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The
Baron's Yule Feast.
LONDON:
Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODE,
New-Street-Square.
The
Baron's Yule Feast:
A
Christmas-Rhyme.
By
Thomas Cooper,
The Chartist.
London
JEREMIAH HOW
209 Picadilley
1846
TO
THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.
Lady, receive a tributary lay
From one who cringeth not to titled state
Conventional, and lacketh will to prate
Of comeliness--though thine, to which did pay
The haughty Childe his tuneful homage, may
No minstrel deem a harp-theme derogate.
I reckon thee among the truly great
And fair, because with genius thou dost sway
The thought of thousands, while thy noble heart
With pity glows for Suffering, and with zeal
Cordial relief and solace to impart.
Thou didst, while I rehearsed Toil's wrongs, reveal
Such yearnings! Plead! let England hear thee plead
With eloquent tongue,--that Toil from wrong be freed!
ADVERTISEMENT.
Several pieces in the following Rhyme were written many years ago, and
will be recognised by my early friends. They were the fruit of
impressions derived from the local associations of boyhood, (of which,
the reader, if inclined, may learn more in the notes,) and of an
admiration created by the exquisite beauty and simplicity of Coleridge's
'Christabel,'--which I had by heart, and used to repeat to Thomas
Miller, my playmate and companion from infancy, during many a delightful
'Day in the Woods,' and pleasing ramble on the hills and in the woods
above Gainsborough, and along the banks of Trent.
I offer but one apology for the production of a metrical essay, composed
chiefly of imperfect and immature pieces:--the ambition to contribute
towards the fund of Christmas entertainment, in which agreeable labour I
see many popular names engaged,--and among them, one, the most
deservedly popular in the literature of the day. The favour with which
an influential portion of the press has received my 'Prison Rhyme'
emboldens me to take this step; and if the flagellation of criticism be
not too keenly dealt upon me for the imperfections in the few pages that
follow, I will be content, in this instance, to expect no praise.
134, _Blackfriars Road_,
_Dec. 20. 1845_.
THE
BARON'S YULE FEAST.
A
Christmas Rhyme.
CANTO I.
Right beautiful is Torksey's hall,[1]
Adown by meadowed Trent;
Right beautiful that mouldering wall,
And remnant of a turret tall,
Shorn of its battlement.
For, while the children of the Spring
Blush into life, and die;
And Summer's joy-birds take light wing
When Autumn mists are nigh;
And soon the year--a winterling--
With its fall'n leaves doth lie;
That ruin gray--
Mirror'd, alway,
Deep in the silver stream,
Doth summon weird-wrought visions vast,
That show the actors of the past
Pictured, as in a dream.
Meseemeth, now, before mine eyes,
The pomp-clad phantoms dimly rise,
Till the full pageant bright--
A throng of warrior-barons bold,
Glittering in burnished steel and gold,
Bursts on my glowing sight.
And, mingles with the martial train,
Full many a fair-tressed beauty vain,
On palfrey and jennet--
That proudly toss the tasselled rein,
And daintily curvet;
And war-steeds prance,
And rich plumes glance
On helm and burgonet;
And lances crash,
And falchions flash
Of knights in tourney met.
Fast fades the joust!--and fierce forms frown
That man the leaguered tower,--
Nor quail to scan the kingly crown
That leads the leaguering power.
Trumpet and "rescue" ring!--and, soon,
He who began the strife
Is fain to crave one paltry boon:--
The thrall-king begs his life!
Our fathers and their throbbing toil
Are hushed in pulseless death;
Hushed is the dire and deadly broil--
The tempest of their wrath;--
Yet, of their deeds not all for spoil
Is thine, O sateless Grave!
Songs of their brother-hours shall foil
Thy triumph o'er the brave!
Their bravery take, and darkly hide
Deep in thy inmost hold!
Take all their mailed pomp and pride
To deck thy mansions cold!
Plunderer! thou hast but purified
Their memories from alloy:
Faults of the dead we scorn to chide--
Their virtues sing with joy.
Lord of our fathers' ashes! list
A carol of their mirth;
Nor shake thy nieve, chill moralist!
To check their sons' joy-birth:--
It is the season when our sires
Kept jocund holiday;
And, now, around our charier fires,
Old Yule shall have a lay:--
A prison-bard is once more free;
And, ere he yields his voice to thee,
His song a merry-song shall be!
* * * * *
Sir Wilfrid de Thorold[2] freely holds
What his stout sires held before--
Broad lands for plough, and fruitful folds,--
Though by gold he sets no store;
And he saith, from fen and woodland wolds,
From marish, heath, and moor,--
To feast in his hall,
Both free and thrall,
Shall come as they came of yore.
"Let the merry bells ring out!" saith he
To my lady of the Fosse;[3]
"We will keep the birth-eve joyfully
Of our Lord who bore the cross!"
"Let the merry bells ring loud!" he saith
To saint Leonard's shaven prior;[4]
"Bid thy losel monks that patter of faith
Shew works, and never tire."
Saith the lord of saint Leonard's: "The brotherhood
Will ring and never tire
For a beck or a nod of the Baron good;"--
Saith Sir Wilfrid: "They will--for hire!"
Then, turning to his daughter fair,
Who leaned on her father's carven chair,--
He said,--and smiled
On his peerless child,--
His jewel whose price no clerk could tell,
Though the clerk had told
Sea sands for gold;--
For her dear mother's sake he loved her well,--
But more for the balm her tenderness
Had poured on his widowed heart's distress;--
More, still more, for her own heart's grace
That so lovelily shone in her lovely face,
And drew all eyes its love to trace--
Left all tongues languageless!--
He said,--and smiled
On his peerless child,
"Sweet bird! bid Hugh our seneschal
Send to saint Leonard's, ere even-fall,
A fat fed beeve, and a two-shear sheep,
With a firkin of ale that a monk in his sleep
May hear to hum, when it feels the broach,
And wake up and swig, without reproach!--
And the nuns of the Fosse--for wassail-bread--
Let them have wheat, both white and red;
And a runlet of mead, with a jug of the wine
Which the merchant-man vowed he brought from the Rhine;
And bid Hugh say that their bells must ring
A peal loud and long,
While we chaunt heart-song,
For the birth of our heavenly king!"
Now merrily ring the lady-bells
Of the nunnery by the Fosse:--
Say the hinds, "Their silver music swells
Like the blessed angels' syllables,
At his birth who bore the cross!"
And solemnly swells saint Leonard's chime
And the great bell loud and deep:--
Say the gossips, "Let's talk of the holy time
When the shepherds watched their sheep;
And the Babe was born for all souls' crime
In the weakness of flesh to weep."--
But, anon, shrills the pipe of the merry mime,
And their simple hearts upleap.
"God save your souls, good Christian folk!
God save your souls from sin!--
Blythe Yule is come--let us blythely joke!"--
Cry the mummers, ere they begin.
Then, plough-boy Jack, in kirtle gay,--
Though shod with clouted shoon,--
Stands forth the wilful maid to play
Who ever saith to her lover "Nay"--
When he sues for a lover's boon.
While Hob the smith with sturdy arm
Circleth the feigned maid;
And, spite of Jack's assumed alarm,
Busseth his lips, like a lover warm,
And will not "Nay" be said.
Then loffe the gossips, as if wit
Were mingled with the joke:--
Gentles,--they were with folly smit,--
Natheless, their memories acquit
Of crime--these simple folk!
No harmful thoughts their revels blight,--
Devoid of bitter hate and spite,
They hold their merriment;--
And, till the chimes tell noon at night,
Their joy shall be unspent!
"Come haste ye to bold Thorold's hall,
And crowd his kitchen wide;
For there, he saith, both free and thrall
Shall sport this good Yule-tide!
"Come hasten, gossips!" the mummers cry,
Throughout old Torksey town;
"We'll hasten!" they answer, joyfully,
The gossip and the clown.
Heigho! whence cometh that cheery shout?
'Tis the Yule-log troop,--a merry rout!
The gray old ash that so bravely stood,
The pride of the Past, in Thorney wood,[5]
They have levelled for honour of welcome Yule;
And kirtled Jack is placed astride:
On the log to the grunsel[6] he shall ride!
"Losels, yoke all! yoke to, and pull!"
Cries Dick the wright, on long-eared steed;
"He shall have thwack
On lazy back,
That yoketh him not, in time of need!"
A long wain-whip
Dick doth equip,
And with beans in the bladder at end of thong,
It seemeth to threaten strokes sturdy and strong;--
Yet clown and maid
Give eager aid,--
And all, as they rattle the huge block along,
Seem to court the joke
Of Dick's wain-whip stroke,--
Be it ever so smart, none thinks he hath wrong;--
Till with mirthsome glee,
The old ash tree
Hath come to the threshold of Torksey hall,--
Where its brave old heart
A glow shall impart
To the heart of each guest at the festival.
And through the porch, a jocund crowd,
They rush, with heart-born laughter loud;
And still the merry mimesters call,
With jest and gibe, "Laugh, losels all!"
Then in the laden sewers troop,
With plattered beef and foaming stoup:--
"Make merry, neighbours!" cries good Hugh,
The white-haired seneschal:
"Ye trow, bold Thorold welcomes you--
Make merry, my masters, all!"
They pile the Yule-log on the hearth,--
Soak toasted crabs in ale;
And while they sip, their homely mirth
Is joyous as if all the earth
For man were void of bale!
And why should fears for future years
Mix jolly ale with thoughts of tears
When in the horn 'tis poured?
And why should ghost of sorrow fright
The bold heart of an English wight
When beef is on the board?
De Thorold's guests are wiser than
The men of mopish lore;
For round they push the smiling can,
And slice the plattered store.
And round they thrust the ponderous cheese,
And the loaves of wheat and rye:
None stinteth him for lack of ease--
For each a stintless welcome sees,
In the Baron's blythesome eye.
The Baron joineth the joyous feast--
But not in pomp or pride;
He smileth on the humblest guest
So gladsomely--all feel that rest
Of heart which doth abide
Where deeds of generousness attest
The welcome by the tongue professed,
Is not within belied.
And the Baron's beauteous child is there,
In her maiden peerlessness,--
Her eyes diffusing heart-light rare,
And smiles so sweetly debonair,
That all her presence bless.--
But wherefore paleth, soon, her cheek?
And why, with trembling, doth she seek
To shun her father's gaze?
And who is he for whom the crowd
Make ready room, and "Welcome" loud
With gleeful voices raise?
"Right welcome!" though the revellers shout,
They hail the minstrel "Stranger!"
And in the Baron's eye dwells doubt,
And his daughter's look thrills "danger!"
Though he seemeth meek the youth is bold,
And his speech is firm and free;
He saith he will carol a legend old,
Of a Norman lord of Torksey told:
He learnt it o'er the sea;
And he will not sing for the Baron's gold,
But for love of minstrelsy.
"Come, tune thy harp!" the Baron saith,
"And tell thy minstrel tale:
It is too late to harbour wrath
For the thieves in helm and mail:
"Our fathers' home again is ours!--
Though Thorold is Saxon still,
To a song of thy foreign troubadours
He can list with right good will!"
A shout of glee rings to the roof,
And the revellers form a ring;
Then silent wait to mark what proof
Of skill with voice and string
The youthful stranger will afford.
Full soon he tunes each quivering chord,
And, with preamble wildly sweet
He doth the wondering listeners greet;--
Then strikes into a changeful chaunt
That fits his fanciful romaunt.
The Daughter of Plantagenet.
THE STRANGER MINSTREL'S TALE.
FYTTE THE FYRSTE.
'Tis midnight, and the broad full moon
Pours on the earth her silver noon;
Sheeted in white, like spectres of fear,
Their ghostly forms the towers uprear;
And their long dark shadows behind them are cast,
Like the frown of the cloud when the lightning hath past.
The warder sleeps on the battlement,
And there is not a breeze to curl the Trent;
The leaf is at rest, and the owl is mute--
But list! awaked is the woodland lute:
The nightingale warbles her omen sweet
On the hour when the ladye her lover shall meet.
She waves her hand from the loophole high,
And watcheth, with many a struggling sigh,
And hearkeneth in doubt, and paleth with fear,--
Yet tremblingly trusts her true knight is near;--
And there skims o'er the river--or doth her heart doat?--
As with wing of the night-hawk--her lover's brave boat.
His noble form hath attained the strand,
And she waves again her small white hand;
And breathing to heaven, in haste, a prayer,
Softly glides down the lonely stair;
And there stands by the portal, all watchful and still,
Her own faithful damsel awaiting her will.
The midnight lamp gleams dull and pale,--
The maidens twain are weak and frail,--
But Love doth aid his votaries true,
While they the massive bolts undo,--
And a moment hath flown, and the warrior knight
Embraceth his love in the meek moonlight.
The knight his love-prayer, tenderly,
Thus breathed in his fair one's ear
"Oh! wilt thou not, my Agnes, flee?--
And, quelling thy maiden fear,
Away in the fleeting skiff with me,
And, for aye, this lone heart cheer?"
"O let not bold Romara[7] seek"--
Soft answered his ladye-love,--
"A father's doating heart to break,
For should I disdainful prove
Of his high behests, his darling child
Will thenceforth be counted a thing defiled;
And the kindling eye of my martial sire
Be robbed of its pride, and be quenched its fire:
Nor long would true Romara deem
The heart of his Agnes beat for him,
And for him alone--if that heart, he knew,
To its holiest law could be thus untrue."
His plume-crowned helm the warrior bows
Low o'er her shoulder fair,
And bursting sighs the grief disclose
His lips can not declare;
And swiftly glide the tears of love
Adown the ladye's cheek;--
Their deep commingling sorrows prove
The love they cannot speak!
The moon shines on them, as on things
She loves to robe with gladness,--
But all her light no radiance brings
Unto their hearts' dark sadness:
Forlornly, 'neath her cheerless ray,--
Bosom to bosom beating,--
In speechless agony they stay,
With burning kisses greeting;--
Nor reck they with what speed doth haste
The present hour to join the past.
"Ho! lady Agnes, lady dear!"
Her fearful damsel cries;
"You reckon not, I deeply fear,
How swift the moontide flies!
The surly warder will awake,
The morning dawn, anon,--
My heart beginneth sore to quake,--
I fear we are undone!"
But Love is mightier than Fear:
The ladye hasteth not:
The magnet of her heart is near,
And peril is forgot!
She clingeth to her knight's brave breast
Like a lorn turtle-dove,
And 'mid the peril feeleth rest,--
The full, rapt rest of Love!
"I charge thee, hie thee hence, sir knight!"
The damsel shrilly cries;
"If this should meet her father's sight,
By Heaven! my lady dies."
The warrior rouseth all his pride,
And looseth his love's caress,--
Yet slowness of heart doth his strength betide
As he looks on her loveliness:--
But again the damsel their love-dream breaks,--
And, self-reproachingly,
The knight his resolve of its fetters shakes,
And his spirit now standeth free.
Then, came the last, absorbing kiss,
True Love can ne'er forego,--
That dreamy plenitude of bliss
Or antepast of woe,--
That seeming child of Heaven, which at its birth
Briefly expires, and proves itself of earth.
The ladye hieth to her couch;--
And when the morn appears,
The changes of her cheek avouch,
Full virginly her fears;--
But her doating father can nought discern
In the hues of the rose and the lily that chase
Each other across her lovely face,--
Save a sweetness that softens his visage stern.
FYTTE THE SECONDE.
Romara's skiff is on the Trent,
And the stream is in its strength,--
For a surge, from its ocean-fountain sent,
Pervades its giant length:[8]
Roars the hoarse heygre[9] in its course,
Lashing the banks with its wrathful force;
And dolefully echoes the wild-fowl's scream,
As the sallows are swept by the whelming stream;
And her callow young are hurled for a meal,
To the gorge of the barbel, the pike, and the eel:
The porpoise[10] heaves 'mid the rolling tide,
And, snorting in mirth, doth merrily ride,--
For he hath forsaken his bed in the sea,
To sup on the salmon, right daintily!
In Romara's breast a tempest raves:
He heeds not the rage of the furrowy waves:
Supremely his hopes and fears are set
On the image of Agnes Plantagenet:[11]
And though from his vision fade Gainsburgh's towers,
And the moon is beclouded, and darkness lours,
Yet the eye of his passion oft pierceth the gloom,
And beholds his Beloved in her virgin bloom--
Kneeling before the holy Rood,--
All clasped her hands,--
Beseeching the saints and angels good
That their watchful bands
Her knight may preserve from a watery tomb!
What deathful scream rends Romara's heart?--
Is it the bittern that, flapping the air,
Doth shriek in madness, and downward dart,
As if from the bosom of Death she would tear
Her perished brood,--or a shroud would have
By their side, in the depths of their river-grave?
Hark! hark! again!--'tis a human cry,
Like the shriek of a man about to die!
And its desolateness doth fearfully pierce
The billowy boom of the torrent fierce;
And, swift as a thought
Glides the warrior's boat
Through the foaming surge to the river's bank,
Where, lo!--by a branch of the osiers dank,
Clingeth one in agony
Uttering that doleful cry!
His silvery head of age upborne
Appeared above the wave;
So nearly was his strength outworn,
That all too late to save
Had been the knight, if another billow
Its force on his fainting frame, had bent,--
Nay, his feeble grasp by the drooping willow
The beat of a pulse might have fatally spent.
With eager pounce did Romara take
From the yawning wave its prey,--
But nought to his deliverer spake
The man with the head of gray:
And the warrior stripped, with needful haste,
The helpless one of his drenched vest,
And wrapt his own warm mantle round
The chill one in his deathly swound.
The sea-born strength of the stream is spent,
And Romara's boat outstrips its speed,--
For his stalwart arm to the oar is bent,
And swiftly the ebbing waves recede.
Divinely streaketh the morning-star
With a wavy light the rippling waters;
And the moon looks on from the west, afar,
And palely smiles, with her waning daughters,
The thin-strown stars, which their vigil keep
Till the orient sun shall awake from sleep.
The sun hath awoke; and in garments of gold
The turrets of Torksey are livingly rolled;
Afar, on Trent's margin, the flowery lea
Exhales her dewy fragrancy;
And gaily carols the matin lark,
As the warrior hastes to moor his bark.
Two menials hastened to the beach,
For signal none need they;
On the towers they kept a heedful watch
As the skiff glode on its way:
With silent step and breathless care
The rescued one they softly bear,
And bring him, at their lord's behest,
To a couch of silken pillowed rest.
The serfs could scarce avert their eye
From his manly form and mien,
As, with closed lids, all reverendly,
He lay in peace, serene.
And Romara thought, as he gazing leant
O'er the slumberer's form, that so pure a trace
Of the spirit of Heaven with the earthly blent
Dwelt only there, and in Agnes' face.
The leech comes forth at the hour of noon,
And saith, that the sick from his deathly swoon
Will awake anon; and Romara's eye,
Uplit, betokens his heartfelt joy;
And again o'er the slumberer's couch he bows
Till, slowly, those peaceful lids unclose,--
When, long, with heavenward-fixed gaze,
With lowly prayer and grateful praise,
The aged man, from death reprieved,
His bosom of its joy relieved.--
Then did Romara thus address
His gray guest, in his reverendness:
"Now, man of prayer come tell to me
Some spell of thy holy mystery!
Some vision hast had of the Virgin bright,--
Or message, conveyed from the world of light,
By the angels of love who in purity stand
'Fore the throne of our Lord in the heavenly land?
"I hope, when I die, to see them there:
For I love the angels so holy and fair:
And often, I trust, my prayer they greet
With smiles, when I kneel and kiss their feet
In the missal, my mother her weeping child gave,
But a day or two ere she was laid in the grave.
"Sage man of prayer, come tell to me
What holy shapes in sleep they see
Who love the blest saints and serve them well!
I pray thee, sage man, to Romara tell,
For a guerdon, thy dreams,--sith, to me thou hast said
No thanks that I rescued thy soul from the dead."
But, when the aged man arose
And met Romara's wistful eye,--
What accents shall the change disclose
That marked his visage, fearfully?--
From joy to grief and deepest dole,
From radiant hope to dark presage
Of future ills beyond control--
Hath passed, the visage of the sage.
"Son of an honoured line, I grieve,"
Outspake the reverend seer,
"That I no guerdon thee can give
But words of woe and fear!--
Thy sun is setting!--and thy race,
In thee, their goodly heir,
Shall perish, nor a feeble trace
Their fated name declare!--
Thy love is fatal: fatal, too,
This act of rescue brave--
For, him who from destruction drew
My life, no arm can save!"
He said,--and took his lonely way
Far from Romara's towers.--
His fateful end from that sad day
O'er Torksey's chieftain lowers:--
Yet, vainly, in his heart a shrine
Hope builds for love,--with faith;--
Alas! for him with frown malign
Waiteth the grim king Death!
FYTTE THE THYRDE.
Plantagenet hath dungeons deep
Beneath his castled halls;--
Plantagenet awakes from sleep
To count his dungeoned thralls.
Alone, with the torch of blood-red flame,
The man of blood descends;
And the fettered captives curse his name,
As through the vaults he wends.--
His caverns are visited, all, save one,
The deepest, and direst in gloom,--
Where his father, doomed by a demon son,
Abode in a living tomb.--
"I bring thee bread and water, sire!
Brave usury for thy gold!
I fear my filial zeal will tire
To visit, soon, thy hold!"
Thus spake the fiendish-hearted lord,
And wildly laughed, in scorn:
Like thunder round the cell each word
By echoing fiends is borne,--
But not a human heart is there
The baron's scorn or hate to fear!
And the captives tell, as he passeth again,--
That tyrant, in his rage,--
How an angel hath led the aged man
To his heavenly heritage!
The wrathful baron little recked
That angel was his darling child;
Or knew his dark ambition checked
By her who oft his rage beguiled,--
By her on whom he ever smiled:--
This had he known, from that dread hour,
His darling's smile had lost its power,--
And his own hand, without remorse,
Had laid her at his feet a corse!--
Plantagenet's banners in pride are borne
To the sound of pipe and drum!
And his mailed bands, with the dawn of morn,
To Romara's walls are come.
"We come not as foes," the herald saith,--
"But we bring Plantagenet's shriven faith
That thou, Romara, in thine arms
Shall soon enfold thy true love's charms:
Let no delay thy joy betide!--
Thy Agnes soon shall be thy bride!"
The raven croaks as Torksey's lord
Attends that bannered host;
But the lover is deaf to the omen-bird--
The fatal moat is crossed!
"Ride, ride;" saith the baron,--"thy ladye fain
And the priest--by the altar wait!"--
And the spearmen seize his bridle-rein,
And hurry him to his fate.
"A marriage by torchlight!" the baron said;
"This stair to the altar leads!
We patter our prayers, 'mong the mouldering dead,--
And there we tell our beads!"
Along the caverned dungeon's gloom
The tyrant strides in haste;
And, powerless, to his dreadful doom
The victim followeth fast.
The dazed captives quake and stare
At the sullen torch's blood-red glare,
And the lover starts aghast
At the deathlike forms they wear!
Too late, the truth upon him breaks!--
Romara's heart is faint!--
"Behold thy bride!" the baron shrieks--
"Wilt hear the wedding chaunt?
This chain once bound my father here,
Who would have found his grave--
The cursed dotard!--'neath the wave,--
Had not thy hateful hand been near.--
Be this the bride thou now shalt wed!
This dungeon dank thy bridal bed!--
And when thy youthful blood shall freeze
In death,--may fiends thy spirit seize!"--
Plantagenet hath minions fell
Who do their master's bidding well:--
Few days Romara pines in dread:--
His soul is with the sainted dead!--
Plantagenet hath reached his bourne!
What terrors meet his soul forlorn
And full of stain,--I may not say:--
Reveal them shall the Judgment Day!--
Her orisons at matin hour,
At noon, and eve, and midnight toll,
For him, doth tearful Agnes pour!--
Jesu Maria! sain his soul!
THE
BARON'S YULE FEAST.
A
Christmas Rhyme.