Foreign Tales and Traditions/Volume 1/Love Triumphant

by John Brown Patterson

For other versions of this work, see A Swiss Tradition.

LOVE TRIUMPHANT

 

A SWISS TRADITION.

 

Of night’s descending diadem
Shone in the west one lonely gem,—
Roused at the breezy call of morn,
Above the horizon’s eastern bound
The sun shot up his golden horn,
And with a wreath of glory crown’d
The snowy locks of far Shreckhorn,—
While, slumbering in the gloom profound,
The nearer Alps like giants lay,
Nor even the lark had hailed the day;

Rolled o’er the lake the sullen swell
Of Interlaken’s matin-bell,—
With flapping wing and accent shrill
The startled wild-bird sought the sky,
And the roused echoes of the hill
With all their voices gave reply,—
Before the morning-breezes chill
A lordly skiff went flashing by,
And entered soon the cloistered hall,
The lord of castled Schamalhthal.

And with him came his pensive spouse
To see the fearful convent-vows
Laid on the daughter of her love.
With snowy robes and saintly hood,
And eyes like those of Hermon’s dove,
The nuns beside the altar stood:
Madonna-forms, that gazed above,
In half-entranced, half-humbled mood,
As if their souls from passion free,
Dwelt in a sphere of sanctity.

Fronting that meek angelic band
The fathers of the order stand:
More earthly, yet more mortified,
Less spiritual, yet more austere;
A spark of passion and of pride
Still lurked about their eyes severe;
And their knit brows appeared to hide
A sense of chilliness and fear,
Such as the loveless man must feel,
And though he curb cannot conceal.

But who is she so mute and pale,
Whose locks below the novice-veil
Are like the sable brow of night
Girt with the zodiac’s milky band?
Why is her eye no longer bright?
Why faintly droops the feeble hand?
Why, sullying her beauty’s light,
Burns on her cheek the tear-drop’s brand?
A woe hath long oppressed her heart,
Which would not rest, and scarce depart.

Is it gone now? She deemeth so;
Yet who, contending with that foe,
May say, I’ve foiled his force and art?
For oft his seeming death is sleep,
And, through the mazes of the heart,
His power unseen, unfelt can creep,
Into the soul’s most hidden part,
Till it has traced its windings deep,
And triumphs in its citadel.
Who is he? ah! I need not tell!

That waveless calm was on her form
Which oft at sea succeeds the storm,
Through which are dimly floating seen
The signs of shipwreck and of death.
Long kept she her unvarying mien,
And drew with steady strength her breath,
Though there were pauses oft between,
Which spoke of something underneath
Her frozen patience, unsubdued,
Deep in her bosom’s solitude.

She struggled, but could not prevail;
The spring of her resolve ’gan fail,
And give her feelings play. She felt,
Beneath the music’s soft control,
The frost upon her spirit melt;
’Mid the soft light upon her soul,
Even as in seeming prayer she knelt,
Of earthly love a feeling stole,
Which grew and grew, and though her heart
Essayed to bid, would not depart.

Alas! what saw she, that the blood
Darts through her cheek its crimson flood?
See! fixed on her the visage pale
Of her once lov’d and lovely Gualter;
Over her eyes she flung the veil,
And tottered to the fatal altar;
No wonder that her heart should fail!
No wonder that her step should falter!
And must she vow to Him above,
Her bosom owns no earthly love?

“Alas!” she shrieked with frantic air,
“Heaven’s curse is on me, if I swear.”
She fainted with a murmuring sound;
The mother rushed to raise her child
Where she had sunk upon the ground;
The cowled brow itself grew mild,
Although the baron sternly frowned,
And the nuns coldly bitterly smiled,
At her, whose heart could not despise,
Like their’s, its young love’s sacrifice.

Forth darted Gualter from among
The novices’ astonished throng.
“Her plighted faith was mine,” he cried,
“Before a cruel father’s doom
Condemn’d his child, my love, my bride,
Even in her youth and beauty’s bloom,
Her love, her loveliness to hide
In the lone convent’s silent gloom!
I curs’d him; and from thence her ear
No other word of mine would hear.

“Ah! then my life was turned to pain,
Hope fled, and then—what could remain?
To-day I saw her changeless brow,
Though pale, and my despair was sealed.
Then burned my brain—but now, but now,
I feel bosom’s curse repealed!
Full soothly kept her earliest vow!
Her changeless love full well revealed!
O fathers! impious were the deed,
Should now the votive rite proceed.

“Her love is mine, and God’s pure eyes
Reject a stolen sacrifice.
Thou, Baron, (and he lowly knelt)
Aneal me from my passions crime;
My heart too well its weight hath felt
In all the suffering of the time,
Since that sad hour of woe and guilt,—
Be thine the godlike task sublime,
To shed around thee happiness,
And even the offending one to bless!”

The mother joined the youth’s request,
With arts which woman wields the best.
The Baron’s heart was not of stone,—
What heart that was not could defy
The lover’s passionate look and tone,
A daughter’s eloquent agony?
Lo! at the shrine, where she had gone
With wounded soul, and tearful eye,
Her soul was healed, her tears were dried,
Her love was sealed and sanctified.

 

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