So, next day when the accustomed train
Of things grew round my sense again,
"That is a sin," I said—and slow
With downcast eyes to church I go,
And pass to the confession-chair,
And tell the old mild father there.
But when I faulter Beltran's name,
"Ha?” quoth the father; "much I blame
The sin; yet wherefore idly grieve?
Despair not-strenuously retrieve !
Nay, I will turn this love of thine
To lawful love, almost divine.
"For he is young, and led astray,
This Beltran, and he schemes, men say,
To change the laws of church and state;
So, thine shall be an angel's fate,
Who, ere the thunder breaks, should roll
Its cloud away and save his soul.
"For, when he lies upon thy breast,
Thou mayst demand and be possessed
Of all his plans, and next day steal
To me, and all those plans reveal,
That I and every priest, to purge
His soul, may fast and use the scourge."
That father's beard was long and white,
With love and truth his brow seemed bright;
I went back, all on fire with joy,
And, that same evening, bade the boy
Tell me, as lovers should, heart-free,
Something to prove his love of me.
He told me what he would not tell
For hope of heaven or fear of hell;
And I lay listening in such pride,
And, soon as he had left my side,
Tripped to the church by morning-light
To save his soul in his despite.
I told the father all his schemes,
Who were his comrades, what their dreams; "And now make haste," I said, "to pray The one spot from his soul away;
To-night he comes, but not the same
Will look!" At night he never came.
Nor next night on the after-morn,
I went forth with a strength new-born.
The church was empty; something drew
My steps into the street; I knew
It led me to the market-place--
Where, lo-on high--the father's face!
That horrible black scaffold drest
That stapled block. . God sink the rest!
That head strapped back, that blinding vest,
Those knotted hands and naked breast-
Till near one busy hangman pressed,
And, on the neck these arms caressed
No part in aught they hope or fear!
No heaven with them, no hell-and here,
No earth, not so much space as pens
My body in their worst of dens
But shall bear God and man my cry
Lies-lies, again-and still, they lie!
THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS.
I was the man the duke spoke to;
I helped the duchess to cast off his yoke, too;
So, here's the tale from beginning to end,
Ours is a great wild country:
If you climb to our castle's top,
I don't see where your eye can stop;
For when you've passed the corn-field country, Where vineyards leave off, flocks are packed, And sheep-range leads to cattle-tract,
And cattle-tract to open-chase,
And open-chase to the very base
Of the mountain, where, at a funeral pace,
Round about, solemn and slow,
One by one, row after row,
Up and up the pine-trees go,
So, like black priests up, and so
Down the other side again
To another greater, wilder country,
That's one vast red drear burnt-up plain,
Branched thro' and thro' with many a vein
Whence iron's dug, and copper's dealt ;
Look right, look left, look straight before—
Beneath they mine, above they smelt,
Copper ore and iron ore,
And forge and furnace mould and melt,
And so on, more and ever more,
Till, at last, for a bounding belt,
Comes the salt sand hoar of the great sea-shore,
-And the whole is our duke's country.
I was born the day this present duke was—
(And O, says the song, ere I was old!)
In the castle where the other duke was-
(When I was hopeful and young, not old!) I in the kennel, he in the bower:
We are of like age to an hour.
My father was huntsman in that day;
Who has not heard my father say
That, when a boar was brought to bay,
Three times, four times out of five,
With his huntspear he'd contrive
To get the killing-place transfixed,
And pin him true, both eyes betwixt ?
And that's why the old duke would rather
He lost a salt-pit than my father,
And loved to have him ever in call;
That's why my father stood in the hall
When the old duke brought his infant out
To show the people, and while they passed
The wondrous bantling round about,
Was first to start at the outside blast
As the kaiser's courier blew his horn,
Just a month after the babe was born.
'And," quoth the kaiser's courier, “since The duke has got an heir, our prince
Needs the duke's self at his side."
The duke looked down and seemed to wince,
But he thought of wars o'er the world wide,
Castles a-fire, men on their march,
The toppling tower, the crashing arch;
And up he looked, and awhile he eyed
The row of crests and shields and banners,
Of all achievements after all manners,
And "Ay," said the duke with a surly pride.
The more was his comfort when he died
At next year's end, in a velvet suit,
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