The Legend of the Drachenfels

“Lead me away! I am weak and young,Captive the fierce and proud among;But I will pray a humble prayer,That the feeble to strike may be strong to bear.

“Lead me away! oh, dear to mine eyesAre the flowery fields and the sunny skies;But I cannot turn from the Cross divine,To bend my knee at an idol’s shrine.”

They clothe her in such rich arrayAs a bride prepares for her bridal day;Around her forehead, that shines so bright,They wreathe a wreath of roses white,And set on her neck a golden chain,Spoil of her sire in combat slain,Over her head her doom is said;And with folded arms and measured tread,In long procession, dark and slow,Up the terrible hill they go,Hymning their hymn, and crying their cry,To him, their Demon Deity--Mary, Mother, sain and save!The maiden kneels at the Dragon’s cave!

Alas! ’tis frightful to beholdThat thing of Nature’s softest mould,In whose slight shape and delicate hueLife’s loveliness beams, fresh and new,Bound on the bleak hill’s topmost height,To die, and by such death, to-night!But yester-eve, when the red sunHis race of grateful toil had run,And over earth the moon’s soft raysLit up the hour of prayer and praise,She bowed within the pleasant shadeBy her own fragrant jasmine made;And while her clear and thrilling toneAsked blessing from her Maker’s throne,Heard the notes echoed to her earFrom lips that were to her most dear.Her sire, her kindred, round her knelt;And the young priestess knew and feltThat deeper love than that of menWas in their natural temple then.That love--is now its radiance chill?Oh! fear not! it is o’er her still!

The crowd departed; and aloneShe kneeled upon the rugged stone.Alas! it was a dismal pause,When the wild rabble’s fierce applauseDied slowly on the answering air;And in the still and mute profound,She started even at the soundOf the half-thought, half-spoken prayerHer heart and lip had scarcely powerTo feel or frame in that dark hour,Fearful, yet blameless! for her birth,Fair victim, was of common earth,And she was nurst, in happier hours,By Nature’s common suns and showers;And when one moment whirls awayWhate’er we know or trust to-day,And opens that eternal book,On which we long, and dread, to look--In that quick change of sphere and scope,That rushing of the spirit’s wingsFrom all we have to all we hope,From mortal to immortal things--Though madly on the giddy brinkDespair may smile, and Guilt dissemble,White Innocence a while will shrink,And Piety be proud to tremble!But quickly from her brow and cheekThe flush of human terror faded,And she aroused, the maiden meek,Her fainting spirit, self-upbraided,And felt her secret soul renewedIn that her solemn solitude.Unwonted strength to her was givenTo bear the rod and drink the cup;Her pulse beat calmer, and to HeavenHer voice in firmer tone went up:And as upon her gentle heartThe dew of holy peace descended,She saw her last sunlight departWith awe and hope so meekly blendedInto a deep and tranquil senseOf unpresuming confidence,That if the blinded tribes, whose breathHad doomed her to such dole and death,Could but have caught one bright, brief glanceOf that ungrieving countenance,And marked the light of glory shedAlready o’er her sinless head,The tears with which her eyes were full--Tears not of anguish--and the smileOf new-born rapture, which the whileAs with a lustrous veil arrayedHer brow, her cheek, her lip, and madeHer beauty more than beautiful--Oh, would they not have longed to shareHer torture--yea! her transport, there?

“Father, my sins are very great;Thou readest them, whate’er they be;But penitence is all too late;And unprepared I come to Thee,Uncleansed, unblessed, unshriven!

“Yet Thou, in whose all-searching sightNo human thing is undefiled--Thou, who art merciful in might,Father, Thou wilt forgive Thy child--Father, Thou hast forgiven!

“Thy will, not hers, be done to-day!If in this hour, and on this spot,Her soul indeed must pass awayAmong fierce men who know Thee not--Thine is the breath Thou gavest!

“Or, if Thou wilt put forth Thine handAnd shield her from the jaws of flame,That she may live to teach the landWhose people hath not heard Thy name--Thine be the life Thou savest!”

So spoke the blessed maid, and nowCrossing her hands upon her breast,With quiet eye and placid browAwaited the destroying pest;Not like a thing of sense and lifeSoul-harrassed in such bitter strife,But tranquil, as a shape of stoneUpraised in ages long bygoneTo mark where, closed her toilsome race,Some sainted sister sleeps in grace.Such Bertha seemed: about her grewSweet wild-flowers, sweet of scent and hue;And she had fixed with pious careHer crucifix before her there,That her last look and thought might beOf Christ and of the Holy Tree.

The day was gone, but it was not night:--Whither so suddenly fled the light?Nature seemed sick with a sore disease;Over her hills and streams and treesUnnatural darkness fell;The earth and the heaven, the river and shore,In the lurid mist were seen no more;And the voice of the mountain monster rose,As he lifted him up from his noontide repose,First in a hiss and then in a cry,And then in a yell that shook the sky;The eagle from high fell down to dieAt the sound of that mighty yell:From his wide jaws broke, as in wrath he woke,Scalding torrents of sulphurous smoke,And crackling coals in mad ascentAs from a red volcano went,And flames, like the flames of hell.

But his scream of fury waxed more shrill,When on the peak of the blasted hillHe saw his victim bound:Forth the Devourer, scale by scale,Uncoiled the folds of his steel-proof mail,Stretching his throat, and stretching his tail,And hither and thither rolling him o’er,Till he covered four score feet and fourOf the wearied and wailing ground:And at last he raised from his stony bedThe horrors of his speckled head;Up like a comet the meteor went,And seemed to shake the firmament,And batter heaven’s own walls!For many a long mile, well I ween,The fires that shot from those eyes were seen;The Burschen of Bonn, if Bonn had been,Would have shuddered in their halls.Woe for the Virgin!--bootless hereWere glistening shield and whistling spearSuch battle to abide;The mightiest engines that ever the tradeOf human homicide hath made,Warwolf, balist, and catapult,Would like a stripling’s wand insultThat adamantine hide.Woe for the Virgin!--Lo! what spellHath scattered the darkness, and silenced the yell,And quenched those fiery showers?--Why turns the serpent from his prey?--The Cross hath barred his terrible way,The Cross among the flowers.As an eagle pierced on his cloudy throne,As a column sent from its base of stone,Backward the stricken monster dropped;Never he stayed, and never he stopped,Till deep in the gushing tide he sankAnd buried lay beneath the stream,Passing away like a loathsome dream.Well may you guess how either bankAs with an earthquake shook;The mountains rocked from brow to base;The river boiled with a hideous din;As the burning mass fell heavily in;And the wide, wide Rhine, for a moment’s spaceWas scorched into a brook.

Night passed, ere the multitude dared to creep,Huddled together, up the steep;They came to the stone; in speechless aweThey fell on their face at the sight they saw:The maiden was free from hurt or harm,But the iron had passed from her neck and arm,And the glittering links of the broken chainLay scattered about like drops of rain.

And deem ye that the rescued childTo her father-land would come--That the remnant of her kindred smiledAround her in her home,And that she lived in love of earth,Among earth’s hopes and fears,And gave God thanks for the daily birthOf blessings in after years?--Holy and happy, she turned not awayFrom the task her Saviour set that day;What was her kindred, her home, to her?She had been Heaven’s own messenger!

Short time went by from that dread hourOf manifested wrath and power,Ere from the cliff a little shrineLooked down upon the rolling Rhine.Duly the virgin Priestess thereLed day by day the hymn and prayer;And the dark heathen round her pressedTo know their Maker, and be blessed.