_A jongleur tells to the Viscountess of Ventadour,--wife of the Seigneur
of the Château de Ventadour, in Limousin,--how the troubadour Bernard,
her former lover, met his death. Time, the middle of the 12th century._
All the night was drowned in dreaming;
And, above the terraced height,
Hung the moon, a sinking crescent,
In the ocean mirrored white;
And a breath of distant music
And of fragrance filled the night.
Dripped the musk of myriad roses
From a million heavy sprays;
And the nightingales were sobbing
'Mid the roses, where the haze
And the purple mists of midnight
Caught the moonlight's rippled rays.
And the towers of the palace,
'Mid its belt of ancient trees,
On the mountain rose, romantic,
White as foam of summer seas;
And the murmur of the ocean
Made a harp of every breeze.
Where the moon shone on the terrace
And its fountains' falling foam;
Where the marble urns of flowers
Spilled their perfume in the gloam;
By the alabaster Venus
Stood her troubadour come home.
Bernard, he who was my master
And your lover, Ventadour;
There to meet her by commandment,
She the lovely Eleanor;
She of Normandy the Duchess,
He a simple troubadour.
And she met him by the statue,
By the marble Venus there,--
Like a moonbeam 'mid the roses,
Who their crimson hearts laid bare,
Breathing out their lives in fragrance,
At her naked feet and fair.--
Then she told him she was Queen now,
That her husband now was King,
King of England; and to-morrow
She would sail. And then a ring
From her hand she took and gave him;
For the last time bade him sing.
And he sang. Below, the dingles,
Where the lazy vapors lolled,
Where the torrent flashed its cascade,
Touched with amethyst and gold,
Echoed; where the wild deer glimmered
By the ruin gray and old.
From the Venus then, or roses,
Struck a dagger; snake that stung,
Laid him dead who'd tuned her heart's strings
Till for him alone they sung:
Stilled the heart of him who only
From her heart one note had wrung.
And the nightingales kept singing
'Mid the roses, while, like stone,
Eleanor sank pale beside him,
And unto the palace lone
Stole a shadow with a dagger,
Who shall sit upon a throne.