Вальтер Скотт: Some Poems

Full on the Prelate’s face, and silver hair,
The stream of failing light was feebly rolled:
But Roderick’s visage, though his head was bare,
Was shadowed by his hand and mantle’s fold.
While of his hidden soul the sins he told,
Proud Alaric’s descendant could not brook,
That mortal man his bearing should behold,
Or boast that he had seen, when Conscience shook,
Fear tame a monarch’s brow, Remorse a warrior’s look.

The old man’s faded cheek waxed yet more pale,
As many a secret sad the King bewrayed;
As sign and glance eked out the unfinished tale,
When in the midst his faltering whisper stayed.
“Thus royal Witiza was slain,” – he said;
“Yet, holy Father, deem not it was I.”
Thus still Ambition strives her crimes to shade. -
“Oh, rather deem ’twas stern necessity!
Self-preservation bade, and I must kill or die.

“And if Florinda’s shrieks alarmed the air,
If she invoked her absent sire in vain,
And on her knees implored that I would spare,
Yet, reverend Priest, thy sentence rash refrain!
All is not as it seems – the female train
Know by their bearing to disguise their mood:”
But Conscience here, as if in high disdain,
Sent to the Monarch’s cheek the burning blood -
He stayed his speech abrupt – and up the Prelate stood.

“O hardened offspring of an iron race!
What of thy crimes, Don Roderick, shall I say?
What alms, or prayers, or penance can efface
Murder’s dark spot, wash treason’s stain away!
For the foul ravisher how shall I pray,
Who, scarce repentant, makes his crime his boast?
How hope Almighty vengeance shall delay,
Unless, in mercy to yon Christian host,
He spare the shepherd, lest the guiltless sheep be lost?”

Then kindled the dark tyrant in his mood,
And to his brow returned its dauntless gloom;
“And welcome then,” he cried, “be blood for blood,
For treason treachery, for dishonour doom!
Yet will I know whence come they, or by whom.
Show, for thou canst – give forth the fated key,
And guide me, Priest, to that mysterious room,
Where, if aught true in old tradition be,
His nation’s future fates a Spanish King shall see.”

“Ill-fated Prince! recall the desperate word,
Or pause ere yet the omen thou obey!
Bethink, yon spell-bound portal would afford
Never to former Monarch entrance-way;
Nor shall it ever ope, old records say,
Save to a King, the last of all his line,
What time his empire totters to decay,
And treason digs, beneath, her fatal mine,
And, high above, impends avenging wrath divine.” -

“Prelate! a Monarch’s fate brooks no delay;
Lead on!” – The ponderous key the old man took,
And held the winking lamp, and led the way,
By winding stair, dark aisle, and secret nook,
Then on an ancient gateway bent his look;
And, as the key the desperate King essayed,
Low muttered thunders the Cathedral shook,
And twice he stopped, and twice new effort made,
Till the huge bolts rolled back, and the loud hinges brayed.

Long, large, and lofty was that vaulted hall;
Roof, walls, and floor were all of marble stone,
Of polished marble, black as funeral pall,
Carved o’er with signs and characters unknown.
A paly light, as of the dawning, shone
Through the sad bounds, but whence they could not spy;
For window to the upper air was none;
Yet, by that light, Don Roderick could descry
Wonders that ne’er till then were seen by mortal eye.

Grim sentinels, against the upper wall,
Of molten bronze, two Statues held their place;
Massive their naked limbs, their stature tall,
Their frowning foreheads golden circles grace.
Moulded they seemed for kings of giant race,
That lived and sinned before the avenging flood;
This grasped a scythe, that rested on a mace;
This spread his wings for flight, that pondering stood,
Each stubborn seemed and stern, immutable of mood.

Fixed was the right-hand Giant’s brazen look
Upon his brother’s glass of shifting sand,
As if its ebb he measured by a book,
Whose iron volume loaded his huge hand;
In which was wrote of many a fallen land
Of empires lost, and kings to exile driven:
And o’er that pair their names in scroll expand -
“Lo, DESTINY and TIME! to whom by Heaven
The guidance of the earth is for a season given.” -

Even while they read, the sand-glass wastes away;
And, as the last and lagging grains did creep,
That right-hand Giant ’gan his club upsway,
As one that startles from a heavy sleep.
Full on the upper wall the mace’s sweep
At once descended with the force of thunder,
And hurtling down at once, in crumbled heap,
The marble boundary was rent asunder,
And gave to Roderick’s view new sights of fear and wonder.

For they might spy, beyond that mighty breach,
Realms as of Spain in visioned prospect laid,
Castles and towers, in due proportion each,
As by some skilful artist’s hand portrayed:
Here, crossed by many a wild Sierra’s shade,

This eText comes from a book (Pike Country Ballads etc.) which contains a number of poems by John Hay. These have been released separately by Project Gutenberg under the title “Pike Country Ballads and Other Poems” by John Hay. They are not included here to avoid duplication.