[“Not only the place of Richard’s confinement,” (when thrown into prison by the Duke of Austria,) “if we believe the literary history of the times, but even the circumstance of his captivity, was carefully concealed by his vindictive enemies; and both might have remained unknown but for the grateful attachment of a Provençal bard, or minstrel, named Blondel, who had shared that prince’s friendship and tasted his bounty. Having travelled over all the European continent to learn the destiny of his beloved patron, Blondel accidentally got intelligence of a certain castle in Germany, where a prisoner of distinction was confined, and guarded with great vigilance. Persuaded by a secret impulse that this prisoner was the King of England, the minstrel repaired to the place; but the gates of the castle were shut against him, and he could obtain no information relative to the name or quality of the unhappy person it secured. In this extremity, he bethought himself of an expedient for making the desired discovery. He chanted, with a loud voice, some verses of a song which had been composed partly by himself, partly by Richard; and to his unspeakable joy, on making a pause, he heard it re-echoed and continued by the royal captive.—(Hist. Troubadours.) To this discovery the English monarch is said to have eventually owed his release.”—See Russell’s Modern Europe, vol. i. p. 369.

The Troubadour o’er many a plain
Hath roam’d unwearied, but in vain.
O’er many a rugged mountain-scene
And forest wild his track hath been:
Beneath Calabria’s glowing sky
He hath sung the songs of chivalry;
His voice hath swell’d on the Alpine breeze,
And rung through the snowy Pyrenees;
From Ebro’s banks to Danube’s wave,
He hath sought his prince, the loved, the brave;
And yet, if still on earth thou art,
Monarch of the lion-heart!
The faithful spirit, which distress
But heightens to devotedness,
By toil and trial vanquish’d not,
Shall guide thy minstrel to the spot.
He hath reach’d a mountain hung with vine,
And woods that wave o’er the lovely Rhine:
The feudal towers that crest its height
Frown in unconquerable might;
Dark is their aspect of sullen state—
No helmet hangs o’er the massy gate[126]
To bid the wearied pilgrim rest,
At the chieftain’s board a welcome guest;
Vainly rich evening’s parting smile
Would chase the gloom of the haughty pile,
That midst bright sunshine lowers on high,
Like a thunder-cloud in a summer sky.
Not these the halls where a child of song
Awhile may speed the hours along;
Their echoes should repeat alone
The tyrant’s mandate, the prisoner’s moan,
Or the wild huntsman’s bugle-blast,
When his phantom train are hurrying past.[127]
The weary minstrel paused—his eye
Roved o’er the scene despondingly:
Within the length’ning shadow, cast
By the fortress-towers and ramparts vast,
Lingering he gazed. The rocks around
Sublime in savage grandeur frown’d;
Proud guardians of the regal flood,
In giant strength the mountains stood—
By torrents cleft, by tempests riven,
Yet mingling still with the calm blue heaven.
Their peaks were bright with a sunny glow,
But the Rhine all shadowy roll’d below;
In purple tints the vineyards smiled,
But the woods beyond waved dark and wild;
Nor pastoral pipe nor convent’s bell
Was heard on the sighing breeze to swell;
But all was lonely, silent, rude,
A stern, yet glorious solitude.
But hark! that solemn stillness breaking,
The Troubadour’s wild song is waking.
Full oft that song in days gone by
Hath cheer’d the sons of chivalry:
It hath swell’d o’er Judah’s mountains lone,
Hermon! thy echoes have learn’d its tone;
On the Great Plain[128] its notes have rung,
The leagued Crusaders’ tents among;
Twas loved by the Lion-heart, who won
The palm in the field of Ascalon;
And now afar o’er the rocks of Rhine
Peals the bold strain of Palestine.

[126] It was a custom in feudal times to hang out a helmet on a castle, as a token that strangers were invited to enter, and partake of hospitality. So in the romance of “Perceforest,” “ils fasoient mettre au plus hault de leur hostel un heaulme, en signe que tous les gentils hommes et gentilles femmes entrassent hardiment en leur hostel comme en leur propre.”

[127] Popular tradition has made several mountains in Germany the haunt of the wild Jager, or supernatural huntsman. The superstitious tales relating to the Unterburg are recorded in Eustace’s Classical Tour; and it is still believed in the romantic district of the Odenwald, that the knight of Rodenstein, issuing from his ruined castle, announces the approach of war by traversing the air with a noisy armament to the opposite castle of Schnellerts.—See the “Manuel pour les Voyageurs sur le Rhin,” and “Autumn on the Rhine.”

THE TROUBADOUR’S SONG.

“Thine hour is come, and the stake is set,”
The Soldan cried to the captive knight,
“And the sons of the Prophet in throngs are met
To gaze on the fearful sight.
“But be our faith by thy lips profess’d,
The faith of Mecca’s shrine,
Cast down the red-cross that marks thy vest,
And life shall yet be thine.”
“I have seen the flow of my bosom’s blood,
And gazed with undaunted eye;
I have borne the bright cross through fire and flood,
And think’st thou I fear to die?
“I have stood where thousands, by Salem’s towers,
Have fall’n for the name Divine;
And the faith that cheer’d their closing hours
Shall be the light of mine.”
“Thus wilt thou die in the pride of health,
And the glow of youth’s fresh bloom?
Thou art offer’d life, and pomp, and wealth,
Or torture and the tomb.”
“I have been where the crown of thorns was twined
For a dying Saviour’s brow;
He spurn’d the treasures that lure mankind,
And I reject them now!”

“Art thou the son of a noble line
In a land that is fair and blest?
And doth not thy spirit, proud captive! pine
Again on its shores to rest?
“Thine own is the choice to hail once more
The soil of thy father’s birth,
Or to sleep, when thy lingering pangs are o’er,
Forgotten in foreign earth.”
“Oh! fair are the vine-clad hills that rise
In the country of my love;
But yet, though cloudless my native skies,
There’s a brighter clime above!”
The bard hath paused—for another tone
Blends with the music of his own;
And his heart beats high with hope again,
As a well-known voice prolongs the strain.
“Are there none within thy father’s hall,
Far o’er the wide blue main,
Young Christian! left to deplore thy fall,
With sorrow deep and vain?”
“There are hearts that still, through all the past,
Unchanging have loved me well;
There are eyes whose tears were streaming fast
When I bade my home farewell.
“Better they wept o’er the warrior’s bier
Than th’ apostate’s living stain;
There’s a land where those who loved when here
Shall meet to love again.”
’Tis he! thy prince—long sought, long lost,
The leader of the red-cross host!
’Tis he!—to none thy joy betray,
Young Troubadour! away, away!
Away to the island of the brave,
The gem on the bosom of the wave;[129]
Arouse the sons of the noble soil
To win their Lion from the toil.
And free the wassail-cup shall flow,
Bright in each hall the hearth shall glow;
The festal board shall be richly crown’d,
While knights and chieftains revel round,
And a thousand harps with joy shall ring,
When merry England hails her king.

[128] The Plain of Esdräelon, called by way of eminence the “Great Plain;” in Scripture, and elsewhere, the “field of Megiddo,” the “Galilean Plain.” This plain, the most fertile part of all the land of Canaan, has been the scene of many a memorable contest in the first ages of Jewish history, as well as during the Roman empire, the Crusades, and even in later times. It has been a chosen place for encampment in every contest carried on in this country, from the days of Nabuchodonosor, King of the Assyrians, until the disastrous march of Buonaparte from Egypt into Syria. Warriors out of “every nation which is under heaven” have pitched their tents upon the Plain of Esdräelon, and have beheld the various banners of their nations wet with the dews of Hermon and Thabor.—Dr Clarke’s Travels.

[129] “This precious stone set in the sea.”—Richard II.

THE DEATH OF CONRADIN.

[“La défaite de Conradin ne devoit mettre une terme ni à ses malheurs, ni aux vengeances du roi (Charles d’Anjou.) L’amour du peuple pour l’héritier légitime du trône avoit éclaté d’une manière effrayante; il pouvoit causer de nouvelles révolutions, si Conradin demeuroit en vie; et Charles, revêtant sa défiance et sa cruauté des formes de la justice, résolut de faire périr sur l’échafaud le dernier rejeton de la Maison de Souabe, l’unique espérance de son parti. Un seul juge Provençal et sujet de Charles, dont les historiens n’ont pas voulu conserver le nom, osa voter pour la mort, d’autres se renfermèrent dans un timide et coupable silence; et Charles, sur l’autorité de ce seul juge, fit prononcer, par Robert de Bari, protonotaire du royaume, la sentence de mort contre Conradin et tous ses compagnons. Cette sentence fut communiquée à Conradin, comme il jouoit aux échecs; on lui laissa peu de temps pour se préparer à son exécution, et le 26 d’Octobre il fut conduit, avec tous ses amis, sur la Place du Marché de Naples, le long du rivage de la mer. Charles étoit présent, avec toute sa cour, et une foule immense entouroit le roi vainqueur et le roi condamné. Conradin étoit entre les mains des bourreaux; il détacha lui-même son manteau, et s’étant mis à genoux pour prier, il se releva en s’écriant: ‘Oh, ma mère, quelle profonde douleur te causera la nouvelle qu’on va te porter de moi!’ Puis il tourna les yeux sur la foule qui l’entouroit; il vit les larmes, il entendit les sanglots de son peuple; alors, détachant son gant, il jeta au milieu de ses sujets ce gage d’un combat de vengeance, et rendit sa tête au bourreau. Après lui, sur le même échafaud, Charles fit trancher la tête au Duc d’Autriche, aux Comtes Gualferano et Bartolommeo Lancia, et aux Comtes Gerard et Galvano Donoratico de Pise. Par un raffinement de cruauté, Charles voulut que le premier, fils du second, précédât son père, et mourût entre ses bras. Les cadavres, d’après ses ordres, furent exclus d’une terre sainte, et inhumés sans pompe sur le rivage de la mer. Charles II. cependant fit dans la suite bâtir sur le même lieu une église de Carmélites, comme pour apaiser ces ombres irritées.”—Sismondi’s Républiques Italiennes.]

No cloud to dim the splendour of the day
Which breaks o’er Naples and her lovely bay,
And lights that brilliant sea and magic shore
With every tint that charm’d the great of yore—
Th’ imperial ones of earth, who proudly bade
Their marble domes e’en ocean’s realm invade.
That race is gone—but glorious Nature here
Maintains unchanged her own sublime career,
And bids these regions of the sun display
Bright hues, surviving empires pass’d away.
The beam of heaven expands—its kindling smile
Reveals each charm of many a fairy isle,
Whose image floats, in softer colouring drest,
With all its rocks and vines, on ocean’s breast.
Misenum’s cape hath caught the vivid ray,
On Roman streamers there no more to play;
Still, as of old, unalterably bright,
Lovely it sleeps on Posilippo’s height,
With all Italia’s sunshine to illume
The ilex canopy of Virgil’s tomb.
Campania’s plains rejoice in light, and spread
Their gay luxuriance o’er the mighty dead;
Fair glittering to thine own transparent skies,
Thy palaces, exulting Naples! rise;
While far on high Vesuvius rears his peak,
Furrow’d and dark with many a lava streak.
Oh, ye bright shores of Circe and the Muse!
Rich with all nature’s and all fiction’s hues,
Who shall explore your regions, and declare
The poet err’d to paint Elysium there?
Call up his spirit, wanderer! bid him guide
Thy steps those syren-haunted seas beside;
And all the scene a lovelier light shall wear,
And spells more potent shall pervade the air.
What though his dust be scatter’d, and his urn
Long from its sanctuary of slumber torn,[130]
Still dwell the beings of his verse around,
Hovering in beauty o’er th’ enchanted ground;
His lays are murmur’d in each breeze that roves
Soft o’er the sunny waves and orange-groves;
His memory’s charm is spread o’er shore and sea,
The soul, the genius of Parthenope;
Shedding o’er myrtle shade and vine-clad hill
The purple radiance of Elysium still.
Yet that fair soil and calm resplendent sky
Have witness’d many a dark reality.
Oft o’er those bright blue seas the gale hath borne
The sighs of exiles never to return.[131]
There with the whisper of Campania’s gale
Hath mingled oft affection’s funeral wail,
Mourning for buried heroes—while to her
That glowing land was but their sepulchre.[132]
And there, of old, the dread mysterious moan
Swell’d from strange voices of no mortal tone;
And that wild trumpet, whose unearthly note
Was heard at midnight o’er the hills to float
Around the spot where Agrippina died,
Denouncing vengeance on the matricide.[133]
Pass’d are those ages—yet another crime,
Another woe, must stain th’ Elysian clime.
There stands a scaffold on the sunny shore—
It must be crimson’d ere the day is o’er!
There is a throne in regal pomp array’d,—
A scene of death from thence must be survey’d.
Mark’d ye the rushing throngs?—each mien is pale,
Each hurried glance reveals a fearful tale:
But the deep workings of th’ indignant breast,
Wrath, hatred, pity, must be all suppress’d;
The burning tear awhile must check its course,
Th’ avenging thought concentrate all its force;
For tyranny is near, and will not brook
Aught but submission in each guarded look.
Girt with his fierce Provençals, and with mien
Austere in triumph, gazing on the scene,[134]
And in his eye a keen suspicious glance
Of jealous pride and restless vigilance,
Behold the conqueror! Vainly in his face
Of gentler feeling hope would seek a trace;
Cold, proud, severe, the spirit which hath lent
Its haughty stamp to each dark lineament:
And pleading mercy, in the sternness there,
May read at once her sentence—to despair!
But thou, fair boy! the beautiful, the brave,
Thus passing from the dungeon to the grave,
While all is yet around thee which can give
A charm to earth, and make it bliss to live;
Thou on whose form hath dwelt a mother’s eye,
Till the deep love that not with thee shall die
Hath grown too full for utterance—Can it be!
And is this pomp of death prepared for thee?
Young, royal Conradin! who shouldst have known
Of life as yet the sunny smile alone!
Oh! who can view thee, in the pride and bloom
Of youth, array’d so richly for the tomb,
Nor feel, deep swelling in his inmost soul,
Emotions tyranny may ne’er control?
Bright victim! to Ambition’s altar led,
Crown’d with all flowers that heaven on earth can shed,
Who, from th’ oppressor towering in his pride,
May hope for mercy—if to thee denied?
There is dead silence on the breathless throng,
Dead silence all the peopled shore along,
As on the captive moves—the only sound,
To break that calm so fearfully profound,
The low, sweet murmur of the rippling wave,
Soft as it glides, the smiling shore to lave;
While on that shore, his own fair heritage,
The youthful martyr to a tyrant’s rage
Is passing to his fate: the eyes are dim
Which gaze, through tears that dare not flow, on him.
He mounts the scaffold—doth his footstep fail?
Doth his lip quiver? doth his cheek turn pale?
Oh! it may be forgiven him if a thought
Cling to that world, for him with beauty fraught,
To all the hopes that promised glory’s meed,
And all th’ affections that with him shall bleed!
If, in his life’s young dayspring, while the rose
Of boyhood on his cheek yet freshly glows,
One human fear convulse his parting breath,
And shrink from all the bitterness of death!
But no! the spirit of his royal race
Sits brightly on his brow: that youthful face
Beams with heroic beauty, and his eye
Is eloquent with injured majesty.
He kneels—but not to man; his heart shall own
Such deep submission to his God alone!
And who can tell with what sustaining power
That God may visit him in fate’s dread hour?
How the still voice, which answers every moan,
May speak of hope—when hope on earth is gone?
That solemn pause is o’er—the youth hath given
One glance of parting love to earth and heaven:
The sun rejoices in th’ unclouded sky,
Life all around him glows—and he must die?
Yet midst his people, undismay’d, he throws
The gage of vengeance for a thousand woes;
Vengeance that, like their own volcano’s fire,
May sleep suppress’d a while—but not expire.
One softer image rises o’er his breast,
One fond regret, and all shall be at rest!
“Alas, for thee, my mother! who shall bear
To thy sad heart the tidings of despair,
When thy lost child is gone?”—that thought can thrill
His soul with pangs one moment more shall still.
The lifted axe is glittering in the sun—
It falls—the race of Conradin is run!
Yet, from the blood which flows that shore to stain,
A voice shall cry to heaven—and not in vain!
Gaze thou, triumphant from thy gorgeous throne,
In proud supremacy of guilt alone,
Charles of Anjou!—but that dread voice shall be
A fearful summoner e’en yet to thee!
The scene of death is closed—the throngs depart,
A deep stem lesson graved on every heart.
No pomp, no funeral rites, no streaming eyes,
High-minded boy! may grace thine obsequies.
O vainly royal and beloved! thy grave,
Unsanctified, is bathed by ocean’s wave;
Mark’d by no stone, a rude, neglected spot,
Unhonour’d, unadorn’d—but unforgot;
For thy deep wrongs in tameless hearts shall live,
Now mutely suffering—never to forgive!
The sunset fades from purple heavens away—
A bark hath anchor’d in the unruffled bay:
Thence on the beach descends a female form,[135]
Her mien with hope and tearful transport warm;
But life hath left sad traces on her cheek,
And her soft eyes a chasten’d heart bespeak,
Inured to woes—yet what were all the past!
She sank not feebly ’neath affliction’s blast,
While one bright hope remain’d—who now shall tell
Th’ uncrown’d, the widow’d, how her loved one fell?
To clasp her child, to ransom and to save,
The mother came—and she hath found his grave!
And by that grave, transfix’d in speechless grief,
Whose deathlike trance denies a tear’s relief,
Awhile she kneels—till roused at length to know,
To feel the might, the fulness of her woe,
On the still air a voice of anguish wild,
A mother’s cry is heard—“My Conradin! my child!”

[130] The urn supposed to have contained the ashes of Virgil has long since been lost.

[131] Many Romans of exalted rank were formerly banished to some of the small islands in the Mediterranean, on the coast of Italy. Julia, the daughter of Augustus, was confined many years in the isle of Pandataria, and her daughter Agrippina, the widow of Germanicus, afterwards died in exile on the same desolate spot.

[132] “Quelques souvenirs du cœur, quelques noms de femmes, réclament aussi vos pleurs. C’est à Misène, dans le lieu même où nous sommes, que la veuve de Pompée Cornélie conserva jusqu’à la mort son noble deuil. Agrippine pleura long-temps Germanicus sur ces bords: un jour, le même assassin qui lui ravit son époux la trouva digne de le suivre. L’île de Nisida fut témoin des adieux de Brutus et de Porcie.”—Madame de Stael, Corinne.

[133] The sight of that coast, and those shores where the crime had been perpetrated, filled Nero with continual horrors; besides, there were some who imagined they heard horrid shrieks and cries from Agrippina’s tomb, and a mournful sound of trumpets from the neighbouring cliffs and hills. Nero, therefore, flying from such tragical scenes, withdrew to Naples.—See Ancient Universal History.

[134] “Ce Charles,” dit Giovanni Villani, “fut sage et prudent dans les conseils, preux dans les armes, âpre et forte redouté de tous les rois du monde, magnanime et de hautes pensées qui l’égaloient aux plus grandes entreprises; inébranlable dans l’adversité, ferme et fidèle dans toutes ses promesses, parlant peu et agissant beaucoup, ni riant presque jamais, décent comme un religieux, zélé catholique, âpre à rendre justice, féroce dans ses regards. Sa taille étoit grande et nerveuse, sa couleur olivâtre, son nez fort grand. Il paroissoit plus fait qu’aucun autre chevalier pour la majesté royale. Il ne dormoit presque point. Jamais il ne prit de plaisir aux mimes, aux troubadours, et aux gens de cour.”—Sismondi, Républiques Italiennes, vol. iii.

[135] “The Carmine (at Naples) calls to mind the bloody catastrophe of those royal youths, Conradin and Frederick of Austria, butchered before its door. Whenever I traversed that square, my heart yearned at the idea of their premature fate, and at the deep distress of Conradin’s mother, who, landing on the beach with her son’s ransom, found only a lifeless trunk to redeem from the fangs of his barbarous conqueror.”—Swinburne’s Travels in the Two Sicilies.

EXTRACTS FROM CONTEMPORARY REVIEWS.

Quarterly Review.—“‘Tales and Historic Scenes’ is a collection, as the title imports, of narrative poems. Perhaps it was not on consideration that Mrs Hemans passed from a poem of picture-drawing and reflection to the writing of tales; but if we were to prescribe to a young poet his course of practice, this would certainly be our advice. The luxuriance of a young fancy delights in description, and the quickness and inexperience of the same age, in passing judgments,—in the one richness, in the other antithesis and effect, are too often more sought after than truth: the poem is written rapidly, and correctness but little attended to. But in narration more care must be taken: if the tale be fictitious, the conception and sustainment of the characters, the disposition of the facts, the relief of the soberer parts by description, reflection, or dialogue, form so many useful studies for a growing artist. If the tale be borrowed from history, a more delicate task is added to those just mentioned, in determining how far it may be necessary, or safe, to interweave the ornaments of fiction with the groundwork of truth, and in skilfully performing that difficult task. In both cases, the mind is compelled to make a more sustained effort, and acquires thereby greater vigour, and a more practical readiness in the detail of the art.

“The principal poem in this volume is The Abencerrage. It commemorates the capture of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella, and attributes it, in great measure, to the revenge of Hamet, chief of the Abencerrages, who had been induced to turn his arms against his countrymen the Moors, in order to procure the ruin of their king, the murderer of his father and brothers. During the siege he makes his way by night to the bower of Zayda, his beloved, the daughter of a rival and hated family. Her character is very finely drawn; and she repels with firmness all the solicitations and prayers of the traitor to his country. The following lines form part of their dialogue,—they are spirited and pathetic, but perfectly free from exaggeration,—

‘Oh! wert thou still what once I fondly deem’d,’” etc.

Edinburgh Monthly Review.—“The more we become acquainted with Mrs Hemans as a poet, the more we are delighted with her productions, and astonished by her powers. She will, she must, take her place among eminent poets. If she has a rival of her own sex, it is Joanna Baillie; but, even compared with the living masters of the lyre, she is entitled to a very high distinction....

“Mrs Hemans manifests, in her own fine imagination, a fund which is less supported by loan than the wealth of some very eminent poets whom we could name. We think it impossible that she can write by mere rule, more than on credit. If she did, her poetry would lose all its charms. It is by inspiration—as it is poetically called—by a fine tact of sympathy, a vivacity and fertility of imagination, that she pours forth her enchanting song and ‘builds her lofty rhyme.’ The judicious propriety wherewith she bestows on each element of her composition its due share of fancy and of feeling, much increases our respect for her powers. With an exquisite airiness and spirit, with an imagery which quite sparkles, are touched her lighter delineations; with a rich and glowing pencil, her descriptions of visible nature: a sublime eloquence is the charm of her sentiments of magnanimity; while she melts into tenderness with a grace in which she has few equals.

“It appears to us that Mrs Hemans has yielded her own to the public taste in conveying her poetry in the vehicle of tales.”

Constable’s Magazine.—“The Abencerrage is a romance, the scene of which is appropriately laid in a most romantic period, and in the country of all others in which the spirit of romance was most powerful, and lingered longest—in the kingdom of Granada, where the power of the Moors was first established, and had the greatest continuance.... The leading events of the narrative are strictly historical, and with these the fate and sufferings of the unfortunate lovers are very naturally interwoven. The beauty of the descriptions here is exquisite.... Choice is bewildered among the many fine passages we are tempted to extract from The Abencerrage.

“If any reader considers our strictures tedious, and our extracts profuse, our best apology is, that the luxury of doing justice to so much genuine talent, adorning so much private worth, does not often occur to tempt us to an excess of this nature.”