Part 1

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THE VIGIL OF BRUNHILD

A NARRATIVE POEM

BY FREDERIC MANNING

LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1907

PRINTED BY HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

INTRODUCTION

BRUNHILD, died A.D. 613

The intervention of women in the course of the world’s history has nearly always been attended by those events upon which poets delight to meditate: events of sinister and tragic significance, the chief value of which is to show in rude collision the ideals and the realities of life; the common humanity of the central figures in direct conflict with the inhuman march of circumstance; and the processes through which these central figures, like Lady Macbeth or Cleopatra, are made to transcend all conventional morality, and, though completely evil in the ordinary sense, to redeem themselves and win our sympathy by a moment of heroic fortitude, or of supreme and consuming anguish. Such events and processes, however, belong properly to dramatic art; narrative poetry, being of a smoother and easier texture allowing more scope to the subjective play of ideas: in short, it is more spiritual than real. The Queen of Austrasia and Burgundy, whom I have made the subject of my poem, is essentially a figure of tragedy. Perhaps it might have been better to treat her as a subject of dramatic action; but in order to do so it would have been necessary to limit her personality, to define her character, to treat only a part of her various and complex psychology. I preferred to show her at the moment of complete renunciation, a prisoner in her own castle of Orbe on the banks of the lake of Neuchâtel, after she had been betrayed by her own army, and had become the prey of her own rebellious nobles; and the poem is but a series of visions that come to her in the stress of her final degradation, while she is awaiting the brutal death which the victors reserved for her. Indeed, so entirely spiritual was my intention, I have scarcely thought it worth while to enumerate the ironies of her situation. The squalor of her cell, the triumph of her foes, the prospect of her own immediate death become entirely insignificant beside the pageantry, the splendour, the romance of a past which her memories evoke and clothe with faint, reflected glories. She hears, in the charming phrase of Renan, “les cloches d’une ville d’Is.”

In a note at the end of the volume I have given some extracts from the _Histoire de France_, edited by M. Ernest Lavisse, which show the principal events of her life.

F. M.

THE VIGIL OF BRUNHILD

Brunhild, with worn face framed in withered hands, Sate in her wounded royalty; and seemed Like an old eagle, taken in the toils, And fallen from the wide extended sway Of her dominion, whence the eye looks down On mountains shrunk to nothing, and the sea Fretting in vain against its boundaries. She sate, with chin thrust forward, listening To the loud shouting and the ring of swords On shields, that sounded from the crowded hall; Where all her ancient bards were emulous In praise, now, of her foes who feasted there. Her humid cell was strown with rotten straw, A roost of owls, and haunt of bats; the wind Blew the cold rain in, and made tremulous The smoking flame, on which her eyes were set; Her raiment was all torn, and stained with blood; Her hair had fallen, and she heeded not: She was alone and friendless, but her eyes Held something kingly that could outfrown Fate. Gray, haggard, wan, and yet with dignity, Which had been beauty once, and now was age, She sate in that foul cellar, as one sits To whom life owes no further injury, Whom no hopes cheat, and no despairs make pale; Though in her heart, and on her rigid face, Despair was throned in gaunt magnificence. A sound disturbed her thought; she turned her head, Waiting, while a strong hand unbarred the door, With hatred burning in her tearless eyes, Ready to front her foes. The huge door gave Creaking, unwillingly, to close again Behind a priest, whose melancholy eyes Were dropped before the anger of her own. “A priest!” she cried; “they send to me a priest! Mocking me, that my hand first helped these priests Till a priest’s hand was strong to strike me down.” He bent before her, swayed by grief and shame; Then spoke: “Brunhild, they sent me not to thee; But I came willingly, nor feared their wrath. Arnulf and Pippin feast their warriors In the high-raftered hall, and cheer the bards, Who sing of how they smote thee: so I crept Forth from the tumult. At the height of noon To-morrow they will tie thee to a horse That never has known bridle, to be dragged Over the stony ways till thou art dead; And I am come to shrive thee”: and he stayed His tongue; but sorrow filled his frightened eyes. “Go from me,” then she said; “thou knowest how My life has been as angry as a flame, Consumed with its own passions. Go from me: Thou couldst not bear the weight of all my sins. Yea, go. I will not call upon thy God; He is too far from me: could I again Have my old strength and beauty, I should waste Again the earth with my delight in war, And vex my body with the restless loves That my youth knew. A life of war and love; Passions that shake the soul; bright, ruddy flames Devouring speedily this fretful flesh: A life of clamour, shouting, dust and heat, The tumult of the battle, ringing shields, The hiss of sudden arrows through the air, And drumming hoofs of horses in the mad Thunderous fury of the charge, that breaks Baffled, like waves upon a wall of steel: Give me again that life of ecstasy And I shall leave your heaven to its sleep.” She wrapped her cloak about her, close; and frowned Once more upon the flame. He spoke again: “When I was long-haired, too, the windy joys Of battle wrought a madness in my blood; Yet never night came but mine eyes would close On sleep, that seemed a mother to my soul, In trustfulness as quiet as a child’s. Hast thou no need of quiet, of a sleep That stretches out its wings and shrouds thee close, Healing thee of all wounds, and wards the day Off from thine eyelids? There is peace in God, If we might find him; but the way is far And difficult of travel for our feet, Leading through all the sounding ways of life And silent ways of death, through whose domain Each blind soul voyages in loneliness: Nor ever has a man with undimmed eyes, Save he whom ravens fed, and he whose voice Sounded the note of triumph, even in Hell, While the dead flocked unto him, and the gates Were lifted up for gladness, travelled it. Wide regions filled with spirits numberless——” But Brunhild turned on him: “I see them now, Though Death has not yet claimed me, in that flame; And wouldst thou have me go to them in fear, With loosened knees and face untaught to frown? Would they for all my weeping pity me? Yea, there is Fredegonde with mocking eyes: I seem to see my life through smoking blood That she and I have spilt in quarrelling. Shall we too fill, with greater clamour, Hell; Battling like eagles through the gloomy air, That trembles at the passion of our wings? Go from me: I repent not anything.” “Nay, yet I shall not go; but rest and hear Thy story in the form it leaves thy lips; Nor question thee, but bless thee and depart. For surely all thy soul yearns backward now To half remembered days, that fill the flame, Even as you say, with floating memories, Purged of the dross, that was a part of them, Nought now but soft gold of thy plastic dreams, Wrought to what shape you will: so have I heard That we judge others and judge not ourselves By a stern measure; and therefore we fail Of perfect justice, which is charity.” “Ye, who are sheltered from the world, O priest,” Spake Brunhild, mocking him, “have time to pause Ere your minds fix the measure of pure truth And perfect justice; but our windy life Loses no time on niceties: for me, I gave such justice as I look for now; I swung a hammer on mine enemies, To forge the world anew unto my mind; My cause was justice in mine eyes, and those Who stood against me, enemies of God. Lo! I have failed of all my purposes, And age has come upon me like a cloud; And these old shoulders groan beneath the shame, The bitterness, the burden of defeat: Yet I have seen the star, where others saw Only the froth and spume of angry storms.” He gazed on her with patient, gentle eyes; Bowed, sate she, with her hands clasped round her knees, Incarnate sorrow: then her lion’s head She lifted; and spake once again to him: