INTERLUDE

He ended and a kind of spell
Upon the silent listeners fell.
His solemn manner and his words
Had touched the deep, mysterious
chords

That vibrate in each human breast
Alike, but not alike confessed.
The spiritual world seemed near;
And close above them, full of fear,
Its awful adumbration passed,
A luminous shadow, vague and vast. 10
They almost feared to look, lest there,
Embodied from the impalpable air,
They might behold the Angel stand,
Holding the sword in his right hand.

At last, but in a voice subdued,
Not to disturb their dreamy mood,
Said the Sicilian: "While you spoke,
Telling your legend marvellous,
Suddenly in my memory woke
The thought of one, now gone from
us,

An old Abatè, meek and mild,
My friend and teacher, when a child,
Who sometimes in those days of old
The legend of an Angel told,
Which ran, as I remember, thus."

THE SICILIAN'S TALE

KING ROBERT OF SICILY

20

Haggard, half naked, without hat or cloak,

Who neither turned, nor looked at him, nor spoke,

But leaped into the blackness of the night,

And vanished like a spectre from his sight.

Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane

And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine, Despoiled of his magnificent attire, 51 Bareheaded, breathless, and besprent with mire,

With sense of wrong and outrage desperate,

Strode on and thundered at the palace gate;

Rushed through the courtyard, thrusting in his rage

To right and left each seneschal and page,

And hurried up the broad and sounding stair,

His white face ghastly in the torches' glare.

From hall to hall he passed with breathless speed;

60

Voices and cries he heard, but did not heed, Until at last he reached the banquetroom,

Blazing with light, and breathing with perfume.

steel,

his woe

Burst from him in resistless overflow, And, lifting high his forehead, he would fling

The haughty answer back, “I am, am the King!"

I

150

mien,

Gazed at the Angel's countenance se

He felt within a power unfelt before,

And, kneeling humbly on his chamber floor,

He heard the rushing garments of the Lord

Sweep through the silent air, ascending heavenward.

180

And now the visit ending, and once

more

Valmond returning to the Danube's shore,

Homeward the Angel journeyed, and again

The land was made resplendent with his train,

Flashing along the towns of Italy

He beckoned to King Robert to draw nigher,

And with a gesture bade the rest retire ;

And when they were alone, the Angel said,

"Art thou the King?" Then, bowing down his head,

King Robert crossed both hands upon his breast,

And meekly answered him: "Thou knowest best!

My sins as scarlet are; let me go hence, And in some cloister's school of penitence,

Across those stones, that pave the way to heaven,

Walk barefoot, till my guilty soul be shriven!"

200

INTERLUDE

AND then the blue-eyed Norseman told

A Saga of the days of old. "There is," said he, "a wondrous book

Of Legends in the old Norse tongue,
Of the dead kings of Norroway,
Legends that once were told or sung
In many a smoky fireside nook
Of Iceland, in the ancient day,
By wandering Saga-man or Scald;
'Heimskringla' is the volume called;
And he who looks may find therein
The story that I now begin."

And in each pause the story made
Upon his violin he played,
As an appropriate interlude,
Fragments of old Norwegian tunes
That bound in one the separate runes,
And held the mind in perfect mood,
Entwining and encircling all
The strange and antiquated rhymes
With melodies of olden times;
As over some half-ruined wall,
Disjointed and about to fall,
Fresh woodbines climb and interlace,
And keep the loosened stones in
place.