And when we reached the plain below,
We paused a moment and drew rein 125
To look back at the castle again;
And we saw the windows all aglow
With lights, that were passing to and fro;
Our hearts with terror ceased to beat;
The brook crept silent to our feet; 130
We knew what most we feared to know.
Then suddenly horns began to blow;
And we heard a shout, and a heavy tramp,
And our horses snorted in the damp
Night-air of the meadows green and wide, 135
And in a moment, side by side,
So close, they must have seemed but one,
The shadows across the moonlight run,
And another came, and swept behind,
Like the shadow of clouds before the wind! 140
How I remember that breathless flight
Across the moors, in the summer night!
How under our feet the long, white road
Backward like a river flowed,
Sweeping with it fences and hedges, 145
Whilst farther away and overhead,
Paler than I, with fear and dread,
The moon fled with us as we fled
Along the forest’s jagged edges!
All this I can remember well; 150
But of what afterwards befell
I nothing further can recall
Than a blind, desperate, headlong fall;
The rest is a blank and darkness all.
When I awoke out of this swoon, 155
The sun was shining, not the moon,
Making a cross upon the wall
With the bars of my windows narrow and tall;
And I prayed to it, as I had been wont to pray,
From early childhood, day by day, 160
Each morning, as in bed I lay!
I was lying again in my own room!
And I thanked God, in my fever and pain,
That those shadows on the midnight plain
Were gone, and could not come again! 165
I struggled no longer with my doom!
This happened many years ago.
I left my father’s home to come
Like Catherine to her martyrdom,
For blindly I esteemed it so. 170
And when I heard the convent door
Behind me close, to ope no more,
I felt it smite me like a blow.
Through all my limbs a shudder ran,
And on my bruisèd spirit fell 175
The dampness of my narrow cell
As night-air on a wounded man,
Giving intolerable pain.
But now a better life began.
I felt the agony decrease 180
By slow degrees, then wholly cease,
Ending in perfect rest and peace!
It was not apathy, nor dulness,
That weighed and pressed upon my brain,
But the same passion I had given 185
To earth before, now turned to heaven
With all its overflowing fulness.
Alas! the world is full of peril!
The path that runs through the fairest meads,
On the sunniest side of the valley, leads 190
Into a region bleak and sterile!
Alike in the high-born and the lowly,
The will is feeble, and passion strong.
We cannot sever right from wrong;
Some falsehood mingles with all truth; 195
Nor is it strange the heart of youth
Should waver and comprehend but slowly
The things that are holy and unholy!
But in this sacred, calm retreat,
We are all well and safely shielded 200
From winds that blow, and waves that beat,
From the cold, and rain, and blighting heat,
To which the strongest hearts have yielded.
Here we stand as the Virgins Seven,
For our celestial bridegroom yearning; 205
Our hearts are lamps forever burning,
With a steady and unwavering flame,
Pointing upward, forever the same,
Steadily upward toward the heaven!
The moon is hidden behind a cloud; 210
A sudden darkness fills the room,
And thy deep eyes, amid the gloom,
Shine like jewels in a shroud.
On the leaves is a sound of falling rain;
A bird, awakened in its nest, 215
Gives a faint twitter of unrest,
Then smooths its plumes and sleeps again.
No other sounds than these I hear;
The hour of midnight must be near.
Thou art o’erspent with the day’s fatigue 220
Of riding many a dusty league;
Sink, then, gently to thy slumber;
Me so many cares encumber,
So many ghosts, and forms of fright,
Have started from their graves to-night, 225
They have driven sleep from mine eyes away:
I will go down to the chapel and pray.
V.
I. A Covered Bridge at Lucerne
PRINCE HENRY.
GOD’S blessing on the architects who build
The bridges o’er swift rivers and abysses
Before impassable to human feet,
No less than on the builders of cathedrals,
Whose massive walls are bridges thrown across 5
The dark and terrible abyss of Death.
Well has the name of Pontifex been given
Unto the Church’s head, as the chief builder
And architect of the invisible bridge
That leads from earth to heaven.
ELSIE.
How dark it grows! 10
What are these paintings on the walls around us?
PRINCE HENRY.
The Dance Macaber!
ELSIE.
What?
PRINCE HENRY.
The Dance of Death!
All that go to and fro must look upon it,
Mindful of what they shall be, while beneath,
Among the wooden piles, the turbulent river 15
Rushes, impetuous as the river of life,
With dimpling eddies, ever green and bright,
Save where the shadow of this bridge falls on it.
ELSIE.
Oh yes! I see it now!
PRINCE HENRY.
The grim musician
Leads all men through the mazes of that dance, 20
To different sounds in different measures moving;
Sometimes he plays a lute, sometimes a drum,
To tempt or terrify.
ELSIE.
What is this picture?
PRINCE HENRY.
It is a young man singing to a nun,
Who kneels at her devotions, but in kneeling 25
Turns round to look at him; and Death, meanwhile,
Is putting out the candles on the altar!
ELSIE.
Ah, what a pity ‘t is that she should listen
Unto such songs, when in her orisons
She might have heard in heaven the angels singing! 30
PRINCE HENRY.
Here he has stolen a jester’s cap and bells,
And dances with the Queen.
ELSIE.
A foolish jest!
PRINCE HENRY.
And here the heart of the new-wedded wife,
Coming from church with her beloved lord,
He startles with the rattle of his drum. 35
ELSIE.
Ah, that is sad! And yet perhaps ‘t is best
That she should die, with all the sunshine on her,
And all the benedictions of the morning,
Before this affluence of golden light
Shall fade into a cold and clouded gray, 40
Then into darkness!
PRINCE H
ENRY.
Under it is written,
“Nothing but death shall separate thee and me!”
ELSIE.
And what is this, that follows close upon it?
PRINCE HENRY.
Death, playing on a dulcimer. Behind him,
A poor old woman, with a rosary, 45
Follows the sound, and seems to wish her feet
Were swifter to o’ertake him. Underneath,
The inscription reads, “Better is Death than Life.”
ELSIE.
Better is Death than Life! Ah yes! to thousands
Death plays upon a dulcimer, and sings 50
That song of consolation, till the air
Rings with it, and they cannot choose but follow
Whither he leads. And not the old alone,
But the young also hear it, and are still.
PRINCE HENRY.
Yes, in their sadder moments. ‘T is the sound 55
Of their own hearts they hear, half full of tears,
Which are like crystal cups, half filled with water,
Responding to the pressure of a finger
With music sweet and low and melancholy.
Let us go forward, and no longer stay 60
In this great picture-gallery of Death!
I hate it! ay, the very thought of it!
ELSIE.
Why is it hateful to you?
PRINCE HENRY.
For the reason
That life, and all that speaks of life, is lovely,
And death, and all that speaks of death, is hateful. 65
ELSIE.
The grave itself is but a covered bridge,
Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness!
PRINCE HENRY, emerging from the bridge.
I breathe again more freely! Ah, how pleasant
To come once more into the light of day,
Out of that shadow of death! To hear again 70
The hoof-beats of our horses on firm ground,
And not upon those hollow planks, resounding
With a sepulchral echo, like the clods
On coffins in a churchyard! Yonder lies
The Lake of the Four Forest-Towns, apparelled 75
In light, and lingering, like a village maiden,
Hid in the bosom of her native mountains,
Then pouring all her life into another’s,
Changing her name and being! Overhead,
Shaking his cloudy tresses loose in air, 80
Rises Pilatus, with his windy pines.
They pass on.
V.
II. The Devil’s Bridge
PRINCE HENRY and ELSIE crossing with attendants.
GUIDE.
THIS bridge is called the Devil’s Bridge.
With a single arch, from ridge to ridge,
It leaps across the terrible chasm
Yawning beneath us, black and deep,
As if, in some convulsive spasm, 5
The summits of the hills had cracked,
And made a road for the cataract
That raves and rages down the steep!
LUCIFER, under the bridge.
Ha! ha!
GUIDE.
Never any bridge but this 10
Could stand across the wild abyss;
All the rest, of wood or stone,
By the Devil’s hand were overthrown.
He toppled crags from the precipice,
And whatsoe’er was built by day 15
In the night was swept away;
None could stand but this alone.
LUCIFER, under the bridge.
Ha! ha!
GUIDE.
I showed you in the valley a bowlder
Marked with the imprint of his shoulder; 20
As he was bearing it up this way,
A peasant, passing, cried, “Herr Jé!”
And the Devil dropped it in his fright,
And vanished suddenly out of sight!
LUCIFER, under the bridge.
Ha! ha! 25
GUIDE.
Abbot Giraldus of Einsiedel,
For pilgrims on their way to Rome,
Built this at last, with a single arch,
Under which, on its endless march,
Runs the river, white with foam, 30
Like a thread through the eye of a needle
And the Devil promised to let it stand,
Under compact and condition
That the first living thing which crossed
Should be surrendered into his hand, 35
And be beyond redemption lost.
LUCIFER, under the bridge.
Ha! ha! perdition!
GUIDE.
At length, the bridge being all completed,
The Abbot, standing at its head,
Threw across it a loaf of bread, 40
Which a hungry dog sprang after,
And the rocks reëchoed with the peals of laughter
To see the Devil thus defeated!
They pass on.
LUCIFER, under the bridge.
Ha! ha! defeated!
For journeys and for crimes like this 45
I let the bridge stand o’er the abyss!
V.
III. The St. Gothard Pass
PRINCE HENRY.
THIS is the highest point. Two ways the rivers
Leap down to different seas, and as they roll
Grow deep and still, and their majestic presence
Becomes a benefaction to the towns
They visit, wandering silently among them, 5
Like patriarchs old among their shining tents.
ELSIE.
How bleak and bare it is! Nothing but mosses
Grow on these rocks.
PRINCE HENRY.
Yet are they not forgotten;
Beneficent Nature sends the mists to feed them.
ELSIE.
See yonder little cloud, that, borne aloft 10
So tenderly by the wind, floats fast away
Over the snowy peaks! It seems to me
The body of St. Catherine, borne by angels!
PRINCE HENRY.
Thou art St. Catherine, and invisible angels
Bear thee across these chasms and precipices, 15
Lest thou shouldst dash thy feet against a stone!
ELSIE.
Would I were borne unto my grave, as she was,
Upon angelic shoulders! Even now
I seem uplifted by them, light as air!
What sound is that?
PRINCE HENRY.
The tumbling avalanches! 20
ELSIE.
How awful, yet how beautiful!
PRINCE HENRY.
These are
The voices of the mountains! Thus they ope
Their snowy lips, and speak unto each other,
In the primeval language, lost to man.
ELSIE.
What land is this that spreads itself beneath us? 25
PRINCE HENRY.
Italy! Italy!
ELSIE.
Land of the Madonna
How beautiful it is! It seems a garden
Of Paradise!
PRINCE HENRY.
Nay, of Gethsemane
To thee and me, of passion and of prayer!
Yet once of Paradise. Long years ago 30
I wandered as a youth among its bowers
And never from my heart has faded quite
Its memory, that, like a summer sunset,
Encircles with a ring of purple light
All the horizon of my youth.
GUIDE.
O friends! 35
The days are short, the way before us long;
We must not linger, if we think to reach
The inn at Belinzona before vespers!
They pass on.
V.
IV. At the Foot of the Alps
A halt under the trees at noon.
PRINCE
HENRY.
HERE let us pause a moment in the trembling
Shadow and sunshine of the roadside trees,
And, our tired horses in a group assembling,
Inhale long draughts of this delicious breeze.
Our fleeter steeds have distanced our attendants; 5
They lag behind us with a slower pace;
We will await them under the green pendants
Of the great willows in this shady place.
Ho, Barbarossa! how thy mottled haunches
Sweat with this canter over hill and glade! 10
Stand still, and let these overhanging branches
Fan thy hot sides and comfort thee with shade!
ELSIE.
What a delightful landscape spreads before us,
Marked with a whitewashed cottage here and there!
And, in luxuriant garlands drooping o’er us, 15
Blossoms of grape-vines scent the sunny air.
PRINCE HENRY.
Hark! what sweet sounds are those, whose accents holy
Fill the warm noon with music sad and sweet!
ELSIE.
It is a band of pilgrims, moving slowly
On their long journey, with uncovered feet. 20
PILGRIMS, chanting the Hymn of St. Hildebert.
Me receptet Sion illa,
Sion David, urbs tranquilla,
Cujus faber auctor lucis,
Cujus portæ lignum crucis,
Cujus claves lingua Petri, 25
Cujus cives semper læti,
Cujus muri lapis vivus,
Cujus custos Rex festivus!
LUCIFER, as a Friar in the procession.
Here am I, too, in the pious band,
In the garb of a barefooted Carmelite dressed! 30
The soles of my feet are as hard and tanned
As the conscience of old Pope Hildebrand,
The Holy Satan, who made the wives
Of the bishops lead such shameful lives.
All day long I beat my breast, 35
And chant with a most particular zest
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 106
