A Covered Bridge at Lucerne

God's blessing on the architects who buildThe bridges o'er swift rivers and abyssesBefore impassable to human feet,No less than on the builders of cathedrals,Whose massive walls are bridges thrown acrossThe dark and terrible abyss of Death.Well has the name of Pontifex been givenUnto the Church's head, as the chief builderAnd architect of the invisible bridgeThat leads from earth to heaven.

ELSIE.How dark it grows!What are these paintings on the walls around us?

The Dance Macaber!

ELSIE.What?

The Dance of Death!All that go to and fro must look upon it,Mindful of what they shall be, while beneath,Among the wooden piles, the turbulent riverRushes, impetuous as the river of life,With dimpling eddies, ever green and bright,Save where the shadow of this bridge falls on it.

ELSIE.Oh yes! I see it now!

The grim musicianLeads all men through the mazes of that dance,To different sounds in different measures moving;Sometimes he plays a lute, sometimes a drum,To tempt or terrify.

ELSIE.What is this picture?

It is a young man singing to a nun,Who kneels at her devotions, but in kneelingTurns round to look at him; and Death, meanwhile,Is putting out the candles on the altar!

ELSIE.Ah, what a pity 't is that she should listenUnto such songs, when in her orisonsShe might have heard in heaven the angels singing!

Here he has stolen a jester's cap and bellsAnd dances with the Queen.

ELSIE.A foolish jest!

And here the heart of the new-wedded wife,Coming from church with her beloved lord,He startles with the rattle of his drum.

ELSIE.Ah, that is sad! And yet perhaps 't is bestThat she should die, with all the sunshine on her,And all the benedictions of the morning,Before this affluence of golden lightShall fade into a cold and clouded gray,Then into darkness!

Under it is written,"Nothing but death shall separate thee and me!"

ELSIE.And what is this, that follows close upon it?

Death playing on a dulcimer. Behind him,A poor old woman, with a rosary,Follows the sound, and seems to wish her feetWere swifter to o'ertake him. Underneath,The inscription reads, "Better is Death than Life."

ELSIE.Better is Death than Life! Ah yes! to thousandsDeath plays upon a dulcimer, and singsThat song of consolation, till the airRings with it, and they cannot choose but followWhither he leads. And not the old alone,But the young also hear it, and are still.

Yes, in their sadder moments. 'T is the soundOf their own hearts they hear, half full of tears,Which are like crystal cups, half filled with water,Responding to the pressure of a fingerWith music sweet and low and melancholy.Let us go forward, and no longer stayIn this great picture-gallery of Death!I hate it! ay, the very thought of it!

ELSIE.Why is it hateful to you?

For the reasonThat life, and all that speaks of life, is lovely,And death, and all that speaks of death, is hateful.

ELSIE.The grave itself is but a covered bridge,Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness!

PRINCE HENRY, emerging from the bridge.I breathe again more freely! Ah, how pleasantTo come once more into the light of day,Out of that shadow of death! To hear againThe hoof-beats of our horses on firm ground,And not upon those hollow planks, resoundingWith a sepulchral echo, like the clodsOn coffins in a churchyard! Yonder liesThe Lake of the Four Forest-Towns, apparelledIn light, and lingering, like a village maiden,Hid in the bosom of her native mountainsThen pouring all her life into another's,Changing her name and being! Overhead,Shaking his cloudy tresses loose in air,Rises Pilatus, with his windy pines.