IN the heroic days when Ferdinand | |
| And Isabella ruled the Spanish land, | |
| And Torquemada, with his subtle brain, | |
| Ruled them as Grand Inquisitor of Spain, | |
| In a great castle near Valladolid, | 5 |
| Moated and high and by fair woodlands hid, | |
| There dwelt, as from the chronicles we learn, | |
| An old Hidalgo proud and taciturn, | |
| Whose name has perished, with his towers of stone, | |
| And all his actions save this one alone; | 10 |
| This one, so terrible, perhaps ’t were best | |
| If it, too, were forgotten with the rest; | |
| Unless, perchance, our eyes can see therein | |
| The martyrdom triumphant o’er the sin; | |
| A double picture, with its gloom and glow, | 15 |
| The splendor overhead, the death below. | |
| |
| This sombre man counted each day as lost | |
| On which his feet no sacred threshold crossed; | |
| And when he chanced the passing Host to meet, | |
| He knelt and prayed devoutly in the street; | 20 |
| Oft he confessed; and with each mutinous thought, | |
| As with wild beasts at Ephesus, he fought. | |
| In deep contrition scourged himself in Lent, | |
| Walked in processions, with his head down bent, | |
| At plays of Corpus Christi oft was seen, | 25 |
| And on Palm Sunday bore his bough of green. | |
| His sole diversion was to hunt the boar | |
| Through tangled thickets of the forest hoar, | |
| Or with his jingling mules to hurry down | |
| To some grand bull-fight in the neighboring town, | 30 |
| Or in the crowd with lighted taper stand, | |
| When Jews were burned, or banished from the land. | |
| Then stirred within him a tumultuous joy; | |
| The demon whose delight is to destroy | |
| Shook him, and shouted with a trumpet tone, | 35 |
| “Kill! kill! and let the Lord find out his own!” | |
| |
| And now, in that old castle in the wood, | |
| His daughters, in the dawn of womanhood, | |
| Returning from their convent school, had made | |
| Resplendent with their bloom the forest shade, | 40 |
| Reminding him of their dead mother’s face, | |
| When first she came into that gloomy place,— | |
| A memory in his heart as dim and sweet | |
| As moonlight in a solitary street, | |
| Where the same rays, that lift the sea, are thrown | 45 |
| Lovely but powerless upon walls of stone. | |
| These two fair daughters of a mother dead | |
| Were all the dream had left him as it fled. | |
| A joy at first, and then a growing care, | |
| As if a voice within him cried, “Beware!” | 50 |
| A vague presentiment of impending doom, | |
| Like ghostly footsteps in a vacant room, | |
| Haunted him day and night; a formless fear | |
| That death to some one of his house was near, | |
| With dark surmises of a hidden crime, | 55 |
| Made life itself a death before its time. | |
| Jealous, suspicious, with no sense of shame, | |
| A spy upon his daughters he became; | |
| With velvet slippers, noiseless on the floors, | |
| He glided softly through half-open doors; | 60 |
| 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 gypsy haunt the river’s side, | 65 |
| 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. | 70 |
| 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 gypsy? none had seen her in the wood! | 75 |
| 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, | 80 |
| 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, | 85 |
| 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!” | 90 |
| |
| 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 | 95 |
| 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, | 100 |
| 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, | 105 |
| 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; | 110 |
| 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 | 115 |
| 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, | 120 |
| 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, | 125 |
| 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, | 130 |
| 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, | 135 |
| 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, | 140 |
| 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, | 145 |
| 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, | 150 |
| 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 | 155 |
| 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. | 160 |
| 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, | 165 |
| Again to the Inquisitor he went, | |
| And said: “Behold, the fagots I have brought, | |
| And now, lest my atonement be as naught, | |
| Grant me one more request, one last desire,— | |
| With my own hand to light the funeral fire!” | 170 |
| 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 | 175 |
| 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, | 180 |
| Round which was gathering fast the eager crowd, | |
| With clamor 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, | 185 |
| 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, | 190 |
| 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, | 195 |
| 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? | 200 |
| 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, | 205 |
| 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, | 210 |
| 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 | 215 |
| 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, | 220 |
| Like a burnt tower upon a blackened heath, | |
| Lit by the fires of burning woods beneath! | |
| |
