The Story and Song of Black Roderick

by Dora Sigerson Shorter

He blew three blasts upon his horn;
His men did make reply,
And came all quickly to his call,
Through brake and brier so high.

And every man who saw her there
Went down upon his knee;
Behind her came Earl Roderick,
All pitiful to see.

And in his trembling hand the helm
From his uncovered brow;
And "Oh," he said, "to love her well,
And know it only now!"

So he did walk while she did ride
Through all the town away,
For greater than Earl Roderick
She did become that day.

Now have I said how the heart of the Black Earl woke to love, and then was humbled, as the ancient crone had foretold; but of his sorrowful years, his desperate danger of eternal loss and his after-salvation, must I likewise tell, if the story would be pitiful in the ending.

Therefore shall I lay my harp aside, and so go back in my telling.

And I bid thee remember how the little pale bride was wont to sit upon the mountain and watch the far lights in her father's home quench themselves one by one.

So now of how she died shall I tell thee, and of what came to her in her passing, lest thou thinkest so innocent a child had laid violent hands upon her life, who only had met death through the breaking of her heart.

Here sat she on the mountain, and the wild things spoke of her in her silence. The red weasel, the bee, and the bramble, and many others, moved to watch her. Well have they known her in her young joyfulness; here had she made the place she loved best—the high brow of the hill where she sat as a child and watched—on the one side the far-off city and the white towers that held the wonder-knight of her dreams. Here had she sat and seen the gleam of his spear as he went with his hunters through the valley; and here, too, had her mother come to tell her of her betrothal, so she had nigh fainted in her happiness, in looking upon the white tower that was to be her home.

Here had she learned the sweet language of the birds and flowers, and they, too, had partaken of her joys; but of her sorrows they would not understand, for our joys and our laughter, are they not as the singing of the bird and the dancing of the fly, who weep only when they meet death? In our griefs do we not stand alone, who have in our hearts the fierce desires of love and all the tragedies of despair?