the shout from a serious curate, wonBy a bending bishop’s annual pun;Nor the roar of a Yorkshire clown;—oh, no!It was a gentle laugh, and low;Half uttered, perhaps, and stifled half,A good old-gentlemanly laugh;Such as my uncle Peter’s are,When he tells you his tales of Dr. Parr.The rider looked to the left and the right,With something of marvel, and more of fright;But brighter gleamed his anxious eye,When a light shone out from a hill hard by.Thither he spurred, as gay and gladAs Mr. Macquill’s delighted lad,When he turns away from the Pleas of the Crown,Or flings, with a yawn, old Saunders down,And flies, at last, from all the mysteriesOf Plaintiff’s and Defendant’s histories,To make himself sublimely neat,For Mrs. Camac’s in Mansfield Street.At a lofty gate Sir Rudolph halted;Down from his seat Sir Rudolph vaulted:And he blew a blast with might and main,On a bugle that hung by an iron chain.The sound called up a score of sounds;—The screeching of owls, and the baying of hounds,The hollow toll of the turret bell,The call of the watchful sentinel,And a groan at last, like a peal of thunder,As the huge old portals rolled asunder,And gravely from the castle hallPaced forth the white-robed seneschal.He stayed not to ask of what degreeSo fair and famished a knight might be;But knowing that all untimely questionRuffles the temper, and mars the digestion,He laid his hand upon the crupper,And said—“You’re just in time for supper!”

They led him to the smoking board,And placed him next the Castle’s Lord.He looked around with a hurried glance:You may ride from the border to fair Penzance,And nowhere, but at Epsom Races,Find such a group of ruffian facesAs thronged that chamber: some were talkingOf feats of hunting and of hawking,And some were drunk, and some were dreaming,And some found pleasure in blaspheming.He thought, as he gazed on the fearful crew,That the lamps that burned on the walls burned blue.They brought him a pasty of mighty size,To cheer his heart, and to charm his eyes;They brought the wine, so rich and old,And filled to the brim the cup of gold;The knight looked down, and the knight looked up,But he carved not the meat, and he drained not the cup.

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