FRIAR JOHN.
A German Prince and his train,
Who arrived here just before the rain.
There is with him a damsel fair to see,
As slender and graceful as a reed!
When she alighted from her steed, 25
It seemed like a blossom blown from a tree.
FRIAR CUTHBERT.
None of your pale-faced girls for me!
None of your damsels of high degree!
FRIAR JOHN.
Come, old fellow, drink down to your peg!
But do not drink any further, I beg! 30
FRIAR PAUL, sings.
In the days of gold,
The days of old,
Crosier of wood
And bishop of gold!
FRIAR CUTHBERT.
What an infernal racket and riot! 35
Can you not drink your wine in quiet?
Why fill the convent with such scandals,
As if we were so many drunken Vandals?
FRIAR PAUL, continues.
Now we have changed
That law so good 40
To crosier of gold
And bishop of wood!
FRIAR CUTHBERT.
Well, then, since you are in the mood
To give your noisy humors vent,
Sing and howl to your heart’s content! 45
CHORUS OF MONKS.
Funde vinum, funde!
Tanquam sint fluminis undæ,
Nec quæras unde,
Sed fundas semper abunde!
FRIAR JOHN.
What is the name of yonder friar, 50
With an eye that glows like a coal of fire,
And such a black mass of tangled hair?
FRIAR PAUL.
He who is sitting there,
With a rollicking,
Devil may care, 55
Free and easy look and air,
As if he were used to such feasting and frolicking?
FRIAR JOHN.
The same.
FRIAR PAUL.
He ‘s a stranger. You had better ask his name,
And where he is going and whence he came. 60
FRIAR JOHN.
Hallo! Sir Friar!
FRIAR PAUL.
You must raise your voice a little higher,
He does not seem to hear what you say.
Now, try again! He is looking this way.
FRIAR JOHN.
Hallo! Sir Friar, 65
We wish to inquire
Whence you came, and where you are going,
And anything else that is worth the knowing.
So be so good as to open your head.
LUCIFER.
I am a Frenchman born and bred, 70
Going on a pilgrimage to Rome.
My home
Is the convent of St. Gildas de Rhuys,
Of which, very like, you never have heard.
MONKS.
Never a word! 75
LUCIFER.
You must know, then, it is in the diocese
Called the Diocese of Vannes,
In the province of Brittany.
From the gray rocks of Morbihan
It overlooks the angry sea; 80
The very sea-shore where,
In his great despair,
Abbot Abelard walked to and fro,
Filling the night with woe,
And wailing aloud to the merciless seas 85
The name of his sweet Heloise,
Whilst overhead
The convent windows gleamed as red
As the fiery eyes of the monks within,
Who with jovial din 90
Gave themselves up to all kinds of sin!
Ha! that is a convent! that is an abbey!
Over the doors,
None of your death-heads carved in wood,
None of your Saints looking pious and good, 95
None of your Patriarchs old and shabby!
But the heads and tusks of boars,
And the cells
Hung all round with the fells
Of the fallow-deer. 100
And then what cheer!
What jolly, fat friars,
Sitting round the great, roaring fires,
Roaring louder than they,
With their strong wines, 105
And their concubines,
And never a bell,
With its swagger and swell,
Calling you up with a start of affright
In the dead of night, 110
To send you grumbling down dark stairs,
To mumble your prayers;
But the cheery crow
Of cocks in the yard below,
After daybreak, an hour or so, 115
And the barking of deep-mouthed hounds,
These are the sounds
That, instead of bells, salute the ear.
And then all day
Up and away 120
Through the forest, hunting the deer!
Ah, my friends! I ‘m afraid that here
You are a little too pious, a little too tame,
And the more is the shame.
‘T is the greatest folly 125
Not to be jolly;
That ‘s what I think!
Come, drink, drink,
Drink, and die game!
MONKS.
And your Abbot What ‘s-his-name? 130
LUCIFER.
Abelard!
MONKS.
Did he drink hard?
LUCIFER.
Oh, no! Not he!
He was a dry old fellow,
Without juice enough to get thoroughly mellow. 135
There he stood,
Lowering at us in sullen mood,
As if he had come into Brittany
Just to reform our brotherhood!
A roar of laughter.
But you see 140
It never would do!
For some of us knew a thing or two,
In the Abbey of St. Gildas de Rhuys!
For instance, the great ado
With old Fulbert’s niece, 145
The young and lovely Heloise.
FRIAR JOHN.
Stop there, if you please,
Till we drink to the fair Heloise.
ALL, drinking and shouting.
Heloise! Heloise!
The Chapel-bell tolls.
LUCIFER, starting.
What is that bell for? Are you such asses 150
As to keep up the fashion of midnight masses?
FRIAR CUTHBERT.
It is only a poor, unfortunate brother,
Who is gifted with most miraculous powers
Of getting up at all sorts of hours,
And, by way of penance and Christian meekness, 155
Of creeping silently out of his cell
To take a pull at that hideous bell;
So that all the monks who are lying awake
May murmur some kind of prayer for his sake,
And adapted to his peculiar weakness! 160
FRIAR JOHN.
From frailty and fall —
ALL.
Good Lord, deliver us all!
FRIAR CUTHBERT.
And before the bell for matins sounds,
He takes his lantern, and goes the rounds,
Flashing it into our sleepy eyes, 165
Merely to say it is time to arise.
But enough of that. Go on, if you please,
With your story about St. Gildas de Rhuys.
LUCIFER.
Well, it finally came to pass
That, half in fun and half in malice, 170
One Sunday at Mass
We put some poison into the chalice.
But, either by accident or design,
Peter Abelard kept away
From the chapel that day, 175
And a poor young friar, who in his stead
Drank the sacramental wine,
Fell on the steps
of the altar, dead!
But look! do you see at the window there
That face, with a look of grief and despair, 180
That ghastly face, as of one in pain?
MONKS.
Who? where?
LUCIFER.
As I spoke, it vanished away again.
FRIAR CUTHBERT.
It is that nefarious
Siebald the Refectorarius. 185
That fellow is always playing the scout,
Creeping and peeping and prowling about;
And then he regales
The Abbot with scandalous tales.
LUCIFER.
A spy in the convent? One of the brothers 190
Telling scandalous tales of the others?
Out upon him, the lazy loon!
I would put a stop to that pretty soon,
In a way he should rue it.
MONKS.
How shall we do it? 195
LUCIFER.
Do you, brother Paul,
Creep under the window, close to the wall,
And open it suddenly when I call.
Then seize the villain by the hair,
And hold him there, 200
And punish him soundly, once for all.
FRIAR CUTHBERT.
As St. Dunstan of old,
We are told,
Once caught the Devil by the nose!
LUCIFER.
Ha! ha! that story is very clever, 205
But has no foundation whatsoever.
Quick! for I see his face again
Glaring in at the window-pane;
Now! now! and do not spare your blows.
FRIAR PAUL opens the window suddenly, and seizes SIEBALD.
They beat him.
FRIAR SIEBALD.
Help! help! are you going to slay me? 210
FRIAR PAUL.
That will teach you again to betray me!
FRIAR SIEBALD.
Mercy! mercy!
FRIAR PAUL, shouting and beating.
Rumpas bellorum lorum
Vim confer amorum
Morum verorum rorum 215
Tu plena polorum!
LUCIFER.
Who stands in the doorway yonder,
Stretching out his trembling hand,
Just as Abelard used to stand,
The flash of his keen, black eyes 220
Forerunning the thunder?
THE MONKS, in confusion.
The Abbot! the Abbot!
FRIAR CUTHBERT.
And what is the wonder!
He seems to have taken you by surprise.
FRIAR FRANCIS.
Hide the great flagon
From the eyes of the dragon! 225
FRIAR CUTHBERT.
Pull the brown hood over your face!
This will bring us into disgrace!
ABBOT.
What means this revel and carouse?
Is this a tavern and drinking-house?
Are you Christian monks, or heathen devils, 230
To pollute this convent with your revels?
Were Peter Damian still upon earth,
To be shocked by such ungodly mirth,
He would write your names, with pen of gall,
In his Book of Gomorrah, one and all! 235
Away, you drunkards! to your cells,
And pray till you hear the matin-bells;
You, Brother Francis, and you, Brother Paul!
And as a penance mark each prayer
With the scourge upon your shoulders bare; 240
Nothing atones for such a sin
But the blood that follows the discipline.
And you, Brother Cuthbert, come with me
Alone into the sacristy;
You, who should be a guide to your brothers, 245
And are ten times worse than all the others,
For you I ‘ve a draught that has long been brewing,
You shall do a penance worth the doing!
Away to your prayers, then, one and all!
I wonder the very convent wall 250
Does not crumble and crush you in its fall!
IV.
VII. The Neighboring Nunnery
The ABBESS IRMINGARD sitting with ELSIE in the moonlight.
IRMINGARD.
THE NIGHT is silent, the wind is still,
The moon is looking from yonder hill
Down upon convent, and grove, and garden;
The clouds have passed away from her face,
Leaving behind them no sorrowful trace, 5
Only the tender and quiet grace
Of one whose heart has been healed with pardon!
And such am I. My soul within
Was dark with passion and soiled with sin.
But now its wounds are healed again; 10
Gone are the anguish, the terror, and pain;
For across that desolate land of woe,
O’er whose burning sands I was forced to go,
A wind from heaven began to blow;
And all my being trembled and shook, 15
As the leaves of the tree, or the grass of the field,
And I was healed, as the sick are healed,
When fanned by the leaves of the Holy Book!
As thou sittest in the moonlight there,
Its glory flooding thy golden hair, 20
And the only darkness that which lies
In the haunted chambers of thine eyes,
I feel my soul drawn unto thee,
Strangely, and strongly, and more and more,
As to one I have known and loved before; 25
For every soul is akin to me
That dwells in the land of mystery!
I am the Lady Irmingard,
Born of a noble race and name!
Many a wandering Suabian bard, 30
Whose life was dreary, and bleak, and hard,
Has found through me the way to fame.
Brief and bright were those days, and the night
Which followed was full of a lurid light.
Love, that of every woman’s heart 35
Will have the whole, and not a part,
That is to her, in Nature’s plan,
More than ambition is to man,
Her light, her life, her very breath,
With no alternative but death, 40
Found me a maiden soft and young,
Just from the convent’s cloistered school,
And seated on my lowly stool,
Attentive while the minstrels sung.
Gallant, graceful, gentle, tall, 45
Fairest, noblest, best of all,
Was Walter of the Vogelweid;
And, whatsoever may betide,
Still I think of him with pride!
His song was of the summer-time, 50
The very birds sang in his rhyme;
The sunshine, the delicious air,
The fragrance of the flowers, were there;
And I grew restless as I heard,
Restless and buoyant as a bird, 55
Down soft, aerial currents sailing,
O’er blossomed orchards, and fields in bloom,
And through the momentary gloom
Of shadows o’er the landscape trailing,
Yielding and borne I knew not where, 60
But feeling resistance unavailing.
And thus, unnoticed and apart,
And more by accident than choice,
I listened to that single voice
Until the chambers of my heart 65
Were filled with it by night and day.
One night, — it was a night in May, —
Within the garden, unawares,
Under the blossoms in the gloom,
I heard it utter my own name 70
With protestations and wild prayers;
And it rang through me, and became
Like the archangel’s trump of doom,
Which the soul hears, and must obey;<
br />
And mine arose as from a tomb. 75
My former life now seemed to me
Such as hereafter death may be,
When in the great Eternity
We shall awake and find it day.
It was a dream, and would not stay; 80
A dream, that in a single night
Faded and vanished out of sight.
My father’s anger followed fast
This passion, as a freshening blast
Seeks out and fans the fire, whose rage 85
It may increase, but not assuage.
And he exclaimed: “No wandering bard
Shall win thy hand, O Irmingard!
For which Prince Henry of Hoheneck
By messenger and letter sues.” 90
Gently, but firmly, I replied:
“Henry of Hoheneck I discard!
Never the hand of Irmingard
Shall lie in his as the hand of a bride!”
This said I, Walter, for thy sake; 95
This said I, for I could not choose.
After a pause, my father spake
In that cold and deliberate tone
Which turns the hearer into stone,
And seems itself the act to be 100
That follows with such dread certainty:
“This or the cloister and the veil!”
No other words than these he said,
But they were like a funeral wail;
My life was ended, my heart was dead. 105
That night from the castle-gate went down,
With silent, slow, and stealthy pace,
Two shadows, mounted on shadowy steeds,
Taking the narrow path that leads
Into the forest dense and brown. 110
In the leafy darkness of the place,
One could not distinguish form nor face,
Only a bulk without a shape,
A darker shadow in the shade;
One scarce could say it moved or stayed. 115
Thus it was we made our escape!
A foaming brook, with many a bound,
Followed us like a playful hound;
Then leaped before us, and in the hollow
Paused, and waited for us to follow, 120
And seemed impatient, and afraid
That our tardy flight should be betrayed
By the sound our horses’ hoof-beats made.
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 105
