Elsie. How bleak and bare it is! Nothing but mosses
Grow on these rocks.
Prince Henry.
Yet are they not forgotten; Beneficent Nature sends the mists to feed them. Elsie. See yonder little cloud, that, borne aloft
So tenderly by the wind, floats fast away Over the snowy peaks! It seems to me
The body of St. Catherine, borne by angels!
Prince Henry. Thou art St. Catherine, and invisible angels
Bear thee across these chasms and precipices,
Lest thou shouldst dash thy feet against a stone ! Elsie. Would I were borne unto my grave, as she was, Upon angelic shoulders! Even now
I seem uplifted by them, light as air! What sound is that?
The tumbling avalanches!
Elsie. How awful, yet how beautiful!
The voices of the mountains! Thus they ope Their snowy lips, and speak unto each other, In the primeval language, lost to man.
Elsie. What land is this that spreads itself beneath us?
Prince Henry. Italy! Italy!
Land of the Madonna !
How beautiful it is! It seems a garden Of Paradise!
Prince Henry. Nay, of Gethsemane
To thee and me, of passion and of prayer! Yet once of Paradise. Long years ago I wandered as a youth among its bowers, And never from my heart has faded quite Its memory, that, like a summer sunset,
Encircles with a ring of purple light All the horizon of my youth.
The days are short, the way before us long; We must not linger, if we think to reach The inn at Belinzona before vespers!
At the foot of the Alps. A halt under the trees at noon. Prince Henry. Here let us pause a moment in the trembling
Shadow and sunshine of the road-side trees, And, our tired horses in a group assembling, Inhale long draughts of this delicious breeze. Our fleeter steeds have distanced our attendants; They lag behind us with a slower pace; We will await them under the green pendants Of the great willows in this shady place. Ho, Barbarossa! how thy mottled haunches Sweat with this canter over hill and glade! Stand still, and let these overhanging branches Fan thy hot sides and comfort thee with shade! Elsie. What a delightful landscape spreads before us, Marked with a whitewashed cottage here and there! And, in luxuriant garlands drooping o'er us, Blossoms of grape-vines scent the sunny air. Prince Henry. Hark! what sweet sounds are those, whose accents holy
Fill the warm noon with music sad and sweet? Elsie. It is a band of pilgrims, moving slowly On their long journey with uncovered feet. Pilgrims (chanting the Hymn of St. Hildebert). Me receptet Sion illa,
Sion David, urbs tranquilla,
Cujus faber auctor lucis, Cujus portæ lignum crucis, Cujus claves lingua Petri, Cujus cives semper læti, Cujus muri lapis vivus, Cujus custos Rex festivus !
Lucifer (as a Friar in the procession).
Here am I, too, in the pious band,
In the garb of a barefooted Carmelite dressed! The soles of my feet are as hard and tanned As the conscience of old Pope Hildebrand, The Holy Satan, who made the wives Of the bishops lead such shameful lives. All day long I beat my breast,
And chant with a most particular zest The Latin hymns, which I understand Quite as well, I think, as the rest.
And at night such lodging in barns and sheds, Such a hurly-burly in country inns,
Such a clatter of tongues in empty heads, Such a helter-skelter of prayers and sins! Of all the contrivances of the time
For sowing broadcast the seeds of crime, There is none so pleasing to me and mine As a pilgrimage to some far-off shrine!
Prince Henry. If from the outward man we judge the inner,
And cleanliness is godliness, I fear
A hopeless reprobate, a hardened sinner, Must be that Carmelite now passing near. Lucifer. There is my German Prince again, Thus far on his journey to Salern,
And the lovesick girl, whose heated brain
Is sowing the cloud to reap the rain; But it's a long road that has no turn! Let them quietly hold their way, I have also a part in the play.
But, first, I must act to my heart's content This mummery and this merriment, And drive this motley flock of sheep Into the fold, where drink and sleep The jolly old friars of Benevent. Of a truth, it often provokes me to laugh To see these beggars hobble along, Lamed and maimed, and fed upon chaff, Chanting their wonderful piff and paff, And, to make up for not understanding the song, Singing it fiercely, and wild, and strong! Were it not for my magic garters and staff, 50 And the goblets of goodly wine I quaff, And the mischief I make in the idle throng, I should not continue the business long. Pilgrims (chanting).
In hâc urbe, lux solennis, Ver æternum, pax perennis; In hac odor implens cælos, In hâc semper festum melos!
Prince Henry. Do you observe that monk among the
Who pours from his great throat the roaring bass As a cathedral spout pours out the rain,
And this way turns his rubicund, round face? Elsie. It is the same who, on the Strasburg square, Preached to the people in the open air.
Prince Henry. And he has crossed o'er mountain field, and fell,
On that good steed, that seems to bear him well,
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