FLORENCE.
———
BY HENRY B. HIRST.
———
PROLOGUE.
An humble cottage, overgrown
With woodbine, stood beside a hill,
And nigh it, murmuring through moss,
Rippled a little rill.
The hill was high and wore a crown
Of leafiness, whence, gazing down,
An eagle might behold the towers
And turrets of a town.
And many a pleasant country cot,
Snowy, and peering through the green,
With, now and then, a rivulet,
Meandering, might be seen.
But in the landscape, like a king,
A short half mile or more away,
A grim old castle stood, erect,
Baronial and gray.
Around it lay an ample park,
With, here and there, a drove of deer;
A rude old Norman edifice,
Dark, desolate and drear!
Perhaps it was the morning sun
Which made the ancient building smile,
But, nevertheless, a pleasant look
Was on the agéd pile.
Perhaps it was with joy it smiled
That morn, the merriest of the year,
Which welcomed home its youthful lord,
Young Lionel De Vere.
Perhaps the thought of earlier days
Flitted athwart its granite brain;
Perchance it dreamed it might behold
Those golden hours again—
Those hours when, in the tournament,
Warriors, in glistering steel attired,
Tilted before young demoiselles,
Who blushed to be admired;
Or when the forest echoes rang
With many a merry bugle-horn,
And stag and hounds, a baying rout,
Swept by some autumn morn.
But whether it was the morning sun
Which made the ancient mansion smile,
Or other things, a pleasant look
Lit up the agéd pile.
PART I.
She stood among her garden flowers,
The very loveliest lily there,
Beauty, bloom, purity and truth
Unfolding on the air.
He paused among the trees and gazed,
And like a bark with sails unfurled,
His heaving heart went forth to seek
Another and a fairer world.
All heaven he felt was in her eye;
Its sunshine glistened in her glance;
The air he breathed was elfin air;
His soul was in a trance:
“Ah, spirit of some virgin saint,
Turn—turn those blesséd eyes on me,
And let me kneel and worship thee!”
Deliriously said he.
She raised her eyes, her maiden cheek
Mounting the crimson tinge of dawn,
And, looking timidly around,
Stood, like a startled fawn.
“Nay, do not fly,” exclaimed the youth;
“Remain; allow my thirsty eyes
To quaff thy beauty: I would drain
A draught of Paradise.”
Wonder awaking in her face,
The maiden stood, with lips apart,
Drinking his voice, whose cadence stole
In harmony to her heart.
And even as she stood he came,
And, kneeling, bade her fear no wrong;
While all the while the murmuring air
Moved musical with song.
His words were not as other’s words,
His voice was like no other voice,
Somehow, she knew not why, it made
Her maiden heart rejoice.
And from that moment all things grew
Lovelier with light, because of him,
And, like a cup of wine, her heart
Was crimson to the brim.
“What shall I call thee?” asked the maid;
“How name thee?” “Clarence is my name,”
Returned the youth—“an honest one,
Though all unknown to fame.
“And how shall I call thee?” quoth he.
“Florence,” replied the maid—“a mean
And humble village girl.” “But fit,”
Said he, “to be a queen!”
Day after day, at eventide,
The stranger sought her, breathing words
Of passion, while her timid heart
Beat like a frightened bird’s.
But not with fear, for every pulse
Was swayed by love, that, moon-like, rides
The empyrean of the adoring heart
And rules its purple tides.
PART II.
Merrily through the town they went
A proud, chivalric cavalcade
Of knights and nobles and esquires,
In silken robes arrayed.
And each sustained his high degree,
But foremost there, without a peer
In manly majesty of mien,
Rode Lionel De Vere.
The ostrich plumes which flowed and waved
In silver clouds above his brow,
Were gray and lustreless beside
That forehead’s dazzling snow.
The diamond broach which held the plume
Flashed in the sunlight, like a star,
Throwing its ever radiant rays
In rainbow hues afar.
The ruby burning on his breast,
Blazing and blossoming as he turned,
Was fervid as his heart, which, fed
With honor, nobly burned.
And as he passed, his lofty head
Bending in answer to the cries
Of loving vassals, nobler form
Never met woman’s eyes.
A smile for one of mean degree,
A courteous bow for one of high,
So modulated both that each
Saw friendship in his eye.
Onward he rode, while like the sound
Of surf along a shingly shore,
The murmur of a people’s joy
Marched, herald-like, before.
Timidly, while before them pressed
The peasants, in a little nook
Two women stood—two timid things—
To snatch a hasty look:
One, weak and old—an agéd dame—
December toward its latter day;
The other young and pure and fair,
The maiden month of May:
Trembling with curious delight
She rose on tip-toe, gazing through
The mass of heads which, like a hedge,
Bordered the avenue.
The sound of horns, which rolled and broke
Like summer thunder, and the crash
Of cymbals, while the hound-like drum
Howled underneath the lash;
The toss of plumes, the neigh of steeds,
The silken murmur of attire,
As the proud cavalcade drew nigh,
Filled her young heart with fire.
He came, her lord, the lord of all
Who gazed and gazed afar or near,
And as he bowed they hailed with shouts
Lord Lionel De Vere.
A trouble flitted through her face—
A shadow, and before her eyes
She passed her hands, as if to check
Some terrible surmise.
Nearer and nearer, while like one
Struck dumb she gazed, the noble came,
And as he passed the people flung
Their blessings on his name.
One little cry—a feeble cry—
The name of “Clarence,” and she passed:
He heard it not, its tiny sound
Died in the clarion’s blast.
PART III.
The cottage stood in solitude,
The woodbine rustled on the wall,
The Marguerites in the garden waved
In murmurs one and all;
And, rippling by, the rivulet
Seemed sobbing, like a frightened child,
Who, wandering on, has lost its way
In some deserted wild.
The day was waning in the west,
And slowly, like a dainty dream,
The delicate twilight dropped her veil
On fallow, field and stream.
The purple sky was sown with stars
When Clarence came: she was not there,
And desolately frowned the night,
And stagnant was the air.
But on the little rustic seat
Where they had often sat, there shone
A letter, and the noble name
Along it was his own.
“Farewell,” it said, “that I exist
Breathing the word which is the knell
Of love and hope is not my will.
But God’s alone: Farewell.
“Never more on this once loved spot,
Never more on the rivulet’s bank,
Shall we sojourn: my love, great lord,
Insults thy lofty rank.
“Go, seek some fitter mate: for me,
Too poor to be thy wife, too proud
To be thy leman, grief, despair,
The death-bed, and the shroud.”
He read appalled, amazed, aghast,
Stern as a statue, and the stone
Was pale Despair, its haggard look
Less awful than his own.
A thought, and like a storm he dashed
Along the grassy walk: no spark
Shone from the cottage: all within,
Without, around, was dark.
He knocked and knocked, but no one came:
He entered, and the silent room
Was vacant, and his darkened heart
Grew darker with the gloom.
Next day the grim old castle stood
Neglected: whether its heart of stone
Was touched, I know not, yet I heard
The ancient mansion moan.
Perhaps I was deceived; the wind
Went howling over woods and moors,
And round the castle, like a ghost
Stalking its corridors.
PART IV.
The snow had fallen hour on hour;
The wind was keen, and loud and shrill
It whistled through the naked trees
And round the frozen hill.
The country everywhere was white;
The forest oaks that moaned and pined
Wore caps of snow, which, bowing low,
They doffed before the wind.
Twilight descended, and the air
Was gray, and like a sense of dread,
Night on the virgin breast of earth
Her sable shadows spread.
Slowly, with wavering steps a man
Moved on a solitary moor,
With staff, and shell, and sandaled shoon,
A pilgrim pale and poor.
Slowly, with trembling steps he moved,
Pausing, as if uncertain where
To take his way, when, faint and far,
A bell disturbed the air.
And as with concentrated strength
He sought the sound, a little light
Shone flickeringly and glow-worm like
Through the ravine of night.
A little light that with each step
Became distinct, until his eyes
Beheld a convent’s welcome walls
Between him and the skies.
He reached the portal—rang the bell,
And as above him rose the moon,
Sank, like the storm: the portress found
The pilgrim in a swoon.
They bore the wasted wanderer in:
Pallid but beautiful he lay,
A dream which seemed to come from heaven
Though clad in suffering clay.
And when, long hours of anguish gone,
His eyes once more shone calmly blue,
Looks that seemed grievous memories
Dimmed their ethereal hue.
His soul, which many days had walked
The ploughshares of consuming love.
Wrung by the ordeal, raised its eyes
Toward Him Who reigned above.
He sought the chapel; at the shrine
Knelt, while his eyes were wet with tears—
God’s love in holy harmonies
Filling his penitent ears.
Even as he knelt the solemn mass,
“Ora pro nobis, domine,”
Rose, like a dove on sun-lit wings,
Seeking the heavenly way.
Concordant voices sweet and clear
Rang through the consecrated nave,
Discoursing melodies which rolled
And broke, wave over wave.
As in an ecstasy he knelt,
Cheeks, lips and eyes alive with light,
Radiant, as if a saint, or Christ
Himself had blessed his sight.
For in the voices one sweet voice
Swam, like a spirit’s, in his ears:
He could not speak, or move, or breathe;
While slowly trickling tears
Ran down his cheeks, as, louder still,
The swan-voiced organ breathed its knell,
And on its cloudy height of song
Paused, trembled, moaned and fell.
But as its echoes died away,
His spirit trod that golden shore
Where hope becomes reality
And sorrow is no more.
He sought the abbess; on his knees
Unfolded, page by page, his grief;
While she, albeit cold and stern,
Wept, yielding to belief.
And Florence came, while Clarence stood
In breathless silence far apart,
A thousand hopes and joys and fears
Conflicting at his heart.
Throwing aside his pilgrim cowl
Clarence fell trembling at her feet:
“Florence,” he murmured, “loved and lost,
At last, at last we meet.”
She stood in silence, with her eyes
Fixed on the youth—a heavenly calm
From out whose subsidence of sound
Came “Clarence,” like a psalm.
And then he knelt and told his tale:
How he had loved in other lands,
And she he sought had faithlessly
Obeyed a sire’s commands,
And left him desolate; how, when,
After long weeks of aching pain
A pale, heartbroken, weary man,
With fevered brow and brain,
He sought his native land, and stood
Again within his castle halls,
But found that soothing Peace had flown
Forever from its walls;
And how, when wandering in the woods,
Accusing God of all his wo,
Madder with memories of the Past
Than any fiend below,
She, Florence, like an angel, rose
To calm his heart, and dry his tears,
And fill his brain with melodies
Stolen from statelier spheres.
And how he sought to test her love,
And feared, recurring to the past,
That this, his eidolon of joy,
Might prove too bright to last.
And so, in humble garb, in state
No loftier than the maiden’s own,
He sought her love, not for his lands
But for himself alone.
And how he came and found her gone,
And since, month after month, in pain,
Had followed her from town to town,
With burning heart and brain;
And how, when hope was gone, and life
Seemed like a land which lay behind—
The future like a desolate void—
How, when he most repined—
When death had been a welcome thing,
Her voice, the concord of the spheres,
Had called his memory from her tomb
On which it lay in tears.
She stood and listened with her eyes
And ears and heart—cheek, lip and brow
Serene with happiness which shone,
Like sunlight over snow.
And with a breathless eloquence
Which, more than words or vows, exprest
Her boundless confidence, she hid
Her blushes in his breast.
EPILOGUE.
One day, in early autumn time,
In spirit, I traversed the plain,
And sought De Vere’s ancestral towers,
And gazed on them again.
They stood in green and glorious age;
The rooks wheeled round the ancient walls,
And peals of mirthful merriment
Peopled the castle halls—
Loud laughs, which made the watchful deer,
With ears thrown forward, look and bleat
And seek a covert, while the sounds
Followed their pattering feet.
The swallows, twittering in the air,
Seemed sharers in the general gladness;
The stares from oak and beach and elm,
Chattered in merry madness.
Across the drawbridge, as I gazed,
A merry, laughing cavalcade,
With dogs in leash and hawk on hand,
Dashed madly down the glade.
Among them, stateliest of them all,
Sat one whose broad and ample brow,
Though white with time, was full of life
As lichen under snow.
And by his side, with smiling eye,
And swelling breast, in robes of green,
Rode one, round whom the nobles prest
As round a loving queen.
And after, hand on hip, two youths
Rode gayly onward, side by side,
Returning with admiring love
Their parents’ glance of pride.
While in the distance, like a sire
Who sees at Christmas festival
His happy children laughing round,
Smiled the baronial hall.