Court-Yard of the Castle

HUBERT.How sad the grand old castle looks!O'erhead, the unmolested rooksUpon the turret's windy topSit, talking of the farmer's cropHere in the court-yard springs the grass,So few are now the feet that pass;The stately peacocks, bolder grown,Come hopping down the steps of stone,As if the castle were their own;And I, the poor old seneschal,Haunt, like a ghost, the banquet-hall.Alas! the merry guests no moreCrowd through the hospitable door;No eyes with youth and passion shine,No cheeks glow redder than the wine;No song, no laugh, no jovial dinOf drinking wassail to the pin;But all is silent, sad, and drear,And now the only sounds I hearAre the hoarse rooks upon the walls,And horses stamping in their stalls!

What ho! that merry, sudden blastReminds me of the days long past!And, as of old resounding, grateThe heavy hinges of the gate,And, clattering loud, with iron clank,Down goes the sounding bridge of plank,As if it were in haste to greetThe pressure of a traveller's feet!

WALTER.How now, my friend! This looks quite lonely!No banner flying from the walls,No pages and no seneschals,No warders, and one porter only!Is it you, Hubert?

HUBERT.Ah! Master Walter!

WALTER.Alas! how forms and faces alter!I did not know you. You look older!Your hair has grown much grayer and thinner,And you stoop a little in the shoulder!

HUBERT.Alack! I am a poor old sinner,And, like these towers, begin to moulder;And you have been absent many a year!

WALTER.How is the Prince?

HUBERT.He is not here;He has been ill: and now has fled.

WALTER.Speak it out frankly: say he's dead!Is it not so?

HUBERT.No; if you please,A strange, mysterious diseaseFell on him with a sudden blight.Whole hours together he would standUpon the terrace in a dream,Resting his head upon his hand,Best pleased when he was most alone,Like Saint John Nepomuck in stone,Looking down into a stream.In the Round Tower, night after night,He sat and bleared his eyes with books;Until one morning we found him thereStretched on the floor, as if in a swoonHe had fallen from his chair.We hardly recognized his sweet looks!

WALTER.Poor Prince!

HUBERT.I think he might have mended;And he did mend; but very soonThe priests came flocking in, like rooks,With all their crosiers and their crooks,And so at last the matter ended.

WALTER.How did it end?

HUBERT.Why, in Saint RochusThey made him stand and wait his doom;And, as if he were condemned to the tomb,Began to mutter their hocus-pocus.First, the Mass for the Dead they chanted,Then three times laid upon his headA shovelful of churchyard clay,Saying to him, as he stood undaunted,"This is a sign that thou art dead,So in thy heart be penitent!"And forth from the chapel door he wentInto disgrace and banishment,Clothed in a cloak of hodden gray,And hearing a wallet, and a bell,Whose sound should be a perpetual knellTo keep all travellers away.

WALTER.Oh, horrible fate! Outcast, rejected,As one with pestilence infected!

HUBERT.Then was the family tomb unsealed,And broken helmet, sword, and shieldBuried together, in common wreck,As is the custom when the lastOf any princely house has passed,And thrice, as with a trumpet-blast,A herald shouted down the stairThe words of warning and despair,--"O Hoheneck! O Hoheneck!"

WALTER.Still in my soul that cry goes on,--Forever gone! forever gone!Ah, what a cruel sense of loss,Like a black shadow, would fall acrossThe hearts of all, if he should die!His gracious presence upon earthWas as a fire upon a hearth;As pleasant songs, at morning sung,The words that dropped from his sweet tongueStrengthened our hearts; or heard at nightMade all our slumbers soft and light.Where is he?

HUBERT.In the Odenwald.Some of his tenants, unappalledBy fear of death, or priestly word,--A holy family, that makeEach meal a Supper of the Lord,--Have him beneath their watch and ward,For love of him, and Jesus' sake!Pray you come in. For why should IWith out-door hospitalityMy prince's friend thus entertain?

WALTER.I would a moment here remain.But you, good Hubert, go before,Fill me a goblet of May-drink,As aromatic as the MayFrom which it steals the breath away,And which he loved so well of yore;It is of him that I would think.You shall attend me, when I call,In the ancestral banquet-hall.Unseen companions, guests of air,You cannot wait on, will be there;They taste not food, they drink not wine,But their soft eyes look into mine,And their lips speak to me, and allThe vast and shadowy banquet-hallIs full of looks and words divine!

The day is done; and slowly from the sceneThe stooping sun up-gathers his spent shafts,And puts them back into his golden quiver!Below me in the valley, deep and greenAs goblets are, from which in thirsty draughtsWe drink its wine, the swift and mantling riverFlows on triumphant through these lovely regions,Etched with the shadows of its sombre margent,And soft, reflected clouds of gold and argent!Yes, there it flows, forever, broad and stillAs when the vanguard of the Roman legionsFirst saw it from the top of yonder hill!How beautiful it is! Fresh fields of wheat,Vineyard and town, and tower with fluttering flag,The consecrated chapel on the crag,And the white hamlet gathered round its base,Like Mary sitting at her Saviour's feet,And looking up at his beloved face!O friend! O best of friends! Thy absence moreThan the impending night darkens the landscape o'er!