Pike County Ballads | Page 7

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 ate and drank with a kingly zest,?And peacefully snored at night.
But he said he was sick, and a king should know,?And doctors came by the score.?They did not cure him. He cut off their heads?And sent to the schools for more.
At last two famous doctors came,?And one was as poor as a rat, -?He had passed his life in studious toil,?And never found time to grow fat.
The other had never looked in a book;?His patients gave him no trouble -?If they recovered they paid him well,?If they died their heirs paid double.
Together they looked at the royal tongue,?As the King on his couch reclined;?In succession they thumped his august chest,?But no trace of disease could find.
The old sage said, "You're as sound as a nut."?"Hang him up!" roared the King in a gale, -?In a ten-knot gale of royal rage;?The other leech grew a shade pale;
But he pensively