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Translated by J. O. Sargent
AT Bruges in the minster, on columns and on shrines, | |
| From thousand candelabras, a wondrous radiance shines: | |
| Bands of priests in splendid garments defile beneath its arches, | |
| While without a lordly company to the Cathedral marches. | |
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| Borne loftily before them the double banner streams, | 5 |
| Where Burgundy’s gold lily-wreath on Austria’s purple gleams: | |
| Very strong is the alliance of such people and such lands, | |
| But the wreath to which the lovers turn twines firmer, stronger bands. | |
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| From seventy lands a herald bears the banner of each land, | |
| Of knights in shining armor, a noble blooming band; | 10 |
| They ride in earnest silence, by God’s breath circled round, | |
| While the horses stamp and neigh and the rattling arms resound. | |
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| White as the foam of fountains, many hundred horses prance, | |
| On helmets and on lances the green sprays float and dance; | |
| Many hundred armors glisten, as the snow in moonlight gleams, | 15 |
| And harp-strings make a music, like the ripples of the streams. | |
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| If a sea-gull, sweeping over it, in the air should chance to be, | |
| He would dive to bathe his plumage in such a silver sea; | |
| The nightingale whose threnody from yon balcony trills | |
| Would think the space beneath him a grove of laurel fills. * * * * * | 20 |
| In the house of God his blessing the gray-haired Bishop spake, | |
| And the plain gold rings of wedlock, bride and bridegroom give and take; | |
| Then snapped the ring of one of them,—it boded nothing good,— | |
| And the light of an acolyte went out who at the altar stood. | |
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| With myriad stars the canopy of heaven was lit that night, | 25 |
| But the lights by far outnumbered them that made all Bruges bright, | |
| And if you cannot read the scroll that God wrote in the sky, | |
| You may read on the town-house written a plain transparency: | |
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| “In marriage, happy Austria, not in arms thy fortunes be; | |
| Mars gives to others kingdoms that Venus gives to thee.” | 30 |
| Max and Mary’s names thereunder inscribed in colored light, | |
| Did they see them? History tells not if they saw the scroll that night. | |
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