Classic Poem

They gained the stormy balcony
Where the light from the chamber streamed out to the sea.
What ailed the friar that he seemed to fail
And grasped for support on the shadowy rail?
Why did he shiver and seem so faint?
Was it that, like a beautiful saint,
He beheld the spirit-lady kneeling
With mild eyes full of tears and feeling,
Clasping on her bosom fair
The crucifix, which piously there
Rose and fell on the tide of prayer?

" I am very old and nigh to death,
And climbing that stairway has taken my breath! "
He murmured at last: — " Ah, me! ah, me!
I am very weak from the abuse of the sea!
And the chilly wet is piercing me through
As if I had slept in a poisonous dew,
And awoke with all the horrible pains
Which death can inflict with chills and blains!

" It will pass anon: — meantime do thou
Secure the precious moment now —
Go seize on that polluted cross,
And into the sea, with a curse and a toss,
Fling it afar, as you would fling
Some black, dead offensive thing,
Hurled away with fierce disdain,
Never to be reclaimed again!
And then — and then — oh! this terrible chill,
Piercing me like an electric thrill
In a cavern of ice! — The punishing ire
Of — our abbot, though wielding great lashes of fire,
Were easier to bear than this shiver intense,
Like icicles piercing the innermost sense!
Then take thou this girdle, which grasp like a scourge,
And wield through the room! — It hath power to purge
The air from such envious spirits as this,
Who would rob even hell of its last ray of bliss! "

Then Roland, with averted head,
Strode in and did as the friar said;
He seized the cross — through the open door
It spun to the dark and the wild uproar!

The spirit arose with a shriek of wo,
Crying, " This is the storm! It must be so!
The same I foretold thee an hour ago!
Though thou comest, O Roland! as one in swift ire,
And armed with those red hissing scourges of fire:
Oh! know, Roland, know that the fiends of the pit,
The Arachnes of wo, are all weaving their wit
In webs to ensnare thee! Already thy will
Is tangled, confused in the threads of their skill:
Ere thou strike I depart — yet again and again
My hand shall be laid on thy forehead of pain.
And when thou hast passed through this fiery test,
When reason and calm have re-entered thy breast,
Again will I sit by thy side, and renew
The chain which the demons have sundered in two. "

Ere the red scourge was lifted, the spirit had flown
With a sigh in the air, and then followed a groan,
And Roland dropt down with the weight of a stone.
And the monk, leaning o'er him, breathed into his ear
Thoughts without words, which his spirit in fear
Beheld as black tangible visions at strife,
Struggling which should be foremost to poison his life

Down in the shadowy hall below,
The maid and the fisher were turning to go,
When the lady with a mild command,
With language sweet and countenance bland,
Recalled the maiden, and seizing her hand,
Pressed it to her bosom white
And cold as a marble tomb at night;
And murmured in accents sweet and mild —
" We must be friends — dear friends — my child!
And in token of this, this little ring,
Quite a simple yet sacred thing,
I place on your finger. It is, you see,
The emblem of wisdom and eternity ;
And a symbol of what our love must be —
Wise, watchful, unending — that hereafter we,
Even in a future clime,
May look backward to the realms of time,
And say it was upon that night
When the heavens were black and the seas were white,
We plighted the faith that shall never grow cold,
And linked our two souls with this serpent of gold! "