The Golden Legend Part 7

For thine own purpose, thou hast sent The strife and the discouragement!

(_A pause_.)

Why stayest thou, Prince of Hoheneck?

Why keep me pacing to and fro Amid these aisles of sacred gloom, Counting my footsteps as I go, And marking with each step a tomb?

Why should the world for thee make room, And wait thy leisure and thy beck?

Thou comest in the hope to hear Some word of comfort and of cheer.

What can I say? I cannot give The counsel to do this and live; But rather, firmly to deny The tempter, though his power is strong, And, inaccessible to wrong, Still like a martyr live and die!

(_A pause_.)

The evening air grows dusk and brown; I must go forth into the town, To visit beds of pain and death, Of restless limbs, and quivering breath, And sorrowing hearts, and patient eyes That see, through tears, the sun go down, But never more shall see it rise.

The poor in body and estate, The sick and the disconsolate.

Must not on man's convenience wait.

(_Goes out. Enter_ LUCIFER, _as a Priest_. LUCIFER, _with a genuflexion, mocking_.)

This is the Black Pater-noster.

G.o.d was my foster, He fostered me Under the book of the Palm-tree!

St. Michael was my dame.

He was born at Bethlehem, He was made of flesh and blood.

G.o.d send me my right food, My right food, and shelter too, That I may to yon kirk go, To read upon yon sweet book Which the mighty G.o.d of heaven shook.

Open, open, h.e.l.l's gates!

Shut, shut, heaven's gates!

All the devils in the air The stronger be, that hear the Black Prayer!

(_Looking round the church_.)

What a darksome and dismal place!

I wonder that any man has the face To call such a hole the House of the Lord, And the Gate of Heaven,--yet such is the word.

Ceiling, and walls, and windows old, Covered with cobwebs, blackened with mould; Dust on the pulpit, dust on the stairs, Dust on the benches, and stalls, and chairs!

The pulpit, from which such ponderous sermons Have fallen down on the brains of the Germans, With about as much real edification As if a great Bible, bound in lead, Had fallen, and struck them on the head; And I ought to remember that sensation!

Here stands the holy water stoup!

Holy-water it may be to many, But to me, the veriest Liquor Gehennae!

It smells like a filthy fast day soup!

Near it stands the box for the poor; With its iron padlock, safe and sure, I and the priest of the parish know Whither all these charities go; Therefore, to keep up the inst.i.tution, I will add my little contribution!

(_He puts in money._)

Underneath this mouldering tomb, With statue of stone, and scutcheon of bra.s.s, Slumbers a great lord of the village.

All his life was riot and pillage, But at length, to escape the threatened doom Of the everlasting, penal fire, He died in the dress of a mendicant friar, And bartered his wealth for a daily ma.s.s.

But all that afterward came to pa.s.s, And whether he finds it dull or pleasant, Is kept a secret for the present, At his own particular desire.

And here, in a corner of the wall, Shadowy, silent, apart from all, With its awful portal open wide, And its latticed windows on either side, And its step well worn by the bended knees Of one or two pious centuries, Stands the village confessional!

Within it, as an honored guest, I will sit me down awhile and rest!

(_Seats himself in the confessional_.)

Here sits the priest, and faint and low, Like the sighing of an evening breeze, Comes through these painted lattices The ceaseless sound of human woe, Here, while her bosom aches and throbs With deep and agonizing sobs, That half are pa.s.sion, half contrition, The luckless daughter of perdition Slowly confesses her secret shame!

The time, the place, the lover's name!

Here the grim murderer, with a groan, From his bruised conscience rolls the stone, Thinking that thus he can atone For ravages of sword and flame!

Indeed, I marvel, and marvel greatly, How a priest can sit here so sedately, Reading, the whole year out and in, Naught but the catalogue of sin, And still keep any faith whatever In human virtue! Never! never!

I cannot repeat a thousandth part Of the horrors and crimes and sins and woes That arise, when with palpitating throes The graveyard in the human heart Gives up its dead, at the voice of the priest, As if he were an archangel, at least.

It makes a peculiar atmosphere, This odor of earthly pa.s.sions and crimes, Such as I like to breathe, at times, And such as often brings me here In the hottest and most pestilential season.

To-day, I come for another reason; To foster and ripen an evil thought In a heart that is almost to madness wrought, And to make a murderer out of a prince, A sleight of hand I learned long since!

He comes In the twilight he will not see the difference between his priest and me!

In the same net was the mother caught!

(_Prince Henry entering and kneeling at the confessional._)

Remorseful, penitent, and lowly, I come to crave, O Father holy, Thy benediction on my head.

_Lucifer_. The benediction shall be said After confession, not before!

'T is a G.o.d speed to the parting guest, Who stands already at the door, Sandalled with holiness, and dressed In garments pure from earthly stain.

Meanwhile, hast thou searched well thy breast?

Does the same madness fill thy brain?

Or have thy pa.s.sion and unrest Vanished forever from thy mind?

_Prince Henry_. By the same madness still made blind, By the same pa.s.sion still possessed, I come again to the house of prayer, A man afflicted and distressed!

As in a cloudy atmosphere, Through unseen sluices of the air, A sudden and impetuous wind Strikes the great forest white with fear, And every branch, and bough, and spray Points all its quivering leaves one way, And meadows of gra.s.s, and fields of grain, And the clouds above, and the slanting rain, And smoke from chimneys of the town, Yield themselves to it, and bow down, So does this dreadful purpose press Onward, with irresistible stress, And all my thoughts and faculties, Struck level by the strength of this, From their true inclination turn, And all stream forward to Salem!

_Lucifer_. Alas! we are but eddies of dust, Uplifted by the blast, and whirled Along the highway of the world A moment only, then to fall Back to a common level all, At the subsiding of the gust!

_Prince Henry_. O holy Father! pardon in me The oscillation of a mind Unsteadfast, and that cannot find Its centre of rest and harmony!

For evermore before mine eyes This ghastly phantom flits and flies, And as a madman through a crowd, With frantic gestures and wild cries, It hurries onward, and aloud Repeats its awful prophecies!

Weakness is wretchedness! To be strong Is to be happy! I am weak, And cannot find the good I seek, Because I feel and fear the wrong!

_Lucifer_. Be not alarmed! The Church is kind-- And in her mercy and her meekness She meets half-way her children's weakness, Writes their transgressions in the dust!

Though in the Decalogue we find The mandate written, "Thou shalt not kill!"

Yet there are cases when we must.

In war, for instance, or from scathe To guard and keep the one true Faith!

We must look at the Decalogue in the light Of an ancient statute, that was meant For a mild and general application, To be understood with the reservation, That, in certain instances, the Right Must yield to the Expedient!

Thou art a Prince. If thou shouldst die, What hearts and hopes would prostrate he!

What n.o.ble deeds, what fair renown, Into the grave with thee go down!

What acts of valor and courtesy Remain undone, and die with thee!

Thou art the last of all thy race!

With thee a n.o.ble name expires, And vanishes from the earth's face The glorious memory of thy sires!

She is a peasant. In her veins Flows common and plebeian blood; It is such as daily and hourly stains The dust and the turf of battle plains, By va.s.sals shed, in a crimson flood, Without reserve, and without reward, At the slightest summons of their lord!

But thine is precious, the fore-appointed Blood of kings, of G.o.d's anointed!

Moreover, what has the world in store For one like her, but tears and toil?

Daughter of sorrow, serf of the soil, A peasant's child and a peasant's wife, And her soul within her sick and sore With the roughness and barrenness of life!

I marvel not at the heart's recoil From a fate like this, in one so tender, Nor at its eagerness to surrender All the wretchedness, want, and woe That await it in this world below, For the unutterable splendor Of the world of rest beyond the skies.

So the Church sanctions the sacrifice: Therefore inhale this healing balm, And breathe this fresh life into thine; Accept the comfort and the calm She offers, as a gift divine, Let her fall down and anoint thy feet With the ointment costly and most sweet Of her young blood, and thou shall live.

_Prince Henry._ And will the righteous Heaven forgive?

No action, whether foul or fair, Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere A record, written by fingers ghostly, As a blessing or a curse, and mostly In the greater weakness or greater strength Of the acts which follow it, till at length The wrongs of ages are redressed, And the justice of G.o.d made manifest!

_Lucifer_ In ancient records it is stated That, whenever an evil deed is done, Another devil is created To scourge and torment the offending one!