Pike County Ballads | Page 7

no truth!
May the good hearts die
and the bad ones flourish,
And a greed of glory but live to nourish

Envy and hate in its restless youth.
"In the barren soil may the ploughshare rust,
While the sword grows
bright with its fatal labour,
And blackens between each man and
neighbour
The perilous cloud of a vague distrust!
"Be the noble idle, the peasant in thrall,
And each to the other as
unknown things,
That with links of hatred and pride the kings
May
forge firm fetters through each for all!
"May a king wrong them as they wronged their king
May he wring
their hearts as they wrung mine,
Till they pour their blood for his
revels like wine,
And to women and monks their birthright fling!"
The mad king died; but the rushing river
Still brawls by the spot
where his donjon stands,
And its swift waves sigh to the conscious
sands
That the curse of King Saloman works for ever.
For flowing by Pressbourg they heard the cheers
Ring out from the
leal and cheated hearts
That were caught and chained by Theresa's
arts, -
A man's cool head and a girl's hot tears!
And a star, scarce risen, they saw decline,
Where Orsova's hills
looked coldly down,
As Kossuth buried the Iron Crown
And fled in
the dark to the Turkish line.
And latest they saw in the summer glare
The Magyar nobles in pomp
arrayed,
To shout as they saw, with his unfleshed blade,
A
Hapsburg beating the harmless air.
But ever the same sad play they saw,
The same weak worship of

sword and crown,
The noble crushing the humble down,
And
moulding Wrong to a monstrous Law.
The donjon stands by the turbid river,
But Time is crumbling its
battered towers;
And the slow light withers a despot's powers,
And
a mad king's curse is not for ever!
THE MONKS OF BASLE.
I tore this weed from the rank, dark soil
Where it grew in the monkish
time,
I trimmed it close and set it again
In a border of modern
rhyme.
I.
Long years ago, when the Devil was loose
And faith was sorely
tried,
Three monks of Basle went out to walk
In the quiet eventide.
A breeze as pure as the breath of Heaven
Blew fresh through the
cloister-shades,
A sky as glad as the smile of Heaven
Blushed rose
o'er the minster-glades.
But scorning the lures of summer and sense,
The monks passed on in
their walk;
Their eyes were abased, their senses slept,
Their souls
were in their talk.
In the tough grim talk of the monkish days
They hammered and
slashed about, -
Dry husks of logic,--old scraps of creed, -
And the
cold gray dreams of doubt, -
And whether Just or Justified
Was the Church's mystic Head, -
And
whether the Bread was changed to God,
Or God became the Bread.
But of human hearts outside their walls
They never paused to dream,

And they never thought of the love of God
That smiled in the
twilight gleam.
II.
As these three monks went bickering on
By the foot of a

spreading tree,
Out from its heart of verdurous gloom
A song burst
wild and free, -
A wordless carol of life and love,
Of nature free and wild;
And the
three monks paused in the evening shade,
Looked up at each other
and smiled.
And tender and gay the bird sang on,
And cooed and whistled and
trilled,
And the wasteful wealth of life and love
From his happy
heart was spilled.
The song had power on the grim old monks
In the light of the rosy
skies;
And as they listened the years rolled back,
And tears came
into their eyes.
The years rolled back and they were young,
With the hearts and
hopes of men,
They plucked the daisies and kissed the girls
Of dear
dead summers again.
III.
But the eldest monk soon broke the spell;
"'Tis sin and shame,"
quoth he,
"To be turned from talk of holy things
By a bird's cry
from a tree.
"Perchance the Enemy of Souls
Hath come to tempt us so.
Let us
try by the power of the Awful Word
If it be he, or no!"
To Heaven the three monks raised their hands;
"We charge thee,
speak!" they said,
"By His dread Name who shall one day come
To
judge the quick and the dead, -
"Who art thou? Speak!" The bird laughed loud.
"I am the Devil," he
said.
The monks on their faces fell, the bird
Away through the
twilight sped.
A horror fell on those holy men
(The faithful legends say),
And one
by one from the face of the earth
They pined and vanished away.

IV.
So goes the tale of the monkish books,
The moral who runs
may read, -
He has no ears for Nature's voice
Whose soul is the
slave of creed.
Not all in vain with beauty and love
Has God the world adorned;

And he who Nature scorns and mocks,
By Nature is mocked and
scorned.
THE ENCHANTED SHIRT.
Fytte the First: wherein it shall be shown how the Truth is too mighty a
Drug for such as be of feeble temper.
The King was sick. His cheek was red
And his eye was clear and
bright;
He