In dim feudal ages, a castle strong and high,
Where sea and mountain saw it, rose up toward the sky;
Bright fountains flowed about it, and gardens rich with bloom
Made for the haunt of lovers, dusk retreats of fragrant gloom.

Sullen and cold the king who ruled the castle's royal state;
His heart was hard and cruel, and swayed by wrath and hate;
And mad delight made bright his eyes, when sorrows sweeping flood
Rose in fierce wail above the corse his fury drenched in blood.

Two minstrels sought the castle, when the western heavens glowed
With the sunset's golden glories. A noble steed one rode;
About his harp his long gray hair by soft cool winds was blown;
The fresh young face beside him in evening's splendor shone.

“Now let your sweetest songs be heard,” the old man slowly said,
“For goodness cannot perish quite until a heart be dead,
And may we make its mellow tones in melting accents roll
Across the frozen fountains of the tyrant's savage soul.”

Up the great hall with shields ablaze, the minstrels proudly came;
High on his throne the monarch sat, his eyes with rage a-flame;
Beside him, fair as sunny morn when earth is glad and green,
Beamed the sweet face and winsome eyes of her he called his Queen.

With light, deft touch, the old man's hands along the harp-strings glide,
And rich and clear the sweet notes come, in ringing, joyous tide:
And mingled with the melody, like dreams that souls rejoice,
Among the gray-beard's deeper tones, rang out the fair youth's voice.

The grim knights gathered closely round; too oft their feet have trod
The paths whose foray-carnage marks the way that leads from God;
And in bright tears the kindness of the fair Queen softly flows,
And from her breast she flings the youth a velvet-petaled rose.

Swift in the firelight flashes the king's sword, bright and keen;
“You have bewitched my chieftains, and dared to tempt my Queen,”
He cries—the heavy blade cleaves through the golden shadowed air,
And cold-the singer's lips have grown, death's darkness dims his hair.

As leaves by tempests scattered, the warriors turn away,
Clasped in his comrade's arms, the youth doth still and lifeless lay.
He shrouds him in his mantle, and sets him on his horse,
And sad and slow, into the night, goes with the bloody corse.

Soon he hath reached the portal, the hot tears burn his eyes:
He stops where strong and stately the massy pillars rise,
And shivers there his harp whose tone was sweetest in the land,
Then sends his clear voice ringing back amid the crouching band.

“Woe to you, king! your castle's hall shall never hear again
A minstrel's voice in night or day, in sorrow or in pain;
But trembling curses and sad sounds shall haunt it, till it lies,
A shunned and crumbling mass beneath the pity of cold skies.

“Its gardens then shall have no bloom, and birds will shun the spot;
Even the fame you strive to win by men shall be forgot;
And where you ruled, a desert waste will-show the sanguine stain
Of one, who based his fleeting power on blood, and sin, and pain.

“O'er all your land, o'er all your deeds, oblivion shall fling
A gloom, and none will know that you were ever hailed a king;
Build as you may, your dwelling place will swiftly meet decay,
And all that you have done, or made, fade from the earth away.”

Where is the castle of the king? No one can show the place,
Of garden's bloom and fountain's flow the years have left no trace;
A single column, fair and tall, that tells of grandeur fled,
From a drear plain, in sunlit air lifts high its carven head.

Here rumor says the castle stood, but none can surely say,
Or what the king's name was, or when he held a kingly sway:
For neither history nor song his glories now rehearse,
And silence seals the justness of the minstrel's bitter curse.