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Translated by Louisa Stuart Costello
THIS then is Mesnil, named from her whose charms | |
| Above all other themes the poet warms: | |
| Agnes, the star of Charles, whose early fate | |
| Left his fond heart forlorn and desolate. | |
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| Here perfumed airs amidst each secret shade | 5 |
| Tell of their ancient loves that cannot fade; | |
| These ruined walls seem mourning in decay | |
| That worth and beauty should be swept away; | |
| The wind moans round them sad and heavily,— | |
| An echo of fair Agnes’ latest sigh. | 10 |
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| She bright as Grecian Helen, famed in song, | |
| Whose eyes held Charles in love’s devotion long,— | |
| Another Paris, who would fain have been | |
| A shepherd youth with her his rural queen: | |
| To live for her was all he cared to do, | 15 |
| She his ambition and his glory too. | |
| From wars and high contentions he removed, | |
| Content with her to love and be beloved. | |
| But envious rumor whispered of disgrace, | |
| Of tarnished name and of degenerate race; | 20 |
| Of one who at his lady’s feet bowed down, | |
| Forgot his country, honor, and renown. | |
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| Without a blush such words could Agnes hear, | |
| And bear reproaches on a name so dear? | |
| With tender eloquence she woke the theme, | 25 |
| And bade her lover rouse him from his dream: | |
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| “Since, lowly as I am, on me thy light | |
| Has shone so fondly and so purely bright, | |
| And I have dared to answer to thy flame, | |
| Ill it becomes me to eclipse thy fame. | 30 |
| Shall it be said, effeminate and base, | |
| Bowed to my will, enamored of my face, | |
| Thou canst forget thy honor for my sake? | |
| My king, my friend, my love, arise!—awake! | |
| Arm! arm! and lead thy subjects forth once more, | 35 |
| And drive the haughty English from thy shore. | |
| Let my ambition and thine own agree, | |
| To see a hero and my love in thee. | |
| O, let my words dispel this idle trance, | |
| Let Agnes be esteemed in grateful France. | 40 |
| I would not honor made thee love forego, | |
| But let love teach thee honor’s laws to know!” | |
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| She spoke: her generous zeal the monarch moved, | |
| And virtue wakened at the voice he loved: | |
| A brighter flame in his roused bosom burst | 45 |
| From the same torch which had effaced it first; | |
| And by the love for which reproach he bore, | |
| He vowed the English pride should be no more. | |
| Then Victory, that, untrue to friend or foe, | |
| With restless flight had hovered to and fro, | 50 |
| Declared for us at last, and rescued France | |
| Beheld her banners to the skies advance! | |
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| ’T was then, with conquered Normandy his prize, | |
| The lover from long battles turned his eyes, | |
| And midst the shades of lone Jumiége sought | 55 |
| The lovely object of his tenderest thought. | |
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| Then Agnes came,—she heard of treachery, | |
| And flew to warn him of the danger nigh. | |
| But Fate had led her to this holy fane, | |
| And doomed her ne’er to quit those walls again. | 60 |
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| Alas! fond lover, after all thy care, | |
| Thy toil, thy valor, was all hope but air? | |
| All thy heart promised void? The trial past, | |
| Is death and sorrow thy reward at last! | |
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| O Death! has beauty, then, no power to move? | 65 |
| Deaf art thou thus to constancy and love? | |
| But great although thy power, and fell thy sway, | |
| And in her youthful prime she fell thy prey, | |
| The wrong is less than if, as Fortune willed, | |
| The days by Nature granted had been filled; | 70 |
| And those soft features and those eyes so bright | |
| In dim and faded age had lost their light; | |
| And that renown of Beauty’s Queen no more | |
| The world would give her, since its power was o’er. | |
| No! to the last so lovely and so dear, | 75 |
| Her peerless star shone ever bright and clear! | |
| Fair Agnes lives in never-ending fame | |
| As long as Beauty shall be Beauty’s name! | |
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