Poems (Scudder)/The Forest of Compiègne

by Antoinette Quinby Scudder

THE FOREST OF COMPIÈGNE

I

Through the forest of old Compiègne we rode
 When all the ground was a shimmer of white,
A glare, a dazzle, for it had snowed
 The whole of the long November night.
Yet, the leaves were a flicker of palest gold
 On a sky of such faint and limpid blue
As an aqua-marine unflawed might hold
 With a hint of the sea's green dullness too,
—And I thought of Radegonde, Queen of Clotaire,
With the gold of her pale Thuringian hair
Bound smoothly over her forehead's snow,
 In silk and vair and in ermine clad,
 With her cold blue eyes of a saint that had
No gleam of sorrow or wrath to show.

II

We rode through the forest of old Compiègne
 At Christmas tide when the bare boles stood
Like jasper columns of richest grain;
 And all the leaves of the ancient wood
Lay piled in sumptuous drifts between,
 Crimson and purple and deep wine-red
Brocades and damasks of rarest sheen
 Fit to drape over a princeling's bed.
—I thought how on many a sunlit morn
With plume and banner and shrilling horn,
When those noble trees were less gnarled and tall
 Gay cavalcades had wound past each spot,
 With Catherine, Francois and Mary the Scot
To the winter feasting in Compiègne hall.

III

We rode through the forest of Compiègne old
 When the warm spring rains were seeping down
Through misty leafage, and never a bold
 Violet peeped through the golden brown
Deep clustering mosses; although the brink
 Of each clamoring stream and each hollow wet
With forget-me-nots, turquoise and coral-pink
 Was in quaint and intricate pattern set.
—And I thought of Joan the Blessed Maid,
Riding on lissome and unafraid,
Though she knew, saint-warned, of her coming fate—
 Riding on through a sun-flecked way
 To her capture in that fatal fray
In the spring twilight near Compiègne gate.