Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Africa: Vol. XXIV. 1876–79.
Marguerite of France
By Felicia Hemans (1793–1835)
T
Round Damietta’s towers,
Though a Christian banner from her wall
Waved free its lily-flowers.
Ay, proudly did the banner wave,
As queen of earth and air;
But faint hearts throbbed beneath its folds,
In anguish and despair.
Their kingly chieftain lay,
And low on many an Eastern field
Their knighthood’s best array.
’T was mournful, when at feasts they met,
The wine-cup round to send,
For each that touched it silently
Then missed a gallant friend!
On the beleaguered wall,
And dark their slumber, dark with dreams
Of slow defeat and fall.
Yet a few hearts of chivalry
Rose high to breast the storm,
And one—of all the loftiest there—
Thrilled in a woman’s form.
O’er the slumber of her child,
With her soft sad eyes of weeping love,
As the Virgin Mother’s mild.
O, roughly cradled was thy babe,
Midst the clash of spear and lance,
And a strange, wild bower was thine, young Queen,
Fair Marguerite of France!
Like a scene for wizard-spell,
Deep in the Saracenic gloom
Of the warrior citadel;
And there midst arms the couch was spread,
And with banners curtained o’er,
For the daughter of the minstrel land,
The gay Provençal shore!
The star of court and hall!
But the deep strength of the gentle heart,
Wakes to the tempest’s call!
Her lord was in the Paynim’s hold,
His soul with grief oppressed,
Yet calmly lay the desolate,
With her young babe on her breast!
Voices of wrath and fear,—
“The walls grow weak, the strife is vain,
We will not perish here!
Yield! yield! and let the crescent gleam
O’er tower and bastion high!
Our distant homes are beautiful,—
We stay not here to die!”
To the sad queen where she lay,—
They told a tale of wavering hearts,
Of treason and dismay:
The blood rushed through her pearly cheek,
The sparkle to her eye,—
“Now call me hither those recreant knights
From the bands of Italy!”
Stern iron footsteps rang,
And heavily the sounding floor
Gave back the sabre’s clang.
They stood around her,—steel-clad men,
Moulded for storm and fight,
But they quailed before the loftier soul
In that pale aspect bright.
The bird of meaner wing,
So shrank they from the imperial glance
Of her,—that fragile thing!
And her flute-like voice rose clear and high,
Through the din of arms around,
Sweet, and yet stirring to the soul,
As a silver clarion’s sound.
Is in your hands to keep,
And the banner of the Cross, for Him
Who died on Calvary’s steep:
And the city which for Christian prayer
Hath heard the holy bell,—
And is it these your hearts would yield
To the godless infidel?
And a helm, before ye fly,
And I will gird my woman’s form,
And on the ramparts die!
And the boy whom I have borne for woe,
But never for disgrace,
Shall go within mine arms to death
Meet for his royal race.
In the shadow of the lance!
Then go, and with the Cross forsake
The princely babe of France!
But tell your homes ye left one heart
To perish undefiled;
A woman and a queen, to guard
Her honor and her child!”
When winds are in the wood;
And a deepening murmur told of men
Roused to a loftier mood.
And her babe awoke to flashing swords,
Unsheathed in many a hand,
As they gathered round the helpless one,
Again a noble band!
True to the Cross and thee!
The spirit of thy kindling word
On every sword shall be!
Rest, with thy fair child on thy breast,
Rest,—we will guard thee well:
St. Denis for the lily-flower,
And the Christian citadel!”