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[First published 1853. Reprinted 1854, ’57.]
DOWN the Savoy valleys sounding, | |
| Echoing round this castle old, | |
| ’Mid the distant mountain chalets | |
| Hark! what bell for church is toll’d? | |
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| In the bright October morning | 5 |
| Savoy’s Duke had left his bride. | |
| From the Castle, past the drawbridge, | |
| Flow’d the hunters’ merry tide. | |
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| Steeds are neighing, gallants glittering. | |
| Gay, her smiling lord to greet, | 10 |
| From her mullion’d chamber casement | |
| Smiles the Duchess Marguerite. | |
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| From Vienna by the Danube | |
| Here she came, a bride, in spring. | |
| Now the autumn crisps the forest; | 15 |
| Hunters gather, bugles ring. | |
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| Hounds are pulling, prickers swearing, | |
| Horses fret, and boar-spears glance: | |
| Off!—They sweep the marshy forests, | |
| Westward, on the side of France. | 20 |
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| Hark! the game’s on foot; they scatter:— | |
| Down the forest ridings lone, | |
| Furious, single horsemen gallop. | |
| Hark! a shout—a crash—a groan! | |
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| Pale and breathless, came the hunters, | 25 |
| On the turf dead lies the boar. | |
| God! the Duke lies stretch’d beside him— | |
| Senseless, Weltering in his gore. | |
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| In the dull October evening, | |
| Down the leaf-strewn forest road, | 30 |
| To the castle, past the drawbridge, | |
| Came the hunters with their load. | |
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| In the hall, with sconces blazing, | |
| Ladies waiting round her seat, | |
| Cloth’d in smiles, beneath the dais, | 35 |
| Sate the Duchess Marguerite. | |
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| Hark! below the gates unbarring! | |
| Tramp of men and quick commands! | |
| ‘—’Tis my lord come back from hunting.’— | |
| And the Duchess claps her hands. | 40 |
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| Slow and tired, came the hunters; | |
| Stopp’d in darkness in the court. | |
| ‘—Ho, this way, ye laggard hunters!, | |
| To the hall! What sport, what sport?’— | |
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| Slow they enter’d with their Master; | 45 |
| In the hall they laid him down. | |
| On his coat were leaves and blood-stains: | |
| On his brow an angry frown. | |
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| Dead her princely youthful husband | |
| Lay before his wife; | 50 |
| Bloody ’neath the flaring scones: | |
| And the sight froze all her life. | |
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| In Vienna by the Danube | |
| Kings hold revel, gallants meet. | |
| Gay of old amid the gayest | 55 |
| Was the Duchess Marguerite. | |
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| In Vienna by the Danube | |
| Feast and dance her youth beguil’d. | |
| Till that hour she never sorrow’d; | |
| But from then she never smil’d. | 60 |
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| ’Mid the Savoy mountain valleys | |
| Far from town or haunt of man, | |
| Stands a lonely Church, unfinish’d, | |
| Which the Duchess Maud began: | |
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| Old, that Duchess stern began it; | 65 |
| In grey age, with palsied hands. | |
| But she died while 1 it was building, | |
| And the Church unfinish’d stands; | |
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| Stands as erst the builders left it, | |
| When she sunk into her grave. | 70 |
| Mountain greensward paves the chancel; | |
| Harebells flower in the nave. | |
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| ‘In my Castle all is sorrow,’— | |
| Said the Duchess Marguerite then. | |
| ‘Guide me, vassals, to the mountains! | 75 |
| We will build the Church again.’— | |
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| Sandall’d palmers, faring homeward, | |
| Austrian knights from Syria came. | |
| ‘Austrian wanderers bring, O warders, | |
| Homage to your Austrian dame.’— | 80 |
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| From the gate the warders answer’d; | |
| ‘Gone, O knights, is she you knew. | |
| Dead our Duke, and gone his Duchess. | |
| Seek her at the Church of Brou.’— | |
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| Austrian knights and march-worn palmers | 85 |
| Climb the winding mountain way. | |
| Reach the valley, where the Fabric | |
| Rises higher day by day. | |
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| Stones are sawing, hammers ringing; | |
| On the work the bright sun shines: | 90 |
| In the Savoy mountain meadows, | |
| By the stream, below the pines. | |
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| On her palfrey white the Duchess | |
| Sate and watch’d her working train; | |
| Flemish carvers, Lombard gilders, | 95 |
| German masons, smiths from Spain. | |
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| Clad in black, on her white palfrey; | |
| Her old architect beside— | |
| There they found her in the mountains, | |
| Morn and noon and eventide. | 100 |
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| There she sate, and watch’d the builders, | |
| Till the Church was roof’d and done. | |
| Last of all, the builders rear’d her | |
| In the nave a tomb of stone. | |
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| On the tomb two Forms they sculptur’d, | 105 |
| Lifelike in the marble pale. | |
| One, the Duke in helm and armour; | |
| One, the Duchess in her veil. | |
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| Round the tomb the carv’d stone fretwork | |
| Was at Easter tide put on. | 110 |
| Then the Duchess clos’d her labours; | |
| And she died at the St. John. | |
