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Night. PRINCE HENRY wandering alone, wrapped in a cloak.
PRINCE HENRY. STILL is the night. The sound of feet | |
| Has died away from the empty street, | |
| And like an artisan, bending down | |
| His head on his anvil, the dark town | |
| Sleeps, with a slumber deep and sweet. | 5 |
| Sleepless and restless, I alone, | |
| In the dusk and damp of these walls of stone, | |
| Wander and weep in my remorse! | |
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CRIER OF THE DEAD, ringing a bell. Wake! wake! | |
| All ye that sleep! | 10 |
| Pray for the Dead! | |
| Pray for the Dead! | |
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PRINCE HENRY. Hark! with what accents loud and hoarse | |
| This warder on the walls of death | |
| Sends forth the challenge of his breath! | 15 |
| I see the dead that sleep in the grave! | |
| They rise up and their garments wave, | |
| Dimly and spectral, as they rise, | |
| With the light of another world in their eyes! | |
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CRIER OF THE DEAD. Wake! wake! | 20 |
| All ye that sleep! | |
| Pray for the Dead! | |
| Pray for the Dead! | |
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PRINCE HENRY. Why for the dead, who are at rest? | |
| Pray for the living, in whose breast | 25 |
| The struggle between right and wrong | |
| Is raging terrible and strong, | |
| As when good angels war with devils! | |
| This is the Master of the Revels, | |
| Who, at Life’s flowing feast, proposes | 30 |
| The health of absent friends, and pledges, | |
| Not in bright goblets crowned with roses, | |
| And tinkling as we touch their edges, | |
| But with his dismal, tinkling bell, | |
| That mocks and mimics their funeral knell! | 35 |
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CRIER OF THE DEAD. Wake! wake! | |
| All ye that sleep! | |
| Pray for the Dead! | |
| Pray for the Dead! | |
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PRINCE HENRY. Wake not, beloved! be thy sleep | 40 |
| Silent as night is, and as deep! | |
| There walks a sentinel at thy gate | |
| Whose heart is heavy and desolate, | |
| And the heavings of whose bosom number | |
| The respirations of thy slumber, | 45 |
| As if some strange, mysterious fate | |
| Had linked two hearts in one, and mine | |
| Went madly wheeling about thine, | |
| Only with wider and wilder sweep! | |
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CRIER OF THE DEAD, at a distance. Wake! wake! | 50 |
| All ye that sleep! | |
| Pray for the Dead! | |
| Pray for the Dead! | |
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PRINCE HENRY. Lo! with what depth of blackness thrown | |
| Against the clouds, far up the skies | 55 |
| The walls of the cathedral rise, | |
| Like a mysterious grove of stone, | |
| With fitful lights and shadows blending, | |
| As from behind, the moon, ascending, | |
| Lights its dim aisles and paths unknown! | 60 |
| The wind is rising; but the boughs | |
| Rise not and fall not with the wind, | |
| That through their foliage sobs and soughs; | |
| Only the cloudy rack behind, | |
| Drifting onward, wild and ragged, | 65 |
| Gives to each spire and buttress jagged | |
| A seeming motion undefined. | |
| Below on the square, an armàd knight, | |
| Still as a statue and as white, | |
| Sits on his steed, and the moonbeams quiver | 70 |
| Upon the points of his armor bright | |
| As on the ripples of a river. | |
| He lifts the visor from his cheek, | |
| And beckons, and makes as he would speak. | |
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WALTER the Minnesinger. Friend! can you tell me where alight | 75 |
| Thuringia’s horsemen for the night? | |
| For I have lingered in the rear, | |
| And wander vainly up and down. | |
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PRINCE HENRY. I am a stranger in the town, | |
| As thou art; but the voice I hear | 80 |
| Is not a stranger to mine ear. | |
| Thou art Walter of the Vogelweid! | |
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WALTER. Thou hast guessed rightly; and thy name | |
Is Henry of Hoheneck!
PRINCE HENRY. Ay, the same. | |
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WALTER, embracing him. Come closer, closer to my side! | 85 |
| What brings thee hither? What potent charm | |
| Has drawn thee from thy German farm | |
| Into the old Alsatian city? | |
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PRINCE HENRY. A tale of wonder and of pity! | |
| A wretched man, almost by stealth | 90 |
| Dragging my body to Salern, | |
| In the vain hope and search for health, | |
| And destined never to return. | |
| Already thou hast heard the rest. | |
| But what brings thee, thus armed and dight | 95 |
| In the equipments of a knight? | |
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WALTER. Dost thou not see upon my breast | |
| The cross of the Crusaders shine? | |
| My pathway leads to Palestine. | |
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PRINCE HENRY. Ah, would that way were also mine! | 100 |
| O noble poet! thou whose heart | |
| Is like a nest of singing-birds | |
| Rocked on the topmost bough of life, | |
| Wilt thou, too, from our sky depart, | |
| And in the clangor of the strife | 105 |
| Mingle the music of thy words? | |
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WALTER. My hopes are high, my heart is proud, | |
| And like a trumpet long and loud, | |
| Thither my thoughts all clang and ring! | |
| My life is in my hand, and lo! | 110 |
| I grasp and bend it as a bow, | |
| And shoot forth from its trembling string | |
| An arrow, that shall be, perchance, | |
| Like the arrow of the Israelite king | |
| Shot from the window toward the east, | 115 |
| That of the Lord’s deliverance! | |
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PRINCE HENRY. My life, alas! is what thou seest! | |
| O enviable fate! to be | |
| Strong, beautiful, and armed like thee | |
| With lyre and sword, with song and steel; | 120 |
| A hand to smite, a heart to feel! | |
| Thy heart, thy hand, thy lyre, thy sword, | |
| Thou givest all unto thy Lord; | |
| While I, so mean and abject grown, | |
| Am thinking of myself alone. | 125 |
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WALTER. Be patient: Time will reinstate | |
Thy health and fortunes.
PRINCE HENRY. ’T is too late! | |
| I cannot strive against my fate! | |
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WALTER. Come with me; for my steed is weary; | |
| Our journey has been long and dreary, | 130 |
| And, dreaming of his stall, he dints | |
| With his impatient hoofs the flints. | |
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PRINCE HENRY, aside. I am ashamed, in my disgrace, | |
| To look into that noble face! | |
| To-morrow, Walter, let it be. | 135 |
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WALTER. To-morrow, at the dawn of day, | |
| I shall again be on my way. | |
| Come with me to the hostelry, | |
| For I have many things to say. | |
| Our journey into Italy | 140 |
| Perchance together we may make; | |
| Wilt thou not do it for my sake? | |
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PRINCE HENRY. A sick man’s pace would but impede | |
| Thine eager and impatient speed. | |
| Besides, my pathway leads me round | 145 |
| To Hirschau, in the forest ’s bound, | |
| Where I assemble man and steed, | |
| And all things for my journey’s need. They go out. | |
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LUCIFER, flying over the city. Sleep, sleep, O city! till the light | |
| Wake you to sin and crime again, | 150 |
| Whilst on your dreams, like dismal rain, | |
| I scatter downward through the night | |
| My maledictions dark and deep. | |
| I have more martyrs in your walls | |
| Than God has; and they cannot sleep; | 155 |
| They are my bondsmen and my thralls; | |
| Their wretched lives are full of pain, | |
| Wild agonies of nerve and brain; | |
| And every heart-beat, every breath, | |
| Is a convulsion worse than death! | 160 |
| Sleep, sleep, O city! though within | |
| The circuit of your walls there be | |
| No habitation free from sin, | |
| And all its nameless misery; | |
| The aching heart, the aching head, | 165 |
| Grief for the living and the dead, | |
| And foul corruption of the time, | |
| Disease, distress, and want, and woe, | |
| And crimes, and passions that may grow | |
| Until they ripen into crime! | 170 |
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