Burial of William the Conqueror. Felicia Hemans (1793-1835). Caen. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. 1876-79. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes. France: Vols. IX-X

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
France: Vols. IX–X. 1876–79.

Caen

Burial of William the Conqueror

Felicia Hemans (1793–1835)

At Caen, in Normandy, 1087

“At the day appointed for the king’s interment, Prince Henry, his third son, the Norman prelates, and a multitude of clergy and people, assembled in the Church of St. Stephen, which the Conqueror had founded. The mass had been performed, the corpse was placed on the bier, and the Bishop of Evreux had pronounced the panegyric on the deceased, when a voice from the crowd exclaimed: ‘He whom you have praised was a robber. The very land on which you stand is mine. By violence he took it from my father; and in the name of God, I forbid you to bury him in it.’ The speaker was Asceline Fitz-Arthur, who had often, but fruitlessly, sought reparation from the justice of William. After some debate, the prelates called him to them, paid him sixty shillings for the grave, and promised that he should receive the full value of his land. The ceremony was then continued, and the body of the king deposited in a coffin of stone.”—Lingard, Vol. II. p. 98.

LOWLY upon his bier
The royal conqueror lay;
Baron and chief stood near,
Silent in war array.
Down the long minster’s aisle	5
Crowds mutely gazing streamed;
Altar and tomb the while
Through mists of incense gleamed.

And, by the torches’ blaze,
The stately priest had said	10
High words of power and praise
To the glory of the dead.
They lowered him, with the sound
Of requiems, to repose;
When from the throngs around	15
A solemn voice arose:—

“Forbear! forbear!” it cried;
“In the holiest Name, forbear!
He hath conquered regions wide,
But he shall not slumber there!	20
By the violated hearth
Which made way for yon proud shrine;
By the harvests which this earth
Hath borne for me and mine;

“By the house e’en here o’erthrown	25
On my brethren’s native spot,—
Hence! with his dark renown
Cumber our birthplace not!
Will my sire’s unransomed field,
O’er which your censers wave,	30
To the buried spoiler yield
Soft slumber in the grave?

“The tree before him fell
Which we cherished many a year,
But its deep root yet shall swell	35
And heave against his bier.
The land that I have tilled
Hath yet its brooding breast
With my home’s white ashes filled,
And it shall not give him rest.	40

“Here each proud columns’ bed
Hath been wet by weeping eyes,—
Hence! and bestow your dead
Where no wrong against him cries!”
Shame glowed on each dark face	45
Of those proud and steel-girt men,
And they bought with gold a place
For their leader’s dust, e’en then.

A little earth for him
Whose banner flew so far!	50
And a peasant’s tale could dim
The name, a nation’s star!
One deep voice thus arose
From a heart which wrongs had riven,—
O, who shall number those	55
That were but heard in heaven?

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