But she died while it was building,
And the Church unfinish’d stands;
Stands as erst the builders left it,
When she sunk into her grave. 70
Mountain greensward paves the chancel;
Harebells flower in the nave.
‘In my Castle all is sorrow,’ —
Said the Duchess Marguerite then.
‘Guide me, vassals, to the mountains! 75
We will build the Church again.’ —
Sandall’d palmers, faring homeward,
Austrian knights from Syria came.
‘Austrian wanderers bring, O warders,
Homage to your Austrian dame.’ — 80
From the gate the warders answer’d;
‘Gone, O knights, is she you knew.
Dead our Duke, and gone his Duchess.
Seek her at the Church of Brou.’ —
Austrian knights and march-worn palmers 85
Climb the winding mountain way.
Reach the valley, where the Fabric
Rises higher day by day.
Stones are sawing, hammers ringing;
On the work the bright sun shines: 90
In the Savoy mountain meadows,
By the stream, below the pines.
On her palfrey white the Duchess
Sate and watch’d her working train;
Flemish carvers, Lombard gilders, 95
German masons, smiths from Spain.
Clad in black, on her white palfrey;
Her old architect beside —
There they found her in the mountains,
Morn and noon and eventide. 100
There she sate, and watch’d the builders,
Till the Church was roof’d and done.
Last of all, the builders rear’d her
In the nave a tomb of stone.
On the tomb two Forms they sculptur’d, 105
Lifelike in the marble pale.
One, the Duke in helm and armour;
One, the Duchess in her veil.
Round the tomb the carv’d stone fretwork
Was at Easter tide put on. 110
Then the Duchess clos’d her labours;
And she died at the St. John.
CHURCH OF BROU II. The Church
UPON the glistening leaden roof
Of the new Pile, the sunlight shines.
The stream goes leaping by.
The hills are cloth’d with pines sun-proof.
Mid bright green fields, below the pines, 5
Stands the Church on high.
What Church is this, from men aloof?
‘Tis the Church of Brou.
At sunrise, from their dewy lair
Crossing the stream, the kine are seen 10
Round the wall to stray;
The churchyard wall that clips the square
Of shaven hill-sward trim and green
Where last year they lay.
But all things now are order’d fair 15
Round the Church of Brou.
On Sundays, at the matin chime,
The Alpine peasants, two and three,
Climb up here to pray.
Burghers and dames, at summer’s prime, 20
Ride out to church from Chambery,
Dight with mantles gay.
But else it is a lonely time
Round the Church of Brou.
On Sundays, too, a priest doth come 25
From the wall’d town beyond the pass,
Down the mountain way.
And then you hear the organ’s hum,
You hear the white-rob’d priest say mass,
And the people pray. 30
But else the woods and fields are dumb
Round the Church of Brou.
And after church, when mass is done,
The people to the nave repair
Round the Tomb to stray. 35
And marvel at the Forms of stone,
And praise the chisell’d broideries rare.
Then they drop away.
The Princely Pair are left alone
In the Church of Brou. 40
CHURCH OF BROU III. The Tomb
SO rest, for ever rest, O Princely Pair!
In your high Church, ‘mid the still mountain air,
Where horn, and hound, and vassals, never come.
Only the blessed Saints are smiling dumb
From the rich painted windows of the nave 5
On aisle, and transept, and your marble grave:
Where thou, young Prince, shalt never more arise
From the fring’d mattress where thy Duchess lies,
On autumn mornings, when the bugle sounds,
And ride across the drawbridge with thy hounds 10
To hunt the boar in the crisp woods till eve.
And thou, O Princess, shalt no more receive,
Thou and thy ladies, in the hall of state,
The jaded hunters with their bloody freight,
Coming benighted to the castle gate. 15
So sleep, for ever sleep, O Marble Pair!
Or, if ye wake, let it be then, when fair
On the carv’d Western Front a flood of light
Streams from the setting sun, and colours bright
Prophets, transfigur’d Saints, and Martyrs brave, 20
In the vast western window of the nave;
And on the pavement round the Tomb there glints
A chequer-work of glowing sapphire tints,
And amethyst, and ruby; — then unclose
Your eyelids on the stone where ye repose, 25
And from your broider’d pillows lift your heads,
And rise upon your cold white marble beds;
And looking down on the warm rosy tints
That chequer, at your feet, the illumin’d flints,
Say— ‘What is this? we are in bliss — forgiven — 30
Behold the pavement of the courts of Heaven!’ —
Or let it be on autumn nights, when rain
Doth rustlingly above your heads complain
On the smooth leaden roof, and on the walls
Shedding her pensive light at intervals 35
The Moon through the clere-story windows shines,
And the wind wails among the mountain pines.
Then, gazing up through the dim pillars high,
The foliag’d marble forest where ye lie,
‘Hush’ — ye will say— ‘it is eternity. 40
This is the glimmering verge of Heaven, and these
The columns of the Heavenly Palaces.’ —
And in the sweeping of the wind your ear
The passage of the Angels’ wings will hear,
And on the lichen-crusted leads above 45
The rustle of the eternal rain of Love.
The Neckan
IN summer, on the headlands,
The Baltic Sea along,
Sits Neckan with his harp of gold,
And sings his plaintive song.
Green rolls beneath the headlands, 5
Green rolls the Baltic Sea.
And there, below the Neckan’s feet,
His wife and children be.
He sings not of the ocean,
Its shells and roses pale. 10
Of earth, of earth the Neckan sings;
He hath no other tale.
He sits upon the headlands,
And sings a mournful stave
Of all he saw and felt on earth, 15
Far from the green sea wave.
Sings how, a knight, he wander’d
By castle, field, and town. —
But earthly knights have harder hearts
Than the Sea Children own. 20
Sings of his earthly bridal —
Priest, knights, and ladies gay.
‘And who art thou,’ the priest began,
‘Sir Knight, who wedd’st to-day?’ —
‘I am no knight,’ he answer’d; 25
>
‘From the sea waves I come.’ —
The knights drew sword, the ladies scream’d,
The surplic’d priest stood dumb.
He sings how from the chapel
He vanish’d with his bride, 30
And bore her down to the sea halls,
Beneath the cold sea tide.
He sings how she sits weeping
‘Mid shells that round her lie.
‘False Neckan shares my bed,’ she weeps; 35
‘No Christian mate have I.’ —
He sings how through the billows
He rose to earth again,
And sought a priest to sign the cross,
That Neckan Heaven might gain. 40
He sings how, on an evening,
Beneath the birch trees cool,
He sate and play d his harp of gold,
Beside the river pool.
Beside the pool sate Neckan — 45
Tears fill’d his cold blue eye.
On his white mule, across the bridge,
A cassock’d priest rode by.
‘Why sitt’st thou there, O Neckan,
And play’st thy harp of gold? 50
Sooner shall this my staff bear leaves,
Than thou shalt Heaven behold.’ —
The cassock’d priest rode onwards,
And vanish’d with his mule.
And Neckan in the twilight grey 55
Wept by the river pool.
In summer, on the headlands,
The Baltic Sea along,
Sits Neckan with his harp of gold,
And sings this plaintive song. 60
A Dream
WAS it a dream? We sail’d, I thought we sail’d,
Martin and I, down a green Alpine stream,
Under o’erhanging pines; the morning sun,
On the wet umbrage of their glossy tops,
On the red pinings of their forest floor, 5
Drew a warm scent abroad; behind the pines
The mountain skirts, with all their sylvan change
Of bright-leaf’d chestnuts, and moss’d walnut-trees,
And the frail scarlet-berried ash, began.
Swiss chalets glitter’d on the dewy slopes, 10
And from some swarded shelf high up, there came
Notes of wild pastoral music: over all
Rang’d, diamond-bright, the eternal wall of snow.
Upon the mossy rocks at the stream’s edge,
Back’d by the pines, a plank-built cottage stood, 15
Bright in the sun; the climbing gourd-plant’s leaves
Muffled its walls, and on the stone-strewn roof
Lay the warm golden gourds; golden, within,
Under the eaves, peer’d rows of Indian corn.
We shot beneath the cottage with the stream. 20
On the brown rude-carv’d balcony two Forms
Came forth — Olivia’s, Marguerite! and thine.
Clad were they both in white, flowers in their breast;
Straw hats bedeck’d their heads, with ribbons blue
Which wav’d, and on their shoulders fluttering play’d. 25
They saw us, they conferr’d; their bosoms heav’d,
And more than mortal impulse fill’d their eyes.
Their lips mov’d; their white arms, wav’d eagerly,
Flash’d once, like falling streams: — we rose, we gaz’d:
One moment, on the rapid’s top, our boat 30
Hung pois’d — and then the darting River of Life,
Loud thundering, bore us by: swift, swift it foam’d;
Black under cliffs it rac’d, round headlands shone.
Soon the plank’d cottage ‘mid the sun-warm’d pines
Faded, the moss, the rocks; us burning Plains 35
Bristled with cities, us the Sea receiv’d.
Requiescat
STREW on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew.
In quiet she reposes:
Ah! would that I did too.
Her mirth the world required: 5
She bath’d it in smiles of glee.
But her heart was tired, tired,
And now they let her be.
Her life was turning, turning,
In mazes of heat and sound. 10
But for peace her soul was yearning,
And now peace laps her round.
Her cabin’d, ample Spirit,
It flutter’d and fail’d for breath.
To-night it doth inherit 15
The vasty Hall of Death.
The Scholar Gipsy
GO, for they call you, Shepherd, from the hill;
Go, Shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes:
No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,
Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats,
Nor the cropp’d grasses shoot another head. 5
But when the fields are still,
And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,
And only the white sheep are sometimes seen
Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanch’d green;
Come, Shepherd, and again renew the quest. 10
Here, where the reaper was at work of late,
In this high field’s dark corner, where he leaves
His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruise,
And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves,
Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use; 15
Here will I sit and wait,
While to my ear from uplands far away
The bleating of the folded flocks is borne,
With distant cries of reapers in the corn —
All the live murmur of a summer’s day. 20
Screen’d is this nook o’er the high, half-reap’d field,
And here till sun-down, Shepherd, will I be.
Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep,
And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see
Pale blue convolvulus in tendrils creep: 25
And air-swept lindens yield
Their scent, and rustle down their perfum’d showers
Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid,
And bower me from the August sun with shade;
And the eye travels down to Oxford’s towers: 30
And near me on the grass lies Glanvil’s book —
Come, let me read the oft-read tale again,
The story of that Oxford scholar poor
Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain,
Who, tir’d of knocking at Preferment’s door, 35
One summer morn forsook
His friends, and went to learn the Gipsy lore,
And roam’d the world with that wild brotherhood,
And came, as most men deem’d, to little good,
But came to Oxford and his friends no more. 40
But once, years after, in the country lanes,
Two scholars whom at college erst he knew
Met him, and of his way of life inquir’d.
Whereat he answer’d, that the Gipsy crew,
His mates, had arts to rule as they desir’d 45
The workings of men’s brains;
And they can bind them to what thoughts they will:
‘And I,’ he said, ‘the secret of their art,
When fully learn’d, will to the world impart:
But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill.’ 50
This said, he left them, and return’d no more,
But rumours hung about the country side
That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray,
Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied,
In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey, 55
The same the Gipsies wore.
Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring;
At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors,
On the warm ingle bench, the smock-frock’d boors
Had found
him seated at their entering, 60
But, mid their drink and clatter, he would fly:
And I myself seem half to know thy looks,
And put the shepherds, Wanderer, on thy trace;
And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks
I ask if thou hast pass’d their quiet place; 65
Or in my boat I lie
Moor’d to the cool bank in the summer heats,
Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills,
And watch the warm green-muffled Cumner hills,
And wonder if thou haunt’st their shy retreats. 70
For most, I know, thou lov’st retired ground.
Thee, at the ferry, Oxford riders blithe,
Returning home on summer nights, have met
Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe,
Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, 75
As the slow punt swings round:
And leaning backwards in a pensive dream,
And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers
Pluck’d in shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers,
And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream: 80
And then they land, and thou art seen no more.
Maidens who from the distant hamlets come
To dance around the Fyfield elm in May,
Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam,
Or cross a stile into the public way. 85
Oft thou hast given them store
Of flowers — the frail-leaf’d, white anemone —
Dark bluebells drench’d with dews of summer eves —
And purple orchises with spotted leaves —
But none has words she can report of thee. 90
And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time’s here
In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames,
Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass
Where black-wing’d swallows haunt the glittering Thames,
To bathe in the abandon’d lasher pass, 95
Have often pass’d thee near
Sitting upon the river bank o’ergrown:
Mark’d thy outlandish garb, thy figure spare,
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold Page 20
