She stands beside the boy, now sore distressed,
A wax Madonna as a peasant dressed.
At length, the bridal song again
Brings her back to her sorrow and pain.
“Hark! the joyous airs are ringing! 210
Sister, dost thou hear them singing?
How merrily they laugh and jest!
Would we were bidden with the rest!
I would don my hose of homespun gray,
And my doublet of linen striped and gay; 215
Perhaps they will come; for they do not wed
Till to-morrow at seven o’clock, it is said!”
“I know it!” answered Margaret;
Whom the vision, with aspect black as jet,
Mastered again; and its hand of ice 220
Held her heart crushed, as in a vice!
“Paul, be not sad! ‘T is a holiday;
To-morrow put on thy doublet gay!
But leave me now for awhile alone.”
Away, with a hop and a jump, went Paul, 225
And, as he whistled along the hall,
Entered Jane, the crippled crone.
“Holy Virgin! what dreadful heat!
I am faint, and weary, and out of breath!
But thou art cold, — art chill as death; 230
My little friend! what ails thee, sweet?”
“Nothing! I heard them singing home the bride;
And, as I listened to the song,
I thought my turn would come erelong,
Thou knowest it is at Whitsuntide. 235
Thy cards forsooth can never lie,
To me such joy they prophesy,
Thy skill shall be vaunted far and wide
When they behold him at my side.
And poor Baptiste, what sayest thou? 240
It must seem long to him; — methinks I see him now!”
Jane, shuddering, her hand doth press:
“Thy love I cannot all approve;
We must not trust too much to happiness; —
Go, pray to God, that thou mayest love him less!” 245
“The more I pray, the more I love!
It is no sin, for God is on my side!”
It was enough; and Jane no more replied.
Now to all hope her heart is barred and cold;
But to deceive the beldame old 250
She takes a sweet, contented air;
Speak of foul weather or of fair,
At every word the maiden smiles!
Thus the beguiler she beguiles;
So that, departing at the evening’s close, 255
She says, “She may be saved! she nothing knows!”
Poor Jane, the cunning sorceress!
Now that thou wouldst, thou art no prophetess!
This morning, in the fulness of thy heart,
Thou wast so, far beyond thine art! 260
III
Now rings the bell, nine times reverberating,
And the white daybreak, stealing up the sky,
Sees in two cottages two maidens waiting,
How differently!
Queen of a day, by flatterers caressed, 265
The one puts on her cross and crown,
Decks with a huge bouquet her breast,
And flaunting, fluttering up and down,
Looks at herself, and cannot rest.
The other, blind, within her little room, 270
Has neither crown nor flower’s perfume;
But in their stead for something gropes apart,
That in a drawer’s recess doth lie,
And, ‘neath her bodice of bright scarlet dye,
Convulsive clasps it to her heart. 275
The one, fantastic, light as air,
‘Mid kisses ringing,
And joyous singing,
Forgets to say her morning prayer!
The other, with cold drops upon her brow, 280
Joins her two hands, and kneels upon the floor,
And whispers, as her brother opes the door,
“O God! forgive me now!”
And then the orphan, young and blind,
Conducted by her brother’s hand, 285
Towards the church, through paths unscanned,
With tranquil air, her way doth wind.
Odors of laurel, making her faint and pale,
Round her at times exhale,
And in the sky as yet no sunny ray, 290
But brumal vapors gray.
Near that castle, fair to see,
Crowded with sculptures old, in every part,
Marvels of nature and of art,
And proud of its name of high degree, 295
A little chapel, almost bare
At the base of the rock, is builded there;
All glorious that it lifts aloof,
Above each jealous cottage roof,
Its sacred summit, swept by autumn gales, 300
And its blackened steeple high in air,
Round which the osprey screams and sails.
“Paul, lay thy noisy rattle by!”
Thus Margaret said. “Where are we? we ascend!”
“Yes; seest thou not our journey’s end? 305
Hearest not the osprey from the belfry cry?
The hideous bird, that brings ill luck, we know!
Dost thou remember when our father said,
The night we watched beside his bed,
‘O daughter, I am weak and low; 310
Take care of Paul; I feel that I am dying!’
And thou, and he, and I, all fell to crying?
Then on the roof the osprey screamed aloud;
And here they brought our father in his shroud.
There is his grave; there stands the cross we set; 315
Why dost thou clasp me so, dear Margaret?
Come in! the bride will be here soon:
Thou tremblest! O my God! thou art going to swoon!”
She could no more, — the blind girl, weak and weary!
A voice seemed crying from that grave so dreary, 320
“What wouldst thou do, my daughter?” — and she started,
And quick recoiled, aghast, faint-hearted;
But Paul, impatient, urges evermore
Her steps towards the open door;
And when, beneath her feet, the unhappy maid 325
Crushes the laurel near the house immortal,
And with her head, as Paul talks on again,
Touches the crown of filigrane
Suspended from the low-arched portal,
No more restrained, no more afraid, 330
She walks, as for a feast arrayed,
And in the ancient chapel’s sombre night
They both are lost to sight.
At length the bell,
With booming sound, 335
Sends forth, resounding round,
Its hymeneal peal o’er rock and down the dell.
It is broad day, with sunshine and with rain;
And yet the guests delay not long,
For soon arrives the bridal train, 340
And with it brings the village throng.
In sooth, deceit maketh no mortal gay,
For lo! Baptiste on this triumphant day,
Mute as an idiot, sad as yester-morning,
Thinks only of the beldame’s words of warning. 345
And Angela thinks of her cross, I wis;
To be a bride is all! the pretty lisper
Feels her heart swell to hear all round her whisper,
“How beautiful! how beautiful she is!”
But she must calm that giddy head, 350
For already the Mass is said;
At the holy table stands the priest;
The wedding ring is blessed; Baptiste receives it;
Ere on the finger of the bride he leaves it,
He must pronounce one word at least! 355
‘T is spoken; and sudden at the grooms-man’s side
“‘T is he!” a
well-known voice has cried.
“And while the wedding guests all hold their breath,
Opes the confessional, and the blind girl, see!
“Baptiste,” she said, “since thou hast wished my death, 360
As holy water be my blood for thee!”
And calmly in the air a knife suspended!
Doubtless her guardian angel near attended,
For anguish did its work so well,
That, ere the fatal stroke descended, 365
Lifeless she fell!
At eve, instead of bridal verse,
The De Profundis filled the air;
Decked with flowers a simple hearse
To the churchyard forth they bear; 370
Village girls in robes of snow
Follow, weeping as they go;
Nowhere was a smile that day,
No, ah no! for each one seemed to say: —
The road should mourn and be veiled in gloom, 375
So fair a corpse shall leave its home!
Should mourn and should weep, ah, well-away!
So fair a corpse shall pass to day!
A Christmas Carol
From The Noei Bourguignon de Gui Barôzai
I HEAR along our street
Pass the minstrel throngs;
Hark! they play so sweet,
On their hautboys, Christmas songs!
Let us by the fire 5
Ever higher
Sing them till the night expire!
In December ring
Every day the chimes;
Loud the gleemen sing 10
In the streets their merry rhymes.
Let us by the fire
Ever higher
Sing them till the night expire.
Shepherds at the grange, 15
Where the Babe was born,
Sang, with many a change,
Christmas carols until morn.
Let us by the fire
Ever higher 20
Sing them till the night expire!
These good people sang
Songs devout and sweet;
While the rafters rang,
There they stood with freezing feet. 25
Let us by the fire
Ever higher
Sing them till the night expire.
Nuns in frigid cells
At this holy tide, 30
For want of something else,
Christmas songs at times have tried.
Let us by the fire
Ever higher
Sing them till the night expire! 35
Washerwomen old,
To the sound they beat,
Sing by rivers cold,
With uncovered heads and feet.
Let us by the fire 40
Ever higher
Sing them till the night expire.
Who by the fireside stands
Stamps his feet and sings;
But he who blows his hands 45
Not so gay a carol brings.
Let us by the fire
Ever higher
Sing them till the night expire!
Consolation
To M. Duperrier, Gentleman of Aix in Provence, on the Death of His Daughter
By François de Malherbe
WILL then, Duperrier, thy sorrow be eternal?
And shall the sad discourse
Whispered within thy heart, by tenderness paternal,
Only augment its force?
Thy daughter’s mournful fate, into the tomb descending 5
By death’s frequented ways,
Has it become to thee a labyrinth never ending,
Where thy lost reason strays?
I know the charms that made her youth a benediction:
Nor should I be content, 10
As a censorious friend, to solace thine affliction
By her disparagement.
But she was of the world, which fairest things exposes
To fates the most forlorn;
A rose, she too hath lived as long as live the roses, 15
The space of one brief morn.
* * * * *
Death has his rigorous laws, unparalleled, unfeeling;
All prayers to him are vain;
Cruel, he stops his ears, and, deaf to our appealing,
He leaves us to complain. 20
The poor man in his hut, with only thatch for cover,
Unto these laws must bend;
The sentinel that guards the barriers of the Louvre
Cannot our kings defend.
To murmur against death, in petulant defiance, 25
Is never for the best;
To will what God doth will, that is the only science
That gives us any rest.
To Cardinal Richelieu
By François de Malherbe
THOU mighty Prince of Church and State,
Richelieu! until the hour of death,
Whatever road man chooses, Fate
Still holds him subject to her breath.
Spun of all silks, our days and nights 5
Have sorrows woven with delights;
And of this intermingled shade
Our various destiny appears,
Even as one sees the course of years
Of summers and of winters made. 10
Sometimes the soft, deceitful hours
Let us enjoy the halcyon wave;
Sometimes impending peril lowers
Beyond the seaman’s skill to save.
The Wisdom, infinitely wise, 15
That gives to human destinies
Their foreordained necessity,
Has made no law more fixed below,
Than the alternate ebb and flow
Of Fortune and Adversity. 20
The Angel and the Child
(L’Ange et l’Enfant; Elégie à une Mère)
By Jean Reboul, the Baker of Nismes
AN ANGEL with a radiant face,
Above a cradle bent to look,
Seemed his own image there to trace,
As in the waters of a brook.
“Dear child! who me resemblest so,” 5
It whispered, “come, oh come with me!
Happy together let us go,
The earth unworthy is of thee!
“Here none to perfect bliss attain;
The soul in pleasure suffering lies; 10
Joy hath an undertone of pain,
And even the happiest hours their sighs.
“Fear doth at every portal knock;
Never a day serene and pure
From the o’ershadowing tempest’s shock 15
Hath made the morrow’s dawn secure.
“What, then, shall sorrows and shall fears
Come to disturb so pure a brow?
And with the bitterness of tears
These eyes of azure troubled grow? 20
“Ah no! into the fields of space,
Away shalt thou escape with me;
And Providence will grant thee grace
Of all the days that were to be.
“Let no one in thy dwelling cower, 25
In sombre vestments draped and veiled;
But let them welcome thy last hour,
As thy first moments once they hailed.
“Without a cloud be there each brow;
There let the grave no shadow cast; 30
When one is pure as thou art now,
The fairest day is still the last.”
And waving wide his wings of white,
The angel, at these words, had sped
Towards the eternal realms of light! — 35
Poor mother! see, thy son is dead!
On the Terrace of the Aigalades
By Joseph Méry
FROM this high portal, where upsprings
The rose to touch our hands in play,
We at a glance behold three things, —
The Sea, the Town, and the Highway.
And the Sea says: My shipwrecks fear; 5
I drown my best friends in the deep;
And those who braved my tempests, here
Among my sea-weeds lie asleep!
The Town says: I am filled and fraught
With tumult and with smoke and care; 10
My days with toil are overwrought,
And in my nights I gasp for air.
The Highway says: My wheel-tracks guide
To the pale climates of the North;
Where my last milestone stands abide 15
The people to their death gone forth.
Here in the shade this life of ours,
Full of delicious air, glides by
Amid a multitude of flowers
As countless as the stars on high; 20
These red-tiled roofs, this fruitful soil,
Bathed with an azure all divine,
Where springs the tree that gives us oil,
The grape that giveth us the wine;
Beneath these mountains stripped of trees, 25
Whose tops with flowers are covered o’er,
Where springtime of the Hesperides
Begins, but endeth nevermore;
Under these leafy vaults and walls,
That unto gentle sleep persuade; 30
This rainbow of the waterfalls,
Of mingled mist and sunshine made;
Upon these shores, where all invites,
We live our languid life apart;
This air is that of life’s delights, 35
The festival of sense and heart;
This limpid space of time prolong,
Forget to-morrow in to-day,
And leave unto the passing throng
The Sea, the Town, and the Highway. 40
To my Brooklet
(À mon Ruisseau)
By Jean François Ducis
THOU brooklet, all unknown to song,
Hid in the covert of the wood!
Ah, yes, like thee I fear the throng,
Like thee I love the solitude.
O brooklet, let my sorrows past 5
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 143
