Where towering o'er the vale on high,
Those ice-bound summits pierce the sky;
And on the mountain flood amain,
The giant oak, and dusky plane,
Uptorn, with ever-deepening sound,
Rush roughly 'mid the gorge profound:
Behold—where horrors mark the scene,
And loveliest Nature smiles between,
Yon ivied arch and turrets gray,
Mouldering in serene decay;
Half choked, the scanty columns rise,
Where the prone roof in fragments lies;—
Of yore, so legends tell, the fane
Was call'd, of sainted Bernard's train;
Pious Brethren, self denying,
Fill'd with thoughts of holy dying,
Here, 'mid penance, prayer, and praise,
Content they wore their tranquil days;
Now the heavenly truths expounding,
In the Lord's good work abounding;
For deeds of love the dome was bless'd;
The hungry fed, the faint had rest;—
Thus they gave their light to shine,
And the Bread of Life divine!
These walls confess'd, long ages flown,
Strange tidings of the world unknown;
And dark the boding wonder fell,
With signal of the midnight bell:
For ever, as in solemn row,
The Brotherhood, devout and slow,
Paced the dim-lighted aisles along,
Loud echoing to the choral song;
To each—when the dread hour was nigh,
Of man's appointed lot—to die,
A sure forewarner told of doom,
With silent summons to the tomb:
As in the choir he knelt to pray,
On the desk a white Rose lay!
Prompt at the sign of awful power,
The destined brother took the flower,
"Thy will be done!" he cried, and press'd
Death's pale memento to his breast;
And straight retired, the Office o'er,
He left his cloister'd cell no more;
There, with due shrift and penance made,
The last absolving rites were paid,
And dead to thoughts of earth and time,
The doom'd one soar'd on hope sublime!
But first, with reverend hand, he placed
The monitory emblem chaste
On that dear pledge of pardon free,
Christ on his redeeming tree!
Then gazed, as the long hours crept by,
With solemn thought, and musing eye,
From early dawn to eve's repose,
Steadfast on the warning Rose!
And quick the shadow'd message came;
To dust return'd the mortal frame;
And with sad strains and funeral moan,
They hymn'd the soul to Mercy's throne!
Thus by mysterious high behest,
Each holy brother sank to rest,
Forewarn'd with supernatural power,
By the Rose at midnight hour!
It chanced, as once, for nightly prayer,
They reach'd the choir—the Rose was there!
Oh grief! before a youth it lay,
Warning that his life's young day
Must wither in its blooming May!
With sudden mortal pang, dismay'd
At thought, like the brief Rose to fade;
While death and awful judgment near
Made life's half-tasted charms more dear;
The youth, with anxious, trembling haste,
Unseen, the boding flower displaced;
Thus might the signal'd doom betide,
He deem'd, the brother at his side,
Who, calm in age, his last repose
Long waiting, hailed the welcome Rose!
For him, by faith assured, to die—
His birth of immortality!
But on the morrow—hark! the sound
Of sorrow's wailings echoes round:
What means the tear—the plaint—the sigh?
Why sits despair in every eye?
Oh, dire presage! two souls had fled—
The old man and the youth were dead!
And with dumb wondering awe they view
The White Rose tinged with purple hue!
For this the ceaseless knell is rung,
For this the choral Requiem sung:—
And when, few summers past, once more
They wept a brother gone before;
No longer the White Rose was seen;
It shunn'd the spot where crime had been!
A pilgrim in the Alpine vale,
I heard the legendary tale;
And as at eve, by Fancy woo'd,
Amid the dark'ning aisles I stood;
O'er crumbling stone and grassy mound,
I saw the White Rose blooming round!
Death's flower, methought, fit emblem made
To dwell in Ruin's silent shade!
And may the youth—I breathed a prayer—
Have owned the Saviour's pardoning care,
Who, deaf to warnings from the sky,
Tinged the White Rose with murder's dye! |