CARCASSONNE
BY M. E. W. SHERWOOD
How old I am! I'm eighty years. I've worked both hard and long,
Yet patient as my life has been, one dearest sight I have not seen,
It almost seems a wrong. A dream I had when life was young.
Alas! our dreams, they come not true.
I thought to see fair Carcassonne,
That lovely city, Carcassonne.
One sees it dimly from the height beyond the mountain blue.
Fain would I walk five weary leagues, I do not mind the road's fatigues,
Thro' morn and evening's dew.
But bitter frosts would fall at night, and on the grapes that withered blight,
I could not go to Carcassonne,
I never went to Carcassonne.
They say it is as gay all times as holidays at home.
The gentles ride in gay attire, and in the sun each gilded spire
Shoots up like those at Rome.
The bishop the procession leads, the generals curb their prancing steeds.
Alas! I saw not Carcassonne.
Alas! I know not Carcassonne.
Our vicar's right. He preaches loud and bids us to beware.
He says, "Oh, guard the weakest part and most the traitor in the heart
Against ambition's snare."
Perhaps in autumn I can find two sunny days with gentle wind,
I then could go to Carcassonne,
I still could go to Carcassonne.
My God and Father, pardon me, if this my wish offends.
One sees some hope more high than he in age, as in his infancy
To which his heart ascends.
My wife, my son have seen Narbonne, my grandson went to Perpignan,
But I have not seen Carcassonne,
But I have not seen Carcassonne.
Thus sighed a peasant bent with age, half dreaming in his chair.
I said, "My friend, come, go with me to-morrow; thine eyes shall see those streets
That seem so fair."
That night there came for passing soul the church-bell's low and solemn toll.
He never saw gay Carcassonne.
Who has not known a Carcassonne?
THE MUSICIANS
ANONYMOUS
The strings of my heart were strung by Pleasure,
And I laughed when the music fell on my ear,
For he and Mirth played a joyful measure,
And they played so loud that I could not hear
The wailing and mourning of souls a-weary,
The strains of sorrow that sighed around;
The notes of my heart sang blithe and cheery,
And I heard no other sound.
Mirth and Pleasure, the music brothers,
But sometimes a discord was heard by others
Tho only the rhythm was heard by me.
Louder and louder and faster and faster,
The hands of those brothers played strain on strain,
Till, all of a sudden a mighty master
Swept them aside, and Pain,
Pain, the Musician, the soul refiner,
Resting the strings of my quivering heart;
And the air that he played was a plaintive minor,
So sad that the tear-drops were forced to start.
Each note was an echo of awful anguish,
As shrill, as solemn, as sad as slow,
And my soul for a season seemed to languish
And faint with its weight of wo.
With skilful hands that were never weary,
This master of music played strain on strain;
And between the bars of the Miserere
He drew up the strings of my heart again.
And I was filled with a vague, strange wonder
To see that they did not break in two;
They are drawn so tight they will snap asunder
I thought, but instead they grew
In the hands of the Master, firmer and stronger,
And I could hear on the stilly air;
Now my ears were deafened by mirth no longer,
The sounds of sorrow, and grief and despair.
And my soul grew tender and kind to others;
My nature grew sweeter and my mind grew broad
And I held all men to be my brothers,
Linked by the chastening rod,
My soul was lifted to God and heaven,
And when on my heart-strings fell again
The hands of Mirth and Pleasure, even,
There was no discord to mar the strain,
For Pain, the Musician, the soul refiner,
Attuned the strings with a master hand,
And whether the music be major or minor,
It is always sweet and grand.