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legend of a veil.
Save for my ducal crown and her dear love.
A vow is still a vow, though tardily kept.
She shall behold a stately cloister built
Within the glen that hid her bridal veil.
And I will toil on, hoping yet to see
Each hut within my realm a home like mine,
And every peasant happy as a duke."
A vow is still a vow, though tardily kept.
She shall behold a stately cloister built
Within the glen that hid her bridal veil.
And I will toil on, hoping yet to see
Each hut within my realm a home like mine,
And every peasant happy as a duke."
So Kloster-Neuberg rose among the hills;
There Agnes' veil is shrined, and Leopold there
Is worshipped as a saint.
There Agnes' veil is shrined, and Leopold there
Is worshipped as a saint.
Good man, he sleeps
Too soundly to be vexed by anything
That may be said or sung above his grave.
Perhaps he would have thought the monks misplaced
The aureole that they set upon his brow,
Not on his bride's. No doubt he would have asked
To be remembered for some other work
Than convent-building: but he could not choose;
He is a saint perforce. The healthier grace
Of honorable manhood counts him naught,
And less than naught his household happiness:
Within the threshold laid by wedded joy,
The very thought of it is sacrilege.
Too soundly to be vexed by anything
That may be said or sung above his grave.
Perhaps he would have thought the monks misplaced
The aureole that they set upon his brow,
Not on his bride's. No doubt he would have asked
To be remembered for some other work
Than convent-building: but he could not choose;
He is a saint perforce. The healthier grace
Of honorable manhood counts him naught,
And less than naught his household happiness:
Within the threshold laid by wedded joy,
The very thought of it is sacrilege.
