And banners flying, and the flame
Of tapers, and, at times, the sweet
Voices of nuns; and as they sang
Suddenly all the church-bells rang. 80
In a gay coach, above the crowd,
There sat a monk in ample hood,
Who with his right hand held aloft
A red and ponderous cross of wood,
To which at times he meekly bowed. 85
In front three horsemen rode, and oft,
With voice and air importunate,
A boisterous herald cried aloud:
“The grace of God is at your gate!”
So onward to the church they passed. 90
The cobbler slowly turned his last,
And, wagging his sagacious head,
Unto his kneeling housewife said:
“‘T is the monk Tetzel. I have heard
The cawings of that reverend bird. 95
Don’t let him cheat you of your gold;
Indulgence is not bought and sold.”
The church of Hagenau, that night,
Was full of people, full of light;
An odor of incense filled the air, 100
The priest intoned, the organ groaned
Its inarticulate despair;
The candles on the altar blazed,
And full in front of it upraised
The red cross stood against the glare. 105
Below, upon the altar-rail
Indulgences were set to sale,
Like ballads at a country fair.
A heavy strong-box, iron-bound
And carved with many a quaint device, 110
Received, with a melodious sound,
The coin that purchased Paradise.
Then from the pulpit overhead,
Tetzel the monk, with fiery glow,
Thundered upon the crowd below. 115
“Good people all, draw near!” he said;
“Purchase these letters, signed and sealed,
By which all sins, though unrevealed
And unrepented, are forgiven!
Count but the gain, count not the loss! 120
Your gold and silver are but dross,
And yet they pave the way to heaven.
I hear your mothers and your sires
Cry from their purgatorial fires,
And will ye not their ransom pay? 125
O senseless people! when the gate
Of heaven is open, will ye wait?
Will ye not enter in to-day?
To-morrow it will be too late;
I shall be gone upon my way. 130
Make haste! bring money while ye may!”
The women shuddered, and turned pale;
Allured by hope or driven by fear,
With many a sob and many a tear,
All crowded to the altar-rail. 135
Pieces of silver and of gold
Into the tinkling strong-box fell
Like pebbles dropped into a well;
And soon the ballads were all sold.
The cobbler’s wife among the rest 140
Slipped into the capacious chest
A golden florin; then withdrew,
Hiding the paper in her breast;
And homeward through the darkness went
Comforted, quieted, content; 145
She did not walk, she rather flew,
A dove that settles to her nest,
When some appalling bird of prey
That scared her has been driven away.
The days went by, the monk was gone, 150
The summer passed, the winter came;
Though seasons changed, yet still the same
The daily round of life went on;
The daily round of household care,
The narrow life of toil and prayer. 155
But in her heart the cobbler’s dame
Had now a treasure beyond price,
A secret joy without a name,
The certainty of Paradise.
Alas, alas! Dust unto dust! 160
Before the winter wore away,
Her body in the churchyard lay,
Her patient soul was with the Just!
After her death, among the things
That even the poor preserve with care, — 165
Some little trinkets and cheap rings,
A locket with her mother’s hair,
Her wedding gown, the faded flowers
She wore upon her wedding day, —
Among these memories of past hours, 170
That so much of the heart reveal,
Carefully kept and put away,
The Letter of Indulgence lay
Folded, with signature and seal.
Meanwhile the Priest, aggrieved and pained, 175
Waited and wondered that no word
Of mass or requiem he heard,
As by the Holy Church ordained:
Then to the Magistrate complained,
That as this woman had been dead 180
A week or more, and no mass said,
It was rank heresy, or at least
Contempt of Church; thus said the Priest;
And straight the cobbler was arraigned.
He came, confiding in his cause, 185
But rather doubtful of the laws.
The Justice from his elbow-chair
Gave him a look that seemed to say:
“Thou standest before a Magistrate,
Therefore do not prevaricate!” 190
Then asked him in a business way,
Kindly but cold: “Is thy wife dead?”
The cobbler meekly bowed his head;
“She is,” came struggling from his throat
Scarce audibly. The Justice wrote 195
The words down in a book, and then
Continued, as he raised his pen;
“She is; and hath a mass been said
For the salvation of her soul?
Come, speak the truth! confess the whole!” 200
The cobbler without pause replied:
“Of mass or prayer there was no need;
For at the moment when she died
Her soul was with the glorified!”
And from his pocket with all speed 205
He drew the priestly title-deed,
And prayed the Justice he would read.
The Justice read, amused, amazed;
And as he read his mirth increased;
At times his shaggy brows he raised, 210
Now wondering at the cobbler gazed,
Now archly at the angry Priest.
“From all excesses, sins, and crimes
Thou hast committed in past times
Thee I absolve! And furthermore, 215
Purified from all earthly taints,
To the communion of the Saints
And to the sacraments restore!
All stains of weakness, and all trace
Of shame and censure I efface; 220
Remit the pains thou shouldst endure,
And make thee innocent and pure,
So that in dying, unto thee
The gates of heaven shall open be!
Though long thou livest, yet this grace 225
Until the moment of thy death
Unchangeable continueth!”
Then said he to the Priest: “I find
This document is duly signed
Brother John Tetzel, his own hand. 230
At all tribunals in the land
In evidence it may be used;
Therefore acquitted is the accused.”
Then to the cobbler turned: “My friend,
Pray tell me, didst thou ever read 235
Reynard the Fox?”— “Oh yes, indeed!” —
“I thought so. Don’t forget the end.”
The Student’s Tale: Interlude
“WHAT was the end? I am ashamed
Not to remember Reynard’s fate;
I have not read the book of late;
/>
Was he not hanged?” the Poet said.
The Student gravely shook his head, 5
And answered: “You exaggerate.
There was a tournament proclaimed,
And Reynard fought with Isegrim
The Wolf, and having vanquished him,
Rose to high honor in the State, 10
And Keeper of the Seals was named!”
At this the gay Sicilian laughed:
“Fight fire with fire, and craft with craft;
Successful cunning seems to be
The moral of your tale,” said he. 15
“Mine had a better, and the Jew’s
Had none at all, that I could see;
His aim was only to amuse.”
Meanwhile from out its ebon case
His violin the Minstrel drew, 20
And having tuned its strings anew,
Now held it close in his embrace,
And poising in his outstretched hand
The bow, like a magician’s wand,
He paused, and said, with beaming face; 25
“Last night my story was too long;
To-day I give you but a song,
An old tradition of the North;
But first, to put you in the mood,
I will a little while prelude, 30
And from this instrument draw forth
Something by way of overture.”
He played; at first the tones were pure
And tender as a summer night,
The full moon climbing to her height, 35
The sob and ripple of the seas,
The flapping of an idle sail;
And then by sudden and sharp degrees
The multiplied, wild harmonies
Freshened and burst into a gale; 40
A tempest howling through the dark,
A crash as of some shipwrecked bark,
A loud and melancholy wail.
Such was the prelude to the tale
Told by the Minstrel; and at times 45
He paused amid its varying rhymes,
And at each pause again broke in
The music of his violin,
With tones of sweetness or of fear,
Movements of trouble or of calm, 50
Creating their own atmosphere;
As sitting in a church we hear
Between the verses of the psalm
The organ playing soft and clear,
Or thundering on the startled ear. 55
The Musician’s Tale
The Ballad of Carmilhan
I
AT Stralsund, by the Baltic Sea,
Within the sandy bar,
At sunset of a summer’s day,
Ready for sea, at anchor lay
The good ship Valdemar. 5
The sunbeams danced upon the waves,
And played along her side;
And through the cabin windows streamed
In ripples of golden light, that seemed
The ripple of the tide. 10
There sat the captain with his friends,
Old skippers brown and hale,
Who smoked and grumbled o’er their grog,
And talked of iceberg and of fog,
Of calm and storm and gale. 15
And one was spinning a sailor’s yarn
About Klaboterman,
The Kobold of the sea; a spright
Invisible to mortal sight,
Who o’er the rigging ran. 20
Sometimes he hammered in the hold,
Sometimes upon the mast,
Sometimes abeam, sometimes abaft,
Or at the bows he sang and laughed,
And made all tight and fast. 25
He helped the sailors at their work,
And toiled with jovial din;
He helped them hoist and reef the sails,
He helped them stow the casks and bales,
And heave the anchor in. 30
But woe unto the lazy louts,
The idlers of the crew;
Them to torment was his delight,
And worry them by day and night,
And pinch them black and blue. 35
And woe to him whose mortal eyes
Klaboterman behold.
It is a certain sign of death! —
The cabin-boy here held his breath,
He felt his blood run cold. 40
II
The jolly skipper paused awhile,
And then again began;
“There is a Spectre Ship,” quoth he,
“A ship of the Dead that sails the sea,
And is called the Carmilhan. 45
“A ghostly ship, with a ghostly crew,
In tempests she appears;
And before the gale, or against the gale,
She sails without a rag of sail,
Without a helmsman steers. 50
“She haunts the Atlantic north and south,
But mostly the mid-sea,
Where three great rocks rise bleak and bare
Like furnace chimneys in the air,
And are called the Chimneys Three. 55
“And ill betide the luckless ship
That meets the Carmilhan;
Over her decks the seas will leap,
She must go down into the deep,
And perish mouse and man.” 60
The captain of the Valdemar
Laughed loud with merry heart.
“I should like to see this ship,” said he;
“I should like to find these Chimneys Three
That are marked down in the chart. 65
“I have sailed right over the spot,” he said,
“With a good stiff breeze behind,
When the sea was blue, and the sky was clear, —
You can follow my course by these pinholes here, —
And never a rock could find.” 70
And then he swore a dreadful oath,
He swore by the Kingdoms Three,
That, should he meet the Carmilhan,
He would run her down, although he ran
Right into Eternity! 75
All this, while passing to and fro,
The cabin-boy had heard;
He lingered at the door to hear,
And drank in all with greedy ear,
And pondered every word. 80
He was a simple country lad,
But of a roving mind.
“Oh, it must be like heaven,” thought he,
“Those far-off foreign lands to see,
And fortune seek and find!” 85
But in the fo’castle, when he heard
The mariners blaspheme,
He thought of home, he thought of God,
And his mother under the churchyard sod,
And wished it were a dream. 90
One friend on board that ship had he;
‘T was the Klaboterman,
Who saw the Bible in his chest,
And made a sign upon his breast,
All evil things to ban. 95
III
The cabin windows have grown blank
As eyeballs of the dead;
No more the glancing sunbeams burn
On the gilt letters of the stern,
But on the figure-head; 100
On Valdemar Victorious,
Who looketh with disdain
To see his image in the tide
Dismembered float from side to side,
And reunite again. 105
“It is the wind,” those skippers said,
“That swings the vessel so;
It is the wind; it freshens fast,
‘T is time to say farewell at last,
‘T is time for us to go.” 110
They shook the captain by the hand,
“Good luck! good luck!” they cried;
Each face was like the setting sun,
As, broad and red, they one by one
Went o’er the vessel’s side. 115
&nbs
p; The sun went down, the full moon rose,
Serene o’er field and flood;
And all the winding creeks and bays
And broad sea-meadows seemed ablaze,
The sky was red as blood. 120
The southwest wind blew fresh and fair,
As fair as wind could be;
Bound for Odessa, o’er the bar,
With all sail set, the Valdemar
Went proudly out to sea. 125
The lovely moon climbs up the sky
As one who walks in dreams;
A tower of marble in her light,
A wall of black, a wall of white,
The stately vessel seems. 130
Low down upon the sandy coast
The lights begin to burn;
And now, uplifted high in air,
They kindle with a fiercer glare,
And now drop far astern. 135
The dawn appears, the land is gone,
The sea is all around;
Then on each hand low hills of sand
Emerge and form another land;
She steereth through the Sound. 140
Through Kattegat and Skager-rack
She flitteth like a ghost;
By day and night, by night and day,
She bounds, she flies upon her way
Along the English coast. 145
Cape Finisterre is drawing near,
Cape Finisterre is past;
Into the open ocean stream
She floats, the vision of a dream
Too beautiful to last. 150
Suns rise and set, and rise, and yet
There is no land in sight;
The liquid planets overhead
Burn brighter now the moon is dead,
And longer stays the night. 155
IV
And now along the horizon’s edge
Mountains of cloud uprose,
Black as with forests underneath,
Above, their sharp and jagged teeth
Were white as drifted snows. 160
Unseen behind them sank the sun,
But flushed each snowy peak
A little while with rosy light,
That faded slowly from the sight
As blushes from the cheek. 165
Black grew the sky, — all black, all black;
The clouds were everywhere;
There was a feeling of suspense
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 63
