Moving among the trees, and coming sounds
Were heard as of a distant multitude.
Anon a company of horse and foot,
Advancing in disorderly array,
Came up the vale; before them and beside
Their torches flash’d on Sella’s rippling stream;
Now gleam’d through chesnut groves, emerging now,
O’er their huge boughs and radiated leaves
Cast broad and bright a transitory glare.
That sight inspired with strength the mountaineers;
All sense of weariness, all wish for rest
At once were gone; impatient in desire
Of second victory alert they stood;
And when the hostile symbols, which from far
Imagination to their wish had shaped,
Vanish’d in nearer vision, high-wrought hope
Departing, left the spirit pall’d and blank.
No turban’d race, no sons of Africa
Were they who now came winding up the vale,
As waving wide before their horses’ feet
The torch-light floated, with its hovering glare
Blackening the incumbent and surrounding night.
Helmet and breast-plate glitter’d as they came,
And spears erect; and nearer as they drew
Were the loose folds of female garments seen
On those who led the company. Who then
Had stood beside Pelayo, might have heard
The beating of his heart.
But vainly there
Sought he with wistful eye the well-known forms
Beloved; and plainly might it now be seen
That from some bloody conflict they return’d
Victorious, ... for at every saddle-bow
A gorey head was hung. Anon they stopt,
Levelling in quick alarm their ready spears.
Hold! who goes there? cried one. A hundred tongues
Sent forth with one accord the glad reply,
Friends and Asturians. Onward moved the lights, ...
The people knew their Lord.
Then what a shout
Rung through the valley! From their clay-built nests,
Beneath the overbrowing battlements,
Now first disturb’d, the affrighted martins flew,
And uttering notes of terror short and shrill,
Amid the yellow glare and lurid smoke
Wheel’d giddily. Then plainly was it shown
How well the vassals loved their generous Lord,
How like a father the Asturian Prince
Was dear. They crowded round; they claspt his knees;
They snatch’d his hand; they fell upon his neck, ...
They wept; ... they blest Almighty Providence,
Which had restored him thus from bondage free;
God was with them and their good cause, they said;
His hand was here.... His shield was over them, ...
His spirit was abroad, ... His power display’d:
And pointing to their bloody trophies then,
They told Pelayo there he might behold
The first-fruits of the harvest they should soon
Reap in the field of war! Benignantly,
With voice and look and gesture, did the Prince
To these warm greetings of tumultuous joy
Respond; and sure if at that moment aught
Could for awhile have overpower’d those fears
Which from the inmost heart o’er all his frame
Diffused their chilling influence, worthy pride,
And sympathy of love and joy and hope,
Had then possess’d him wholly. Even now
His spirit rose; the sense of power, the sight
Of his brave people, ready where he led
To fight their country’s battles, and the thought
Of instant action, and deliverance, ...
If Heaven, which thus far had protected him,
Should favour still, ... revived his heart, and gave
Fresh impulse to its spring. In vain he sought
Amid that turbulent greeting to enquire
Where Gaudiosa was, his children where,
Who call’d them to the field, who captain’d them;
And how these women, thus with arms and death
Environ’d, came amid their company?
For yet, amid the fluctuating light
And tumult of the crowd, he knew them not.
Guisla was one. The Moors had found in her
A willing and concerted prisoner.
Gladly to Gegio, to the renegade
On whom her loose and shameless love was bent,
Had she set forth; and in her heart she cursed
The busy spirit, who, with powerful call
Rousing Pelayo’s people, led them on
In quick pursual, and victoriously
Achieved the rescue, to her mind perverse
Unwelcome as unlook’d for. With dismay
She recognized her brother, dreaded now
More than he once was dear; her countenance
Was turn’d toward him, ... not with eager joy
To court his sight, and meeting its first glance,
Exchange delightful welcome, soul with soul;
Hers was the conscious eye, that cannot chuse
But look to what it fears. She could not shun
His presence, and the rigid smile constrain’d,
With which she coldly drest her features, ill
Conceal’d her inward thoughts, and the despite
Of obstinate guilt and unrepentant shame.
Sullenly thus upon her mule she sate,
Waiting the greeting which she did not dare
Bring on. But who is she that at her side,
Upon a stately war-horse eminent,
Holds the loose rein with careless hand? A helm
Presses the clusters of her flaxen hair;
The shield is on her arm; her breast is mail’d;
A sword-belt is her girdle, and right well
It may be seen that sword hath done its work
To-day, for upward from the wrist her sleeve
Is stiff with blood. An unregardant eye,
As one whose thoughts were not of earth, she cast
Upon the turmoil round. One countenance
So strongly mark’d, so passion-worn was there,
That it recall’d her mind. Ha! Maccabee!
Lifting her arm, exultingly she cried,
Did I not tell thee we should meet in joy?
Well, Brother, hast thou done thy part, ... I too
Have not been wanting! Now be His the praise,
From whom the impulse came!
That startling call,
That voice so well remember’d, touch’d the Goth
With timely impulse now; for he had seen
His Mother’s face, ... and at her sight, the past
And present mingled like a frightful dream,
Which from some dread reality derives
Its deepest horror. Adosinda’s voice
Dispersed the waking vision. Little deem’d
Rusilla at that moment that the child,
For whom her supplications day and night
Were offer’d, breathed the living air. Her heart
Was calm; her placid countenance, though grief
Deeper than time had left its traces there,
Retain’d its dignity serene; yet when
Siverian, pressing through the people, kiss’d
Her reverend hand, some quiet tears ran down.
As she approach’d the Prince, the crowd made way
Respectful. The maternal smile which bore
Her greeting, from Pelayo’s heart at once
Dispell’d its boding. What he would have ask’d
She knew, and bending from her palfrey down,
Told him that they for whom he look’d were safe,
And that in secret he should hear the rest.
XV.
RODERICK AT CANGAS.
How calmly gliding through the dark-blue sky
The midnight Moon ascends! Her placid beams
Through thinly scatter’d leaves and boughs grotesque,
Mottle with mazy shades the orchard slope;
Here, o’er the chesnut’s fretted foliage grey
And massy, motionless they spread; here shine
Upon the crags, deepening with blacker night
Their chasms; and there the glittering argentry
Ripples and glances on the confluent streams.
A lovelier, purer light than that of day
Rests on the hills; and oh how awefully
Into that deep and tranquil firmament
The summits of Auseva rise serene!
The watchman on the battlements partakes
The stillness of the solemn hour; he feels
The silence of the earth, the endless sound
Of flowing water soothes him, and the stars,
Which in that brightest moon-light well-nigh quench’d
Scarce visible, as in the utmost depth
Of yonder sapphire infinite, are seen,
Draw on with elevating influence
Toward eternity the attemper’d mind.
Musing on worlds beyond the grave he stands,
And to the Virgin Mother silently
Prefers her hymn of praise.
The mountaineers
Before the castle, round their mouldering fires,
Lie on the hearth outstretch’d. Pelayo’s hall
Is full, and he upon his careful couch
Hears all around the deep and long-drawn breath
Of sleep: for gentle night hath brought to these
Perfect and undisturb’d repose, alike
Of corporal powers and inward faculty.
Wakeful the while he lay, yet more by hope
Than grief or anxious thoughts possess’d, ... though grief
For Guisla’s guilt, which freshen’d in his heart
The memory of their wretched mother’s crime,
Still made its presence felt, like the dull sense
Of some perpetual inward malady;
And the whole peril of the future lay
Before him clearly seen. He had heard all;
How that unworthy sister, obstinate
In wrong and shameless, rather seem’d to woo
The upstart renegado than to wait
His wooing; how, as guilt to guilt led on,
Spurning at gentle admonition first,
When Gaudiosa hopelessly forbore
From farther counsel, then in sullen mood
Resentful, Guisla soon began to hate
The virtuous presence before which she felt
Her nature how inferior, and her fault
How foul. Despiteful thus she grew, because
Humbled yet unrepentant. Who could say
To what excess bad passions might impel
A woman thus possess’d? She could not fail
To mark Siverian’s absence, for what end
Her conscience but too surely had divined;
And Gaudiosa, well aware that all
To the vile paramour was thus made known,
Had to safe hiding-place with timely fear
Removed her children. Well the event had proved
How needful was that caution; for at night
She sought the mountain solitudes, and morn
Beheld Numacian’s soldiers at the gate.
Yet did not sorrow in Pelayo’s heart
For this domestic shame prevail that hour,
Nor gathering danger weigh his spirit down.
The anticipated meeting put to flight
These painful thoughts; to-morrow will restore
All whom his heart holds dear; his wife beloved,
No longer now remember’d for regret,
Is present to his soul with hope and joy;
His inward eye beholds Favila’s form
In opening youth robust, and Hermesind,
His daughter, lovely as a budding rose;
Their images beguile the hours of night,
Till with the earliest morning he may seek
Their secret hold.
The nightingale not yet
Had ceased her song, nor had the early lark
Her dewy nest forsaken, when the Prince
Upward beside Pionia took his way
Toward Auseva. Heavily to him,
Impatient for the morrow’s happiness,
Long night had linger’d, but it seem’d more long
To Roderick’s aching heart. He too had watch’d
For dawn, and seen the earliest break of day,
And heard its earliest sounds; and when the Prince
Went forth, the melancholy man was seen
With pensive pace upon Pionia’s side
Wandering alone and slow. For he had left
The wearying place of his unrest, that morn
With its cold dews might bathe his throbbing brow,
And with its breath allay the feverish heat
That burnt within. Alas! the gales of morn
Reach not the fever of a wounded heart!
How shall he meet his Mother’s eye, how make
His secret known, and from that voice revered
Obtain forgiveness, ... all that he has now
To ask, ere on the lap of earth in peace
He lay his head resign’d? In silent prayer
He supplicated Heaven to strengthen him
Against that trying hour, there seeking aid
Where all who seek shall find; and thus his soul
Received support, and gather’d fortitude,
Never than now more needful, for the hour
Was nigh. He saw Siverian drawing near,
And with a dim but quick foreboding met
The good old man; yet when he heard him say
My Lady sends to seek thee, like a knell
To one expecting and prepared for death,
But fearing the dread point that hastens on,
It smote his heart. He follow’d silently,
And knit his suffering spirit to the proof.
He went resolved to tell his Mother all,
Fall at her feet, and drinking the last dregs
Of bitterness, receive the only good
Earth had in store for him. Resolved for this
He went; yet was it a relief to find
That painful resolution must await
A fitter season, when no eye but Heaven’s
Might witness to their mutual agony.
Count Julian’s daughter with Rusilla sate;
Both had been weeping, both were pale, but calm.
With head as for humility abased
Roderick approach’d, and bending, on his breast
He cross’d his humble arms. Rusilla rose
In reverence to the priestly character,
And with a mournful eye regarding him,
Thus she began. Good Father, I have heard
From my old faithful servant and true friend,
Thou didst reprove the inconsiderate tongue,
That in the anguish of its spirit pour’d
A curse upon my poor unhappy child.
O Father Maccabee, this is a hard world,
And hasty in its judgements! Time has been,
When not a tongue within the Pyrenees
Dared whisper in dispraise of Roderick’s name,
Lest, if the conscious air had caught the sound,
The vengeance of the honest multitude
Should fall upon the traitorous head, or brand
For life-long infamy the lying lips.
Now if a voice be raised in his behalf,
’Tis noted for a wonder, and the man
Who utters the strange speech shall be admired
For such excess of Christian charity.
Thy Christian charity hath not been lost; ...
Father, I feel its virtue: ... it hath been
Balm to my heart; ... with words and grateful tears, ...
All that is left me now for gratitude, ...
I thank thee, and beseech thee in thy prayers
That thou wilt still remember Roderick’s name.
Roderick so long had to this hour look’d on,
That when the actual point of trial came,
Torpid and numb’d it found him; cold he grew,
And as the vital spirits to the heart
Retreated, o’er his wither’d countenance,
Deathy and damp, a whiter paleness spread.
Unmoved the while, the inward feeling seem’d,
Even in such dull insensibility
As gradual age brings on, or slow disease,
Beneath whose progress lingering life survives
The power of suffering. Wondering at himself,
Yet gathering confidence, he raised his eyes,
Then slowly shaking as he bent his head,
O venerable Lady, he replied,
If aught may comfort that unhappy soul,
It must be thy compassion, and thy prayers.
She whom he most hath wrong’d, she who alone
On earth can grant forgiveness for his crime,
She hath forgiven him; and thy blessing now
Were all that he could ask, ... all that could bring
Profit or consolation to his soul,
If he hath been as sure we may believe,
A penitent sincere.
Oh had he lived,
Replied Rusilla, never penitence
Had equall’d his! full well I know his heart,
Vehement in all things. He would on himself
Have wreak’d such penance as had reach’d the height
Of fleshly suffering ... yea, which being told
With its portentuous rigour should have made
The memory of his fault, o’erpower’d and lost
In shuddering pity and astonishment,
Fade like a feebler horror. Otherwise
Seem’d good to Heaven. I murmur not, nor doubt
The boundless mercy of redeeming love.
For sure I trust that not in his offence
Harden’d and reprobate was my lost son,
A child of wrath, cut off!... that dreadful thought,
Not even amid the first fresh wretchedness,
When the ruin burst around me like a flood,
Assail’d my soul. I ever deem’d his fall
An act of sudden madness; and this day
Hath in unlook’d-for confirmation given
A livelier hope, a more assurëd faith.
Smiling benignant then amid her tears,
She took Florinda by the hand, and said,
I little thought that I should live to bless
Count Julian’s daughter! She hath brought to me
The last, the best, the only comfort earth
Could minister to this afflicted heart,
And my grey hairs may now unto the grave
Go down in peace.
Happy, Florinda cried,
Are they for whom the grave hath peace in store!
The wrongs they have sustain’d, the woes they bear,
Pass not that holy threshold, where Death heals
The broken heart. O Lady, thou may’st trust
In humble hope, through Him who on the Cross
Gave his atoning blood for lost mankind,
To meet beyond the grave thy child forgiven.
I too with Roderick there may interchange
Forgiveness. But the grief which wastes away
This mortal frame, hastening the happy hour
Of my enlargement, is but a light part
Of what my soul endures!... that grief hath lost
Its sting: ... I have a keener sorrow here, ...
One which, ... but God forefend that dire event, ...
May pass with me the portals of the grave,
And with a thought, like sin which cannot die,
Embitter Heaven. My father hath renounced
His hope in Christ! It was his love for me
Which drove him to perdition.... I was born
To ruin all who loved me, ... all I loved!
Perhaps I sinn’d in leaving him; ... that fear
Rises within me to disturb the peace
Which I should else have found.
To Roderick then
The pious mourner turn’d her suppliant eyes:
O Father, there is virtue in thy prayers!...
I do beseech thee offer them to Heaven
In his behalf! For Roderick’s sake, for mine,
Wrestle with Him whose name is Merciful,
That Julian may with penitence be touch’d,
And clinging to the Cross, implore that grace
Which ne’er was sought in vain. For Roderick’s sake
And mine, pray for him! We have been the cause
Of his offence! What other miseries
May from that same unhappy source have risen,
Are earthly, temporal, reparable all; ...
But if a soul be lost through our misdeeds,
That were eternal evil! Pray for him,
Good Father Maccabee, and be thy prayers
More fervent, as the deeper is the crime.
While thus Florinda spake, the dog who lay
Before Rusilla’s feet, eyeing him long
And wistfully, had recognised at length,
Changed as he was and in those sordid weeds,
His royal master. And he rose and lick’d
His wither’d hand, and earnestly look’d up
With eyes whose human meaning did not need
The aid of speech; and moan’d, as if at once
To court and chide the long-withheld caress.
A feeling uncommix’d with sense of guilt
Or shame, yet painfulest, thrill’d through the King;
But he to self-controul now long inured,
Represt his rising heart, nor other tears,
Full as his struggling bosom was, let fall
Than seem’d to follow on Florinda’s words.
Looking toward her then, yet so that still
He shunn’d the meeting of her eye, he said,
Virtuous and pious as thou art, and ripe
For Heaven, O Lady, I must think the man
Hath not by his good Angel been cast off
For whom thy supplications rise. The Lord
Whose justice doth in its unerring course
Visit the children for the sire’s offence,
Shall He not in his boundless mercy hear
The daughter’s prayer, and for her sake restore
The guilty parent? My soul shall with thine
In earnest and continual duty join....
How deeply, how devoutly, He will know
To whom the cry is raised!
Thus having said,
Deliberately, in self-possession still,
Himself from that most painful interview
Dispeeding, he withdrew. The watchful dog
Follow’d his footsteps close. But he retired
Into the thickest grove; there yielding way
To his o’erburthen’d nature, from all eyes
Apart, he cast himself upon the ground,
And threw his arms around the dog, and cried,
While tears stream’d down, Thou, Theron, then hast known
Thy poor lost master, ... Theron, none but thou!
XVI.
COVADONGA.
Meantime Pelayo up the vale pursued
Eastward his way, before the sun had climb’d
Auseva’s brow, or shed his silvering beams
Upon Europa’s summit, where the snows
Through all revolving seasons hold their seat.
A happy man he went, his heart at rest,
Of hope and virtue and affection full,
To all exhilarating influences
Of earth and heaven alive. With kindred joy
He heard the lark, who from her airy height,
On twinkling pinions poised, pour’d forth profuse,
In thrilling sequence of exuberant song,
As one whose joyous nature overflow’d
With life and power, her rich and rapturous strain.
The early bee, buzzing along the way,
From flower to flower, bore gladness on its wing
To his rejoicing sense; and he pursued,
With quicken’d eye alert, the frolic hare,
Where from the green herb in her wanton path
She brush’d away the dews. For he long time,
Far from his home and from his native hills,
Had dwelt in bondage; and the mountain breeze,
Which he had with the breath of infancy
Inhaled, such impulse to his heart restored,
As if the seasons had roll’d back, and life
Enjoy’d a second spring.
Through fertile fields
He went, by cots with pear-trees overbower’d,
Or spreading to the sun their trelliced vines;
Through orchards now, and now by thymy banks,
Where wooden hives in some warm nook were hid
From wind and shower; and now thro’ shadowy paths,
Where hazels fringed Pionia’s vocal stream;
Till where the loftier hills to narrower bound
Confine the vale, he reach’d those huts remote
Which should hereafter to the noble line
Of Soto origin and name impart:
A gallant lineage, long in fields of war
And faithful chronicler’s enduring page
Blazon’d: but most by him illustrated,
Avid of gold, yet greedier of renown,
Whom not the spoils of Atabalipa
Could satisfy insatiate, nor the fame
Of that wide empire overthrown appease;
But he to Florida’s disastrous shores
In evil hour his gallant comrades led,
Through savage woods and swamps, and hostile tribes,
The Apalachian arrows, and the snares
Of wilier foes, hunger, and thirst, and toil;
Till from ambition’s feverish dream the touch
Of Death awoke him; and when he had seen
The fruit of all his treasures, all his toil,
Foresight, and long endurance, fade away,
Earth to the restless one refusing rest,
In the great river’s midland bed he left
His honour’d bones.
A mountain rivulet,
Now calm and lovely in its summer course,
Held by those huts its everlasting way
Towards Pionia. They whose flocks and herds
Drink of its water call it Deva. Here
Pelayo southward up the ruder vale
Traced it, his guide unerring. Amid heaps
Of mountain wreck, on either side thrown high,
The wide-spread traces of its wintry might,
The tortuous channel wound; o’er beds of sand
Here silently it flows; here from the rock
Rebutted, curls and eddies; plunges here
Precipitate; here roaring among crags,
It leaps and foams and whirls and hurries on.
Grey alders here and bushy hazels hid
The mossy side; their wreath’d and knotted feet
Bared by the current, now against its force
Repaying the support they found, upheld
The bank secure. Here, bending to the stream,
The birch fantastic stretch’d its rugged trunk,
Tall and erect from whence, as from their base,
Each like a tree, its silver branches grew.
The cherry here hung for the birds of heaven
Its rosy fruit on high. The elder there
Its purple berries o’er the water bent,
Heavily hanging. Here, amid the brook,
Grey as the stone to which it clung, half root,
Half trunk, the young ash rises from the rock;
And there its parent lifts a lofty head,
And spreads its graceful boughs; the passing wind
With twinkling motion lifts the silent leaves,
And shakes its rattling tufts.
Soon had the Prince
Behind him left the farthest dwelling-place
Of man; no fields of waving corn were here,
Nor wicker storehouse for the autumnal grain,
Vineyard, nor bowery fig, nor fruitful grove;
Only the rocky vale, the mountain stream,
Incumbent crags, and hills that over hills
Arose on either hand, here hung with woods,
Here rich with heath, that o’er some smooth ascent
Its purple glory spread, or golden gorse;
Bare here, and striated with many a hue,
Scored by the wintry rain; by torrents here
Riven, and with overhanging rocks abrupt.
Pelayo, upward as he cast his eyes
Where crags loose-hanging o’er the narrow pass
Impended, there beheld his country’s strength
Insuperable, and in his heart rejoiced.
Oh that the Musselman were here, he cried,
With all his myriads! While thy day endures,
Moor! thou may’st lord it in the plains; but here
Hath Nature for the free and brave prepared
A sanctuary, where no oppressor’s power,
No might of human tyranny can pierce.
The tears which started then sprang not alone
From lofty thoughts of elevating joy;
For love and admiration had their part,
And virtuous pride. Here then thou hast retired,
My Gaudiosa! in his heart he said;
Excellent woman! ne’er was richer boon
By fate benign to favour’d man indulged,
Than when thou wert before the face of Heaven
Given me to be my children’s mother, brave
And virtuous as thou art! Here thou hast fled,
Thou who wert nurst in palaces, to dwell
In rocks and mountain caves!... The thought was proud,
Yet not without a sense of inmost pain;
For never had Pelayo till that hour
So deeply felt the force of solitude.
High over head the eagle soar’d serene,
And the grey lizard on the rocks below
Bask’d in the sun: no living creature else
In this remotest wilderness was seen;
Nor living voice was there, ... only the flow
Of Deva, and the rushing of its springs
Long in the distance heard, which nearer now,
With endless repercussion deep and loud,
Throbb’d on the dizzy sense.
The ascending vale,
Long straiten’d by the narrowing mountains, here
Was closed. In front a rock, abrupt and bare,
Stood eminent, in height exceeding far
All edifice of human power, by King
Or Caliph, or barbaric Sultan rear’d,
Or mightier tyrants of the world of old,
Assyrian or Egyptian, in their pride;
Yet far above, beyond the reach of sight,
Swell after swell, the heathery mountain rose.
Here, in two sources, from the living rock
The everlasting springs of Deva gush’d.
Upon a smooth and grassy plat below,
By Nature there as for an altar drest,
They join’d their sister stream, which from the earth
Well’d silently. In such a scene rude man
With pardonable error might have knelt,
Feeling a present Deity, and made
His offering to the fountain Nymph devout.