FROM THE GERMAN OF MATTHISON.
Now fade the hues that streak the western skies,
The moon, arising, quits the oaken shade,
The winds career the waste with doleful sighs,
The elves their dance weave softly on the mead.
High Pharus sheds from out his misty shroud,
Adown the precipice a fitful glare,
The Island's ridge of white cliffs, like a cloud,
'Twixt sea and sky suspended, melts in air.
The Minster doth its moon-lit towers display,
In ghastly contrast with the leafy gloom
Of the wild copse that skirts the rocky bay,
Where breaks the languid wave with hollow boom.
Where yonder elms diffuse a calm around,
And wreaths of ivy round the portal twineStretched on a tomb,-absorbed in thought profound,There Melancholy basks in full moonshine.
The yew-trees, there-a charnel-house disclose;
The thistle nods beside the temple door,
Which long hath ceased th' intruding owl t' oppose-
High builds the swallow in the fretted choir.
Deep in the windows caverned arches set,
Loose fragments of time-tarnished glass remain--
And in the leaden casements glimmer yet
The pious blazonries of Gothic stain.
The Altar, now by rustling grass o'ergrown-
The steps, outhollowed by devotion's knee,
Record how oft the seraphs here have flown
To count the sighs of prostrate piety.
Now whisper through the dome the winds alone,
The cobweb-craped confessional is dumb,
The organ rolls no more the stream of tone
Majestically onward through the gloom--
The hallelujahs long have breathed their last,
Nor now the spicy censer, as of yore,
Its festal haloes round the shrine doth cast,
They, too, that ministered, are now no more.
In this seclusion sadly burned erewhile
The taper's ray, what time the vestal train
At midnight hour, along the echoing aisle,
Outpoured the solemn earth-dispelling strain;
Then, from their cloudy tenement released,
High soared their souls from sin and sorrow free,
And for the virgin's bright coronal pressed
Right onward to the throne of Deity .
As closed the rite-awhile their spirits pause,
Then prone to earth precipitate their flight;
And one by one the white-stoled train withdraws,
And through the cloister, vanishes from sight.
The pilot, still, when gathering tempests lower
Their warning gestures from afar doth spy,
A flickering fire-stream quivers round each tower,
Where wave their white veils, meteor-like, on high.
The wreaths of social love were never wrought,
O virgins! your lone pilgrimage to cheer;
For you life's rosy-bosomed hours had nought
But withered garlands, such as grief doth wear.
The name of Mother, for the tender ear,
Of nature yet unweaned, the softest tone,
The magic cadence in creation's choir,
By heaven resounded-ye have never known.
A spark, perchance, of Luther's torch illumed
Your infant bosoms, ere the die was cast,
Ere to the sacrificial altar doomed
Ye smothered freedom's flame within your breast.
Here many a Heloise, conflicting, grieved,
And sunk, exhausted, on the path she trod, Untold for whom her heart's last throb was heaved, For earth or heaven-for Abelard or God.
Ye-ranged the darkened corridors along!
Ye moss-grown cells, by rank grass overspread! To whose forsaken chambers nightly throng
Wan, murmuring shades, the phantoms of the dead. Within your walls did beauty turn to sere,
Ere yet the folded leaves disclosed the flower, Nor love the last sad tributary tear
Did on the maiden sufferer's death-cross pour.
The Alpine rose, on Bernard's cheerless height,
Blooms lovely mid the lichens in the cleft,
And oft the fairest flower that woos the light,
Plucked by the tempest―to the stream is left.
Hard by the convent tower their bones repose,
Where, startled by the lone owl's drowsy flight,
Up the tall reed the trembling wildfire flows,
And mocks the taper's consecrated light.
The rose, of innocence the symbol fair,
Has here long time its vernal bloom displayed;
Here, too, the clematis, to friendship dear,
Entwines its tendrils through the myrtle shade.
And here, as legends tell, the trancing sound
Of angel harpings usher in the gloom-
Then golden mists exhale from graves around,
And heavenly light irradiates each tomb.
There are maidens in broad Avondale, full fair they are and free;
And many a dainty herd of deer under the greenwood tree;
And brown ale in the buttery, the spigot ever flows;
But in the wood and on the hill are stout Sir Roger's foes.
We have true hearts for the maidens, and broad arrows for the deer,
And blithe faces have we, I trow, for stout Sir Roger's cheer;
And for the good Knight's enemies, wherever they may be,
Both true hearts, and broad arrows, and blithe faces have we!
Then troll about the bonny bowl, and troll it merrily.
"Come, round the embers draw your
seats,
My merry hearts," saith Barnardine;
"Let's keep awake till morning shine
With stories of some champion's feats,
With ballad or with goblin rhyme,
Fitting for this ghostly time.
Here's old Guy Blunt, who passing, well
Of many a perilous chance can tell.
Ah, would to heaven these eyes had been
Some fifty summers sooner mine;
So I might see what he has seen
In Cyprus and in Palestine!
Come, Guy, ere all our faggots fade,
Tell us a tale of the crusade."
A snowy beard, a dreamy eye, A bent and shattered form hath Guy: Upon a low black bench he sits, Scarce seen within the chimney dark, Save as each sinking brand emits Its dying flash, you then may mark, As, like a phantom starting forth, The gaunt form shows beyond the hearth Pale in the gloom, that fray and storm, And, look again, you'd almost say A hundred years and storm and fray Were failing in that ghastly form.
"A-well-a-day!" he thus began, And all drew round the aged man; "A-well-a-day! I'm old and grey And feeble now, and little worth, Save tedious time to while away— For comrades tired of mirth : Yet have I seen the day when none Now sitting round this broad hearthstone,
Tall men and lusty though ye be,
In manly craft had mastered me;
Had mastered even me, albeit
I now am feeble on my feet
To follow the blithe forest game;
My eyes likewise are not the same,
My hand also is changed, and weak
To draw the arrow to my cheek:
Yet though, as age's nature is
To prate of its infirmities,
I make this vain lament to you,
Little need I mine old age rue;
For I can say, as few can do,
That I've been here for fourscore year,
For fourscore twelvemonths and a day,
That many parts both far and near:
Both east and west I have been through,
And never knew the fear of two,
Or flight from one away.
But that which most of all beside
May give me in my old age, pride,
Is, that it was my favour'd lot
To stand upon the holy spot
Where God-Jehovah's self-did com
In this frail body's humble dress,
For his great love and tenderness,
Sweet Saviour! from the virgin womb
And it hath been my lot likewise,
To see with these old rheumy eyes,
Which fill with pleasant tears whene'er
I think upon the sacrifice
So freely made for sinners there-
And, oh, at what a countless cost!
I say, it was my lot to see,
Upon the hill of Calvary,
The very spot, the very tree
Where God gave up the ghost!
But even though I ne'er had seen
These sights, so holy and so strange,
That all in Christ's wide church's range,
From cowl to mitre, as I ween,
There's never a one that should not change,
And that right glad and thankfully,
His honourable estate with me,
Though he be high, and I be mean,
In my high fortune to have been
On Bethlehem and Calvary!
Though these all fortunes else excelled,
Yet have I other sight beheld,
Of chivalry from every court
Of Christendom, that made resort
For rescue of the cross divine
To fight in pagan Palestine-
Aye, I have seen such goodly sight
Of many a well-debated fight,
Of joust also, and tournament,
And palaces so wondrous fair,
Of the hunting of the leopard there,
The lion and the elephant.
As well may make me bold to say,
Saint Hubert favoured me alway,
Even from the hour I first drew bow,
Till now, when I can scarce employ
The yew I shot with when a boy,
Some five and seventy years ago,
Blest be the patron of the yew,
That aye to the blythe archer crew
Gives merry hearts, that spring from
Elastic as the bows they bear!
That gives to you, my comrades dear,
Light hearts and lusty forest cheer;
And craves of you no more to do
Than ranging woodland far and near,
A spanning lawn and greenwood tree,
With game-bound shafts loos'd merrily;
Save when, in time of need, ye draw,
Broad arrow against bold outlaw.
Oh be the good Saint Hubert blest,
That maketh us, from strand to strand,
From north to south, from east to west,
The strength and pride of Fatherland-
From grassy green to desert sand—
For I have seen our arrows go,
Where neither blade of grass might grow,
Nor leaf nor twig of tree below;
But all around hot sand was spread,
And never a cool cloud overhead,
To bear the brazen furnace-heat
That right down on our bonnets beat.
Then hath it been my lot to see,
When our mail-clad nobility
Were foundered in that sandy sea,
And when our men-at-arms did fail
To move beneath their heavy mail;
To see the boast of English land,
The light true-hearted yeoman band,
Step forth, though knee-deep in the
sand,
And loose their shafts as fast and free
As if they stood in English wood,
Under the greenwood tree!
'Twas then I've seen our arrows fall,
A shower of fire, for every one
Showed like a sunbeam in the sun;
And yet a chilling sleet withal,
And sharp upon the infidel.
Ah, ha, my masters, trust me well,
Iv'e seen them leap and heard them ring
From breast of Soldan and of King!
Ah grey goose wing that floated erst,
The pride of Avon's silver flood,
Of all our host I was the first
To make thee swim in royal blood—
'Twas I that made thee swim again
In the best blood of a Saracen
Who reigned in pleasant Araby-
Ah, strange and fearful was the fate
Which left his lady desolate,
And doomed his death by me!
I'll tell you how-Sir John, who now
Wons outlaw'd in the forest here,
And our late lord, Sir Geoffrey, were
Together fighting for the cross
In Jewry-hot July it was,
When, on a morning, from their tent
Like brothers, forth in arms they went;
And we, a goodly band, uprose,
With trusty aid of bills and bows.
But woe is me, us all before
Upon the pagan host they before;
For first were they in all assaults.
And when they had approached the fight
Within about half-arrow flight,
With slackened rein and stooping crest,
With spur to flank, and spear in rest,
Went in like thunderbolts!
I saw them each unhorse his man,
Then mingle with the broken van;
I saw amid the dusty rout,
Their white blades flickering about;
The blows they dealt fell thick as rain-
I saw them down, and deemed them slain;
I saw them rise, then sink again;
When up at last our battle came,
Struck in and played a gallant game;
As fleet as foot might go we ran,
And thick and fast at last began
To send our silent powers in
Among the iron's clanging din,
And make as silent, well I wot,
As the fast shaft that stuck therein,
Full many a shouting pagan's throat.
Be sure I oft essayed to force
A passage to my master's corse;
For 'twas the cry that both lay dead
Where hardiest the hounds made head;
And boldly on their crowded van,
Charged many a worthy serving man,
To drag their bodies forth, and save
Good Christians from unhallow'd grave;
For round about the infidel
Encompassed them, a bristling wall,
And many a shrill outlandish yell
Foretold them vulture burial.
Thus long we strove with loving will,
But fruitless all our efforts still.
At last when hope of help was fled,
And we, with heavy hearts, were forced
To leave them there, alive or dead,
A prey unto the dogs accurs'd;
Full suddenly among us burst
Of spearmen bold a goodly show,
Led by the banner of De Veaux.
Sir Roulf himself he rode the first,
And bright among the dust he show'd
His armour blazing all abroad.
A lusty blast old Stephen blew,
And down they came, and round the close
-A fearful crushing shock-arose
A sandy storm, that eddying flew,
As when the desert whirlwind blows:
Andwhen that cloud had somewhat cleared,
St. George! what goodly sight appeared—
For every lance in that rough course
Was either shivered on the shield,
And splinter-frayed the cumbered field,
Or fixed and bored through man and horse:
So hand to hand they waged the war
All with the sword and scimitar.
I know not how my way I found Among that press of battle keen Yet so it was, without a wound, I passed the melle all unseen; And there, behind them all, espied The noble barons, side by side; Upon the ground, and over then Stood one whose crest shone like a star, He held a dripping scimitar, And wore a kingly diadem. Ah, many a rapid death I've sent, But never drew I shaft before, Albeit my eyes were running o'er Long ere the trusty tree was bent, So rapidly incontinent,
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