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Title: The Vigil of Brunhild
       A Narrative Poem

Author: Frederic Manning

Release Date: January 13, 2019 [EBook #58692]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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                              THE VIGIL OF
                                BRUNHILD

                            A NARRATIVE POEM

                           BY FREDERIC MANNING

                                 LONDON
                    JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
                                  1907

                               PRINTED BY
                     HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
                          LONDON AND AYLESBURY.




INTRODUCTION

BRUNHILD, died A.D. 613


The intervention of women in the course of the world’s history has
nearly always been attended by those events upon which poets delight to
meditate: events of sinister and tragic significance, the chief value
of which is to show in rude collision the ideals and the realities of
life; the common humanity of the central figures in direct conflict
with the inhuman march of circumstance; and the processes through which
these central figures, like Lady Macbeth or Cleopatra, are made to
transcend all conventional morality, and, though completely evil in the
ordinary sense, to redeem themselves and win our sympathy by a moment
of heroic fortitude, or of supreme and consuming anguish. Such events
and processes, however, belong properly to dramatic art; narrative
poetry, being of a smoother and easier texture allowing more scope to the
subjective play of ideas: in short, it is more spiritual than real. The
Queen of Austrasia and Burgundy, whom I have made the subject of my poem,
is essentially a figure of tragedy. Perhaps it might have been better to
treat her as a subject of dramatic action; but in order to do so it would
have been necessary to limit her personality, to define her character, to
treat only a part of her various and complex psychology. I preferred to
show her at the moment of complete renunciation, a prisoner in her own
castle of Orbe on the banks of the lake of Neuchâtel, after she had been
betrayed by her own army, and had become the prey of her own rebellious
nobles; and the poem is but a series of visions that come to her in
the stress of her final degradation, while she is awaiting the brutal
death which the victors reserved for her. Indeed, so entirely spiritual
was my intention, I have scarcely thought it worth while to enumerate
the ironies of her situation. The squalor of her cell, the triumph
of her foes, the prospect of her own immediate death become entirely
insignificant beside the pageantry, the splendour, the romance of a past
which her memories evoke and clothe with faint, reflected glories. She
hears, in the charming phrase of Renan, “les cloches d’une ville d’Is.”

In a note at the end of the volume I have given some extracts from
the _Histoire de France_, edited by M. Ernest Lavisse, which show the
principal events of her life.

                                                                  F. M.




THE VIGIL OF BRUNHILD


    Brunhild, with worn face framed in withered hands,
    Sate in her wounded royalty; and seemed
    Like an old eagle, taken in the toils,
    And fallen from the wide extended sway
    Of her dominion, whence the eye looks down
    On mountains shrunk to nothing, and the sea
    Fretting in vain against its boundaries.
      She sate, with chin thrust forward, listening
    To the loud shouting and the ring of swords
    On shields, that sounded from the crowded hall;
    Where all her ancient bards were emulous
    In praise, now, of her foes who feasted there.
    Her humid cell was strown with rotten straw,
    A roost of owls, and haunt of bats; the wind
    Blew the cold rain in, and made tremulous
    The smoking flame, on which her eyes were set;
    Her raiment was all torn, and stained with blood;
    Her hair had fallen, and she heeded not:
    She was alone and friendless, but her eyes
    Held something kingly that could outfrown Fate.
    Gray, haggard, wan, and yet with dignity,
    Which had been beauty once, and now was age,
    She sate in that foul cellar, as one sits
    To whom life owes no further injury,
    Whom no hopes cheat, and no despairs make pale;
    Though in her heart, and on her rigid face,
    Despair was throned in gaunt magnificence.
      A sound disturbed her thought; she turned her head,
    Waiting, while a strong hand unbarred the door,
    With hatred burning in her tearless eyes,
    Ready to front her foes. The huge door gave
    Creaking, unwillingly, to close again
    Behind a priest, whose melancholy eyes
    Were dropped before the anger of her own.
      “A priest!” she cried; “they send to me a priest!
    Mocking me, that my hand first helped these priests
    Till a priest’s hand was strong to strike me down.”
      He bent before her, swayed by grief and shame;
    Then spoke: “Brunhild, they sent me not to thee;
    But I came willingly, nor feared their wrath.
    Arnulf and Pippin feast their warriors
    In the high-raftered hall, and cheer the bards,
    Who sing of how they smote thee: so I crept
    Forth from the tumult. At the height of noon
    To-morrow they will tie thee to a horse
    That never has known bridle, to be dragged
    Over the stony ways till thou art dead;
    And I am come to shrive thee”: and he stayed
    His tongue; but sorrow filled his frightened eyes.
      “Go from me,” then she said; “thou knowest how
    My life has been as angry as a flame,
    Consumed with its own passions. Go from me:
    Thou couldst not bear the weight of all my sins.
    Yea, go. I will not call upon thy God;
    He is too far from me: could I again
    Have my old strength and beauty, I should waste
    Again the earth with my delight in war,
    And vex my body with the restless loves
    That my youth knew. A life of war and love;
    Passions that shake the soul; bright, ruddy flames
    Devouring speedily this fretful flesh:
    A life of clamour, shouting, dust and heat,
    The tumult of the battle, ringing shields,
    The hiss of sudden arrows through the air,
    And drumming hoofs of horses in the mad
    Thunderous fury of the charge, that breaks
    Baffled, like waves upon a wall of steel:
    Give me again that life of ecstasy
    And I shall leave your heaven to its sleep.”
      She wrapped her cloak about her, close; and frowned
    Once more upon the flame. He spoke again:
      “When I was long-haired, too, the windy joys
    Of battle wrought a madness in my blood;
    Yet never night came but mine eyes would close
    On sleep, that seemed a mother to my soul,
    In trustfulness as quiet as a child’s.
    Hast thou no need of quiet, of a sleep
    That stretches out its wings and shrouds thee close,
    Healing thee of all wounds, and wards the day
    Off from thine eyelids? There is peace in God,
    If we might find him; but the way is far
    And difficult of travel for our feet,
    Leading through all the sounding ways of life
    And silent ways of death, through whose domain
    Each blind soul voyages in loneliness:
    Nor ever has a man with undimmed eyes,
    Save he whom ravens fed, and he whose voice
    Sounded the note of triumph, even in Hell,
    While the dead flocked unto him, and the gates
    Were lifted up for gladness, travelled it.
    Wide regions filled with spirits numberless——”
      But Brunhild turned on him: “I see them now,
    Though Death has not yet claimed me, in that flame;
    And wouldst thou have me go to them in fear,
    With loosened knees and face untaught to frown?
    Would they for all my weeping pity me?
    Yea, there is Fredegonde with mocking eyes:
    I seem to see my life through smoking blood
    That she and I have spilt in quarrelling.
    Shall we too fill, with greater clamour, Hell;
    Battling like eagles through the gloomy air,
    That trembles at the passion of our wings?
    Go from me: I repent not anything.”
      “Nay, yet I shall not go; but rest and hear
    Thy story in the form it leaves thy lips;
    Nor question thee, but bless thee and depart.
    For surely all thy soul yearns backward now
    To half remembered days, that fill the flame,
    Even as you say, with floating memories,
    Purged of the dross, that was a part of them,
    Nought now but soft gold of thy plastic dreams,
    Wrought to what shape you will: so have I heard
    That we judge others and judge not ourselves
    By a stern measure; and therefore we fail
    Of perfect justice, which is charity.”
      “Ye, who are sheltered from the world, O priest,”
    Spake Brunhild, mocking him, “have time to pause
    Ere your minds fix the measure of pure truth
    And perfect justice; but our windy life
    Loses no time on niceties: for me,
    I gave such justice as I look for now;
    I swung a hammer on mine enemies,
    To forge the world anew unto my mind;
    My cause was justice in mine eyes, and those
    Who stood against me, enemies of God.
    Lo! I have failed of all my purposes,
    And age has come upon me like a cloud;
    And these old shoulders groan beneath the shame,
    The bitterness, the burden of defeat:
    Yet I have seen the star, where others saw
    Only the froth and spume of angry storms.”
      He gazed on her with patient, gentle eyes;
    Bowed, sate she, with her hands clasped round her knees,
    Incarnate sorrow: then her lion’s head
    She lifted; and spake once again to him:

      “When I came out of Spain to Sigebert
    The rude Franks wondered at my company,
    My Moorish falconers and deep-voiced hounds,
    My swift light-horsemen, harpers, lutanists;
    And prophesied my days would fly, like gold
    Out of the loose hands of a prodigal,
    With the delight of hunting and the glad
    Singing of minstrels in the crowded hall,
    Where the red torches mirror on the shields
    And burnished helmets their tempestuous lights:
    Ominous fires of slaughter, flickering,
    To flash out suddenly in angry flame.
      “But, for a while, my house was filled with smiles;
    And Love sate as a guest beside my hearth.
    Each morning heard the horns call to the chase
    The loud, glad music of the eager hounds,
    While huntsmen cheered them onward, and the rides
    Through woodlands, down the shadow-dappled ways,
    Woke, in the answering April of my youth,
    A pleasure that was one thing with the dawn.
      “So passed my days, in courtly wise, until
    Some whisper promised me another Spring
    Thrilling within my body, and I felt
    The first strange wakenings of motherhood,
    The pledge, and prophecy, of future Kings.
    And I went roaming through the woods no more;
    Intent on quiet business with my maids,
    Spinning new wool, or standing by the loom,
    Or broidering toy baldricks, with gold thread,
    Bright, to please baby eyes, that love bright things;
    Dreaming on all the promise, that I held,
    And all the storm and stress life held for him.
      “Then first I saw the doom that Nature laid
    On women, to be careful harvesters;
    To plan, and toil, and build for unborn sons,
    To shape the future out of their own time.
    These turbulent loud nobles with their feuds
    Carousing nightly, or in companies
    Changing their hunting-grounds from place to place,
    Vexed me with their unthrift and wantonness:
    I saw them as a hindrance to my son,
    And pitted craft against their stubborn strength,
    Fighting each step. They were dark, brooding days,
    Heavy with sullen menace of a storm;
    Yet found I friendly faces, in despite
    Of much unbodied anger, for mine eyes
    Held the soft light that tames the hearts of men.
    Yea, and I roused them up with angry words
    To ride with me for vengeance to the Court
    Of Hilperik and Fredegonde, who slew
    Galswith, the white-armed sister whom I loved,
    The slim, fair sister with deep, dreaming eyes
    As blue as harebells or calm waters are.
      “Ah! I remember that frost-silver dawn,
    Clouded with curtains of deep-billowing mist
    That rose to hide the first bright beams of day,
    In a white froth, out of the wooded plains—
    Delicate, wreathing, spiral broideries;
    And how the hoofs rang loud upon the road,
    Galloping o’er the drawbridge as if foes
    Pressed close behind; the trembling messenger
    Spent with hard riding, cold, and white with fear;
    The steaming flanks and withers of the horse;
    The soldiers pressing close to hear the news;
    Sigebert, with his knotted veins, and hands
    Fast-clenched, and anger flaming in his eyes,
    As Galswith’s servant cried aloud to us:
    ‘Galswith is slain; Galswith, the Queen, is slain!’
    And then, confusedly, as of a dream
    Disordered, all the terror of the act
    He built out of his words before mine eyes:
    The sharp-cut shadows and the frosty light
    Showing each angle of my battlements
    And buttresses; and the light snow, that clung,
    Frozen, against the cloister’s slender shafts,
    Hanging them with light-splintering icicles:
    How clearly can I see it! and the gleam
    Of scarlet and of steel against the snow;
    And Galswith’s page, wild-eyed and tremulous,
    Telling us how, as soft as evil dreams,
    Hilperik and his harlot crept, by night,
    Into the shadowy chamber where she lay,
    Her sweet, frail body nestled close in sleep:
    Sleep, that alone drove sorrow from her soul;
    And he, the hairy hound, leaped on her bed,
    Kneeling on those twin breasts of ivory,
    And crushed the slender throat in his huge hands!
      “I think I swayed a little; and I know
    That something seemed to burn up all desire,
    Leaving me rigid, filled with winter frosts:
    For I remembered how, when we were young,
    And shared one chamber in the donjon keep,
    When she awoke, and felt the darkness, thick
    And fearful, on her sunshine-loving eyes,
    First she would call to me, and then, grown brave
    At her own tongue’s sweet music, cross the floor
    To creep into my bed, and cling to me,
    Telling me how she dreamed that she was dead.
    Think of that black and lustful ravening beast
    Spoiling the slim white body! Sigebert
    Would have lit up the land with war that day;
    But wisdom counselled patience. Bitterly
    I waited. But my hate was like a hound
    That, from afar, marks down his prey at dawn;
    Though the chase last till evening, he keeps
    His way through shadows, and the blazing noon,
    Following, tireless, till his throat has blood.
    Six years I waited, ere in armoured strength
    I came to reap their harvests with my sword;
    And hate to me was sweeter far than love.
    O priest, was that hate sin?” He answered not
    At once; but met her gaze with level eyes,
    Then answered: “Brunhild, thou must ask thy soul.”
      Perhaps she sought there, but no answer breathed
    Her unmoved lips, close shut with a strange smile;
    Then with a gesture, grave, magnificent,
    She spoke again: “What fools have done to me,
    Or enemies have planned; what shames and wounds
    Arnulf and Pippin keep for me, or gave:
    All that I do forgive. But answer, priest:
    I, who wrought wisely through long weary years
    To build a kingdom, where was turbulence,
    And mould a civil state out of this strife,
    Come at the last unto a shameful death;
    While Fredegonde, who wrought for her own lust,
    Died peacefully: has God been just to us?
    Bow not thy head; bear with my bitterness:
    Though God desert me in mine hour of need,
    Yet shall I carry a firm heart to death;
    Nor blame him, nor blame other than myself,
    Who never trusted other. These six years
    Of waiting over, Fredegonde and I
    Began our war; she, breaking out of bounds,
    And ravaging some parts of Aquitaine,
    Till some barbarians from Germany
    Came at the call of Sigebert, and slew
    And pillaged all the people up to Chartres,
    Turning aside to waste and burn the crops,
    Ploughing the fertile land with war, until
    Triumphant trumpets, through the startled night
    Carried our menaces, upon the wind,
    To Paris, safe among its flooded fields
    Of reeds, and purple irises, and gold
    Marsh-mallows, splendid in the light of noon.
      “Three years our storm of vengeance shook the land
    Ere Paris fell, and Sigebert in pomp
    Rode through the gateways, proudly triumphing,
    And bade me with our children follow him.
    Hilperik fled to Tournai; and his host
    Melted as snow in our sweet summer time.
    How like a bride I felt again that day!
    My little son beside me on his horse,
    Carrying high that royal head of his
    That the sun made more golden, smiled to see
    Crowding about us all my husband’s men,
    Who shouted as a welcome in mine ears:
    ‘Is Galswith now avenged? Have we done well?’
    And the cry rippled on through all the ranks
    While I smiled gladly on them; but my heart
    Tormented me that Hilperik was fled,
    And Fredegonde in sanctuary safe,
    The church of God’s own mother sheltering her.
      “How thick the people pressed to gaze on me
    With sullen brows, or angry, wondering!
    Till suddenly a voice cried musical—
    _Lo, what a pearl Spain gave unto the world!_
    Then, turning at the well-remembered words,
    I saw, above the shifting, changing crowd,
    The poet Fortunatus wave to me
    From a high window, and his maddened eyes,
    Before the bending street hid him again.
      “There is a doom on poets; their fond thought
    Builds an ambitious phantasy, and calls
    The frail thing Life; this gossamer of dreams
    Each strong wind shatters. Priest, perchance it was
    My beauty, like a wind, had wrecked his web,
    So that his life became quite purposeless,
    The whole world being alien to him,
    And only I seemed to him like a star,
    Beckoning him. Alas! his errant brain
    Had clothed me, too, with grace that I had not,
    And then misjudged me. Yea, I know the world
    Imputes to me adultery and lust;
    There is a doom on queens as well, it seems,
    To have each action weighed by vulgar minds,
    Criticized by the multitude; their names,
    Toys, with which fools have grown familiar:
    Yet who would waste denial on this mob
    Of idle chatterers whose souls are slime.
    But, riding through this crowd, there came to me
    A moment when I saw the hopelessness
    In him, the hopelessness in all the world,
    Whose praises are as crowns corruptible,
    Born, as their worthless blame, of ignorance.
      “I paused not long upon this wintry thought.
    The world that I had won, before mine eyes
    Broke into colour, motion, victory,
    With banners breaking gay, and flashing steel
    In serried ranks, as Sigebert rode close
    To kiss me on the cheek, then drew our son
    From the huge horse that proudly carried him,
    To his own saddle-bow; and so they rode
    Through all the army while I followed them.”
      The grave voice slackened from its pitch, and fell
    Quavering, and the silence held them both.
    Then Brunhild raised again her head and spoke
    In a deep, even voice and passionless:
    “The swallows of our summer soon were fled.
    Sigebert left me with a slender guard
    In Paris, and left Hildebert with me:
    Then pressed on Tournai, after Hilperik,
    Who fled before him on to Vitry, where
    His nobles left him, laying down their arms,
    Crying aloud: ‘Lo, we are spent with wars,
    Let Sigebert be King of all the Franks.’
    So the news came to me one warm eve when,
    As the sun dropped behind the western hills,
    I watched the bright stars one by one grow clear
    In the green lingering of the faded light,
    While swans came floating to me on the tide
    Of the strong Seine, which royally they rode
    With ruffled snowy plumage and arched necks
    Out of the distance sailing, like a fleet,
    And turned their course toward a reedy isle
    Where each one preened its plumage till soft eve
    With shuttered eyelids lulled them into sleep.
    So, even as this isle unto the swans,
    Peace seemed to me a welcome harbourage;
    I counted now each step beyond clear gain
    In the slow progress from our lawless state
    To an imperial dominion set
    Over the wreck of that old Roman power;
    And all my thoughts were eagles carrying
    The thunder of mine edicts through the world.
    The folk of Paris, too, had heard the news
    And gathered by the palace gate that night
    To see me pass them; as I entered in
    I thought their frowns had faded. Then I took
    My way toward the room where Galswith died
    Suddenly, in that terror-stricken night,
    To tell her that her kingdom now was mine,
    If haply her pure spirit still might haunt
    That mildewed chamber, stained and sanctified
    By her own blood: but by the arras paused,
    And through my tears looked on the little room
    Where she had housed so meanly; and it was
    To me the temple of her shame and wrongs.
    Then that old lust for blood, unsatisfied,
    Dried up the gentle sources of my tears,
    And I turned back; nor thought to enter in
    While Hilperik still lived, or Fredegonde.
    Sleep fell upon mine eyes that night, as soft
    As snow in April on half-opened buds
    That usher in the many-coloured months,
    Unvext by dim anxieties and fears
    Of misadventures, which had troubled sleep
    These many nights; and Hildebert, my son,
    Slept the calm sleep of children by my side,
    His sweet, warm body nestled close to mine,
    Sharing the same enchanted realm of dreams.
      “Then seemed it as if rude and angry sounds
    Rippled our visions, as a pebble thrown
    In water blurs the cool reflections there,
    Till growing louder, more tumultuous,
    A rumour rose above the huddled roofs
    That clustered round the palace, shattering
    The crystal of our dreams, and then a voice
    Shouted to me: ‘Brunhild, awake and fly!
    For Sigebert is slain by treachery.
    Even as we raised him on the kingly shield,
    Fredegonde’s pages smote on either side
    With poisoned daggers: all our strength dissolves
    Into small companies of plunderers
    Laden with spoil, their horses homeward turned.’
      “The harsh voice shuddered through the darkened room
    Ere torches came, and in their ruddy light
    I saw the angry eyes of Gondovald
    Blazing before me with their baffled hate.
    I trembled by the bed, but mine eyes too
    Mirrored the angry torches. ‘Take the boy,’
    I said to him: ‘I should but hinder you;
    But leave me in the refuge of the church.’
    There by the sleeping saints I sat and watched,
    Fearing the dawn. So all my work was hurled
    By ruinous chance to nothing in an hour.”
      “Brunhild, not chance it was, but punishment:
    The retribution followed on thy pride;
    And on thy lust, and hunger for revenge.”
      But Brunhild turned on him: “Would God destroy
    A nation newly wakened into life,
    Because of my one sin; and give the palm
    Of victory to Fredegonde, whose life
    Was sin in all its many changing forms?
    How poor and futile are the sophistries
    Of schools when one is drawing close to death,
    That lies before us, silent, shadowy,
    With veiled horizons and no guiding stars,
    A vast, unfathomable, empty sea,
    Broken by no white gleam of friendly sails,
    Untravelled, claiming all our company,
    More secret than our wisdom may explore;
    Into which darkness all of us must go.
    I go untrammelled by mere selfishness,
    Conscious that many hopes converged on me,
    Till I became a symbol in men’s eyes;
    And still more conscious of the silent strife
    In mine own spirit when two courses lay
    Before me, and a voice cried: ‘Choose the best!’
    By what I choose now let my soul abide.
      “One thing I learned, which is a part of hope
    With me: God knows how willing is man’s soul,
    Yet how his life is clouded o’er with doom,
    And hindered by innumerable things;
    So he will never judge by what I did,
    But read my soul, and know thence what I was,
    As no man knows me. Yet with tears I go;
    For I have loved the green lap of the earth,
    Its snowy toppling peaks with golden plumes
    Of sunset, or with sullen clouds of storm;
    Yea, I have loved the green fields of the earth,
    And the gray fields of the eternal sea,
    And night with its wide heavens, garlanded
    With the innumerable stars, the moon,
    Who sometimes like a blown sail in the sky,
    Voyages, or enchants with gentle beams
    Woodlands, and winding rivers, and still lakes.
      “And I have loved the seasons in their turn:
    Spring with her fragile flowers, virginal,
    Laughing beneath her coverlet of snow;
    Green Summer with her flocks of singing-birds,
    Cuckoos, and nightingales, and shrill-voiced lark,
    And swallows clamorous in crowded nests;
    Wild Autumn with his wind-swept avenues
    And fluttering of tawny golden leaves,
    His late warm ripeness in the apple-trees,
    The vagueness of his mourning, purple mists;
    And Winter, finally, with amber lights,
    His black boughs bare against the azure sky,
    Or on a gentle, rounded slope of woods,
    Clouded with purple bloom, his ivied trunks
    From which the lone owl calls with his deep voice,
    And, as the rooks pass homeward, overhead
    The multitudinous murmuring of wings.
      “All this I leave, and ways wherein my feet
    Have grown familiar, to voyage out
    Upon the darkness, void of any star.
    But in this little moment which is mine,
    While all my foes are sleeping, drunkenly,
    Among the dying lights, the broken meats,
    Which the dogs tear upon the rush-strewn floor
    While even the moonlight sleeps upon the hills,
    I build again, out of my memories,
    The storm and splendour of my troubled life.
    Even the narrow frontiers of this cell
    May in the crystal vision of the mind
    Hold my remembered royalty, and keep
    Dim memories of old magnificence,
    Pomp, courtly festivals, and crowded days,
    Of lovers who bent yearningly to me,
    Of poets, who made music at my touch
    As Memnon at the morning’s, of old kings
    Grave with their wisdom, and young warriors
    Whose wisdom was the lightness of their hearts;
    These haunt my solitude, and pay me court,
    Nor heed misfortune: but of all this state
    Only one face is there which fills my soul
    With some strong healing effluence, a grace
    Of twilight reveries when all things seem
    Merged in the peace of God, and we become
    Part of the clear, intense, eternal flame
    Whose motion is like music, and we lose
    Sense of ourselves in drawing close to God.
    Love, that has cleansed the heart of pettiness,
    Shows me the face of Merow in my dreams.”
    And, as she spoke, the face of Brunhild lit
    With radiance from that old love, her face
    Softened, and age was as a grace to her.
      “Yea, I loved Sigebert; but all that love
    Was but my childish wonder at the ways
    Of men; and I clung close unto his strength.
    Our friendship might have ripened slow like wine,
    To be a cheer and comfort to our age,
    Mellow with wisdom, tranquil, tolerant;
    Yet is it but a shadow. Happiness
    Is not the nurture of a steadfast soul;
    But sorrow binds us with the bonds of love.
    Love is a suffering, a sacrifice;
    A hand put out toward all human pain;
    A fellowship, through danger and the dark:
    So was the love that Merow taught to me.
      “The days of my delight had passed like wind
    Over the water, and had died away;
    My lutanists and falconers were far;
    And I sat lonely and a prisoner,
    With Praetextatus, guarded carefully,
    When Merow came to Rouen with a troop
    Of young, light-hearted warriors, the close
    Friends of his venturous youth and confidence.
    How could he look on me with gentle eyes
    Who had pursued his people like a hawk?
    Yet then his mind turned back to Andovere,
    Whom convent walls enclosed, and Fredegonde
    Seemed now so hateful in his sight, he found
    Companionship with me in hating her.
    He, with his friends, all day would hunt the boar,
    And the wild aurochs, but at night would sit
    Close to the blazing logs, and there I served
    The warm, spiced ale to them, or ruddy wine
    From Macon, till I moved them, every one,
    So that their eyes grew bright at my approach
    And faded when I left them; thus it was.
    But I and Merow had not yet drawn close
    To one another; for when one advanced
    The other tarried, so we vexed ourselves
    With sudden heats, and sudden coldnesses,
    Making each other sensitive and quick
    In our resentment. Then one evening
    There came a messenger from Fredegonde
    To Merow, and he left our company,
    So that I saw him not again that night;
    And in the morning back to Fredegonde
    Returned the messenger, but Merow went
    Alone, and brooded much in solitude,
    Nor heeded me, nor sought to speak with me,
    As he was wont to on the least pretence.
      “One morning to my room there came a page
    Of Merow’s, who, when I would talk to him
    At our chance meetings, blushed and hung his head,
    But, when I heeded not his presence, gazed
    Long on my face and fed his dreamings there.
    He came to me by stealth, in secrecy,
    And laid his hand upon my hand, and spake:
    ‘Brunhild, beware of Merow, for he thinks
    To poison thee, and so to make his peace
    With Fredegonde, who thus has tempted him.
    And she has sent him poisons, which the art
    Of Lapland sorcerers distilled for her,
    From herbs accurséd, in the moon’s eclipse,
    Bidding him mix the draught into thy wine.
    So, if he bids thee drink, drink not, but rest
    Thy lips upon the rim, lest thou shouldst die.’
      “Ah! how the sky seemed barren of all light
    When the soft voice had finished whispering;
    And my soul questioned me in weariness:
    What plan or purpose was there left in life,
    If my belovéd plotted death for me?
    But yet I thanked the page, and let him kiss
    My hand, and gave him a thick ring of gold,
    And sent him from me ere I turned to weep.
      “Great bitterness was mine for many days:
    Then one day in the cheerful, fire-lit hall,
    When Merow and his company had come
    Home from the chase, and feasted joyfully
    While his hounds couched beside the glowing fire,
    Merow, who had been sitting watching me,
    Called for his horn, ringed several times with gold,
    And filled it with the warm, spiced, foaming ale
    From the great bowl; and filled a golden cup
    Which Praetextatus out of Italy
    Had brought, and given him, with the red wine;
    Wrought all of gold this fair cup was, wherein
    Were Danaë in the brazen tower shown,
    And sweet Europa clinging to her Bull,
    And Leda on a pleasant river-side
    Crushing the lilies with her silver flank
    While the Swan kissed her lips and fast-shut eyes;
    This was the cup that Merow filled, and then
    He came, and put it in my hands, and spoke:
      “‘Thou fairest among women, whose bright eyes
    Have lit for us these sunless winter days,
    With radiant kindliness and gracious smiles
    Cheering our weariness, though in thy heart
    Sorrow for Sigebert still weeping lies:
    How shall we render thanks for courtesy
    When all our thanks would not outweigh one smile
    That kindles in thine eyes, and curves thy lips
    Upward, and lingers there deliciously,
    Though the deep eyes have once again turned grave
    With sorrow half remembered? O fair Queen,
    Sprung of a kingly race, and not like her
    Whose rule has been a curse unto this land,
    A bastard peasant, spawned in infamy,
    We pledge thee in our beakers: pledge thou us
    And if perchance, O Queen, thy widowed days
    Pass wearily and sorrow sleep with thee
    Ere youth has even ripened with the sun
    In thy clear cheeks, then choose among us men;
    For we are young, and hardy in the chase,
    And foremost in the battle, and our limbs
    Are straight and comely, and our eyes are bright
    With health, and we have riches, all of us,
    And all are noble, for our fathers rule
    Over wide tracts of land and many folk,
    In their strong castles; but this company
    Have left the Court where sin and crime are crowned
    To wander with me through this pleasant land,
    Delighting in our minstrels and the chase:
    Or if thou wilt not choose among us here,
    Then pledge us in the cup, and so shall we
    Depart hence, for thy beauty troubles us;
    Yet shall we help thee into thine own land.’
      “He spoke, and they applauded; and I took
    Out of his hand the curious wrought cup,
    And looked toward the page, even he who came
    That day to warn me, and he dropped his eyes
    And shuddered; but I shuddered not. ‘O Prince,’
    I answered him, ‘could all my words avail
    To thank thee for thy kindliness to me,
    Yet there would still remain within my heart
    Thoughts too divine to rise in utterance,
    Which even lovers’ tongues may never tell,
    Though their hearts feel them, fluttering with wings.
    I would some sleight of thine had filled the cup
    With a love-potion, such as Iseult gave
    To Tristram, while they journeyed to King Marc
    In their beaked ship across the glooming sea,
    And thou hadst tasted of it, ere my lips
    Drank of the potent venom. But, O Prince,
    No potion is there to increase my love:
    Stronger it is than death, and deeper far
    Than the blue depths of the untravelled sea.
    Love fills me utterly, and is my blood;
    So that, belovéd, hadst thou bade me drink
    Of some death-working potion Fredegonde
    Had learned from Lapland sorcerers to brew,
    Thus would I drink it!’ and I drained the cup,
    Then spoke once more: ‘Yea, even if one came
    To warn me of the snare which she had laid,
    And that thy heart consented to the deed,
    As one did come to me.’ ‘Brunhild!’ he cried;
    And a loud cry arose from all his friends,
    A sudden turmoil, suddenly to cease,
    Leaving them mute, amazed. Then Merow spake:
      “‘Queen, to thine hosts impute no treachery,
    For Praetextatus and myself are free
    From guilt in this though Fredegonde conspired:
    Who said my heart consented lied to thee!
    O Queen of the white hands and smiling eyes,
    My heart is not a traitor to its love
    To harbour evil thoughts against thy peace;
    And ever since mine eyes first looked on thee
    To see the wind lift from thy placid brows
    A tendril of thine aureate, sunlit hair;
    And ever since mine ears first heard thy voice
    Fall through the darkness like a gleam of light,
    Enchanting them with its swift wizardry;
    And ever since I felt the gentle touch
    Of thy hand laid upon my hand, which woke
    And troubled the deep waters of my soul,—
    My heart has been thy captive. O, my Queen,
    Life was before me like a mystery
    Filled with innumerable tongues of fear;
    But at thy touch I saw the world and life
    Green with the promise of delightful days,
    And like a harp of many twisted strings
    My heart was, on which your white hand did play—
    Or was it but the wind?—a melody
    Awakening strange hopes and strong desires
    And that old dream of beauty, triumphing
    Within my soul, of how the world might come,
    In time, to be a garden, such as was
    Eden upon the hills, which first the dawn
    Silvers, and broiders with her rosy veils:
    Eden, where you and I were left, alone!
    Ah, love, perchance our love might recreate
    Again that garden walled from our desire!’
      “When he had ended, his strong hand was laid
    On my slim hand, his fingers twined with mine,
    His eyes fed on mine eyes; and thus we stood
    Silent before his friends. As first one bough
    Whispers unto his fellow, in the wind,
    Who, soft, repeats to those who neighbour him
    Until the wood is filled with whisperings,
    So they unto each other whispered there.
    But Merow led me silent from the hall
    Into the night, the company of stars
    Innumerable, and of fragrant winds
    Sweet with our secrets, murmuring delight....
    How softly come these visions of the past!
    Softly as shadows, or as glimmering sails
    Upon the moonlit sea, or like shy fish
    Through green translucent waters, to depart
    In sudden swirls, while silver bubbles rise.
      “Next morning Praetextatus said a mass,
    And laid my hand in Merow’s, his in mine,
    Making us one.” She paused in sudden pain,
    Bending her eyes down to the rotten straw,
    While the priest watched her silent agony.
    Then once again raised up her head and spake:
    “What canst thou know of love, O loveless priest?
    How comfort me for all which I have lost?
    Nay then, bend not nor blush; my bitterness
    Has made my tongue a whip, I see, to score
    The poor weak body which is consecrate,
    Yet sometimes turns from heaven, desiring earth.”
      She ended, and the priest spake unto her,
    Turning on her his melancholy eyes:
    “Brunhild, I blame thee not for bitterness,
    Nor that thy words have vexed my quiet soul
    With passions that I thought asleep at last.
    Suffering is a part of my desire;
    It is a part of knowledge, and a part
    Of that great human heart which calls on God
    Because it is so comfortless on earth.
    Rather I thank thee for awakening
    Something within my soul that thrills with love
    For that sweet human love which promises
    The fluttering caress of children’s hands,
    Their flute-like voices waking with the dawn,
    The gaiety and laughter of their day.
    But all these fleeting voices of our life,
    The loves and sensual desires of earth,
    Our joy in childhood, are but memories
    Of innocence in sheltered Paradise,
    Where in one music, flowering like flames,
    They mix together, swelling symphonies
    Celestial beyond our mortal ears.
    So to me once there came a dream more fair
    Of love unhindered by mortality
    That veils us from each other, but which flowed,
    Two souls in unison, as when two flames
    Meet, and are one, and have a common life.
    Yea, my desire at last is one with God:
    And children are his messengers on earth.”
      Then Brunhild answered him: “In the frail light,
    I see so many children whom I bore:
    But there are none of Merow’s children there;
    Our marriage was a moment: and our sons
    Were dreams we saw in one another’s eyes.
    Yet if I speak of him my spirit feels,
    Through the thin veils of flesh, the gentle touch
    Of ghostly hands put out to comfort me:
    Hands that were Merow’s, tremulous with love.
    Ah! shall I speak to you of that calm dawn,
    When we two rode together toward Tours,
    Through woods but newly wakened into life?
    The spring was laughing with her April eyes,
    Her fingers decked each bough with tender bloom
    Of bud and blossom, and her feet awoke
    The daisies, primroses, and violets,
    While many birds, her swift-winged messengers,
    Shrilled, from each dripping bough, her hymns of love,
    In notes that chimed as sweet as rain on leaves;
    And swallows hawked for flies above each pool,
    That mirrored their light motion glassily.
      “Mile upon mile we rode, through wood and field,
    High pastures where the shepherds tended sheep,
    Counting the new-dropped lambs, and valleys green
    Where hamlets sheltered, smoke-wreaths from each house
    Curled upward slowly in the windless air,
    And sparrows quarrelled on the well-thatched roofs,
    Until at noon we found a sheltered spring,
    In a small hollow under aspen trees.
    Margined by reeds this mirror was, and gold
    With mallows in the reeds, and smooth grass lay
    About it, and the water bubbled clear
    Out of a fissure where grew many ferns.
    There, while the horses cropped the tender grass,
    We sate together, and no word was said.
    But on a sudden Merow took my hand
    In his, and looked at me with pleading eyes.
    I dropped my gaze, and silent plucked a flower.
    But ever closer drew that yearning face;
    And his hand grew more amorous, his mouth
    Closed upon mine; nor was I hard to win,
    Wearied with my desire and love for him.
    So the woods saw our wedlock, while the bees
    Went murmuring about the white-starred grass,
    At their sweet business, as we at ours;
    Till Merow spake: ‘Dear heart, the night creeps on,
    Hanging the distance with her silver mists,
    And the swift-darting swallows leave the pool
    Unrippled by their wings, while the quick bat
    Haunts their deserted ways in flickering haste:
    Come, let us journey onward now to Tours.
    Is the way weary that is urged by love,
    Love, who has shown us so delightful things?’
      “He raised me to the saddle, kissed the foot
    He placed within the stirrup, and we rode,
    Regretting that green harbourage of joy
    Strown with its fragrant herbs. The moonlight played
    Between the branches swaying overhead,
    To throw fantastic shadows on the ground,
    And the shy horses restive grew with fright
    When a wolf howled, and fear pursued our feet.
    Quietly rode we down the dusky ways;
    Till Merow paused and listened, and we heard
    Behind us, muffled, or ringing on the stones,
    The beat of many hoofs. Ah! then we rode
    With the keen sense of danger that is joy,
    Galloping down the steep and stony path,
    Abreast, where a false step would ruin all,
    As if we played a game of chance with Fate;
    And Merow smiled at me and I at him.
      “Soon the woods thinned where many trees lay felled,
    And slopes of pasture rolled toward the Loire,
    Enchanted with the moonlight; and we saw,
    Black on the silver sky, the new-built tower
    Of Tours unfinished, with its beacon fire.
    But ever closer drew our enemies,
    Till, on the level road toward the ford,
    Merow and I gave our brave horses rein
    And heard grow fainter the hoarse threats of those
    Hired murderers, and won the goal at last,
    Secure for night with wise old Gregory.
      “Long after matins, in the carven choir,
    Sweet with the scent of cedar, and the breath
    Of incense lingering like a ghost of prayer,
    Came Gregory, and spoke reproving me:
    ‘Brunhild, I know not whether temperate
    The heart of woman ever is, but thine
    Is all too quick, too passionate, untamed,
    Too rash in the pursuit of its desire,
    Too heedless of the motion of thy friends.
    Fredegonde feared and hated thee, but force
    Constrained her unto patience for a time:
    Since Gondovald had threatened her with war
    If she should harm thee, and her forces were
    Disheartened, and the land weighed down with dearth,
    Threatening famine if the harvest fail.
    She saw her throne secure and ’stablished firm
    As a sure heritage for her own son,
    Contemptuous of Merow, whose light heart,
    Unversed in intricate state subtilty,
    Was pleasured most in roaming through the woods,
    Or in an idle courtly dalliance
    With lute-players and poets of his train;
    Yet did she not intend that he should live
    Longer than those ephemeral, fair things,
    To whom the warmth of one delightful day,
    And fragrance of the flowers, are all life:
    When the time came she would be as a hawk
    To rend the singing-bird she so despised.
    Thou shouldst have fled alone to Gondovald,
    And Merow, then, have followed thee by stealth;
    But now the way is lost: thy passions ride
    Full-armoured through restraint, though careful hands
    And cunning might have lifted up the nets.
    Thy flight with Merow fans into a flame
    Passions of fear, dynastic jealousies.
    Merow alone were nothing, but with thee
    He is a danger in her path, a sword
    To be encountered ere Lothair may sit
    Throned above France.’ I rose and answered him:
      “‘I have been blinded by the tears of Love,
    Lulled into heavy slumber with his wine,
    Till life slipped by me, fugitive as dreams,
    While I lay drowned in an excess of joy,
    Fed but unsated, and insatiable.
    Ah! this interminable stress of life
    Intruding on the splendid pageantry,
    Wherein is decked the gaudy press of dreams,
    That flatter love, as if another sense,
    Imagination, showed us the true world.
    I am but half a dreamer, and can shut
    My purpose close unto the narrow view,
    To seize the nearest opportunity,
    Weaving it into this strange web of life,
    As now I make the fate of Merow mine.
    Yet am I compact of so many moods,
    That a great yearning comes on me at times
    For an illimitable night of stars,
    Jewelling with their fire the purple vault
    Of Heaven, wherein my soul would hang, alone,
    Unconscious of this striving purposeless,
    That vexes all our being; and anon
    Comes, soft as flutes on an enchanted night,
    The murmur of Life’s magic in mine ears.
    The old cajoler and her henchman Love
    Lure me into their arms again with spells,
    That veil the infinite in warm desires,
    Cloaks and dissimulations of her aim.
      “‘So have I fed on dreams this month or more.
    But a new motive quickens in my mind,
    And all my old ambitions are astir;
    Fredegonde day and night may toil and spin,
    I am the fresher for that I have slept
    If Gondovald may threaten her from Metz
    With armies of my followers and friends,
    Sworn to my service, may not I from here
    Threaten as well and equally be heard?
    And when her fear of armies is aroused,
    May I not lull to sleep those other fears
    Born of my love for Merow, telling her
    That he was but a means to my escape.
    Love never hindered her in the pursuit
    Of her ambition; lovers are her dupes:
    So let her judge of me. Merow will stay
    In Tours with you, hiding his yellow hair
    And simulated sorrow in a cowl,
    Till I am firmly seated by my son.
    Then let him come to me, and we shall weld
    The kingdoms of the Franks into one crown
    Imperial, whose might will shake the world,
    And roll Mahomet back to his own place
    Before our banners blazoned with the Cross.
    Lend me thy help in this, and I shall bless
    Thy church and Rome with many precious gifts,
    Spoiled of the conquered.’ And he answered me:
      “‘Thou art a woman such as deserts breed:
    A prophetess among the elect of God,
    Who lays his mission on thee, with his hand,
    As even once on Judith, and on Jael,
    On Miriam, and Esther; such an one
    As burns with all the strength and wrath of God,
    Consumed with zeal, devoted unto death,
    A sword of hatred to the impious.
    Plough up this land again with bloody war;
    And I shall bless thy work. A Herod sits
    Supreme above us: reach to pluck him down,
    This Nero of our time, this hangman king,
    Who spoils our abbeys and the Church’s land:
    Let him be as the quarry to thy hounds.
    What matter if the ruin of the rain
    Cumber our garden-paths with fallen leaves
    Or ever autumn come, when nourished Earth
    But grows more fecund at its fertile touch,
    And germinates with new luxuriance?
    Let us not waste this night, but seek a means
    To freedom for thee. Merow stays with me
    Waiting until their vigilance be dulled,
    And rusted by slow time; till idleness
    Become a hunger after wanton sports;
    Till I have lured them into vain delights
    Of banqueting, and music, and the chase
    After such game, or fierce or amorous,
    As their lust shows them, perilously keen.
    But, meanwhile, I shall send to Fredegonde
    Two counsellors of subtile wit, to weave
    Light snares about her so she feel them not,
    Till, multiplied, they hold as fast as steel.’
      “So planned we in the shadowy dim aisles,
    In confidence of time, as if it brought
    Ever expected gifts and no defeat:
    And ere another morn I fled, alone,
    By unfrequented ways: and many years
    Passed ere I looked on Gregory again.”

    No motion made the priest as Brunhild paused;
    His eyes avoided hers. She was as one
    Towering over the departed years,
    The sea of years her memory like a shell
    Held echoes of, and reminiscent sounds.
    And above all her insults and disgrace,
    The burden of her age, the bitter wrongs,
    She rose into a calm, majestic realm,
    That eagles might inhabit, with her mind
    Intent upon the spectacle of life,
    Yet heedless of her fate; no shame could touch
    The soul that breathed in so serene an air,
    Superior to mortal accidents.
    But the priest felt that effluence from her
    Shed a strange glory round the humid cell
    And fill him with a fearful sense of fate:
    The blind, remorseless progress of the world.
    Sombre and threatening, her figure cut
    Prow-like, and loomed through huge, tempestuous night,
    Toward a doom obscure and imminent.
      She spoke again in slow and weary words:
    “Merow remained with Gregory; but time
    Brought no release for his imprisoned feet
    Or the wild soul pent in that cloistral peace
    Among the gilt and painted images
    Of the dead saints, the effigies of stone,
    The prisoned light, the windless, silent air
    That came not fresh from out the heart of dawn,
    But hung upon him heavily as death,
    Damp with its charnels; and the solemn chants
    Filled him with longing for the loud-voiced larks,
    And he was eager for my lips again.
      “Ah, God! what ruin lurked within his love.
    He fled by night from that safe harbourage,
    On foot, into the woods, and careless roamed
    Through unknown ways, and couched with herds of deer
    In brakes and bowery hollows, that the sound
    Of their swift flight when wolves drew close at night,
    Warned and awakened him; or he would creep
    At evening to some lone sequestered farm,
    Hid in a fold of hills, and win his food,
    His place beside the fire, with merry songs
    Tuned to a rustic harp, deluding hosts
    With tales of how he lived by minstrelsy:
    Yet never rested longer than the night,
    But with the dawn departed, ere the birds
    Woke to their song, and man from healing sleep
    To his laborious struggle with the earth;
    Silent he slipped from them, that none might know
    The path he travelled, and next night would lie
    On some lone upland underneath the stars.
    While, as he wandered, drawing close to me,
    I dreamed him still at Tours, and had no hope
    To see him, for my lords were turbulent,
    Grown headstrong in mine absence, and my son
    Had not yet learned the art of governance:
    To play on rival jealousies, and split
    Alliances in factions; to dissolve
    Confederacies, as an acid eats
    Through base alloy of idols composite,
    Till the whole crumble; to lead many weak
    Against one strong, and win the name of Right,
    Come in full arms to succour the distressed,
    And break the bonds of tyranny; to pay
    The world with phrases; lead the ductile mob,
    Swayed by a momentary need, to ends
    Imperial, that crown our finished work.
    So wrought I with my proud rebellious lords,
    Rousing the populace against their strength,
    Sowing among them mutual distrust,
    And fear, and drove them out with ruthless hands,
    To herd with their own fellows, the lean wolves
    Of winter, famishing, who bay in pack,
    When the full moon hangs low, and golden grows,
    Over the rim of the Atlantic waste.
      “So swept I out my house and garnished it,
    In preparation for the perfect guest,
    Who comes on dove’s wings silently, nor thought
    That one on sable wings, more silently,
    Would enter in and take the seat of Love.
    Rumour, that travels on each wanton wind,
    Swifter than birds may fly, from tongue to tongue
    Came laden with the news of violence wrought
    In Rouen, by command of Fredegonde
    On Praetextatus, the poor kindly priest,
    Who took the ring from Merow for my hand,
    And blessed the union that had been so brief.
    Then there awoke in me that sense which feels
    Strange intuitions of approaching doom,
    And Fear crept through my dreams on stealthy feet,
    Or crouched beside me, and the darkness seemed
    Alive with evil; but I steeled my heart
    To wait on time and all that time might bring
    Of good or evil. Then from Gregory
    Came messengers, who told of Merow’s flight,
    And that the hounds of Fredegonde pursued
    The fugitive through all frequented ways,
    And forests, and waste places, and the lone
    Bare mountains, sterile underneath the stars,
    Yea, every valley, every hidden place,
    Lest they should lose him, and the harlot queen
    Avenge on them her seat grown insecure,
    Through lack of vigilance. God, how the days
    Lengthened their minutes into weary hours,
    And weary hours to days! as if the time
    Were frozen with the fear that gripped my heart,
    And moved not onward to the destined end,
    Ordained ere time. I could but send some men
    Toward the frontier of her land and mine;
    Yet some I trusted knew that to my love
    There were no frontiers but that boundary
    Between the quick and dead. They went in quest;
    I waited. And one night was borne to me,
    Upon a litter, bloody and befouled,
    The corpse of Merow carried shoulder-high
    By mourning bearers; and I sat like stone,
    Dumb, tearless, stricken by excess of tears
    That would not weep, but lay congealed within
    Mine overburdened heart. All night I sat
    In silence, weeping not, until the stars
    Were lost in dawn, until the silver dawn
    Blossomed with splendour to a golden day;
    Yet knew I not that day had come, for clouds
    Covered the light of morning from mine eyes,
    Hid me in wells of darkness and thick night,
    A Niobe of stone, but lacking tears
    Which else had melted stone; till, fearfully,
    My son came to me and put out his hand
    And touched me gently; and, as in deep pools
    One sees obscurely through the broken lights
    And rippling shadows, so upon my sight,
    Though faint and blurred, a vision of my son
    Came to me, and I saw a shadowy crowd
    Of crouching beings far behind my son,
    As vague as ghosts, who filled the silent room;
    And then I heard my voice as from afar,
    Muffled in gloom, a voice that seemed not mine,
    Bidding them leave me; and like ghosts they went:
    All but my son, who knelt beside my chair
    Sobbing out bitterly some broken words,
    That held less comfort than his trembling hands.
      “Slowly there came to me the governance
    Of limbs again, and from my chair I rose,
    And went toward the litter where he lay,
    The spoil of death, in ruined loveliness;
    Breathless, whose breath had once made amorous
    The night with music. And I touched his eyes,
    Which kindliness had closed with piteous hands
    Before they brought him me, and knelt beside
    The bier, and spoke to him. He heard me not:
    For he had gone the irremeable way,
    Into which darkness may not penetrate
    The voice of love, nor yearning nor desire
    Pass its grim boundaries, but brooding wings
    Of silence cover its eternal sleep.
    Lost utterly! Yet still I spoke to him,
    As if, perchance, some whisper of my voice
    Might stir the pools of silence where he lay,
    And tremble lightly on the veils of sleep,
    Waking some consciousness of me. Alas!
    He was not there with me, but on the wind,
    In every tree, his soul went wandering,
    Through all the world dispersed. Yet still I spoke
    Gently to him, and kissed him; till my son
    Wept piteously by me, until tears
    Gathered in mine own eyes and I too wept
    In silence, by the body of my love.”

      “A sudden chill has struck me: do I shake?
    I would not have this trembling of old age
    Imputed to me as a show of fear;
    Only the wind of dawn has chilled my blood,
    Grown sluggish now. Death will be kind to me.
    Does the dawn lighten? Nay, I thought the stars
    Grew paler, but a mist was on mine eyes.
    So long are these few hours I have to live,
    Ere death come: yet it seems a little while
    To those who smell the odorous warm earth,
    Steaming in heat, and have the cattle’s breath,
    And scent of bean-fields wafted, and the choir
    Of birds, and distant bleating of the sheep,
    Coming from some dew-laden mountain-slope
    Of pasture o’er the corn-lands: those, who look
    On life, have merry hours, that fly too swift,
    To dancing measures, but our dying eyes
    See stretched before us all eternity,
    That passes never. Voices come to me
    Out of the deep, insurgent spirits throng
    The gloomy portals, through which I must pass,
    Blown like autumnal leaves, in whirling flight,
    Above the dim untenanted abyss.
    Some have their faces darkened, as they fade
    Into that darkness; others, issuing thence,
    Have caught the light of morning in their eyes,
    And rise toward the sunny warmth of life,
    To take Fate’s spindle from our failing hands:
    They ride in golden panoply, a pomp
    Of kings, to reap the harvest we have sown,
    And do the things we dreamed, but failed to do.
    What man of them shall sit where Cæsar sate,
    Who sent his missionary eagles forth
    Into strange countries, bearers of the light,
    Makers of laws; who from the utmost bounds
    Of Euxine to where Gades lifts its prow
    Above the thunder of the surge and fronts
    The unexplored Atlantic, questioning
    The secret hid by separating seas,
    Held tributary peoples numberless
    In fee; and through whose subjugated lands
    Glided the Nile between its reedy flats
    Where Memnon sits; and the broad-bosomed flow
    Of dark Euphrates by the ruined towers
    Of Babylon, from whence of old was seen
    By wise Chaldæan sorcerers, the light,
    Majestic, of the new-born Syrian star;
    Yea, and our Rhine fed by its cataracts,
    Whose forests keep the night, and Danube full
    Where Ovid mourned the loss of all his loves,
    And in the hollow land Eurotas clear,
    Cold with the streaming snows of Taygetus,
    The nurse and mother of that austere brood
    Sprung from the loins of Heracles, and those
    Twin sons of Leda, for whom Helen’s eyes
    Yearned from the walls of Troy and yearned in vain:
    Through all these lands triumphant eagles led
    Rome’s legions, and peace followed after them
    With civil order and restraint of laws.
    But Rome herself, circled by seven hills,
    Astride the Tiber’s fluctuating gold,
    Though less of girth was greater than all these,
    Not through dominion over them, but in
    The civic sense, which quickened in her sons
    Grave dignity, and reticence, and care:
    Rome never bred but rulers; Rome, whose womb
    Gave to the earth this Europe which is ours!
    Her progress was the progress of the world,
    Which fell with her, and now disjected lies
    Prone in the dust, a prey to savage strife.
      “To build it up again! I dreamed to raise
    An empire on the ruins of the old,
    Whose seat should be the Rhine. I was a voice
    Crying within the wilderness. Alas!
    The vision is for the appointed time.
    These eyes shall see it not. But even now
    There moves among the people a desire
    For some firm order. Like the blind they grope,
    Or those who walk in darkness, stretching out
    Their hands, whose sense may take the part of sight
    And feel the unseen; yet many times they fall,
    Or wander from the object of their quest
    For lack of eyes. Mine eyes were for the blind,
    My sight was for a lamp unto their feet,
    My hands to guide them; but they trusted not,
    Seeking, each one, an individual path,
    By divers ways, unto the common end.
    Not in these nobles, insubordinate,
    Who wanton through our fertile land of France,
    Is my assurance fixed; but in the mass
    Of common folk, who feel the crowning need
    For a co-ordinate and civic zeal
    That buildeth slowly, but whose work endures.
    There, where that people is, is Rome renewed;
    And where is Rome is Cæsar. Lo! the dawn
    Uplifts, unto the stars, her silver spear
    And parts the darkness. Shall I give thee thanks,
    O priest, for this long vigil thou hast kept
    With me through all the darkness and despair?
    But take this ring as a memorial;
    These many nights it has lain by my heart,
    Secreted from the spoilers. When they robbed
    All else of worth from me, they did not look
    For love between my breasts, and there it lay,
    This emerald, which Merow gave to me,
    Wedding me with it. Hide it in thy cowl.
    Now go from me, for now I am content
    To die, nor fear the little hour of pain,
    That comes ere all pain ceases in a sleep.”

      Alone, she closed her eyes, and wearily
    Her head sank from its old imperious poise,
    Slackening to the shoulder, and her arms
    Hung listless by her with the hands unnerved,
    Turned upward from the bench on which she sat;
    And numbness fell upon her, and thick sleep
    Covered her soul and senses with the calm
    And healing of oblivion; while the bats
    Came fluttering on quick and noiseless wings
    Down the pale shaft of silver light that streamed
    Through the short rounded arches high above.
    Twittering came they from their native night,
    And hung themselves in huddled companies
    From the rude blackened rafters overhead,
    Far up where darkness lingers through the day;
    Then were they silent. But, outside, the dawn
    Quickened with golden fire the Alpine peaks,
    Plumed with their sombre pines, and crowned with snow,
    In frozen brilliance, sparkling: lesser hills
    Rose gradually, shouldering aloft,
    Abrupt and cyclopean monuments
    Of elemental anger, and beyond
    Rose dome on dome of everlasting snow,
    Blue glaciers, that broke the sharp white fire
    Of dawn into a myriad flaming swords,
    Invading the ethereal, azure sky
    Like sudden lightning, or the wonder seen
    By Laplanders, through the long Arctic night,
    Illuminating, with its splendid flames,
    The level stretches of the tideless sea.




NOTE TO THE VIGIL OF BRUNHILD


Brunhild was the daughter of Athanagilde, King of the Spanish Wisigoths.
The following passages from the “Histoire de France” edited by M. Ernest
Lavisse have served as the basis of the poem.

“L’année même où mourut Caribert apparaissent les deux femmes dont le nom
remplit l’histoire de cette période. Le roi Sigebert avait des mœurs plus
douces que ses frères; il n’avait point contracté comme eux d’union avec
des servantes; il rêvait de se marier avec une fille de roi. La cour des
Wisigoths d’Espagne jetait à ce moment un vif éclat.... Sigebert envoya
une ambassade auprès du roi Athanagilde et demanda la main de sa fille
Brunehaut. Elle lui fut accordée.... Le manage fut célébré dans la ville
de Metz.... Ce mariage valut à Sigebert un grand renom, et Chilpéric
fut jaloux de son frère. Il avait épousé Andovère, dont il avait eu
trois fils: Théodebert, Mérovée et Clovis; puis il l’avait répudiée et
vivait dans la débauche, soumis à l’empire d’une servante, Frédégonde.
Mais après le mariage de Sigebert, il renvoya la servante, et demanda à
Athanagilde la main de sa fille aînée, Galswinthe. Le roi de Wisigoths
consentit.

“Un matin, on trouva Galswinthe étranglée dans son lit. Peu de jours
après le roi épousa Frédégonde.... Sigebert, pour venger sa belle-sœur,
prépara la guerre. Mais Gontran imposa sa médiation et l’on traita....
Chilpéric renonça à la possession des territoires qui formaient le
douaire de Galswinthe et les livra à Sigebert. La guerre civile fut ainsi
évitée; elle n’éclatera que six années plus tard, en 573.

“Sigebert finit par être victorieux. Il entre à Paris au mépris de la
convention de 567 et y fait venir sa femme Brunehaut, ses filles et
son jeune fils Childebert; puis il poursuit Chilpéric jusqu’à Tournai.
Chilpéric est abandonné par les grands qui proclament Sigebert leur roi
et l’élèvent sur le pavois dans la _villa_ de Vitry. Mais, pendant la
cérémonie, deux esclaves réussissent à s’approcher du triomphateur et
le frappent de deux coups de _scramasax_; dans la rainure des poignards
Frédégonde avait fait couler du poison (575).

“À la mort de son rival, Chilpéric retourna vers Paris.... Le duc
Gondovald réussit à sauver le fils de Sigebert, un enfant de cinq ans: il
le conduisit à Metz, où il le fit reconnaître roi le jour de Noël; mais
Brunehaut, et ses filles demeurèrent prisonnières; les filles furent
détenues à Meaux, Brunehaut emmenée a Rouen.

“Sa beauté avait vivement frappée le fils de Chilpéric, Mérovée; celui-ci
l’avait épousée en secret et avait favorisé sa fuite. Poursuivi par la
haine implacable de Frédégonde, Mérovée dut se faire consacrer clerc,
puis chercher un asile à Saint-Martin de Tours; finalement il fut tué par
les sicaires de la marâtre.”

Defeated and taken by her rebellious nobles under Pippin and Arnulf in
613, “Brunehaut fut torturée pendant trois jours. On l’assit en signe
d’opprobre sur un chameau et on la livra aux outrages de l’armée. Enfin
on l’attacha par les cheveux, un bras et un pied à la queue d’un cheval,
que des coups de fouet entraînèrent en une course rapide, et bientôt son
corps ne fut plus qu’ ‘une loque informe.’” Her age, according to Guizot,
was eighty.

“Brunehaut en somme a été conduite toute sa vie par une idée, et non
pas exclusivement, comme la plupart des barbares mérovingiens, par des
caprices et des passions. Elle a voulu maintenir, avec l’absolutisme
royal, les principes d’ordre et de bonne administration.”

Modifications in this story have been suggested by A. Thierry’s “Récits
des Temps Mérovingiens,” and by Dean Kitchin’s “History of France.”
The various accounts given by these authorities will justify me for
an imaginative treatment of the story; and, though I lay claim to no
historical accuracy, the story as I present it is, probably, as near to
the truth as any other version. History is not a science: it is prophecy
looking backward, and no doubt is often as far from scientific truth as
the more conventional mode of prophecy.


_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._





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