The Troubadour; Catalogue of Pictures, and Historical Sketches/Canto III
THE TROUBADOUR.
CANTO III.
THE TROUBADOUR.
CANTO III.
Land of the olive and the vine,
The saint and soldier, sword and shrine!
How glorious to young Raymond's eye
Swell'd thy bold heights, spread thy clear sky,
When first he paused upon the height
Where, gather'd, lay the Christian might.
Amid a chesnut wood were raised
Their white tents, and the red cross blazed
Meteor-like, with its crimson shine,
O'er many a standard's scutcheon'd line.
On the hill opposite there stood
The warriors of the Moorish blood,—
With their silver crescents gleaming,
And their horse-tail pennons streaming;
With cymbals and the clanging gong,
The muezzin's unchanging song,
The turbans that like rainbows shone,
The coursers' gay caparison,
As if another world had been
Where that small rivulet ran between.
And there was desperate strife next day:
The little vale below that lay
Was like a slaughter-pit, of green
Could not one single trace be seen;
The Moslem warrior stretch'd beside
The Christian chief by whom he died;
And by the broken falchion blade
The crooked scymeter was laid.
And gallantly had Raymond borne
The red cross through the field that morn,
When suddenly he saw a knight
Oppress'd by numbers in the fight:
Instant his ready spear was flung,
Instant amid the band he sprung;—
They fight, fly, fall,—and from the fray
He leads the wounded knight away!
Gently he gain'd his tent, and there
He left him to the leech's care;
Then sought the field of death anew,—
Little was there for knight to do.
That field was strewn with dead and dying;
And mark'd he there De Valence lying
Upon the turbann'd heap, which told
How dearly had his life been sold.
And yet on his curl'd lip was worn
The impress of a soldier's scorn;
And yet his dark and glazed eye
Glared its defiance stern and high:
His head was on his shield, his hand
Held to the last his own red brand.
Felt Raymond all too proud for grief
In gazing on the gallant chief:
So, thought he, should a warrior fall,
A victor dying last of all.
But sadness moved him when he gave
De Valence to his lowly grave,—
The grave where the wild flowers were sleeping,
And one pale olive-tree was weeping,—
And placed the rude stone cross to show
A Christian hero lay below.
With the next morning's dawning light
Was Raymond by the wounded knight.
He heard strange tales,—none knew his name,
And none might say from whence he came;
He wore no cognizance, his steed
Was raven black, and black his weed.
All owned his fame, but yet they deem'd
More desperate than brave he seem'd;
Or as he only dared the field
For the swift death that it might yield.
Leaning beside the curtain, where
Came o'er his brow the morning air,
He found the stranger chief; his tone,
Surely 'twas one Raymond had known!
He knew him not, what chord could be
Thus waken'd on his memory?
At first the knight was cold and stern,
As that his spirit shunn'd to learn
Aught of affection; as it brought
To him some shaft of venom'd thought:
When one eve Raymond chanced to name
Durance's castle, whence he came;
And speak of Eva, and her fate,
So young and yet so desolate,
So beautiful! Then heard he all
Her father's wrongs, her mother's fall:
For Amirald was the knight whose life
Raymond had saved amid the strife;
And now he seem'd to find relief
In pouring forth his hidden grief,
Which had for years been as the stream
Cave-lock'd from either air or beam.