Death playing on a dulcimer.Behind him, A poor old woman, with a rosary, Follows the sound, and seems to wish her feet Were swifter to o'ertake him.Underneath, The inscription reads, "Better is Death than Life."ELSIE.
Better is Death than Life! Ah yes! to thousands Death plays upon a dulcimer, and sings That song of consolation, till the air Rings with it, and they cannot choose but follow Whither he leads.And not the old alone, But the young also hear it, and are still.
PRINCE HENRY.
Yes, in their sadder moments.'T is the sound Of their own hearts they hear, half full of tears, Which are like crystal cups, half filled with water, Responding to the pressure of a finger With music sweet and low and melancholy.
Let us go forward, and no longer stay In this great picture-gallery of Death!
I hate it! ay, the very thought of it!
ELSIE.
Why is it hateful to you?
PRINCE HENRY.
For the reason That life, and all that speaks of life, is lovely, And death, and all that speaks of death, is hateful.
ELSIE.
The grave itself is but a covered bridge, Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness!
PRINCE HENRY, emerging from the bridge.
I breathe again more freely! Ah, how pleasant To come once more into the light of day, Out of that shadow of death! To hear again The hoof-beats of our horses on firm ground, And not upon those hollow planks, resounding With a sepulchral echo, like the clods On coffins in a churchyard! Yonder lies The Lake of the Four Forest-Towns, apparelled In light, and lingering, like a village maiden, Hid in the bosom of her native mountains Then pouring all her life into another's, Changing her name and being! Overhead, Shaking his cloudy tresses loose in air, Rises Pilatus, with his windy pines.
They pass on.
THE DEVIL'S BRIDGE
PRINCE HENRY and ELSIE crossing with attendants.
GUIDE.
This bridge is called the Devil's Bridge.
With a single arch, from ridge to ridge, It leaps across the terrible chasm Yawning beneath us, black and deep, As if, in some convulsive spasm, The summits of the hills had cracked, And made a road for the cataract That raves and rages down the steep!
LUCIFER, under the bridge.
Ha! ha!
GUIDE.
Never any bridge but this Could stand across the wild abyss;All the rest, of wood or stone, By the Devil's hand were overthrown.
He toppled crags from the precipice, And whatsoe'er was built by day In the night was swept away;None could stand but this alone.
LUCIFER, under the bridge.
Ha! ha!
GUIDE.
I showed you in the valley a bowlder Marked with the imprint of his shoulder;As he was bearing it up this way, A peasant, passing, cried, "Herr Je!
And the Devil dropped it in his fright, And vanished suddenly out of sight!
LUCIFER, under the bridge.
Ha! ha!
GUIDE.
Abbot Giraldus of Einsiedel, For pilgrims on their way to Rome, Built this at last, with a single arch, Under which, on its endless march, Runs the river, white with foam, Like a thread through the eye of a needle.
And the Devil promised to let it stand, Under compact and condition That the first living thing which crossed Should he surrendered into his hand, And be beyond redemption lost.
LUCIFER, under the bridge.
Ha! ha! perdition!
GUIDE.
At length, the bridge being all completed, The Abbot, standing at its head, Threw across it a loaf of bread, Which a hungry dog sprang after;And the rocks re-echoed with the peals of laughter, To see the Devil thus defeated!
They pass on.
LUCIFER, under the bridge.
Ha! ha! defeated!
For journeys and for crimes like this I let the bridge stand o'er the abyss!
THE ST.GOTHARD PASS
PRINCE HENRY.
This is the highest point.Two ways the rivers Leap down to different seas, and as they roll Grow deep and still, and their majestic presence Becomes a benefaction to the towns They visit, wandering silently among them, Like patriarchs old among their shining tents.
ELSIE.
How bleak and bare it is! Nothing but mosses Grow on these rocks.
PRINCE HENRY.
Yet are they not forgotten;
Beneficent Nature sends the mists to feed them.
ELSIE.
See yonder little cloud, that, borne aloft So tenderly by the wind, floats fast away Over the snowy peaks! It seems to me The body of St.Catherine, borne by angels!
PRINCE HENRY.
Thou art St.Catherine, and invisible angels Bear thee across these chasms and precipices, Lest thou shouldst dash thy feet against a stone!
ELSIE.
Would I were borne unto my grave, as she was, Upon angelic shoulders! Even now I seem uplifted by them, light as air!
What sound is that?
PRINCE HENRY.
The tumbling avalanches!
ELSIE.
How awful, yet how beautiful!
PRINCE HENRY.
These are The voices of the mountains! Thus they ope Their snowy lips, and speak unto each other, In the primeval language, lost to man.
ELSIE.
What land is this that spreads itself beneath us?
PRINCE HENRY.
Italy! Italy!
ELSIE.
Land of the Madonna!
How beautiful it is! It seems a garden Of Paradise!
PRINCE HENRY.
Nay, of Gethsemane To thee and me, of passion and of prayer!
Yet once of Paradise.Long years ago I wandered as a youth among its bowers, And never from my heart has faded quite Its memory, that, like a summer sunset, Encircles with a ring of purple light All the horizon of my youth.
GUIDE.
O friends!
The days are short, the way before us long:
We must not linger, if we think to reach The inn at Belinzona before vespers!
They pass on.
AT THE FOOT OF THE ALPS
A halt under the trees at noon.
PRINCE HENRY.
Here let us pause a moment in the trembling Shadow and sunshine of the roadside trees, And, our tired horses in a group assembling, Inhale long draughts of this delicious breeze.
Our fleeter steeds have distanced our attendants;They lag behind us with a slower pace;
We will await them under the green pendants Of the great willows in this shady place.
Ho, Barbarossa! how thy mottled haunches Sweat with this canter over hill and glade!
Stand still, and let these overhanging branches Fan thy hot sides and comfort thee with shade!
ELSIE.
What a delightful landscape spreads before us, Marked with a whitewashed cottage here and there!