Part 3

No motion made the priest as Brunhild paused; His eyes avoided hers. She was as one Towering over the departed years, The sea of years her memory like a shell Held echoes of, and reminiscent sounds. And above all her insults and disgrace, The burden of her age, the bitter wrongs, She rose into a calm, majestic realm, That eagles might inhabit, with her mind Intent upon the spectacle of life, Yet heedless of her fate; no shame could touch The soul that breathed in so serene an air, Superior to mortal accidents. But the priest felt that effluence from her Shed a strange glory round the humid cell And fill him with a fearful sense of fate: The blind, remorseless progress of the world. Sombre and threatening, her figure cut Prow-like, and loomed through huge, tempestuous night, Toward a doom obscure and imminent. She spoke again in slow and weary words: “Merow remained with Gregory; but time Brought no release for his imprisoned feet Or the wild soul pent in that cloistral peace Among the gilt and painted images Of the dead saints, the effigies of stone, The prisoned light, the windless, silent air That came not fresh from out the heart of dawn, But hung upon him heavily as death, Damp with its charnels; and the solemn chants Filled him with longing for the loud-voiced larks, And he was eager for my lips again. “Ah, God! what ruin lurked within his love. He fled by night from that safe harbourage, On foot, into the woods, and careless roamed Through unknown ways, and couched with herds of deer In brakes and bowery hollows, that the sound Of their swift flight when wolves drew close at night, Warned and awakened him; or he would creep At evening to some lone sequestered farm, Hid in a fold of hills, and win his food, His place beside the fire, with merry songs Tuned to a rustic harp, deluding hosts With tales of how he lived by minstrelsy: Yet never rested longer than the night, But with the dawn departed, ere the birds Woke to their song, and man from healing sleep To his laborious struggle with the earth; Silent he slipped from them, that none might know The path he travelled, and next night would lie On some lone upland underneath the stars. While, as he wandered, drawing close to me, I dreamed him still at Tours, and had no hope To see him, for my lords were turbulent, Grown headstrong in mine absence, and my son Had not yet learned the art of governance: To play on rival jealousies, and split Alliances in factions; to dissolve Confederacies, as an acid eats Through base alloy of idols composite, Till the whole crumble; to lead many weak Against one strong, and win the name of Right, Come in full arms to succour the distressed, And break the bonds of tyranny; to pay The world with phrases; lead the ductile mob, Swayed by a momentary need, to ends Imperial, that crown our finished work. So wrought I with my proud rebellious lords, Rousing the populace against their strength, Sowing among them mutual distrust, And fear, and drove them out with ruthless hands, To herd with their own fellows, the lean wolves Of winter, famishing, who bay in pack, When the full moon hangs low, and golden grows, Over the rim of the Atlantic waste. “So swept I out my house and garnished it, In preparation for the perfect guest, Who comes on dove’s wings silently, nor thought That one on sable wings, more silently, Would enter in and take the seat of Love. Rumour, that travels on each wanton wind, Swifter than birds may fly, from tongue to tongue Came laden with the news of violence wrought In Rouen, by command of Fredegonde On Praetextatus, the poor kindly priest, Who took the ring from Merow for my hand, And blessed the union that had been so brief. Then there awoke in me that sense which feels Strange intuitions of approaching doom, And Fear crept through my dreams on stealthy feet, Or crouched beside me, and the darkness seemed Alive with evil; but I steeled my heart To wait on time and all that time might bring Of good or evil. Then from Gregory Came messengers, who told of Merow’s flight, And that the hounds of Fredegonde pursued The fugitive through all frequented ways, And forests, and waste places, and the lone Bare mountains, sterile underneath the stars, Yea, every valley, every hidden place, Lest they should lose him, and the harlot queen Avenge on them her seat grown insecure, Through lack of vigilance. God, how the days Lengthened their minutes into weary hours, And weary hours to days! as if the time Were frozen with the fear that gripped my heart, And moved not onward to the destined end, Ordained ere time. I could but send some men Toward the frontier of her land and mine; Yet some I trusted knew that to my love There were no frontiers but that boundary Between the quick and dead. They went in quest; I waited. And one night was borne to me, Upon a litter, bloody and befouled, The corpse of Merow carried shoulder-high By mourning bearers; and I sat like stone, Dumb, tearless, stricken by excess of tears That would not weep, but lay congealed within Mine overburdened heart. All night I sat In silence, weeping not, until the stars Were lost in dawn, until the silver dawn Blossomed with splendour to a golden day; Yet knew I not that day had come, for clouds Covered the light of morning from mine eyes, Hid me in wells of darkness and thick night, A Niobe of stone, but lacking tears Which else had melted stone; till, fearfully, My son came to me and put out his hand And touched me gently; and, as in deep pools One sees obscurely through the broken lights And rippling shadows, so upon my sight, Though faint and blurred, a vision of my son Came to me, and I saw a shadowy crowd Of crouching beings far behind my son, As vague as ghosts, who filled the silent room; And then I heard my voice as from afar, Muffled in gloom, a voice that seemed not mine, Bidding them leave me; and like ghosts they went: All but my son, who knelt beside my chair Sobbing out bitterly some broken words, That held less comfort than his trembling hands. “Slowly there came to me the governance Of limbs again, and from my chair I rose, And went toward the litter where he lay, The spoil of death, in ruined loveliness; Breathless, whose breath had once made amorous The night with music. And I touched his eyes, Which kindliness had closed with piteous hands Before they brought him me, and knelt beside The bier, and spoke to him. He heard me not: For he had gone the irremeable way, Into which darkness may not penetrate The voice of love, nor yearning nor desire Pass its grim boundaries, but brooding wings Of silence cover its eternal sleep. Lost utterly! Yet still I spoke to him, As if, perchance, some whisper of my voice Might stir the pools of silence where he lay, And tremble lightly on the veils of sleep, Waking some consciousness of me. Alas! He was not there with me, but on the wind, In every tree, his soul went wandering, Through all the world dispersed. Yet still I spoke Gently to him, and kissed him; till my son Wept piteously by me, until tears Gathered in mine own eyes and I too wept In silence, by the body of my love.”

“A sudden chill has struck me: do I shake? I would not have this trembling of old age Imputed to me as a show of fear; Only the wind of dawn has chilled my blood, Grown sluggish now. Death will be kind to me. Does the dawn lighten? Nay, I thought the stars Grew paler, but a mist was on mine eyes. So long are these few hours I have to live, Ere death come: yet it seems a little while To those who smell the odorous warm earth, Steaming in heat, and have the cattle’s breath, And scent of bean-fields wafted, and the choir Of birds, and distant bleating of the sheep, Coming from some dew-laden mountain-slope Of pasture o’er the corn-lands: those, who look On life, have merry hours, that fly too swift, To dancing measures, but our dying eyes See stretched before us all eternity, That passes never. Voices come to me Out of the deep, insurgent spirits throng The gloomy portals, through which I must pass, Blown like autumnal leaves, in whirling flight, Above the dim untenanted abyss. Some have their faces darkened, as they fade Into that darkness; others, issuing thence, Have caught the light of morning in their eyes, And rise toward the sunny warmth of life, To take Fate’s spindle from our failing hands: They ride in golden panoply, a pomp Of kings, to reap the harvest we have sown, And do the things we dreamed, but failed to do. What man of them shall sit where Cæsar sate, Who sent his missionary eagles forth Into strange countries, bearers of the light, Makers of laws; who from the utmost bounds Of Euxine to where Gades lifts its prow Above the thunder of the surge and fronts The unexplored Atlantic, questioning The secret hid by separating seas, Held tributary peoples numberless In fee; and through whose subjugated lands Glided the Nile between its reedy flats Where Memnon sits; and the broad-bosomed flow Of dark Euphrates by the ruined towers Of Babylon, from whence of old was seen By wise Chaldæan sorcerers, the light, Majestic, of the new-born Syrian star; Yea, and our Rhine fed by its cataracts, Whose forests keep the night, and Danube full Where Ovid mourned the loss of all his loves, And in the hollow land Eurotas clear, Cold with the streaming snows of Taygetus, The nurse and mother of that austere brood Sprung from the loins of Heracles, and those Twin sons of Leda, for whom Helen’s eyes Yearned from the walls of Troy and yearned in vain: Through all these lands triumphant eagles led Rome’s legions, and peace followed after them With civil order and restraint of laws. But Rome herself, circled by seven hills, Astride the Tiber’s fluctuating gold, Though less of girth was greater than all these, Not through dominion over them, but in The civic sense, which quickened in her sons Grave dignity, and reticence, and care: Rome never bred but rulers; Rome, whose womb Gave to the earth this Europe which is ours! Her progress was the progress of the world, Which fell with her, and now disjected lies Prone in the dust, a prey to savage strife. “To build it up again! I dreamed to raise An empire on the ruins of the old, Whose seat should be the Rhine. I was a voice Crying within the wilderness. Alas! The vision is for the appointed time. These eyes shall see it not. But even now There moves among the people a desire For some firm order. Like the blind they grope, Or those who walk in darkness, stretching out Their hands, whose sense may take the part of sight And feel the unseen; yet many times they fall, Or wander from the object of their quest For lack of eyes. Mine eyes were for the blind, My sight was for a lamp unto their feet, My hands to guide them; but they trusted not, Seeking, each one, an individual path, By divers ways, unto the common end. Not in these nobles, insubordinate, Who wanton through our fertile land of France, Is my assurance fixed; but in the mass Of common folk, who feel the crowning need For a co-ordinate and civic zeal That buildeth slowly, but whose work endures. There, where that people is, is Rome renewed; And where is Rome is Cæsar. Lo! the dawn Uplifts, unto the stars, her silver spear And parts the darkness. Shall I give thee thanks, O priest, for this long vigil thou hast kept With me through all the darkness and despair? But take this ring as a memorial; These many nights it has lain by my heart, Secreted from the spoilers. When they robbed All else of worth from me, they did not look For love between my breasts, and there it lay, This emerald, which Merow gave to me, Wedding me with it. Hide it in thy cowl. Now go from me, for now I am content To die, nor fear the little hour of pain, That comes ere all pain ceases in a sleep.”

Alone, she closed her eyes, and wearily Her head sank from its old imperious poise, Slackening to the shoulder, and her arms Hung listless by her with the hands unnerved, Turned upward from the bench on which she sat; And numbness fell upon her, and thick sleep Covered her soul and senses with the calm And healing of oblivion; while the bats Came fluttering on quick and noiseless wings Down the pale shaft of silver light that streamed Through the short rounded arches high above. Twittering came they from their native night, And hung themselves in huddled companies From the rude blackened rafters overhead, Far up where darkness lingers through the day; Then were they silent. But, outside, the dawn Quickened with golden fire the Alpine peaks, Plumed with their sombre pines, and crowned with snow, In frozen brilliance, sparkling: lesser hills Rose gradually, shouldering aloft, Abrupt and cyclopean monuments Of elemental anger, and beyond Rose dome on dome of everlasting snow, Blue glaciers, that broke the sharp white fire Of dawn into a myriad flaming swords, Invading the ethereal, azure sky Like sudden lightning, or the wonder seen By Laplanders, through the long Arctic night, Illuminating, with its splendid flames, The level stretches of the tideless sea.

NOTE TO THE VIGIL OF BRUNHILD

Brunhild was the daughter of Athanagilde, King of the Spanish Wisigoths. The following passages from the “Histoire de France” edited by M. Ernest Lavisse have served as the basis of the poem.

“L’année même où mourut Caribert apparaissent les deux femmes dont le nom remplit l’histoire de cette période. Le roi Sigebert avait des mœurs plus douces que ses frères; il n’avait point contracté comme eux d’union avec des servantes; il rêvait de se marier avec une fille de roi. La cour des Wisigoths d’Espagne jetait à ce moment un vif éclat.... Sigebert envoya une ambassade auprès du roi Athanagilde et demanda la main de sa fille Brunehaut. Elle lui fut accordée.... Le manage fut célébré dans la ville de Metz.... Ce mariage valut à Sigebert un grand renom, et Chilpéric fut jaloux de son frère. Il avait épousé Andovère, dont il avait eu trois fils: Théodebert, Mérovée et Clovis; puis il l’avait répudiée et vivait dans la débauche, soumis à l’empire d’une servante, Frédégonde. Mais après le mariage de Sigebert, il renvoya la servante, et demanda à Athanagilde la main de sa fille aînée, Galswinthe. Le roi de Wisigoths consentit.

“Un matin, on trouva Galswinthe étranglée dans son lit. Peu de jours après le roi épousa Frédégonde.... Sigebert, pour venger sa belle-sœur, prépara la guerre. Mais Gontran imposa sa médiation et l’on traita.... Chilpéric renonça à la possession des territoires qui formaient le douaire de Galswinthe et les livra à Sigebert. La guerre civile fut ainsi évitée; elle n’éclatera que six années plus tard, en 573.

“Sigebert finit par être victorieux. Il entre à Paris au mépris de la convention de 567 et y fait venir sa femme Brunehaut, ses filles et son jeune fils Childebert; puis il poursuit Chilpéric jusqu’à Tournai. Chilpéric est abandonné par les grands qui proclament Sigebert leur roi et l’élèvent sur le pavois dans la _villa_ de Vitry. Mais, pendant la cérémonie, deux esclaves réussissent à s’approcher du triomphateur et le frappent de deux coups de _scramasax_; dans la rainure des poignards Frédégonde avait fait couler du poison (575).

“À la mort de son rival, Chilpéric retourna vers Paris.... Le duc Gondovald réussit à sauver le fils de Sigebert, un enfant de cinq ans: il le conduisit à Metz, où il le fit reconnaître roi le jour de Noël; mais Brunehaut, et ses filles demeurèrent prisonnières; les filles furent détenues à Meaux, Brunehaut emmenée a Rouen.

“Sa beauté avait vivement frappée le fils de Chilpéric, Mérovée; celui-ci l’avait épousée en secret et avait favorisé sa fuite. Poursuivi par la haine implacable de Frédégonde, Mérovée dut se faire consacrer clerc, puis chercher un asile à Saint-Martin de Tours; finalement il fut tué par les sicaires de la marâtre.”

Defeated and taken by her rebellious nobles under Pippin and Arnulf in 613, “Brunehaut fut torturée pendant trois jours. On l’assit en signe d’opprobre sur un chameau et on la livra aux outrages de l’armée. Enfin on l’attacha par les cheveux, un bras et un pied à la queue d’un cheval, que des coups de fouet entraînèrent en une course rapide, et bientôt son corps ne fut plus qu’ ‘une loque informe.’” Her age, according to Guizot, was eighty.

“Brunehaut en somme a été conduite toute sa vie par une idée, et non pas exclusivement, comme la plupart des barbares mérovingiens, par des caprices et des passions. Elle a voulu maintenir, avec l’absolutisme royal, les principes d’ordre et de bonne administration.”

Modifications in this story have been suggested by A. Thierry’s “Récits des Temps Mérovingiens,” and by Dean Kitchin’s “History of France.” The various accounts given by these authorities will justify me for an imaginative treatment of the story; and, though I lay claim to no historical accuracy, the story as I present it is, probably, as near to the truth as any other version. History is not a science: it is prophecy looking backward, and no doubt is often as far from scientific truth as the more conventional mode of prophecy.

_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._

End of Project Gutenberg's The Vigil of Brunhild, by Frederic Manning