Classic Poem

Where sunlight lends its softest summer smile,
And Mont Saleve lifts his scarred brow toward heaven,
There is a long-deserted feudal pile,
To ruthless ruin given.

Beneath the precipice on which it stands,
Like a gray warder endless vigil keeping,
Geneva, like mosaic in gold bands,
By Leman's side lies sleeping.

No hardy flower, no clinging ivy trains
A kindly leaf to veil its broken arches;
Of all its garden bowers no trace remains,
Save some poor stunted larches.

Upon its ancient gate, 'midst rime and rust,
As a fit comment on its fearful story,
Some cunning hand, long gone to mouldering dust,
Graved " Nasci, pati, mori . "

The moss-grown ruin of its massive wall
Teaches the littleness of man's ambition;
But of its ancient glory and its fall,
Speaks only gray tradition.

This saith, that in the olden, feudal times
It was the stronghold of a warlike baron,
Whose ghost, condemned for unrepented crimes,
Still haunts the Styx with Charon.

He loved a noble lady of the land,
With eyes like summer twilight, blue and starry,
Tresses like braided sunshine, lily hand —
Gentle, bewitching fairy.

He loved her with a heart that could fulfill
Its wildest purpose in the hour of trial,
And sought her with the stubborn, lawless will
That never brooked denial.

But the fair lady was the promised bride
Of one who wore the cross of a Crusader,
Who gave his heart to lovely Linneleid,
His sword to the invader.

And he, Sir Athold, was at danger's post,
The colors of his lady waving o'er him —
The bravest leaders of the Paynim host
Falling like grass before him.

Long, but in vain, the warlike baron wooed:
The lady still was cold in word and bearing;
But in those cloudy times the world was rude,
And chieftain lovers daring.

And to compel what love could never gain,
He sallied forth with many an armed vassal,
Surprised the lady, put to flight her train,
And bore her to his castle.

And there, 'midst waving torches, gleaming swords,
And iron hearts that never deigned to falter,
And priestly mockery of holy words,
He led her to the altar.

She buried, then, the hopes of all life's years;
Her cruel anguish brooked not to be spoken;
Despair dried up the fountain of her tears;
Her gentle heart was broken.

Yet there was breath upon her pallid lips,
And light beneath her blue-veined eyelids gleaming;
Hers was not life, nor death, but that eclipse
Which the soul knows in dreaming.

She sat in her lone tower, in vague repose,
Her sad gaze fixed upon the distant mountains;
And yet she did not see their winter snows,
Nor hear their summer fountains.

Heart, mind and being, with one thought was rife;
One blessed image mocked her soul's endeavor;
It was the only star of her young life,
Distant and dimmed forever.

Night crowned the mountains with pale coronals,
And moonbeams trembled down through Leman's waters,
To light the coral bowers and fairy halls
Of Undine's fair-haired daughters.

But, ho! there was a cry, a trumpet-blast,
The castle's sleepy sentinels alarming!
Wild words from palid lips, that spoke their last;
Shrieks, groans and hurried arming.

They rallied, manned the ramparts; but too late!
The baron's furious life-blood dyed the paving,
And soon, from lofty tower and massive gate,
The blood-red cross was waving.

With fainting heart the lady heard that cry —
Sir Athold's voice through the still night-air driven:
She could not live to meet his altered eye,
And-pity her, O Heaven!

The fight was over, and Sir Athold gone
To seek his lady-love in hall and bower;
The lamp burned in her turret-chamber lone —
Where was she, in that hour?

He breathed her name with loving words, in vain;
She heard him not, and there was no replying,
Save the soft night-wind through the lattice-pane,
Mournfully sighing.

They sought her with swift feet — above, below;
They called her with wild words, but unavailing;
And morning found them hurrying to and fro,
Their brave hearts faint and failing.

Oh! never did a gloomier night depart,
And never dawned a sadder, darker morrow,
Than that which sealed, on brave Sir Athold's heart,
His loss and life-long sorrow.

At length, a peasant came, with wild dismay,
And hurried words of most terrific meaning:
There was a lady dead a little way
From where he had been gleaning.

And on the sands, where two deep ravines meet,
Half hidden by the pine plumes waving 'round her,
Below her lattice full five hundred feet,
Pale as the snows they found her.

Oh! slowly, slowly tolled the solemn knell,
As many a gallant knight and wondering vassal
Wound with the black pall up Pas de l'Echelle
And bore her to the castle.

With tearful eyes they made her grave apart;
With loving hands they laid the cross above her;
And there the lady with the broken heart
Sleeps with her noble lover.

But there are those who, on a certain night,
Deem they can hear a wail — a low, wild weeping —
And see a lady, in a robe of white,
From that same lattice leaping.

The brave Sir Athold went not forth again
To tread the warrior's dizzy path of glory;
But as he lived, had suffered, loved in vain,
Wrote, " Nasci, pati, mori . "