The Lady of Provence

“Courage was cast about her like a dressOf solemn comeliness,A gather’d mind and an untroubled faceDid give her dangers grace.” Donne.

The war-note of the SaracenWas on the winds of France;It had still’d the harp of the Troubadour,And the clash of the tourney’s lance.The sounds of the sea, and the sounds of the night,And the hollow echoes of charge and flight,Were around Clotilde, as she knelt to prayIn a chapel where the mighty lay,On the old Provençal shore.Many a Chatillon beneath,Unstirr’d by the ringing trumpet’s breath,His shroud of armour wore;And the glimpses of moonlight that went and cameThrough the clouds, like bursts of a dying flame,Gave quivering life to the slumber paleOf stern forms couch’d in their marble mail,At rest on the tombs of the knightly race,The silent throngs of that burial-place.

They were imaged there with helm and spear,As leaders in many a bold career,And haughty their stillness look’d and high,Like a sleep whose dreams were of victory.But meekly the voice of the lady roseThrough the trophies of their proud repose;Meekly, yet fervently, calling down aid,Under their banners of battle she pray’d;With her pale, fair brow, and her eyes of love,Upraised to the Virgin’s portray’d above,And her hair flung back, till it swept the graveOf a Chatillon with its gleamy wave;And her fragile frame, at every blast,That full of the savage war-horn pass’d,Trembling, as trembles a bird’s quick heart,When it vainly strives from its cage to part--So knelt she in her woe;A weeper alone with the tearless dead--Oh! they reck not of tears o’er their quiet shed,Or the dust had stirr’d below!

Hark! a swift step! she hath caught its tone,Through the dash of the sea, through the wild wind’s moan:Is her lord return’d with his conquering bands?No! a breathless vassal before her stands!--“Hast thou been on the field?--Art thou come from the host?”--“From the slaughter, lady!--All, all is lost!Our banners are taken, our knights laid low,Our spearmen chased by the Paynim foe;And thy lord,” his voice took a sadder sound--“Thy lord--he is not on the bloody ground!There are those who tell that the leader’s plumeWas seen on the flight through th’ gathering gloom.”

--A change o’er her mien and her spirit pass’d:She ruled the heart which had beat so fast,She dash’d the tears from her kindling eye,With a glance, as of sudden royalty:The proud blood sprang in a fiery flow,Quick o’er bosom, and cheek, and brow,And her young voice rose till the peasant shookAt the thrilling tone and the falcon-look:--“Dost thou stand by the tombs of the glorious dead,And fear not to say that their son hath fled?--Away! he is lying by lance and shield,--Point me the path to his battle-field!”

The shadows of the forestAre about the lady now;She is hurrying through the midnight on,Beneath the dark pine-bough.

There’s a murmur of omens in every leaf,There’s a wail in the stream like the dirge of a chief;The branches that rock to the tempest strifeAre groaning like things of troubled life;The wind from the battle seems rushing byWith a funeral-march through the gloomy sky;The pathway is rugged, and wild, and long,But her frame in the daring of love is strong,And her soul as on swelling seas upborne,And girded all fearful things to scorn.

And fearful things were around her spread,When she reach’d the field of the warrior-dead;There lay the noble, the valiant, low--Ay! but one word speaks of deeper woe;There lay the loved--on each fallen headMothers vain blessings and tears had shed;Sisters were watching in many a homeFor the fetter’d footstep, no more to come;Names in the prayer of that night were spoken,Whose claim unto kindred prayer was broken;And the fire was heap’d, and the bright wine pour’d,For those, now needing nor hearth nor board;Only a requiem, a shroud, a knell,And oh! ye beloved of women, farewell!

Silently, with lips compress’d,Pale hands clasp’d above her breast,Stately brow of anguish high,Deathlike cheek, but dauntless eye;Silently, o’er that red plain,Moved the lady midst the slain.

Sometimes it seem’d as a charging-cry,Or the ringing tramp of a steed, came nigh;Sometimes a blast of the Paynim horn,Sudden and shrill from the mountains borne;And her maidens trembled;--but on her earNo meaning fell with those sounds of fear;They had less of mastery to shake her now,Than the quivering, erewhile, of an aspen bough.She search’d into many an unclosed eye,That look’d, without soul, to the starry sky;She bow’d down o’er many a shatter’d breast,She lifted up helmet and cloven crest--Not there, not there he lay!“Lead where the most hath been dared and done,Where the heart of the battle hath bled,--lead on!”And the vassal took the way.

He turn’d to a dark and lonely treeThat waved o’er a fountain red:Oh! swiftest there had the currents freeFrom noble veins been shed.

Thickest there the spear-heads gleam’d,And the scatter’d plumage stream’d,And the broken shields were toss’d,And the shiver’d lances cross’d,And the mail-clad sleepers roundMade the harvest of that ground.

He was there! the leader amidst his band,Where the faithful had made their last, vain stand;He was there! but affection’s glance aloneThe darkly-changed in that hour had known;With the falchion yet in his cold hand grasp’d,And a banner of France to his bosom clasp’d,And the form that of conflict bore fearful trace,And the face--oh! speak not of that dead face!As it lay to answer love’s look no more,Yet never so proudly loved before!

She quell’d in her soul the deep floods of woe,--The time was not yet for their waves to flow;She felt the full presence, the might of death,Yet there came no sob with her struggling breath;And a proud smile shone o’er her pale despair,As she turn’d to his followers--“Your lord is there!Look on him! know him by scarf and crest!--Bear him away with his sires to rest!”

Another day, another night,And the sailor on the deepHears the low chant of a funeral riteFrom the lordly chapel sweep.

It comes with a broken and muffled tone,As if that rite were in terror done;Yet the song midst the seas hath a thrilling power,And he knows ’tis a chieftain’s burial-hour.

Hurriedly, in fear and woe,Through the aisle the mourners go;With a hush’d and stealthy tread,Bearing on the noble dead;Sheath’d in armour of the field--Only his wan face reveal’d,Whence the still and solemn gleamDoth a strange, sad contrast seemTo the anxious eyes of that pale band,With torches wavering in every hand,For they dread each moment the shout of warAnd the burst of the Moslem scimitar.

There is no plumed head o’er the bier to bend,No brother of battle, no princely friend:No sound comes back, like the sounds of yore,Unto sweeping swords from the marble floor;By the red fountain the valiant lie,The flower of Provençal chivalry;But one free step, and one lofty heart,Bear through that scene to the last their part.

She hath led the death-train of the braveTo the verge of his own ancestral grave;She hath held o’er her spirit long rigid sway,But the struggling passion must now have way.In the cheek, half seen through her mourning veil,By turns does the swift blood flush and fail;The pride on the lip is lingering still,But it shakes as a flame to the blast might thrill;Anguish and triumph are met at strife,Rending the cords of her frail young life;And she sinks at last on her warrior’s bier,Lifting her voice, as if death might hear.“I have won thy fame from the breath of wrong,My soul hath risen for thy glory strong!Now call me hence, by thy side to be,The world thou leav’st has no place for me.The light goes with thee, the joy, the worth--Faithful and tender! Oh! call me forth!Give me my home on thy noble heart,--Well have we loved, let us both depart!”--And pale on the breast of the dead she lay,The living cheek to the cheek of clay;The living cheek!--oh! it was not vain,That strife of the spirit to rend its chain;She is there at rest in her place of pride,In death how queen-like--a glorious bride!

Joy for the freed one!--she might not stayWhen the crown had fallen from her life away;She might not linger--a weary thing,A dove with no home for its broken wing,Thrown on the harshness of alien skies,That know not its own land’s melodies.From the long heart-withering early gone;She hath lived--she hath loved--her task is done!

Founded on an incident in the early French history.