Classic Poem

The next day after Mano had resumed
His former cheer to me so suddenly,
When the first beam the ready sky illumed,
Our common voyage into Italy
We gan to hasten: and I found thereto
That Mano had done much in secrecy
For he was one who what he would pursue
Achieved with little noise; others there are
Whose tools are in their mouths, their work to do
Some marvels happened great and singular
Upon that voyage, which is now to tell,
Nigh the feared advent of Christ's second star.
But nothing shall be told that not befell
In very truth, as God my Saviour be,
Albeit the truth full many shall repel
For wondrous truth is taken diversely:
With credence by the nobler is she met,
And bears fair issue to expectancy:
Base things on her the baser sort beget. —
But here, to make short tale, with sundry men
Out of the town our early feet we set.
Those who on travel with us entered then
Were they who to the venture had agreed;
And on the road we took up more again.
As we from town to town began proceed,
They waited for us all the way along,
Until we had as many as were need:
And were at last above five hundred strong,
Poor knights the most, with servants two or three:
Few arms were seen this company among,
Though arms there were: nor any bravery,
But all was hidden under pilgrim gown,
Ere the last following received had we;
Then we began to skirt round every town,
The safer so to hold upon our way,
Like simple pilgrims, clothed in black or brown.
But neither signs were wanting to display
Peril to us, and evils manifold;
For when we passed were the dark valley lay
Of that poor peasant whose sad tale was told,
One that among us was in company
Felt his knees smitten with a senseless cold,
And in his hips such pain, that like to die
From horse he fell to ground, nor could be raised
Ere that a monk, who was a priest, rode nigh,
And signed the cross upon the man amazed:
Whereon he forthy rose and sat upright:
And for his strange deliverance God be praised.
This was the working of that evil wight
Who haunted in the lonely country there,
And made it ill to pass by day or night.
Likewise to Paris when we gotten were,
There was strange darkness cast o'er every street,
And all was stiller than a sepulchre
Unlit the houses were: none did we meet,
When Mano with the men most near to him
Rode by that church which is Saint Dennis' seat:
And, passing by the church door great and dim,
One of the men by hand invisible.
Was smitten, that he loudly gan blaspheme,
And rolled in raging madness from his sell.
Whereat the door was opened from within,
And a strong light upon the dark did swell.
And a great man and woman there were seen,
Who knelt before the altar: there was none
Beside them in the church all trim and clean,
Where service was prepared, and the altar shone
With gold and silver: he who then knelt there
Slowly arose, and issued forth anon:
And we beheld that he a crown did wear;
Large-faced and sad was he, of royal cheer:
And to that cursing one, whom black despair
Had overwhelmed with madness, he drew near
And took him by the hand, and from the ground
Raised, and some secret words dropped in his ear
When, lo, the oppressed grew straightway sane and sound
Then to Sir Mano said the man royal,
" Me, whom thou seest recure the sinner's wound,
" And sweep the garner demoniacal,
Know for that king whom late the unkind decree
Of excommunication made to fall.
" Robert am I; on whose head Gregory
Hath fulminated for the marriage made
With her who now is put away from me "
Then Mano, " Hast thou then, sire king, obeyed
That hard compulsion? this much pities me. " —
" Yea, " the other said, " to Rome be this conveyed,
" If thitherward, rider, thy journey be:
For all men fly from me and yon poor queen,
And on us both the curse sits heavily:
" To us and to our land it happens e'en
As if the leprosy upon us lay.
This tell in Rome which thou hast heard and seen,
" King Robert and his wife now put away:
Her, to whose former son at baptism I
By sponsorship contracted in new way
" A fatal kinship, full of mystery;
Becoming by that rite to him, 'twas said,
More than a father in affinity;
" And to his mother, whom my wife I made,
Akin within prohibited degree:
Which sin of ignorance is against me laid
" Say that thou hast beheld my penalty,
Say that thou hast beheld us lying here
In penitential woe and misery.
" For with the morning's light we shall appear
No more as man and wife in all men's sight;
But first before the people taste that cheer
" To which the Saviour doth his own invite,
Then part for evermore: this final woe
Remains to us with coming of the light. "
Then Mano answered, " If it must be so,
Nor better may be, I shall do thy mind,
Since I to Rome am mainly bent to go;
" But wroth am I, oh king, pious and kind,
That German pope, imperial minion,
On thee should have this power to loose and bind. "
Then back into the church the king anon
His heavy steps betook; and from the gate
Sir Mano rode, and on his way was gone.
Then onward we traversed the kingdom great
Of Burgundy; which Eudes, queen Bertha's son,
That son who caused king Robert's wretched fate,
Thought lately from the empire to have won,
But lost his life in battle: and, I ween,
With him that kingdom ever is foredone.
There in our passage through the land were seen
On every knoll and rock the castles high
Of the great seigneurs each in his domain:
There wretched serfs at labour in the eye
Of the hard villicus on every plain,
We saw in the shadow of each sovereignty
We saw at every dawn the struggling train
From their small hamlets led to drudge the day,
And by the ganger urged with heavy pain.
They who thus toiled in pitiful array,
By night were hutted into noisome fold,
And, being forbidden lights, in darkness lay.
Their only light, the sun, did they behold,
Their great taskmaster rising in the east,
From course diurnal into annual rolled;
Their days into their lives with toil increased
Ah, Lord, how many days saw we that throng
In garments drab, with cramped limbs uneased!
We saw their faces dark with hopeless wrong;
And oftentimes their lords with merry cheer
Drove their brave hunts the wretched troop among:
And on our way there fell this omen drear
Riding by night (as it was our usage,
Whenever to a city we drew near)
That we might safer make our pilgrimage,
We skirted round a city great and high;
But with the morning held a plain voyage:
Where in the open land beneath the sky,
Walking around a lake's inclosing bank,
Behold of half-clad men a company!
Long spears they bore, which into the deep tank
They still pushed down among the sedge and reeds
Then Mano said to me: " Mark yon poor rank,
And know thou whence that industry proceeds.
They walk the fishpond with their staves all night,
Seeking the places where the frog most breeds,
Whose chanting might their masters' sleep affright. " —
While thus he spake, there came a mournful cry
From those half-clothed purveyors of delight;
And when we turned the occasion to descry,
Behold in that strange fishing one had struck
His spear into a bundle, which on high
The reeds held from the wave: the cruel hook
Was bedded in an infant's tender breast,
Exposed through want: such prey such angle took
This to the pale-faced fisher drew the rest:
And in the gasping babe that fisher found
One whom his own life did with life invest
Fast then a priest of ours came to the ground,
The sacrament of baptism to apply:
But, ere he reached, in death the babe was wound.
No sign more evil could have been, perdy;
But in this very thing, of which I tell,
Many concerning Mano strangely lie:
That in his arms was found a child of hell,
A demon under form of infant dead,
Which, ere the holy drops upon it fell,
Shrank suddenly to nought, and vanished:
Of all which not a jot by me was seen,
Who present was, and all things witnessed,
And should have known, if such a thing had been.