Now in the room, and now upon the stair, He stood beside them ere they were aware; He listened in the passage when they talked,
He watched them from the casement when they walked, He saw the gipsy haunt the river's side,
He saw the monk among the cork-trees glide; And, tortured by the mystery and the doubt Of some dark secret, past his finding out, Baffled he paused; then reassured again Pursued the flying phantom of his brain.
He watched them even when they knelt in church; And then, descending lower in his search, Questioned the servants, and with eager eyes Listened incredulous to their replies;
The gipsy? none had seen her in the wood! The monk? a mendicant in search of food!
At length the awful revelation came, Crushing at once his pride of birth and name, The hopes his yearning bosom forward cast, And the ancestral glories of the past; All fell together, crumbling in disgrace, A turret rent from battlement to base. His daughters talking in the dead of night In their own chamber, and without a light, Listening, as he was wont, he overheard, And learned the dreadful secret, word by word; And hurrying from his castle, with a cry He raised his hands to the unpitying sky, Repeating one dread word, till bush and tree Caught it, and shuddering answered, "Heresy!"
Wrapped in his cloak, his hat drawn o'er his face, Now hurrying forward, now with lingering pace, He walked all night the alleys of his park, With one unseen companion in the dark, The Demon who within him lay in wait,
And by his presence turned his love to hate,
Forever muttering in an undertone,
"Kill! kill! and let the Lord find out his own!"
Upon the morrow, after early Mass,
While yet the dew was glistening on the grass, And all the woods were musical with birds,
The old Hidalgo, uttering fearful words,
Walked homeward with the Priest, and in his room Summoned his trembling daughters to their doom. When questioned, with brief answers they replied, Nor when accused evaded or denied ; Expostulations, passionate appeals,
All that the human heart most fears or feels,
In vain the Priest with earnest voice essayed, In vain the father threatened, wept, and prayed; Until at last he said, with haughty mien, "The Holy Office, then, must intervene!"
And now the Grand Inquisitor of Spain, With all the fifty horsemen of his train, His awful name resounding, like the blast Of funeral trumpets, as he onward passed, Came to Valladolid, and there began To harry the rich Jews with fire and ban. To him the Hidalgo went, and at the gate Demanded audience on affairs of state, And in a secret chamber stood before A venerable graybeard of fourscore, Dressed in the hood and habit of a friar ; Out of his eyes flashed a consuming fire, And in his hand the mystic horn he held, Which poison and all noxious charms dispelled. He heard in silence the Hidalgo's tale, Then answered in a voice that made him quail: "Son of the Church! when Abraham of old To sacrifice his only son was told,
He did not pause to parley nor protest, But hastened to obey the Lord's behest. In him it was accounted righteousness; The Holy Church expects of thee no less!"
A sacred frenzy seized the father's brain, And Mercy from that hour implored in vain. Ah! who will e'er believe the words I say? His daughters he accused, and the same day They both were cast into the dungeon's gloom, That dismal antechamber of the tomb,
Arraigned, condemned, and sentenced to the flame, The secret torture and the public shame.
Then to the Grand Inquisitor once more The Hidalgo went, more eager than before, And said: When Abraham offered up his son, He clave the wood wherewith it might be done. By his example taught, let me too bring Wood from the forest for my offering!' And the deep voice, without a pause, replied: "Son of the Church! by faith now justified, Complete thy sacrifice, even as thou wilt;
The Church absolves thy conscience from all guilt!"
Then this most wretched father went his way Into the woods, that round his castle lay,
Where once his daughters in their childhood played With their young mother in the sun and shade. Now all the leaves had fallen; the branches bare Made a perpetual moaning in the air,
And screaming from their eyries overhead The ravens sailed athwart the sky of lead.
With his own hands he lopped the boughs and bound Fagots, that crackled with foreboding sound, And on his mules, caparisoned and gay
With bells and tassels, sent them on their way.
Then with his mind on one dark purpose bent, Again to the Inquisitor he went,
And said: 66 Behold, the fagots I have brought, And now, lest my atonement be as nought, Grant me one more request, one last desire,- With my own hand to light the funeral fire!" And Torquemada answered from his seat, "Son of the Church! thine offering is complete; Her servants through all ages shall not cease To magnify thy deed. Depart in peace!"
Upon the market-place, builded of stone
The scaffold rose, whereon Death claimed his own. At the four corners, in stern attitude,
Four statues of the Hebrew Prophets stood,
Gazing with calm indifference in their eyes
Upon this place of human sacrifice,
Round which was gathering fast the eager crowd,
With clamour of voices dissonant and loud,
And every roof and window was alive
With restless gazers, swarming like a hive.
The church-bells tolled, the chant of monks drew near, Loud trumpets stammered forth their notes of fear, A line of torches smoked along the street, There was a stir, a rush, a tramp of feet, And, with its banners floating in the air, Slowly the long procession crossed the square, And, to the statues of the Prophets bound, The victims stood, with fagots piled around. Then all the air a blast of trumpets shook, And louder sang the monks with bell and book, And the Hidalgo, lofty, stern, and proud, Lifted his torch, and bursting through the crowd, Lighted in haste the fagots, and then fled, Lest those imploring eyes should strike him dead!
O pitiless skies! why did your clouds retain For peasants' fields their floods of hoarded rain?
O pitiless earth! why opened no abyss To bury in its chasm a crime like this?
That night, a mingled column of fire and smoke From the dark thickets of the forest broke, And, glaring o'er the landscape leagues away, Made all the fields and hamlets bright as day. Wrapped in a sheet of flame the castle blazed, And as the villagers in terror gazed, They saw the figure of that cruel knight Lean from a window in the turret's height, His ghastly face illumined with the glare, His hands upraised above his head in prayer, Till the floor sank beneath him, and he fell Down the black hollow of that burning well.
Three centuries and more above his bones Have piled the oblivious years like funeral stones; His name has perished with him, and no trace Remains on earth of his afflicted race;
But Torquemada's name, with clouds o'ercast, Looms in the distant landscape of the Past, Like a burnt tower upon a blackened heath,
Lit by the fires of burning woods beneath!
THUS closed the tale of guilt and gloom, That cast upon each listener's face Its shadow, and for some brief space Unbroken silence filled the room. The Jew was thoughtful and distressed; Upon his memory thronged and pressed The persecution of his race,
Their wrongs and sufferings and disgrace; His head was sunk upon his breast, And from his eyes alternate came Flashes of wrath and tears of shame.
The Student first the silence broke, As one who long has lain in wait, With purpose to retaliate,
And thus he dealt the avenging stroke.
In such a company as this,
A tale so tragic seems amiss, That by its terrible control
O'ermasters and drags down the soul
Into a fathomless abyss.
The Italian Tales that you disdain,
Some merry Night of Straparole,
Or Machiavelli's Belphagor, Would cheer us and delight us more, Give greater pleasure and less pain Than your grim tragedies of Spain!" And here the Poet raised his hand, With such entreaty and command, It stopped discussion at its birth, And said: "The story I shall tell Has meaning in it, if not mirth; Listen, and hear what once befell The merry birds of Killingworth !”
THE BIRDS OF KILLINGWORTH.
Ir was the season, when through all the land The merle and mavis build, and building sing Those lovely lyrics, written by His hand,
Whom Saxon Cadmon calls the Blithe-heart King; When on the boughs the purple buds expand, The banners of the vanguard of the Spring, And rivulets, rejoicing, rush and leap,
And wave their fluttering signals from the steep. The robin and the blue-bird, piping loud,
Filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee; The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be; And hungry crows assembled in a crowd,
Clamoured their piteous prayer incessantly, Knowing who hears the ravens cry, and said: "Give us, O Lord, this day our daily bread!" Across the Sound the birds of passage sailed,
Speaking some unknown language strange and sweet Of tropic isle remote, and passing hailed
The village with the cheers of all their fleet; Or quarrelling together, laughed and railed Like foreign sailors, landed in the street Of seaport town, and with outlandish noise Of oaths and gibberish frightening girls and boys. Thus came the jocund Spring in Killingworth, In fabulous days, some hundred years ago; And thrifty farmers, as they tilled the earth, Heard with alarm the cawing of the crow, That mingled with the universal mirth, Cassandra-like, prognosticating woe;
They shook their heads, and doomed with dreadful words To swift destruction the whole race of birds.
« PreviousContinue » |