Ha! ha! that story is very clever, But has no foundation whatsoever.
Quick! for I see his face again Glaring in at the window-pane;Now! now! and do not spare your blows.
FRIAR PAUL opens the window suddenly, and seizes SIEBALD.
They beat him.
FRIAR SIEBALD.
Help! help! are you going to slay me?
FRIAR PAUL.
That will teach you again to betray me!
FRIAR SIEBALD.
Mercy! mercy!
FRIAR PAUL, shouting and beating.
Rumpas bellorum lorum Vim confer amorum Morum verorum rorum Tu plena polorum!
LUCIFER.
Who stands in the doorway yonder, Stretching out his trembling hand, Just as Abelard used to stand, The flash of his keen, black eyes Forerunning the thunder?
THE MONKS, in confusion.
The Abbot! the Abbot!
FRIAR CUTHBERT.
And what is the wonder!
He seems to have taken you by surprise.
FRIAR FRANCIS.
Hide the great flagon From the eyes of the dragon!
FRIAR CUTHBERT.
Pull the brown hood over your face!
This will bring us into disgrace!
ABBOT.
What means this revel and carouse?
Is this a tavern and drinking-house?
Are you Christian monks, or heathen devils, To pollute this convent with your revels?
Were Peter Damian still upon earth, To be shocked by such ungodly mirth, He would write your names, with pen of gall, In his Book of Gomorrah, one and all!
Away, you drunkards! to your cells, And pray till you hear the matin-bells;You, Brother Francis, and you, Brother Paul!
And as a penance mark each prayer With the scourge upon your shoulders bare;Nothing atones for such a sin But the blood that follows the discipline.
And you, Brother Cuthbert, come with me Alone into the sacristy;You, who should be a guide to your brothers, And are ten times worse than all the others, For you I've a draught that has long been brewing, You shall do a penance worth the doing!
Away to your prayers, then, one and all!
I wonder the very convent wall Does not crumble and crush you in its fall!
THE NEIGHBORING NUNNERY
The ABBESS IRMINGARD Sitting with ELSIE in the moonlight.
IRMINGARD.
The night is silent, the wind is still, The moon is looking from yonder hill Down upon convent, and grove, and garden;The clouds have passed away from her face, Leaving behind them no sorrowful trace, Only the tender and quiet grace Of one whose heart has been healed with pardon!
And such am I.My soul within Was dark with passion and soiled with sin.
But now its wounds are healed again;
Gone are the anguish, the terror, and pain;For across that desolate land of woe, O'er whose burning sands I was forced to go, A wind from heaven began to blow;And all my being trembled and shook, As the leaves of the tree, or the grass of the field, And I was healed, as the sick are healed, When fanned by the leaves of the Holy Book!
As thou sittest in the moonlight there, Its glory flooding thy golden hair, And the only darkness that which lies In the haunted chambers of thine eyes, I feel my soul drawn unto thee, Strangely, and strongly, and more and more, As to one I have known and loved before;For every soul is akin to me That dwells in the land of mystery!
I am the Lady Irmingard, Born of a noble race and name!
Many a wandering Suabian bard, Whose life was dreary, and bleak, and hard, Has found through me the way to fame.
Brief and bright were those days, and the night Which followed was full of a lurid light.
Love, that of every woman's heart Will have the whole, and not a part, That is to her, in Nature's plan, More than ambition is to man, Her light, her life, her very breath, With no alternative but death, Found me a maiden soft and young, Just from the convent's cloistered school, And seated on my lowly stool, Attentive while the minstrels sung.
Gallant, graceful, gentle, tall, Fairest, noblest, best of all, Was Walter of the Vogelweid;And, whatsoever may betide, Still I think of him with pride!
His song was of the summer-time, The very birds sang in his rhyme;The sunshine, the delicious air, The fragrance of the flowers, were there;And I grew restless as I heard, Restless and buoyant as a bird, Down soft, aerial currents sailing, O'er blossomed orchards and fields in bloom, And through the momentary gloom, Of shadows o'er the landscape trailing, Yielding and borne I knew not where, But feeling resistance unavailing.
And thus, unnoticed and apart, And more by accident than choice, I listened to that single voice Until the chambers of my heart Were filled with it by night and day.
One night,--it was a night in May,--
Within the garden, unawares, Under the blossoms in the gloom, I heard it utter my own name With protestations and wild prayers;And it rang through me, and became Like the archangel's trump of doom, Which the soul hears, and must obey;And mine arose as from a tomb.
My former life now seemed to me Such as hereafter death may be, When in the great Eternity We shall awake and find it day.
It was a dream, and would not stay;
A dream, that in a single night Faded and vanished out of sight.
My father's anger followed fast This passion, as a freshening blast Seeks out and fans the fire, whose rage It may increase, but not assuage.
And he exclaimed: "No wandering bard Shall win thy hand, O Irmingard!
For which Prince Henry of Hoheneck By messenger and letter sues."Gently, but firmly, I replied:
"Henry of Hoheneck I discard!
Never the hand of Irmingard Shall lie in his as the hand of a bride!
This said I, Walter, for thy sake This said I, for I could not choose.
After a pause, my father spake In that cold and deliberate tone Which turns the hearer into stone, And seems itself the act to be That follows with such dread certainty "This or the cloister and the veil!"No other words than these he said, But they were like a funeral wail;My life was ended, my heart was dead.
That night from the castle-gate went down With silent, slow, and stealthy pace, Two shadows, mounted on shadowy steeds, Taking the narrow path that leads Into the forest dense and brown.
In the leafy darkness of the place, One could not distinguish form nor face, Only a bulk without a shape, A darker shadow in the shade;One scarce could say it moved or stayed.