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Prologue to The Lady of La Garaye
RUINS! A charm is in the word: | |
| It makes us smile, it makes us sigh, | |
| ’T is like the note of some spring bird | |
| Recalling other springs gone by, | |
| And other wood-notes which we heard | 5 |
| With some sweet face in some green lane, | |
| And never can so hear again! | |
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| Ruins! They were not desolate | |
| To us,—the ruins we remember: | |
| Early we came and lingered late, | 10 |
| Through bright July or rich September; | |
| With young companions wild with glee, | |
| We feasted ’neath some spreading tree, | |
| And looked into their laughing eyes, | |
| And mocked the echo for replies. | 15 |
| O eyes and smiles and days of yore, | |
| Can nothing your delight restore? | |
Return!
Return? In vain we listen; | |
| Those voices have been lost to earth! | |
| Our hearts may throb, our eyes may glisten, | 20 |
| They ’ll call no more in love or mirth. | |
| For, like a child sent out to play, | |
| Our youth hath had its holiday, | |
| And silence deepens where we stand | |
| Lone as in some foreign land, | 25 |
| Where our language is not spoken, | |
| And none know our hearts are broken. | |
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| Ruins! How we loved them then! | |
| How we loved the haunted glen | |
| Which gray towers overlook, | 30 |
| Mirrored in the glassy brook. | |
| How we dreamed, and how we guessed, | |
| Looking up, with earnest glances, | |
| Where the black crow built its nest, | |
| And we built our wild romances; | 35 |
| Tracing in the crumbled dwelling | |
| Bygone tales of no one’s telling! | |
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| This was the chapel; that the stair; | |
| Here, where all lies damp and bare, | |
| The fragrant thurible was swung, | 40 |
| The silver lamp in beauty hung, | |
| And in that mass of ivied shade | |
| The pale nuns sang, the abbot prayed. | |
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| This was the kitchen. Cold and blank | |
| The huge hearth yawns; and wide and high | 45 |
| The chimney shows the open sky; | |
| There daylight peeps through many a crank | |
| Where birds immund find shelter dank, | |
| And when the moonlight shineth through, | |
| Echoes the wild tu-whit to-whoo | 50 |
| Of mournful owls, whose languid flight | |
| Scarce stirs the silence of the night. | |
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| This is the courtyard, damp and drear! | |
| The men-at-arms were mustered here; | |
| Here would the fretted war-horse bound, | 55 |
| Starting to hear the trumpet sound; | |
| And captains, then of warlike fame, | |
| Clanked and glittered as they came. | |
| Forgotten names! forgotten wars! | |
| Forgotten gallantry and scars! | 60 |
| How is your little busy day | |
| Perished and crushed and swept away! | |
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| Here is the lady’s chamber, whence | |
| With looks of lovely innocence | |
| Some heroine our fancy dresses | 65 |
| In golden locks or raven tresses, | |
| And pearl-embroidered silks and stuffs, | |
| And quaintly quilted sleeves and ruffs, | |
| Looked forth to see retainers go, | |
| Or trembled at the assaulting foe. | 70 |
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| This was the dungeon; deep and dark! | |
| Where the starved prisoner moaned in vain | |
| Until death left him, stiff and stark, | |
| Unconscious of the galling chain | |
| By which the thin bleached bones were bound | 75 |
| When chance revealed them under ground. | |
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| O Time, O ever-conquering Time! | |
| These men had once their prime: | |
| But now succeeding generations hear | |
| Beneath the shadow of each crumbling arch | 80 |
| The music low and drear, | |
| The muffled music of thy onward march, | |
| Made up of piping winds and rustling leaves | |
| And plashing rain-drops falling from slant eaves, | |
| And all mysterious unconnected sounds | 85 |
| With which the place abounds. | |
| Time doth efface | |
| Each day some lingering trace | |
| Of human government and human care: | |
| The things of air | 90 |
| And earth usurp the walls to be their own; | |
| Creatures that dwell alone, | |
| Occupy boldly; every mouldering nook | |
| Wherein we peer and look | |
| Seems with wild denizens so swarming rife, | 95 |
| We know the healthy stir of human life | |
| Must be forever gone! | |
| The walls where hung the warriors’ shining casques | |
| Are green with moss and mould; | |
| The blindworm coils where queens have slept, nor asks | 100 |
| For shelter from the cold. | |
| The swallow,—he is master all the day, | |
| And the great owl is ruler through the night; | |
| The little bat wheels on his circling way | |
| With restless flittering flight; | 105 |
| And that small black bat, and the creeping things, | |
| At will they come and go, | |
| And the soft white owl with velvet wings | |
| And a shriek of human woe! | |
| The brambles let no footstep pass | 110 |
| By that rent in the broken stair, | |
| Where the pale tufts of the windle-stræ grass | |
| Hang like locks of dry dead hair; | |
| But there the keen wind ever sweeps and moans, | |
| Working a passage through the mouldering stones. | 115 |
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| O Time, O conquering Time! | |
| I know that wild wind’s chime | |
| Which, like a passing bell | |
| Or distant knell, | |
| Speaks to man’s heart of death and of decay; | 120 |
| While thy step passes o’er the necks of kings | |
| And over common things,— | |
| And into earth’s green orchards making way, | |
| Halts, where the fruits of human hope abound, | |
| And shakes their trembling ripeness to the ground. | 125 |
| But hark, a sudden shout | |
| Of laughter! and a nimble giddy rout, | |
| Who know not yet what saddened hours may mean, | |
| Come dancing through the scene! | |
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| Ruins! ruins! let us roam | 130 |
| Through what was a human home, | |
| What care we | |
| How deep its depths of darkness be? | |
| Follow! Follow! | |
| Down the hollow | 135 |
| Through the bramble-fencing thorns | |
| Where the white snail hides her horns; | |
| Leap across the dreadful gap | |
| To that corner’s mossy lap,— | |
| Do, and dare! | 140 |
| Clamber up the crumbling stair; | |
| Trip along the narrow wall, | |
| Where the sudden rattling fall | |
| Of loosened stones, on winter nights, | |
| In his dreams the peasant frights; | 145 |
| And push them, till their rolling sound, | |
| Dull and heavy, beat the ground. | |
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| Now a song, high up and clear, | |
| Like a lark’s enchants the ear; | |
| Or some happy face looks down, | 150 |
| Looking, O, so fresh and fair, | |
| Wearing youth’s most glorious crown, | |
| One rich braid of golden hair: | |
| Or two hearts that wildly beat, | |
| And two pair of eager feet, | 155 |
| Linger in the turret’s bend, | |
| As they side by side ascend, | |
| For the momentary bliss | |
| Of a lover’s stolen kiss; | |
| And emerge into the shining | 160 |
| Of that summer day’s declining, | |
| Disengaging clasping hands | |
| As they meet their comrade bands; | |
| With the smile that lately hovered | |
| (Making lips and eyes so bright), | 165 |
| And the blush which darkness covered | |
| Mantling still in rosy light! | |
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| Ruins! O, ye have your charm; | |
| Death is cold, but life is warm; | |
| And the fervent days we knew | 170 |
| Ere our hopes grew faint and few, | |
| Claim even now a happy sigh, | |
| Thinking of those hours gone by: | |
| Of the wooing long since passed,— | |
| Of the love that still shall last,— | 175 |
| Of the wooing and the winning; | |
| Brightest end to bright beginning; | |
| When the feet we sought to guide | |
| Tripped so lightly by our side, | |
| That, as swift they made their way | 180 |
| Through the path and tangled brake, | |
| Safely we could swear and say | |
| We loved all ruins for their sake! | |
| Gentle hearts, one ruin more | |
| From amongst so many score,— | 185 |
| One, from out a host of names, | |
| To your notice puts forth claims. | |
| Come! with me make holiday, | |
| In the woods of La Garaye, | |
| Sit within those tangled bowers, | 190 |
| Where fleet by the silent hours, | |
| Only broken by a song | |
| From the chirping woodland throng. | |
| Listen to the tale I tell; | |
| Grave the story is, not sad; | 195 |
| And the peasant plodding by | |
| Greets the place with kindly eye | |
| For the inmates that it had! | |
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