Classic Poem

I, Fergant, living now my latest days,
Gerbert's disciple once, but long a monk
Of Sant Evreult, for that in many ways
I have beheld God's strokes upon the trunk
Of rotten trees: and seen the cedars tall
Fall on the hills, because the earth has shrunk
From nourishing, herself washed down by fall
Of pelting rains, and crumbled by the sun,
So that no state may be perpetual:
And knowing how things dwindle one by one
To him who clings to this world's misery
Some longer while, ere to the grave he run:
I, looking soon for that; and since that I
Have seen some things that shall not happen twice,
And days return not that be once gone by:
And for the cause that many calumnies
Concerning my great Master now be spread,
Gerbert the Pope, that doctor high and wise;
And of the fate which took him from our head,
And of his arts, his magic spells and songs,
Because that many things be lewdly said:
And likewise of Sir Mano and his wrongs,
(Who was the friend of Gerbert at the first)
Because that many move their evil tongues;
For this, — well knowing how they long conversed
In love, till anger rose betwixt them twain,
And by what angry cause their love was cursed:
I, Fergant, now begin this work of pain,
To vindicate their glory from all foes,
And set the truth in order clear and plain.
Nor less in duteous memory of those
Who loved my famous master or his friend
Tell I that history, which I marked so close
All things shall be recounted, if God send
Strength to this heart, and still with life upstay
The hand that writes, until it reach the end
And partly I my master's mind obey,
Who charged me still to hold his memory dear:
Which I refuse not, though, the truth to say,
Some acts in him of doubtful praise appear;
Nor could my dark mind apprehend the fate
Which cast him suddenly from throne to bier. —
I, then, if God give aid, shall celebrate
The prodigies, the portents, and events
Of fifty years agone, beginning late:
Yea, great are my concernments and intents
Touching that time, when bursting seemed the earth
With dissolution's sighs and throes and rents
About the millenary of the Lord's birth:
For we believed that at the thousandth year
The thing would cease in blood and pest and dearth:
And, as the fatal hour prefixed drew near,
We saw creation cracking, and the signs
Of Antichrist multiplied in our fear.
For from above depended still the lines
Of God, which heavily the nations beat,
And underneath were laid His secret mines
But Gerbert, bold when Nature's shaking seat
The pride of man began to check and quell,
On honour's ladder placed his venturous feet.
He to the topmost round mounted full well,
And with him to have carried did intend
Sir Mano, who clomb high, but deeply fell.
For Gerbert, though he counted him his friend,
So soon as once he marked in him defect,
Or thought it, of their friendship made an end:
He was a man who could a man reject,
And oft required beyond what man could owe:
They who climb honour's hill the sky suspect.
They who suspect the sky, look not below:
And Gerbert, gazing his high purpose, stood,
Nor pity upon failure would bestow:
While Mano, who had fierceness in his blood,
At the first question drew himself away;
Woe, for the quarrels of the brave and good!
This was that Mano who was Thurold's stay,
And in the Italian field the man of note,
Where Thurold had the Normans in his sway
Mightily played he in those realms remote,
And was in all men's sight uplifted high,
Until dark destiny his voyage smote,
And rent his sail sinful calamity
But I believe, whatever Gerbert did
Concerning him, when they brake amity,
Was done with pain, albeit the pain was hid.