42

JOAN OF ARC.

Anon I shall be with you. Thus he said;
"Maid of Arc! awhile
Then to the damsel.
Let thou and I withdraw, and by short rest
Renew our strength." So saying he his helm
Unlaced, and in the Loire's near flowing stream
Cool'd his hot face. The Maid her head unhelm'd,
And stooping to the stream, reflected there

Saw her white plumage stain'd with human blood!
Shuddering she saw, but soon her steady soul
Collected on the banks she laid her down,
Freely awhile respiring, for her breath
Still panted from the fight: silent they lay,
And gratefully the cooling breezes bathed
Their throbbing temples.

Eve was drawing on:
The sunbeams on the gently-waving stream
Danced sparkling. Lost in thought the warrior lay;
Then as if wakening from a dream he said,
"Maiden of Arc! at such an hour as this,
Beneath the o'erarching forest's checker'd shade,
With that lost woman have I wander'd on,
Talking of years of happiness to come!
Oh! hours forever fled! delightful hopes
Of the unsuspecting heart! I do believe
If Agnes on a worthier one had fix'd

Nor in the night have respite from their cares
And wretchedness. But I shall be at rest
Soon, in that better world of peace and love
Where evil is not in that better world,
Joan! we shall meet, and he too will be there,
Thy Theodore."

Soothed by his words, the Maid
Had listen'd sadly, till at that loved name
She wept. "Nay, Maid!" he cried, "I did not think
To wake a tear; yet pleasant is thy grief!
Thou know'st not what it is, around thy heart
To have a false one wreathe in viper folds.
But to the battle! in the clang of arms,
We win forgetfulness."

Then from the bank

He sprung, and helm'd his head. The Maid arose,
Bidding awhile adieu to gentle thoughts.
On to the fort they speed, whose name recall'd
England's proud capital to the English host,
Now half subdued, anticipating death,
And vainly wishing they from her white cliffs
Cold terror creeps
Had never spread the sail.
Through every nerve: already they look round
With haggard eyes, as seeking where to fly,
Though Talbot there presided, with their chief,

Her love, that though my heart had nurst till death The dauntless Salisbury.
Its sorrows, I had never on her choice

Cast one upbraiding- but to stoop to him!

A harlot! an adulteress! "' 129

In his eye
Fierce anger flash'd; anon of what she was
Ere the contagious vices of the court
"Oh, happy age!"
Polluted her, he thought.
He cried, "when all the family of man
Freely enjoy'd their goodly heritage,
And only bow'd the knee in prayer to God!
Calm flow'd the unruffled stream of years along,
Till o'er the peaceful rustic's head the hair
Grew gray in full of time. Then he would sit
Beneath the coetaneous oak, while round,
Sons, grandsons, and their offspring join'd to form
The blameless merriment; and learnt of him
What time to yoke the oxen to the plough,
What hollow moanings of the western wind
Foretell the storm, and in what lurid clouds
The embryo lightning lies. Well pleased, he taught,
A heart-smile glowing on his aged check,
Mild as the summer sun's decaying light.
Thus quietly the stream of life flow'd on,
Till in the shoreless ocean lost at length.
Around the bed of death his numerous race
Listen'd, in no unprofitable grief,

His last advice, and caught his latest sigh:
And when he died, as he had fallen asleep,
In his own ground, and underneath the tree
Which, planted at his birth, with him had grown,
And flourish'd in its strength when he decay'd,
They delved the narrow house: where oft at eve
Their children's children gathered round to hear
The example of his life and death impress'd.
Maiden! and such the evening of my days
Fondly I hoped; and would that I had lived
In those old times,130 or till some better age
Slumber'd unborn; for this is a hard race,
An evil generation; nor by day

"Soldiers, tried in arms!"
Thus, hoping to revive with gallant speech
Their courage, Salisbury spake; "Brave country-
men,

Victorious in so many a hard-fought fight,
What shrink ye now dismay'd? Oh call to mind
The plains of Agincourt, where vanquish'd France
Fled with her thousands from your fathers' arms?
Have ye forgotten how our English swords,
On that illustrious day before Verneuil,
Cut down the flower of all their chivalry?
Then was that noble heart of Douglas pierced,131
Bold Buchan bit the earth, and Narbonne died,
And this Alençon, boaster as he is,
Of our victorious banner on the walls
Cried mercy to his conqueror. Shall I speak
Of Yenville and Baugenci triumphing;
And of that later hour of victory
When Clermont and the Bastard plied their spurs?
Shame! shame! that beaten boy is here in arms,
And ye will fly before the fugitives,
Fly from a woman! from a frantic girl!
Who with her empty mummeries tries to blast
Your courage; or if miracles she bring,
Aid of the Devil! Who is there among you
to his former fame,
False to his country,
To your old leader who so many a time
Hath led ye on to glory?"

From the host
"Earl!" said he,
Grew red with indignation.
There came a heartless shout; then Talbot's cheek
Addressing Salisbury, "there is no hope
From these white-liver'd dastards, and this fort
Will fall an easy conquest. We must out
And gain the Tournelles, better fortified,
Fit to endure a siege that hope in view,
Cow'd as they are, the men from very fear
May gather what will do for this poor turn
The work of courage."

:

Bravely thus he spake, Advising well, and Salisbury replied: "Rightly thou say'st. But, Talbot, could we reach With wary eye the Earl's intended stroke,

Upon her shield the martial Maid received
An English warrior's blow, and in his side,
Beneath the arm upraised, in prompt return
Pierced him: that instant Salisbury sped his sword,
Which, glancing from her helm, fell on the folds
That arm'd her neck, and making there its way,
Stain'd with her blood its edge. The herald saw,

Gather'd new strength, placing on those strong And turn'd from Talbot, heedless of himself,

Allow'd no pause for thought. With clasp'd hands Perhaps might have preserved her. I will go

In secret to protect her. If I fall, —
And trust me I have little love of life,-
Do thou in secret bear me from the field,
Lest haply I might meet her wandering eye
A mangled corpse. She must not know my fate.
Do this last act of friendship, and in the stream
Cast me, -
she then may think of Theodore

The night was calm; Without a pang.' Maiden, I vow'd with him
To take our place in battle by thy side,
And make thy safety our peculiar care.

Survey'd the host of heaven, and mark'd them rise And now I hoped thou hadst not seen him fall."

The requiem to his soul: to-morrow eve
I will return, and in the narrow house
Will see him laid to rest." The father knew
The Prophetess, and humbly bow'd assent.

Now from the city, o'er the shadowy plain, Backward they bend their way. From silent thoughts

The Maid awakening cried, "There was a time,
When thinking on my closing hour of life,
Though with a mind resolved, some natural fears
Shook my weak frame; but now the happy hour,
When this emancipated soul shall burst
The cumbrous fetters of mortality,

I look for wishfully. Conrade! my friend,
This wounded heart would feel another pang
Shouldst thou forsake me."

It met; no pious hand might then compose
The crush'd and mangled corpse to be conveyed
To where his fathers slept: a dreadful train 140
Prepared by Salisbury o'er the town besieged
For hurling ruin; but that dreadful train
Must hurl its ruin on the invader's head;
Such retribution righteous Heaven decreed.

Nor lie the English trembling, for the fort
Was ably garrison'd. Glacidas, the chief,
A gallant man, sped on from place to place
Cheering the brave; or if an archer's hand,
Palsied with fear, shot wide his ill-aim'd shaft,
Driving him from the ramparts with reproach
And shame. He bore an arbalist himself,
A weapon for its sure destructiveness
Abominated once; 141 wherefore of yore

"Joan!" the chief replied, The assembled fathers of the Christian church

Imbibe the rays, and o'er the landscape spread
The dewy light. The soldiers from the earth
Arise invigorate, and each his food
Receives, impatient to renew the war.
Dunois his javelin to the Tournelles points —
"Soldiers of France! behold, your foes are there!"
As when a band of hunters, round the den
Of some wood-monster, point their spears, elate
In hope of conquest and the future feast,
When on the hospitable board their spoil
Shall smoke, and they, as foaming bowls go round,
Tell to their guests their exploits in the chase,
They with their shouts of exultation make
The forest ring; so elevate of heart,
With such loud clamors for the fierce assault
The French prepare. Nor, keeping now the lists
Dare the disheartened English man to man
Meet the close conflict. From the barbican,135
Or from the embattled wall 136 at random they
Their arrows and their death-fraught enginery
Discharged; meantime the Frenchmen did not

cease

With well-directed shafts their loftier foes

Pronounced the man accursed whose impious hand
Should use the murderous engine. Such decrees
Befitted them, as ministers of peace,

To promulgate, and with a warning voice,
To cry aloud and spare not, Woe to them
Whose hands are full of blood!'

An English king,
The lion-hearted Richard, their decree
First broke, and rightly was he doom'd to fall
By that forbidden weapon; since that day
Frequent in fields of battle, and from far
To many a good knight bearing his death wound
From hands unknown. With such an instrument
Arm'd on the ramparts, Glacidas his eye
Cast on the assailing host. A keener glance
Darts not the hawk when from the feather'd tribe
He marks his prey.

A Frenchman for his aim
He chose, who kneeling by the trebuchet,
Charged its long sling with death.142 Him Glacidas,
Secure behind the battlements, beheld,

And strung his bow; then bending on one knee,
He in the groove the feather'd quarrel placed,143
And levelling with sure eye, his victim mark'd.
The bow-string twang'd, swift on its way the dart
Whizz'd, and it struck, there where the helmet's

clasps

Defend the neck; a weak protection now,
For through the tube which draws the breath of life
Pierced the keen shaft ;. blood down the unwonted

way

Gush'd to the lungs : prone fell the dying man
Grasping, convulsed, the earth; a hollow groan
In his throat struggled, and the dews of death
Stood on his livid cheek. The days of youth
He had pass'd peaceful, and had known what joys
Domestic love bestows, the father once
Of two fair children; in the city hemm'd
During the siege, he had beheld their cheeks
Grow pale with famine, and had heard their cries

To assail: behind the guardian pavais fenced,137
They at the battlements their arrows aim'd,
Showering an iron storm, whilst o'er the bayle,
The bayle now levell'd by victorious France,
The assailants pass'd with all their mangonels; 133 For bread. His wife, a broken-hearted one,
Or tortoises,139 beneath whose roofing safe,
They, filling the deep moat, might for the towers
Make fit foundation; or with petraries,
War-wolves, and beugles, and that murderous sling
The matafund, from whence the ponderous stone
Made but one wound of him whom in its way

Sunk to the cold grave's quiet, and her babes
With hunger pined, and follow'd; he survived,
A miserable man, and heard the shouts
Of joy in Orleans, when the Maid approach'd,
As o'er the corpse of his last little one

He heap'd the unhallowed earth. To him the foe

46

JOAN OF ARC.

Perform'd a friendly part, hastening the hour
Grief else had soon brought on.

Pointing again his arbalist, let loose

And happy in beholding happiness,
Not meditating death: the bowman's art

The English chief, Therefore he little knew, nor was he wont
To aim the arrow at the distant foe,
But uprear in close conflict, front to front,
His battle-axe, and break the shield and helm,
There too the Maid
First in the war of men.
Awaits, impatient on the wall to wield

The string; the quarrel, by that impact driven,
True to its aim, fled fatal: one it struck
Dragging a tortoise to the moat, and fix'd
Deep in his liver; blood and mingled gall

Flow'd from the wound, and writhing with keen Her falchion. Onward moves the heavy tower,

pangs,

Headlong he fell. He for the wintry hour
Knew many a merry ballad and quaint tale,
A man in his small circle well beloved.

None better knew with prudent hand to guide
The vine's young tendrils, or at vintage time
To press the full-swollen clusters; he, heart-glad,
Taught his young boys the little all he knew,
Enough for happiness. The English host
Laid waste his fertile fields: he, to the war,
By want compelled, adventured, in his gore
Now weltering.

Nor the Gallic host remit

Their eager efforts; some, the watery fence,
Beneath the tortoise roofed, with engines apt
Drain painful; 144 part, laden with wood, throw
there

Their buoyant burdens, laboring so to gain
Firm footing: some the mangonels supply,

Or charging with huge stones the murderous
sling, 145

147

Or petrary, or in the espringal
146 hoarse around
Fix the brass-winged arrows:
The uproar and the din of multitudes
Arose. Along the ramparts Gargrave went,
Cheering the English troops; a bow he bore;
The quiver rattled as he moved along.
He knew aright to aim his feathered shafts,
Well skilled to pierce the mottled roebuck's side,
O'ertaken in his speed. Him passing on,
A ponderous stone from some huge martinet,"
Struck on his breastplate falling, the huge weight
Shattered the bone, and to his mangled lungs
Drove in the fragments. On the gentle brow
Of a fair hill, wood-circled, stood his home,
A stately mansion, far and wide from whence
The sight ranged unimpeded, and surveyed
Streams, hills, and forests, fair variety!
The traveller knew its hospitable towers,
For open were the gates, and blazed for all
The friendly fire. By glory lured, the youth
Went forth; and he had bathed his falchion's edge
In many a Frenchman's blood; now crush'd beneath
The ponderous fragments' force, his lifeless limbs
Lie quivering.

Lo! towards the levelled moat,
A moving tower, the men of Orleans wheel 148
Four stages elevate. Above was hung,
Equalling the walls, a bridge; in the lower stage
A battering-ram: within a chosen troop

Slow o'er the moat and steady, though the foe
Showered there their javelins, aimed their engines

there,

And from the arbalist the fire-tipt dart

Shot burning through the sky. 150 In vain it flamed
For well with many a reeking hide secured,
The wall. Below, with forceful impulse driven,
Passed on the dreadful pile, and now it reached
The iron-headed engine swings its stroke,
Then back recoils; while they within who guide,
In backward step collecting all their strength,
Anon the massy beam with stronger arm
Drive full and fierce. So rolls the swelling sea
Its curly billows to the unmoved foot
Of some huge promontory, whose broad base
back,
Breaks the rough wave; the shivered surge rolls

Till, by the coming billow borne, it bursts
Again, and foams with ceaseless violence:
The wanderer, on the sunny clift outstretched,
Harks to the roaring surges, as they rock
His weary senses to forgetfulness.

But nearer danger threats the invaders now,
For on the ramparts, lowered from above
The bridge reclines.151 A universal shout
Rose from the hostile hosts. The exultant French
Break out in loud rejoicing, whilst the foe
Raise a responsive cry, and call aloud
For speedy succor there, with deafening shout
Cheering their comrades. Not with louder din
The mountain torrent flings precipitate
Its bulk of waters, though amid the fall
Shattered, and dashing silvery from the rock.

Lo! on the bridge forth comes the undaunted man,
Conrade the gathered foes along the wall
Throng opposite, and on him point their pikes,
Cresting with armed men the battlements.
He undismayed, though on that perilous height,
Stood firm, and hurled his javelin; the keen point
Pierced through the destined victim, where his arm
Joined the broad breast: a wound which skilful care
Haply had healed; but, him disabled now
For further service, the unpitying throng
Of his tumultuous comrades from the wall
Thrust headlong. Nor did Conrade cease to throw
His deadly javelins fast, for well within
The tower was stored with weapons, to his hand
Quickly supplied. Nor did the missioned Maid

Of archers, through the opening, shot their Rest idle from the combat; she, secure,
shafts.149

In the loftiest part was Conrade, so prepared
To mount the rampart; for, no hunter he,
He loved to see the dappled foresters

Browze fearless on their lair, with friendly eye,

Aimed the keen quarrel; taught the crossbow's use
By the willing mind that what it well desires
Gains aptly nor amid the numerous throng,
Though haply erring from their destined mark,
Sped her sharp arrows frustrate. From the tower