Long and long was he unheard of:
To his brother then he came,
Made confession, asked forgiveness,
Asked it by a brother's name,
And by all the saints in heaven;
And of Eustace was forgiven:
Then in a convent went to hide
His melancholy head, and there he died.
But Sir Eustace, whom good angels
Had preserved from murderers' hands,
And from pagan chains had rescued,
Lived with honour on his lands.
Sons he had, saw sons of theirs:
And through ages, heirs of heirs,
A long posterity renowned
Sounded the horn which they alone could sound.
THE MIRACLE OF THE ROSES.
BY ROBERT SOUTHEY.
There dwelt in Bethlehem a Jewish maid,
And Zillah was her name, so passing fair
That all Judea spake the virgin's praise.
He who had seen her eyes' dark radiance,
How it revealed her soul, and what a soul
Beamed in the mild effulgence, woe to him!
For not in solitude, for not in crowds,
Might he escape remembrance, nor avoid
Her imaged form, which followed everywhere,
And filled the heart, and fixed the absent eye.
Alas for him! her bosom owned no love
Save the strong ardour of religious zeal;
For Zillah upon heaven had centred all
Her spirit's deep affections. So for her
Her tribe's men sighed in vain, yet reverenced
The obdurate virtue that destroy'd their hopes.
One man there was, a vain and wretched man,
Who saw, desired, despaired, and hated her:
His sensual eye had gloated on her cheek
E'en till the flush of angry modesty
Gave it new charms, and made him gloat the more.
She loathed the man, for Hamuel's eye was bold,
And the strong workings of brute selfishness
Had moulded his broad features; and she feared
The bitterness of wounded vanity
That with a fiendish hue would overcast
His faint and lying smile. Nor vain her fear,
For Hamuel vowed revenge, and laid a plot
Against her virgin fame. He spread abroad
Whispers that travel fast, and ill reports
That soon obtain belief; how Zillah's eye,
When in the temple heavenward it was raised,
Did swim with rapturous zeal, but there were those
Who had beheld the enthusiast's melting glance
With other feelings filled:—that 'twas a task
Of easy sort to play the saint by day
Before the public eye, but that all eyes
Were closed at night;—that Zillah's life was foul,
Yea, forfeit to the law.
Shame—shame to man,
That he should trust so easily the tongue
Which stabs another's fame! The ill report
Was heard, repeated, and believed,—and soon,
For Hamuel by his well-schemed villainy
Produced such semblances of guilt,—the maid
Was to the fire condemned!
Without the walls
There was a barren field; a place abhorred,
For it was there where wretched criminals
Received their death! and there they fixed the stake,
And piled the fuel round, which should consume
The injured maid, abandoned, as it seemed,
By God and man.
The assembled Bethlehemites
Beheld the scene, and when they saw the maid
Bound to the stake, with what calm holiness
She lifted up her patient looks to heaven,
They doubted of her guilt.—
With other thoughts
Stood Hamuel near the pile; him savage joy
Led thitherward, but now within his heart
Unwonted feelings stirred, and the first pangs
Of wakening guilt, anticipant of hell!