If ever thou shalt follow silver Seine
Through his French vineyards and French villages,
For love of love and pity turn aside
At Vernier, and bear to linger there!
The gentle river doth so — lingering long
Round the dark marshland, and the pool Grand'mer,
And then with slower ripple steals away
Down from his merry Paris. Do thou this;
'T is kind to keep a memory of the dead, —
The bygone, silent dead; and these lie there,
Buried a twenty fathoms in the pool,
Whose rough cold wave is closed above their grave,
Like the black cover of an ancient book
Over a tearful story.
Very lovely
Was Julie de Montargis: even now —
After six hundred years are dead with her,
Her village name — the name a stranger hears —
Is, " La plus belle des belles; " — they tell him yet,
The glossy night-black pansies of the land
Lost depth in her dark hair; and that she owned
The noble Norman eye — the violet eye,
Almost — so far and fine its lashes drooped —
Darkened to purple.
All the country-folk
Went lightly to their work at sight of her;
And all their children learned a grace by heart,
And said it with small lips when she went by,
The Lady of the Castle.
Dear, past words,
Was all this beauty and this gentleness
Unto her first love and her playfellow,
Roland le Vavasour.
Too dear to leave,
Save that his knightly vow to pluck a palm,
And bear the cross broidered above his heart,
To where upon the cross Christ died for him,
Led him away from loving.
But a year,
And they shall meet — alas! to those that joy,
It is a pleasant season, all too short,
Made of white winter and of scarlet spring,
With fireside comfort and sweet summer-nights:
But parted lovers count the minutes up,
And see no sunshine.
Julie heeded none,
When she had belted on her Roland's sword,
Buckled his breastplate, and upon her lip
Taken his last long kisses.
Listen now!
She was no light-o'-love, to change and change,
And, deeply written on her heart, she kept
The night and hour the star of Love should see
A true love-meeting. Walking by the pool,
Many a time she longed to wear a wing
As fleet and white as the swift sea-bird spread,
That she might hover over Roland's sails,
Follow him to the field, and in the battle
Shield the hot Syrian sun from dazing him:
High on the turret many an autumn eve,
When the light, merry swallow tried his plumes
For foreign flight, she gave him messages, —
Fond messages of love, for Palestine,
Unto her knight. What wonder, loving so,
She greeted well the brother that he sent
From Ascalon with spoils — Claude Vavasour?
Could she do less? — he had so deft a hand
Upon the mandolin, and sang so well
What Roland did so bravely; nay, in sooth,
She had not heart to frown upon his songs
When they sang other love and other deeds
Than Roland's, being brother to her lord.
Yet sometimes was she grave and sad of eye,
For knowledge of the spell her glance could work
Upon its watcher. Ah! he came to serve,
And stayed to love her; and she knew it soon,
Past all concealment. Oftentimes his eyes,
Fastened upon her face, fell suddenly,
For brother-love and shame; but, once and twice,
Julie had seen them, through her tender tears,
Fixed on some messenger from Holy Land
With wild significance, the drawn white lips
Working for grief, because she smiled again.

He spake no love — he breathed no passionate tale,
Till there came one who told how Roland's sword,
From heel to point, dripped with the Paynim blood;
How Ascalon had watched, and Joppa's lists,
And Gaza, and Nicaea's noble fight,
His chivalry; and how, with palm-branch won,
Bringing his honors and his wounds a-front,
His prow was cleaving Genoa's sapphire sea,
Bound homewards. Then, the last day of the year,
Claude brought his unused charger to the gate,
Sprang to the broad strong back, and reined its rage
Into a marble stillness. Yet more still,
Young Claude le Vavasour, thy visage was,
More marble-white.
She stood to see him pass,
And their eyes met; and full of tears were hers
To mark his suffering; and she called his name,
And came below the gate; but he bowed low,
And thrust the visor close over his face,
So riding on.

Before St. Ouen's shrine
That night the lady watched — a sombre night,
With fleeting gleams of fitful moonlight sent
'Twixt driving clouds: the gray stone statues gleamed
Through the gloom ghost-like; the still effigies
Of knight and abbess had a show of life,
Lit by pale crimsons and faint amethysts
That fell along them from the oriels;
And if she broke the silence with a step,
It seemed the echo lent them speech again
To speak in ghostly whispers; while, o'er all,
With a weird paleness midnight might not hide,
Straight from the wall St. Ouen looked upon her,
Knitting his granite brows, bidding her hope
No lover's kiss that night — no loving kiss —
None — though there came the whisper of her name,
And a chill sleety blast of wintry wind
Moaning about the tombs, and striking her,
For fear, down to her knees.
That opened porch
Brought more than wind and whisper; there were steps,
And the dim wave of a white gabardine —
Horribly dim; and then the voice again,
As though the dead called Julie. Was it dead,
The form which, at the holy altar foot,
Stood spectral in the flickering window-lights?
It does not turn, nor speak, nor seek for her,
But passes through the chancel, grim and still!
Ah, Holy Mother! dead — and in its hand
The pennon of Sir Roland, and the palm,
Both laid so stilly on the altar front;
A presence like a knight, clad in close mail
From spur to crest, yet from his armed heel
No footfall; a white face, white as the stones,
Lit by the moonlight long enough to know
How the dead kept his tryst; and It was gone,
Leaving the lady on the flags, ice-cold.

O gentle River! thou that knowest all,
Tell them how for a while she mourned her knight;
How her grief withered all the rose-bloom off,
And wrote its record on her fading cheek;
And say, bright River! lest they do her wrong,
All the sad story of those twenty moons,
The true-love dead — the true-love that lived on —
Her clinging memories, and Claude's generous praise,
Claude's silent service, and her tearful thanks;
And ask them, River, for Saint Charity,
To think not too much wrong, that so she gave,
Her heart being given and gone, her hand to him,
The brother of her lord. —
Now banish care!
Soothe it with flutings, startle it with drums!
Trick it with gold and velvets, till it glow
Into a seeming pleasure. Ah, vain! vain!
When the bride weeps, what wedding-gear is gay?
And since the dawn she weeps — at orisons
She wept — and while her women clasped the zone,
Among its jewels fell her mocking tears.
Now at the altar all her answers sigh:
Wilt thou? — Ah! fearful altar-memories —
" Ah! spirit-lover — if he saw me now! "
Wilt thou? — " Oh, me! if that he saw me now! "
He doth, he doth! beneath St. Ouen there,
As white and still — yon monk whose cowl is back!
Wilt thou? — " Ah, dear love, listen and look up. "
He doth — ah, God! with hollow eyes a-fire.
Wilt thou? — pale quivering lips, pale bloodless lips —
" I will not — never — never — Roland — never! "

So went the bride a-swoon to Vernier;
So doffed each guest his silken braveries;
So followed Claude, heart-stricken and amazed,
And left the Chapel. But the monk left last,
And down the hillside, swift and straight and lone,
Sandals and brown serge brushed the yellow broom,
Till to the lake he came and loosed his skiff,
And paddled to the lonely island-cell
Midway over the wavelets. Long ago
The people of the lonely water knew
He came alone to dwell there — 't was the night
Of Lady Julie's vigil; ever since
The simple fishers left their silver tithe
Of lake-fish for him on the wave-worn flags,
Wherefrom he wandered not, save when that day
He went unasked, and marred the bridal show, —
Wherefore none knew, nor how, — save two alone,
A lady swooning — and a monk at prayers.

And now not Castle-gates, nor cell, nor swoon,
Nor splashing waters, nor the flooded marsh,
Can keep these two apart. The Chapel-bells
Ring Angelus and Even-song, and then
Sleep, like her waiting maidens — only Blanche,
Her foster-sister, lying at the gate,
Dreaming of roving spirits — starts at one,
And marvels at the night-gear, poorly hid,
And overdone with pity at her plaint,
Lets her dear Lady forth, and watches her
Gleaming from crag to crag — but lost at last,
A white speck on the night.
More watchful eyes
Follow her flying; — down the water-path,
Mad at his broken bridals, sore amazed
With fear and pain, Claude tracks the wanderer —
Waits, while the wild white fingers loose the cord —
But when she drove the shallop through the lake
Straight for the island-cell, he brooked no stay,
But doffed his steel-coat on the reedy rim,
And gave himself to the quick-plashing pool,
And swimming in the foam her fleetness made,
Strove after — sometimes losing his white guide,
Down-sinking in the dark wash of the waves.

Together to the island-cell they come,
The shallop and the swimmer — she alone
Thrusts at the wicket, — enters wet and wild.
What sees he there under the crucifix?
What holds his eyesight to the ivied loop?
O Claude! — O furious heart! be still, or break!
The Monk and Julie kneeling, not at prayer!
She kisses him with warm, wild, eager lips —
Weeps on his heart — that woman, nearly wived,
And, " Sweetest love, " she saith, " I thought thee dead. "
And he — who is he that he fondles so
In his her shaking hands, and bends adown,
Crying, " Ah, my lost love! it was no ghost
That left the palm-branch; but I saw thee not
In the dim moonlight of the midnight aisle;
And heard their talk of Claude, and held thee false,
These many erring days. " Now, gaze no more,
Claude, Claude, for thy soul's peace! She binds the brand
About his gabardine, with close caress;
She fondles the thin neck, and clasps thereon
The gorget! then the breast-piece and the helm
Her quick hands fasten. " Come away, " she cries,
" Thou Knight, and take me from them all for thine.
Come, true love! come. " The pebbles, water-washed,
Grate with the gliding of the shallop's keel,
Scarce bearing up those twain.
Frail boat, be strong!
Three lives are thine to keep — ah, Lady pale,
Choose of two lovers — for the other comes
With a wild bound that shakes the rotten plank.
Moon! shine out clear for Claude's avenging blow!
She glitters on a quiet face and form
That shuns it not, — yet stays the lifted death.
" My brother Roland! " — " Claude, ah, brother mine! " —
" I thought thee dead! " — " I would that I had died
Ere this had come! " — " Just God! but she is thine! " —
" He wills her not for either! look, we fill,
The current drifts us, and the oars are gone,
I will leap forth! " — " Now by the breast we sucked,
So shalt thou not: let the black waters break
Over a broken heart! " — " Nay, tell him no;
Bid him to save thee, Julie — I will leap! "
So strove they sinking, sinking — Julie bending
Between them; and those brothers over her
With knees and arms close locked for leave to die
Each for the other; — while the Moon shone down,
Silvering their far-off home, and the black wave
That struck, and rose, and floated over them,
Hushing their death-cries, hiding their kind strife,
Ending the love of those great troubled hearts
With silence, save for lapping of the lake.