* * * * * BUT thou, fair boy, the beautiful, the brave, | |
| Thus passing from the dungeon to the grave, | |
| While all is yet around thee which can give | |
| A charm to earth, and make it bliss to live; | |
| Thou on whose form hath dwelt a mother’s eye, | 5 |
| Till the deep love that not with thee shall die | |
| Hath grown too full for utterance,—can it be? | |
| And is this pomp of death prepared for thee? | |
| Young, royal Conradin! who shouldst have known | |
| Of life as yet the sunny smile alone! | 10 |
| O, who can view thee in the pride and bloom | |
| Of youth, arrayed so richly for the tomb, | |
| Nor feel, deep swelling in his inmost soul, | |
| Emotions tyranny may ne’er control? | |
| Bright victim! to Ambition’s altar led, | 15 |
| Crowned with all flowers that heaven on earth can shed, | |
| Who, from the oppressor towering in his pride, | |
| May hope for mercy, if to thee denied? | |
| There is dead silence on the breathless throng, | |
| Dead silence all the peopled shore along, | 20 |
| As on the captive moves; the only sound, | |
| To break that calm so fearfully profound, | |
| The low, sweet murmur of the rippling wave, | |
| Soft as it glides, the smiling shore to lave; | |
| While on that shore, his own fair heritage, | 25 |
| The youthful martyr to a tyrant’s rage | |
| Is passing to his fate: the eyes are dim | |
| Which gaze, through tears that dare not flow, on him. | |
| He mounts the scaffold,—doth his footstep fail? | |
| Doth his lip quiver? doth his cheek turn pale? | 30 |
| O, it may be forgiven him if a thought | |
| Cling to that world, for him with beauty fraught, | |
| To all the hopes that promised glory’s meed, | |
| And all the affections that with him shall bleed! | |
| If, in his life’s young dayspring, while the rose | 35 |
| Of boyhood on his cheek yet freshly glows, | |
| One human fear convulse his parting breath, | |
| And shrink from all the bitterness of death! | |
| |
| But no! the spirit of his royal race | |
| Sits brightly on his brow: that youthful face | 40 |
| Beams with heroic beauty, and his eye | |
| Is eloquent with injured majesty. | |
| He kneels,—but not to man; his heart shall own | |
| Such deep submission to his God alone! | |
| And who can tell with what sustaining power | 45 |
| That God may visit him in fate’s dread hour? | |
| How the still voice, which answers every moan, | |
| May speak of hope, when hope on earth is gone? | |
| |
| That solemn pause is o’er,—the youth hath given | |
| One glance of parting love to earth and heaven. | 50 |
| The sun rejoices in the unclouded sky, | |
| Life all around him glows,—and he must die? | |
| Yet midst his people, undismayed, he throws | |
| The gage of vengeance for a thousand woes,— | |
| Vengeance that, like their own volcano’s fire, | 55 |
| May sleep suppressed awhile, but not expire. | |
| One softer image rises o’er his breast, | |
| One fond regret, and all shall be at rest! | |
| “Alas for thee, my mother! who shall bear | |
| To thy sad heart the tidings of despair, | 60 |
| When thy lost child is gone?”—that thought can thrill | |
| His soul with pangs one moment more shall still. | |
| The lifted axe is glittering in the sun,— | |
| It falls,—the race of Conradin is run! | |
| Yet from the blood which flows that shore to stain, | 65 |
| A voice shall cry to Heaven,—and not in vain. | |
| Gaze thou, triumphant from thy gorgeous throne, | |
| In proud supremacy of guilt alone, | |
| Charles of Anjou,—but that dread voice shall be | |
| A fearful summoner e’en yet to thee! * * * * * | 70 |
| |
