THE WINDING way the serpent takes | |
| The mystic water took, | |
| From where, to count its beaded lakes, | |
| The forest sped its brook. | |
| |
| A narrow space ’twixt shore and shore, | 5 |
| For sun or stars to fall, | |
| While evermore, behind, before, | |
| Closed in the forest wall. | |
| |
| The dim wood hiding underneath | |
| Wan flowers without a name; | 10 |
| Life tangled with decay and death, | |
| League after league the same. | |
| |
| Unbroken over swamp and hill | |
| The rounding shadow lay, | |
| Save where the river cut at will | 15 |
| A pathway to the day. | |
| |
| Beside that track of air and light, | |
| Weak as a child unweaned, | |
| At shut of day a Christian knight | |
| Upon his henchman leaned. | 20 |
| |
| The embers of the sunset’s fires | |
| Along the clouds burned down; | |
| “I see,” he said, “the domes and spires | |
| Of Norembega town.” | |
| |
| “Alack! the domes, O master mine, | 25 |
| Are golden clouds on high; | |
| Yon spire is but the branchless pine | |
| That cuts the evening sky.” | |
| |
| “Oh hush and hark! What sounds are these | |
| But chants and holy hymns?” | 30 |
| “Thou hear’st the breeze that stirs the trees | |
| Through all their leafy limbs.” | |
| |
| “Is it a chapel bell that fills | |
| The air with its low tone?” | |
| “Thou hear’st the tinkle of the rills, | 35 |
| The insect’s vesper drone.” | |
| |
| “The Christ be praised!—He sets for me | |
| A blessed cross in sight!” | |
| “Now, nay, ’t is but yon blasted tree | |
| With two gaunt arms outright!” | 40 |
| |
| “Be it wind so sad or tree so stark, | |
| It mattereth not, my knave; | |
| Methinks to funeral hymns I hark, | |
| The cross is for my grave! | |
| |
| “My life is sped; I shall not see | 45 |
| My home-set sails again; | |
| The sweetest eyes of Normandie | |
| Shall watch for me in vain. | |
| |
| “Yet onward still to ear and eye | |
| The baffling marvel calls; | 50 |
| I fain would look before I die | |
| On Norembega’s walls. | |
| |
| “So, haply, it shall be thy part | |
| At Christian feet to lay | |
| The mystery of the desert’s heart | 55 |
| My dead hand plucked away. | |
| |
| “Leave me an hour of rest; go thou | |
| And look from yonder heights; | |
| Perchance the valley even now | |
| Is starred with city lights.” | 60 |
| |
| The henchman climbed the nearest hill, | |
| He saw nor tower nor town, | |
| But through the drear woods, lone and still, | |
| The river rolling down. | |
| |
| He heard the stealthy feet of things | 65 |
| Whose shapes he could not see, | |
| A flutter as of evil wings, | |
| The fall of a dead tree. | |
| |
| The pines stood black against the moon, | |
| A sword of fire beyond; | 70 |
| He heard the wolf howl, and the loon | |
| Laugh from his reedy pond. | |
| |
| He turned him back: “O master dear, | |
| We are but men misled; | |
| And thou hast sought a city here | 75 |
| To find a grave instead.” | |
| |
| “As God shall will! what matters where | |
| A true man’s cross may stand, | |
| So Heaven be o’er it here as there | |
| In pleasant Norman land? | 80 |
| |
| “These woods, perchance, no secret hide | |
| Of lordly tower and hall; | |
| Yon river in its wanderings wide | |
| Has washed no city wall; | |
| |
| “Yet mirrored in the sullen stream | 85 |
| The holy stars are given: | |
| Is Norembega, then, a dream | |
| Whose waking is in Heaven? | |
| |
| “No builded wonder of these lands | |
| My weary eyes shall see; | 90 |
| A city never made with hands | |
| Alone awaiteth me— | |
| |
| “‘Urbs Syon mystica’; I see | |
| Its mansions passing fair, | |
| ‘Condita cœlo’; let me be, | 95 |
| Dear Lord, a dweller there!” | |
| |
| Above the dying exile hung | |
| The vision of the bard, | |
| As faltered on his failing tongue | |
| The song of good Bernard. | 100 |
| |
| The henchman dug at dawn a grave | |
| Beneath the hemlocks brown, | |
| And to the desert’s keeping gave | |
| The lord of fief and town. | |
| |
| Years after, when the Sieur Champlain | 105 |
| Sailed up the unknown stream, | |
| And Norembega proved again | |
| A shadow and a dream, | |
| |
| He found the Norman’s nameless grave | |
| Within the hemlock’s shade, | 110 |
| And, stretching wide its arms to save, | |
| The sign that God had made, | |
| |
| The cross-boughed tree that marked the spot | |
| And made it holy ground: | |
| He needs the earthly city not | 115 |
| Who hath the heavenly found. | |
| |
