THE BRIDAL OF BELMONT. A LEGEND OF THE RHINE.

Where foams and flows the glorious Rhine, Many a ruin, wan and grey, O’erlooks the corn-field and the vine, Majestic in its dark decay. Among their dim clouds, long ago, They mocked the battles that raged below, And greeted the guests in arms that came, With hissing arrow and scalding flame. But there is not one of the homes of pride That frown on the breast of the peaceful tide, Whose leafy walls more proudly tower Than these, the walls of Belmont Tower. Where foams and flows the glorious Rhine, Many a fierce and fiery lord Did carve the meat, and pour the wine, For all that revelled at his board. Father and son, they were all alike, Firm to endure, and fast to strike; Little they loved but a frou or a feast, Nothing they feared but a prayer or a priest. But there was not one in all the land More trusty of heart, more stout of hand; More valiant in field, or more courteous in bower, Than Otto, the Lord of Belmont Tower. Are you rich, single, and “your Grace?” I pity your unhappy case. Before you leave your travelling carriage, The women have arranged your marriage; Where’er your weary wit may lead you, They pet you, praise you, fret you, feed you; Consult your taste in wreaths and laces, And make you make their book at races: Your little pony, Tam O’Shanter, Is found to have the sweetest canter; Your curricle is quite reviving, And Jane’s so bold when you are driving! Some recollect your father’s habits, And know the warren, and the rabbits! The place is really princely—only They’re sure you’ll find it vastly lonely: You go to Cheltenham for the waters, And meet the Countess and her daughters; You take a cottage at Geneva— Lo! Lady Anne and Lady Eva. In horror of another session, You just surrender at discretion, And live to curse the frauds of mothers, And envy all your younger brothers. Count Otto bowed, Count Otto smiled, When my Lady praised her darling child; Count Otto smiled, Count Otto bowed, When the child those praises disavowed; As a knight should gaze, Count Otto gazed, Where Bertha in all her beauty blazed; As a knight should hear, Count Otto heard, When Liba sang like a forest bird; But he thought, I trow, about as long Of Bertha’s beauty and Liba’s song, As the sun may think of the clouds that play O’er his radiant path on a summer day. Many a maid had dreams of state, As the Count rode up to her father’s gate; Many a maid shed tears of pain, As the Count rode back to his tower again; But little he cared, as it should seem, For the sad, sad tear, or the fond, fond dream; Alone he lived—alone and free As the owl that dwells in the hollow tree; And the Baroness said and the Baron swore, That never was knight so shy before. It was almost the first of May: The sun, all smiles, had passed away; The moon was beautifully bright; Earth, heaven, as usual in such cases, Looked up and down with happy faces;— In short it was a charming night. And all alone, at twelve o’clock, The young Count clambered down the rock, Unfurled the sail, unchained the oar, And pushed the shallop from the shore. The holiness that sweet time flings Upon all human thoughts and things, When Sorrow checks her idle sighs, And Care shuts fast her wearied eyes,— The splendour of the hues that played Fantastical o’er hill and glade, As verdant slopes and barren cliff Seemed darting by the tiny skiff,— The flowers, whose faint tips, here and there, Breathed out such fragrance, you might swear That every soundless gale that fanned The tide came fresh from fairy-land,— The music of the mountain rill, Leaping in glee from hill to hill, To which some wild bird, now and then, Made answer from her darksome glen,— All this to him had rarer pleasure Than jester’s wit or minstrel’s measure; And, if you ever loved romancing, Or felt extremely tired of dancing, You’ll hardly wonder that Count Otto Left Lady Hildegonde’s ridotto. What melody glides o’er the starlit stream? “Lurley!—Lurley!” Angels of grace! does the young Count dream? “Lurley!—Lurley!” Or is the scene indeed so fair That a nymph of the sea or a nymph of the air Has left the home of her own delight, To sing to our roses and rocks to-night? “Lurley!—Lurley!” Words there are none; but the waves prolong The notes of that mysterious song: He listens, he listens; and all around Ripples the echo of that sweet sound, “Lurley!—Lurley!” No form appears on the river side; No boat is borne on the wandering tide; And the tones ring on, with nought to show Or whence they come or whither they go; “Lurley!—Lurley!” As fades one murmur on the ear, There comes another, just as clear; And the present is like to the parted strain, As link to link of a golden chain: “Lurley!—Lurley!” Whether the voice be sad or gay, ’Twere very hard for the Count to say; But pale are his cheeks, and pained his brow, And the boat drifts on, he recks not how; His pulse is quick, and his heart is wild, And he weeps, he weeps, like a little child. O mighty music! they who know The witchery of thy wondrous bow, Forget, when thy strange spells have bound them, The visible world that lies around them. When Lady Mary sings Rossini, Or stares at spectral Paganini, To Lady Mary does it matter Who laugh, who love, who fawn, who flatter? Oh no! she cannot heed or hear Reason or rhyme from prince or peer: In vain for her Sir Charles denounces The horror of the last new flounces; In vain the Doctor does his duty By doubting of her rival’s beauty; And if my Lord as usual raves About the sugar or the slaves; Predicts the nation’s future glories, And chants the requiem of the Tories, Good man,—she minds him just as much As Marshal Gerard minds the Dutch. Hid was the bright heaven’s loveliness Beneath a sudden cloud, As a bride might doff her bridal dress To don her funeral shroud; And over flood and over fell, With a wild and wicked shout, From the secret cell where in chains they dwell, The joyous winds rushed out; And, the tall hills through, the thunder flew, And down the fierce hail came; And from peak to peak the lightning threw Its shafts of liquid flame. The boat went down; without delay, The luckless boatman swooned away; And when, as a clear spring morning rose, He woke in wonder from repose, The river was calm as the river could be, And the thrush was awake on the gladsome tree, And there he lay, in a sunny cave, On the margin of the tranquil wave, Half deaf with that infernal din, And wet, poor fellow, to the skin. He looked to the left, and he looked to the right: Why hastened he not, the noble Knight, To dry his aged nurse’s tears, To calm his hoary butler’s fears, To listen to the prudent speeches Of half-a-dozen loquacious leeches, To swallow cordials circumspectly, And change his dripping cloak directly? With foot out-stretched, with hand up-raised, In vast surprise he gazed and gazed. Within a deep and damp recess A maiden lay in her loveliness. Lived she?—in sooth, ’twere hard to tell, Sleep counterfeited Death so well. A shelf of the rock was all her bed; A ceiling of crystal was o’er her head; Silken veil, nor satin vest, Shrouded her form in its silent rest; Only her long, long golden hair About her lay like a thin robe there. Up to her couch the young knight crept: How very sound the maiden slept! Fearful and faint the young knight sighed: The echoes of the cave replied. He leaned to look upon her face; He clasped her hand in a wild embrace; Never was form of such fine mould; But the hands and the face were as white and cold As they of the Parian stone were made To which, in great Minerva’s shade, The Athenian sculptor’s toilsome knife Gave all of loveliness but life. On her fair neck there seemed no stain Where the pure blood coursed through the delicate vein; And her breath, if breath indeed it were, Flowed in a current so soft and rare, It would scarcely have stirred the young moth’s wing On the path of his noonday wandering—Never on earth a creature trod Half so lovely, or half so odd. Count Otto stares till his eyelids ache, And wonders when she’ll please to wake; While fancy whispers strange suggestions, And wonder prompts a score of questions. Is she a nymph of another sphere? How came she hither? What doth she here? Or if the morning of her birth Be registered on this our earth, Why hath she fled from her father’s halls? And where hath she left her cloaks and shawls? There was no time for reason’s lectures, There was no time for wit’s conjectures; He threw his arm with timid haste Around the maiden’s slender waist, And raised her up, in a modest way, From the cold bare rock on which she lay: He was but a mile from his castle gate, And the lady was scarcely five stone weight; He stopped in less than half-an-hour, With his beauteous burden, at Belmont Tower. Gay, I ween, was the chamber drest, As the Count gave order for his guest; But scarcely on the couch, ’tis said, That gentle guest was fairly laid, When she opened at once her great blue eyes, And, after a glance of brief surprise, Ere she had spoken, and ere she had heard Of wisdom or wit a single word, She laughed so long, and laughed so loud, That Dame Ulrica often vowed A dirge is a merrier thing by half Than such a senseless, soulless laugh. Around the tower the elfin crew Seemed shouting in mirthful concert too; And echoed roof, and trembled rafter, With that unsentimental laughter. As soon as that droll tumult passed The maiden’s tongue, unchained at last, Asserted all its female right. And talked and talked with all its might. Oh, how her low and liquid voice Made the rapt hearer’s soul rejoice! ’Twas full of those clear tones that start From innocent childhood’s happy heart, Ere passion and sin disturb the well In which their mirth and music dwell. But man nor master could make out What the eloquent maiden talked about; The things she uttered like did seem To the bubbling waves of a limpid stream; For the words of her speech, if words they might be, Were the words of the speech of a far countrie; And when she had said them o’er and o’er, Count Otto understood no more Than you or I of the slang that falls From the dukes and dupes at Tattersall’s, Of Hebrew from a bearded Jew, Of metaphysics from a Blue. Count Otto swore,—Count Otto’s reading Might well have taught his better breeding,— That, whether the maiden should fume or fret, The maiden should not leave him yet; And so he took prodigious pains To make her happy in her chains. From Paris came a pair of cooks, From Göttingen a load of books, From Venice stores of gorgeous suits, From Florence minstrels and their lutes: The youth himself had special pride In breaking horses for his bride; And his old tutor, Dr. Hermann, Was brought from Bonn to teach her German. And there in her beauty and her grace The wayward maiden grew; And every day of her form and face Some charm seemed fresh and new. Over her cold and colourless cheek The blush of the rose was shed, And her quickened pulse began to speak Of human hope and dread; And soon she grasped the learned lore The grey old pedant taught, And turned from the volume to explore The hidden mine of thought. Alas! her bliss was not the same As it was in other years, For with new knowledge sorrow came, And with new passion tears. Oft, till the Count came up from wine, She would sit by the lattice high, And watch the windings of the Rhine With a very wistful eye; And oft on some rude cliff she stood, Her light harp in her hand, And still, as she looked on the gurgling flood, She sang of her native land. And when Count Otto pleaded well For priest, and ring, and vow, She heard the knight that fond tale tell, With a pale and pensive brow: “Henceforth my spirit may not sleep, As ever till now it has slept; Henceforth mine eyes have learned to weep, As never till now they wept. Twelve months, dear Otto, let me grieve For my own, my childhood’s home, Where the sun at noon, or the frost at eve, Did never dare to come; And when the spring its smiles recalls, Thy maiden will resign The holy hush of her father’s halls For the stormy joys of thine.” But where that father’s halls?—vain, vain; She threw her sad eyes down; And if you dared to ask again, She answered with a frown. Some people have a knack, we know Of saying things mal à propos, And making all the world reflect On what it hates to recollect. They talk to misers of their heir, To women of the times that were, To ruined gamblers of the box, To thin defaulters of the stocks, To cowards of their neighbours’ duels; To Hayne of Lady H.’s jewels, To poets of the wrong Review, And to the French of Waterloo. The Count was not of these; he never Was half so clumsy, half so clever; And when he found the girl had rather Say nothing more about her father, He changed the subject—told a fable— Believed that dinner was on table— Or whispered, with an air of sorrow, That it would surely rain to-morrow. The winter storms went darkly by, And, from a blue and cloudless sky, Again the sun looked cheerfully Upon the rolling Rhine; And spring brought back to the budding flowers Its genial light and freshening showers, And music to the shady bowers, And verdure to the vine. And now it is the first of May; For twenty miles round all is gay: Cottage and Castle keep holiday; For how should sorrow lower On brow of rustic or of knight, When heaven itself looks all so bright, Where Otto’s wedding feast is dight In the hall of Belmont Tower? Stately matron and warrior tall Come to the joyous festival; Good Count Otto welcomes all, As through the gate they throng; He fills to the brim the wassail cup: In the bright wine pleasure sparkles up, And draughts and tales grow long; But grizzly knights are still and mute, And dames set down the untasted fruit, When the bride takes up her golden lute, And sings her solemn song. “A voice ye hear not, in mine ear is crying:— What does the sad voice say? ‘Dost thou not heed thy weary father’s sighing? Return, return to-day! Twelve moons have faded now: My daughter, where art thou?’ Peace! in the silent evening we will meet thee, Grey ruler of the tide! Must not the lover with the loved one greet thee, The bridegroom with his bride? Deck the dim couch aright, The Bridal couch, to-night.” The nurses to the children say That, as the maiden sang that day, The Rhine to the heights of the beetling tower Sent up a cry of fiercer power, And again the maiden’s cheek was grown As white as ever was marble stone, And the bridesmaid her hand could hardly hold, Its fingers were so icy cold. Rose Count Otto from the feast, As entered the hall the hoary Priest. A stalwart warrior, well I ween, That hoary Priest in his youth had been, But the might of his manhood he had given To peace and prayer, the Church and Heaven. For he had travelled o’er land and wave; He had kneeled on many a martyr’s grave; He had prayed in the meek St. Jerome’s cell, And had tasted St. Anthony’s blessed well; And reliques round his neck had he, Each worth a haughty kingdom’s fee; Scrapings of bones, and points of spears, And vials of authentic tears, From a prophet’s coffin a hallowed nail, And a precious shred of our Lady’s veil. And therefore at his awful tread The powers of darkness shrank with dread; And Satan felt that no disguise Could hide him from those chastened eyes. He looked on the bridegroom, he looked on the bride, The young Count smiled, but the old Priest sighed. “Fields with the father I have won; I am come in my cowl to bless the son. Count Otto, ere thou bend the knee, What shall the hire of my service be?” “Greedy hawk must gorge his prey; Pious priest must grasp his pay. Name the guerdon, and so to the task; Thine it is, ere thy lips can ask!” He frowned as he answered—“Gold and gem, Count Otto, little I reck of them; But your bride has skill of the lute, they say; Let her sing me the song I shall name to-day.” Loud laughed the Count: “And if she refuse The ditty, Sir Priest, thy whim shall choose, Row back to the house of old St. Goar: I never bid priest to a bridal more.” Beside the maiden he took his stand; He gave the lute to her trembling hand; She gazed around with a troubled eye; The guests all shuddered, and knew not why; It seemed to them as if a gloom Had shrouded all the banquet-room, Though over its boards and over its beams Sunlight was glowing in merry streams. The stern Priest throws an angry glance On that pale creature’s countenance; Unconsciously her white hand flings Its soft touch o’er the answering strings; The good man starts with a sudden thrill, And half relents from his purposed will; But he signs the cross on his aching brow, And arms his soul for its warfare now. “Mortal maid, or goblin fairy, Sing me, I pray thee, an Ave Mary!” Suddenly the maiden bent O’er the gorgeous instrument; But of song the listeners heard Only one wild mournful word— “Lurley,—Lurley!” And when the sound in the liquid air Of that brief hymn had faded, Nothing was left of the nymph who there For a year had masqueraded, But the harp in the midst of the wide hall set Where her last strange word was spoken;— The golden frame with tears was wet, And all the strings were broken.