And kill his falcon for a woman’s sake,
Yet feeling in her heart a woman’s pride,
That nothing she could ask for was denied; 260
Then took her leave, and passed out at the gate
With footstep slow and soul disconsolate.
Three days went by, and lo! a passing-bell
Tolled from the little chapel in the dell;
Ten strokes Ser Federigo heard, and said, 265
Breathing a prayer, “Alas! her child is dead!”
Three months went by; and lo! a merrier chime
Rang from the chapel bells at Christmas-time;
The cottage was deserted, and no more
Ser Federigo sat beside its door, 270
But now, with servitors to do his will,
In the grand villa, half-way up the hill,
Sat at the Christmas feast, and at his side
Monna Giovanna, his beloved bride,
Never so beautiful, so kind, so fair, 275
Enthroned once more in the old rustic chair,
High-perched upon the back of which there stood
The image of a falcon carved in wood,
And underneath the inscription, with a date,
“All things come round to him who will but wait.” 280
The Student’s Tale: Interlude
SOON as the story reached its end,
One, over eager to commend,
Crowned it with injudicious praise;
And then the voice of blame found vent,
And fanned the embers of dissent 5
Into a somewhat lively blaze.
The Theologian shook his head;
“These old Italian tales,” he said,
“From the much-praised Decameron down
Through all the rabble of the rest, 10
Are either trifling, dull, or lewd;
The gossip of a neighborhood
In some remote provincial town,
A scandalous chronicle at best!
They seem to me a stagnant fen, 15
Grown rank with rushes and with reeds,
Where a white lily, now and then,
Blooms in the midst of noxious weeds
And deadly nightshade on its banks!”
To this the Student straight replied, 20
“For the white lily, many thanks!
One should not say, with too much pride,
Fountain, I will not drink of thee!
Nor were it grateful to forget
That from these reservoirs and tanks 25
Even imperial Shakespeare drew
His Moor of Venice, and the Jew,
And Romeo and Juliet,
And many a famous comedy.”
Then a long pause; till some one said, 30
“An Angel is flying overhead!”
At these words spake the Spanish Jew,
And murmured with an inward breath:
“God grant, if what you say be true,
It may not be the Angel of Death!” 35
And then another pause; and then,
Stroking his beard, he said again:
“This brings back to my memory
A story in the Talmud told,
That book of gems, that book of gold, 40
Of wonders many and manifold,
A tale that often comes to me,
And fills my heart, and haunts my brain,
And never wearies nor grows old.”
The Spanish Jew’s Tale
The Legend of Rabbi Ben Levi
RABBI BEN LEVI, on the Sabbath, read
A volume of the Law, in which it said,
“No man shall look upon my face and live.”
And as he read, he prayed that God would give
His faithful servant grace with mortal eye 5
To look upon His face and yet not die.
Then fell a sudden shadow on the page,
And, lifting up his eyes, grown dim with age,
He saw the Angel of Death before him stand,
Holding a naked sword in his right hand. 10
Rabbi Ben Levi was a righteous man,
Yet through his veins a chill of terror ran.
With trembling voice he said, “What wilt thou here?”
The Angel answered, “Lo! the time draws near
When thou must die; yet first, by God’s decree, 15
Whate’er thou askest shall be granted thee.”
Replied the Rabbi, “Let these living eyes
First look upon my place in Paradise.”
Then said the Angel, “Come with me and look.”
Rabbi Ben Levi closed the sacred book, 20
And rising, and uplifting his gray head,
“Give me thy sword,” he to the Angel said,
“Lest thou shouldst fall upon me by the way.”
The Angel smiled and hastened to obey,
Then led him forth to the Celestial Town, 25
And set him on the wall, whence, gazing down,
Rabbi Ben Levi, with his living eyes,
Might look upon his place in Paradise.
Then straight into the city of the Lord
The Rabbi leaped with the Death-Angel’s sword, 30
And through the streets there swept a sudden breath
Of something there unknown, which men call death.
Meanwhile the Angel stayed without, and cried,
“Come back!” To which the Rabbi’s voice replied,
“No! in the name of God, whom I adore, 35
I swear that hence I will depart no more!”
Then all the Angels cried, “O Holy One,
See what the son of Levi here hath done!
The kingdom of Heaven he takes by violence,
And in Thy name refuses to go hence!” 40
The Lord replied, “My Angels, be not wroth;
Did e’er the son of Levi break his oath?
Let him remain; for he with mortal eye
Shall look upon my face and yet not die.”
Beyond the outer wall the Angel of Death 45
Heard the great voice, and said, with panting breath,
“Give back the sword, and let me go my way.”
Whereat the Rabbi paused, and answered, “Nay!
Anguish enough already hath it caused
Among the sons of men.” And while he paused 50
He heard the awful mandate of the Lord
Resounding through the air, “Give back the sword!”
The Rabbi bowed his head in silent prayer,
Then said he to the dreadful Angel, “Swear
No human eye shall look on it again; 55
But when thou takest away the souls of men,
Thyself unseen, and with an unseen sword,
Thou wilt perform the bidding of the Lord.”
The Angel took the sword again, and swore,
And walks on earth unseen forevermore. 60
The Spanish Jew’s Tale: Interlude
HE ended: and a kind of spell
Upon the silent listeners fell.
His solemn manner and his words
Had touched the deep, mysterious chords
That vibrate in each human breast 5
Alike, but not alike confessed.
The spiritual world seemed near;
And close above them, full of fear,
Its awful adumbration passed,
A luminous shadow, vague and vast. 10
They almost feared to look, lest there,
Embodied from the impalpable air,
They might behold the Angel stand,
Holding the sword in his right hand.
At last, but in a voice subdued, 15
Not to disturb their dreamy mood,
Said the sicilian: “While you spoke,
Telling your legend marvellous,
Suddenly in my memory woke
The thought of one, now gone from us, — 20
An old Abate, meek and mild,
My friend and teacher,
when a child,
Who sometimes in those days of old
The legend of an Angel told,
Which ran, as I remember thus.” 25
The Sicilian’s Tale
King Robert of Sicily
ROBERT of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane
And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine,
Apparelled in magnificent attire,
With retinue of many a knight and squire,
On St. John’s eve, at vespers, proudly sat 5
And heard the priests chant the Magnificat.
And as he listened, o’er and o’er again
Repeated, like a burden or refrain,
He caught the words, “Deposuit potentes
De sede, et exaltavit humiles;” 10
And slowly lifting up his kingly head
He to a learned clerk beside him said,
“What mean these words?” The clerk made answer meet,
“He has put down the mighty from their seat,
And has exalted them of low degree.” 15
Thereat King Robert muttered scornfully,
“‘T is well that such seditious words are sung
Only by priests and in the Latin tongue;
For unto priests and people be it known,
There is no power can push me from my throne!” 20
And leaning back, he yawned and fell asleep,
Lulled by the chant monotonous and deep.
When he awoke, it was already night;
The church was empty, and there was no light,
Save where the lamps, that glimmered few and faint, 25
Lighted a little space before some saint.
He started from his seat and gazed around,
But saw no living thing and heard no sound.
He groped towards the door, but it was locked;
He cried aloud, and listened, and then knocked, 30
And uttered awful threatenings and complaints,
And imprecations upon men and saints.
The sounds reëchoed from the roof and walls
As if dead priests were laughing in their stalls.
At length the sexton, hearing from without 35
The tumult of the knocking and the shout,
And thinking thieves were in the house of prayer,
Came with his lantern, asking, “Who is there?”
Half choked with rage, King Robert fiercely said,
“Open: ‘t is I, the King! Art thou afraid?” 40
The frightened sexton, muttering, with a curse,
“This is some drunken vagabond, or worse!”
Turned the great key and flung the portal wide;
A man rushed by him at a single stride,
Haggard, half naked, without hat or cloak, 45
Who neither turned, nor looked at him, nor spoke,
But leaped into the blackness of the night,
And vanished like a spectre from his sight.
Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane
And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine, 50
Despoiled of his magnificent attire,
Bareheaded, breathless, and besprent with mire,
With sense of wrong and outrage desperate,
Strode on and thundered at the palace gate;
Rushed through the courtyard, thrusting in his rage 55
To right and left each seneschal and page,
And hurried up the broad and sounding stair,
His white face ghastly in the torches’ glare.
From hall to hall he passed with breathless speed;
Voices and cries he heard, but did not heed, 60
Until at last he reached the banquet-room,
Blazing with light, and breathing with perfume.
There on the dais sat another king,
Wearing his robes, his crown, his signet-ring,
King Robert’s self in features, form, and height, 65
But all transfigured with angelic light!
It was an Angel; and his presence there
With a divine effulgence filled the air,
An exaltation, piercing the disguise,
Though none the hidden Angel recognize. 70
A moment speechless, motionless, amazed,
The throneless monarch on the Angel gazed,
Who met his look of anger and surprise
With the divine compassion of his eyes;
Then said, “Who art thou? and why com’st thou here?” 75
To which King Robert answered with a sneer,
“I am the King, and come to claim my own
From an impostor, who usurps my throne!”
And suddenly, at these audacious words,
Up sprang the angry guests, and drew their swords; 80
The Angel answered, with unruffled brow,
“Nay, not the King, but the King’s Jester, thou
Henceforth shalt wear the bells and scalloped cape,
And for thy counsellor shalt lead an ape;
Thou shalt obey my servants when they call, 85
And wait upon my henchmen in the hall!”
Deaf to King Robert’s threats and cries and prayers,
They thrust him from the hall and down the stairs;
A group of tittering pages ran before,
And as they opened wide the folding-door, 90
His heart failed, for he heard, with strange alarms,
The boisterous laughter of the men-at-arms,
And all the vaulted chamber roar and ring
With the mock plaudits of “Long live the King!”
Next morning, waking with the day’s first beam, 95
He said within himself, “It was a dream!”
But the straw rustled as he turned his head,
There were the cap and bells beside his bed,
Around him rose the bare, discolored walls,
Close by, the steeds were champing in their stalls, 100
And in the corner, a revolting shape,
Shivering and chattering sat the wretched ape.
It was no dream; the world he loved so much
Had turned to dust and ashes at his touch!
Days came and went; and now returned again 105
To Sicily the old Saturnian reign;
Under the Angel’s governance benign
The happy island danced with corn and wine,
And deep within the mountain’s burning breast
Enceladus, the giant, was at rest. 110
Meanwhile King Robert yielded to his fate,
Sullen and silent and disconsolate.
Dressed in the motley garb that Jesters wear,
With look bewildered and a vacant stare,
Close shaven above the ears, as monks are shorn, 115
By courtiers mocked, by pages laughed to scorn,
His only friend the ape, his only food
What others left, — he still was unsubdued.
And when the Angel met him on his way,
And half in earnest, half in jest, would say, 120
Sternly, though tenderly, that he might feel
The velvet scabbard held a sword of steel,
“Art thou the King?” the passion of his woe
Burst from him in resistless overflow,
And, lifting high his forehead, he would fling 125
The haughty answer back, “I am, I am the King!”
Almost three years were ended; when there came
Ambassaders of great repute and name
From Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine,
Unto King Robert, saying that Pope Urbane 130
By letter summoned them forthwith to come
On Holy Thursday to his city of Rome.
The Angel with great joy received his guests,
And gave them presents of embroidered vests,
And velvet mantles with rich ermine lined, 135
And rings and jewels of the rarest kind.
Then he departed with them o’er the sea
Into t
he lovely land of Italy,
Whose loveliness was more resplendent hade
By the mere passing of that cavalcade, 140
With Pumes, and cloaks, and housings, and the stir
Of jewelled bridle and of golden spur.
And lo among the menials, in mock state,
Upon a piebald steed, with shambling gait,
His look of fox-tails flapping in the wind, 145
The solemn ape demurely perched behind,
King Robert rode, making huge merriment
In all the country towns through which they went.
The Pope received them with great pomp and blare
Of bannered trumpets, on Saint Peter’s square, 150
Giving his benediction and embrace,
Fervent, and full of apostolic grace.
While with congratulations and with prayers
He entertained the Angel unawares,
Robert, the Jester, bursting through the crowd, 155
Into their presence rushed, and cried aloud,
“I am the King! Look, and behold in me
Robert, your brother, King of Sicily!
This man, who wears my semblance to your eyes,
Is an impostor in a king’s disguise. 160
Do you not know me? does no voice within
Answer my cry, and say we are akin?”
The Pope in silence, but with troubled mien,
Gazed at the Angel’s countenance serene;
The Emperor, laughing, said, “It is strange sport 165
To keep a madman for thy Fool at court!”
And the poor, baffled Jester in disgrace
Was hustled back among the populace.
In solemn state the Holy Week went by,
And Easter Sunday gleamed upon the sky; 170
The presence of the Angel, with its light,
Before the sun rose, made the city bright,
And with new fervor filled the hearts of men,
Who felt that Christ indeed had risen again.
Even the Jester, on his bed of straw, 175
With haggard eyes the unwonted splendor saw,
He felt within a power unfelt before,
And, kneeling humbly on his chamber floor,
He heard the rushing garments of the Lord
Sweep through the silent air, ascending heavenward. 180
And now the visit ending, and once more
Valmond returning to the Danube’s shore,
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 55
