Classic Poem

It is the time to tell of fatal love;
Though all the woods are vocal with the dove,
The nodding chesnut sees the white clouds build
In summer skies; and all the air is filled
With lightsome fragrance from the flowering lime,
And toward the low-hung boughs the thickets climb:
It is the time to tell of fatal love.
For were the woods not vocal with the dove,
And bluest skies gave light through heart and mind,
When Ermolai through forest paths did wind
To see his lady Columbe joyfully?
A goodly knight he was; you could not see
A man more gaily strong, nor sight more fair
Than his white horse, steel arms, and yellow hair,
As he rode onward all the afternoon:
And when in clearest ether hung the moon,
His courser paced along the darkening lake
O'er which fair Columbe's castle lights 'gan shake
She was a lady of most high degree,
The daughter of Duke Ebenhard, and he
A councillor unto the emperor:
But her blue eyes and pearly features wore
Such gentleness, that whoso saw her, straight
Forgot for love her birth and high estate
And she has welcomed her brave lover now
From balcony, while in the yard below
His steed upon the stones was clattering,
And he both eyes and heart did upward fling.
And now they both together sit at board,
Fronting the fiery eyes of Ebenhard;
Where too sat Columbe's foster sister dear,
Alice the fair; with shortness ye shall hear
That her wild eyes and wondrous looks have caught
Knight Ermolai, and such enchantment wrought,
That now he drew with pain to Columbe sweet
His erring eyes, and painfully did greet
Her words of love, when lovingly she spake
All night upon his bed he lay awake,
And tossed and muttered; all the night he had
Her mighty beauty in his vision sad,
As he were haunted; sure the fiend had wrought
Some wicked spell on him to change his thought.
Then when the dawn came through his window grey,
He took his sword and gown, and made his way
To Strepan's chamber, whom asleep he found —
Strepan his varlet, cunning as a hound
To track vagaries by the fancy bred.
" Strepan, " he cried, standing beside his bed,
" No wretch was ever so undone as I;
For came I not 'neath yester even's sky
Loving fair Columbe? — ah, I love her still;
But conqueror love hath wrought me bitter ill,
For now I love all madly Alice fair. "
Then Strepan answered, trembling, " Sir, beware
The wrath of her high sire, duke Ebenhard;
No duke so fiery, rigorous, and hard:
Sure this is but a moment's phantasy,
For think that Columbe is thy bride to be. "
" Silence, " said Ermolai, " I fear not aught
His anger; neither do I set at nought
Sweet Columbe; no, by heaven, this sword should slay
The man who would her beauty dear unsay;
To die for her were easy, but to live —
Ah, love hath other law, ah love doth give
Other command; I tell thee, some control
Beyond e'en life is laid upon my soul:
For can the gentle moon with all her light
The sun-flower turn? Nay, never star of night
Can move the buds that open with the sun:
So 'tis in love; the soul obeys but one:
But wherefore preach I? — rather by the oath
Of Love himself I plight no other troth
Than to this Alice, whom I wholly love;
Wherefore must thou thy skill most shortly prove,
Devising how we may together flee
Home to my castle, married there to be. "
" Grant me three days, " quoth crafty Strepan here,
" Since thou art lunatic, my thoughts to clear. "
" Granted, " said Ermolai, " but have a care
Thou fail me not; and yet, alas, I swear
That Columbe is the sweetest, the most fair
Of all beside: ah, Columbe, whatsoe'er
Thou shalt hereafter think of me, I trow
If thou the pangs that now I feel couldst know,
Thou wouldst forgive me all, oh sweetest, best. "
With that so sore a passion him oppressed
That we must pity him; there is no pain
Like dying love; for to the altered brain
The unaltered heart still sends its rich supplies;
But some usurper strange now occupies
The old receptacle within the mind
Where the poor heart its harbour used to find
For all the pulsive tides of love that wont
To have their issue from its sacred font
An image new hath entered through the sense,
And a new form must make impression thence
Upon the cordial substance still so warm
With the impression of the older form
So wills imperial fancy, and in vain
The heart doth beat with penitential pain,
In vain resists, and from its arteries
Withdraws the genial current, and denies
That newer love the ancient form efface;
In vain returns it to its ancient place,
And righteously refuseth to transmit
Its vital current to the cruel wit:
In vain is this; the heart must beat again
Through all reluctance of repentant pain;
In none the heart and mind are long apart;
Imperial fancy overrules the heart.
Yet this is full of pain to whomsoe'er
It happens; and inconstancy must bear
This righteous pain; nor this alone, for now
The ancient habit more afflicts the brow
Than the new joy rewards; perish anon,
When the attractive force of thought is gone,
The outward pomps of love, the imageries
Of beauty, by the sensibilities
Invested with sweet power, the atmosphere
Circling the lover; fades the face of her
Beloved but lately, fades the pleasant land
In which but now he wandered fragrance-fanned,
Waited by rosy clouds of happy pride,
Sweet interests, warbling shapes, and pageants wide:
It is for him no more; he is shut out
From Eden by default, and all about
The blessed region walks he hand in hand
With gravest Memory; but he is banned,
A wretch forlorn, whom no new love beguiles
With all the happiness of older smiles.
Ah, this is pain; no divine influence
Can ebb away, and leave an easy sense;
No heart can throb and cast rejected tide
Toward fancy's airy bourne, but there must ride
On each returning wave some bitter pain.
The three days past, his course hath Strepan ta'en
Toward a neighbouring mound, whereon was piled
Great store of faggots, meant as signal wild
Of some fierce enemy approaching near:
The heap he fired at midnight dark and drear,
In stormy sky arose the balefire's light,
Anon the courtyard swarmed with serf and knight,
And forth they rushed in nightly cavalcade
To meet the fancied foe in woodland shade.
So when the wrathful duke and all his men
Were far away, the running Strepan then
Led round a mighty horse from Barbary
And Ermolai's white charger, and they flee,
Alice and Ermolai, and very soon
Was Ermolai watching the half-wrecked moon
In cloudy waves from his own lattice high,
While his own mother trembling faltered nigh
Holding his out-flung hand, and in the room
Fair Alice crouched and sobbed amid the gloom:
" Good night, " at last said he, " full tenderly
My gentle bird in cage shall tended be:
Gently, my mother, keep her blessed head,
'tis but a little time and we shall wed. "
Few days were past before the wrathful duke
With many mustered knights his journey took
Of vengeance to the garde of Ermolai;
But ere they yet were marching on their way,
Sweet Columbe, left deserted, left alone,
Called on whom she could trust, who straight is gone
Before the host with messages from her:
She sent a napkin wet with many a tear,
A jewel, too, she sent in gold enset,
And poisoned 'twas; thus did she legend it:
" Alice, receive this napkin; 'tis thy due;
Wet with my tears, which not another drew;
Receive this poisoned ring; and unto me
If thou be false, let this be death to thee;
But if thou wilt repent, return before
The wrathful duke shall slay my love in war;
And straight I will forgive thee; but if still
Thy purpose holds to have thy wicked-will,
I charge thee, send the poison back to me. "
Thus having said, she sunk down utterly
Dissolved in pain upon the marble floor,
And there she lay, while past the yawning door
The martial knights strode forth in fierce array;
None knew how long in deadly swoon she lay.
How did fair Alice take those tokens sad?
Her eyes did beam within most piteous-glad,
The napkin at her bosom's core she dried,
The poisoned ring she took, and straightway hied
Down the black staircase into the wide hall,
Where Ermolai beneath the banners tall
After the nightly banquet slumbered now
Upon the table; trouble marked his brow,
And ruffled hair, in which his hands were thrust:
That lady tottered toward him, for she must
Breathe one kiss o'er him ere she leave him there;
Yet never stirred the sleeper unaware,
And she through hall and corridor hath ranged,
Her mighty beauty broken not, but changed;
So left she him, and is to Columbe fled:
" Sister, behold thy poisoned ring, " she said,
" And take again thy love. " No more she could,
But in sharp sorrow broke her womanhood:
And Columbe kissed her, and they two abode
As if fate never made on faith inroad
Meanwhile the host of Ebenhard drew near
And sieged the castle; first a messenger
They sent to seek if Alice therein lay:
This Ermolai distracted answered, Yea.
Then they the place assaulted, and the knight
With followers few resisted all he might,
Till they have gained the wall with joyous shout,
And Ermolai half-dead with wounds drawn out
They sought for Alice all about the ground,
In much amaze when nowhere she was found,
And many a curse upon the knight they laid,
Deeming that she was foully murdered.
The wrathful duke gave sentence that the knight,
As one who had to honour done despite,
Should on a cart be drawn to market square,
And lose his head: him now the varlets bear
To dungeon deep, enshackled heavily
Now when fair Alice heard the public cry
That Ermolai should perish in this sort,
Unto the emperor she did resort,
And did entreat him of his clemency
To spare that knight, for that no felony
By him had been committed; and she won
From that great king her prayer; but thereupon
Was this condition added, that he wed
Columbe the fair, or else not save his head,
If he refused; or if Columbe no more
Would of his love, it should be as before;
Or if fierce Ebenhard disdainfully
Refused to grant it so, still must he die.
Then Alice fair returned, and soon she brought
The tender Columbe to accept the thought,
For if she did refuse, then must he die:
And Ebenhard, albeit right stormily,
Accepted also, for he once had loved
Sir Ermolai, and was to pity moved,
Now when he found fair Alice was returned:
'twas punishment enough that he had burned
His castle and the knight in prison cast,
Sore wounded; nor did he mislike at last
The desperate courage of that frantic knight;
And grimly laughed he thinking of the night
When Ermolai had drawn him from his tower,
Booted and armed, the sightless hills to scour.
Now came the morning when the knight was led
Upon the felon cart to lose his head:
About that hearse the thronging people come,
And some did shout, some were for pity dumb,
Some wept his youth; but he with unmoved eyes
Erected sat, and none could know what sighs
His spirit at the thought of Alice gave,
E'en as he travelled to his bloody grave
Ah, thought he not of Columbe? He no more
Of Columbe thought, though at the first so sore
Had been his penitence for all her wrong;
For after Alice left him, madly strong
Had grown of her his love infatuate,
And oft did he suspect, the while he sate
Besieged within his hold, that Columbe had
Decoyed and slain her; and resentment mad
Surged in his soul, and fury born of hell:
All this did penitential shame expel,
And Columbe had deceased in his regret:
Now too of his captivity the fret,
The long elapse of time, his wasted lands,
His followers slain, his wounds, and shameful bands,
The sentence of his death, these things endured
For Alice, these his piteous heart ensured
And stubborned still for Alice; for to seem
A sufferer for love is love's own dream:
By suffering his heart had purged remorse,
And flung that burden gladly from its course;
And, filled with Alice, to the last event
Bound straitly on the shameful cart he went.
When lo, what magic to his shaping mind
Completes her image, that his eye should find
Fair Alice there? She in the street doth stand,
Holding her sister Columbe by the hand,
For so they had resolved that, as he hied,
He should be ransomed from his deadly ride
In front of death itself; and presently
Her voice assures him more that it is she,
Bespeaking him — " Sir knight, why rid'st thou there?
Behold thou shalt now wed this lady fair,
And thou art lightly free from all thy woe;
The emperor wills, and she consents thereto,
Duke Ebenhard consents; therefore rejoice. "
But when her face he saw, and heard her voice,
His bonds he shook as if he madman were;
And Ebenhard bade loose him from the chair,
Deeming he would to Columbe go; but he
Ran but to Alice fair: ah, tenderly
Weep ye who hapless love commiserate,
Weep ye who know how faith succumbs to fate,
And love is mingled with perversity:
For he to Alice went, and tenderly
He sought to compass her in his arms twain:
But she began to say her words again,
And pointed him to Columbe for his love,
And more repelled him as the more he strove.
More piteous that strife than very death.
Right so came Ebenhard with furious breath
At this despite, and shouted to the train
That they should mount him on the hearse again,
And draw the cutting bonds unto the bone:
Whereat fair Columbe with most heavy moan
Prayed mercy, horror-stricken she to find
Such horror; eagerly she now resigned
Her love to Alice, that her wrathful sire
Might therefore from his threats of death retire.
Like to two doves that rise upon the air
With head and wing embracing, so in prayer
Those sisters were, as they did there contend.
Ah, bootlessly their tears they did expend,
They could not stay the falling doom of fate,
Nor into pity altered angry hate,
Nor stopped the creaking of the deadly wain;
Now haste we to despatch this doleful train
When Alice fair perceived they might not stay
This woeful deed; — " 'tis I must die to-day, "
'gan she to say, and from her bosom snatched
That poisoned ring which Columbe had despatched
Before to her; and this she raised on high;
" That ye may live, " she said, " 'tis I must die "
She turned it round where it in gold was set,
" This deed from you a benediction get: "
She thrust the poison through her white white teeth,
" God give to all the joy of my last breath; "
She set the ring around fair Columbe's hand,
" I wed thee unto him; oh, understand
That thus to both of you my love is known. "
She fell before them dead as any stone.
But Ermolai passed on to lose his head;
And they returning found fair Columbe dead,
Dead in a fatal swoon upon the ground,
And on her hand the poisoned ring they found