Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey

by Robert Southey

  When he that eve look’d down

  From Stanemore’s side on Borrodale

  And on the distant town.

  And had I store of wealth, methinks,

  Another herd of kine,

  John Brunskill,! Would freely give,

  That they might crane with thine

  Keswick, 1828.

  QUEEN MARY’S CHRISTENING.

  THE first wish of Queen Mary’s heart

  Is, that she may bear a son,

  Who shall inherit in his time

  The kingdom of Aragon.

  She hath put up prayers to all the Saints

  This blessing to accord,

  But chiefly she hath call’d upon

  The Apostles of our Lord.

  The second wish of Queen Mary’s heart

  Is to have that son call’d James,

  Because she thought for a Spanish King

  ‘T was the best of all good names.

  To give him this name of her own will

  Is what may not be done,

  For having applied to all the Twelve

  She may not prefer the one.

  By one of their names she hath vow’d to call

  Her son, if son it should be;

  But which, is a point whereon she must let

  The Apostles themselves agree.

  Already Queen Mary hath to them

  Contracted a grateful debt,

  And from their patronage she hoped

  For these farther blessings yet.

  Alas! it was not her hap to be

  As handsome as she was good;

  And that her husband King Pedro thought so

  She very well understood.

  She had lost him from her lawful bed

  For lack of personal graces,

  And by prayers, to them, and & pious deceit,

  She had compasss’d his embraces.

  But if this hope of a son should fail,

  All hope must fail with it then,

  For she could not expect by a second device

  To compass the King again.

  Queen Mary hath had her first heart’s wish —

  She hath brought forth a beautiful boy;

  And the bells have rung, and masses been sung,

  And bonfires have blazed for joy.

  And many ‘s the cask of the good red wine,

  And many the cask of the white,

  Which was broach’d for joy that morning,

  And emptied before it was night.

  But now for Queen Mary’s second heart’s wish,

  It must be determined now,

  And Bishop Boyl, her Confessor,

  Is the person who taught her how.

  Twelve waxen tapers he hath had made,

  In size and weight the same;

  And to each of these twelve tapers,

  He hath given an Apostle’s name.

  One holy Nun had bleach’d the wax,

  Another the wicks had spun;

  And the golden candlesticks were blest,

  Which they were set upon.

  From that which should burn the longest,

  The infant his name must take;

  And the Saint who own’d it was to be

  His Patron for his name’s sake.

  A godlier or a goodlier sight

  Was nowhere to be seen,

  Methinks, that day, in Christendom,

  Than in the chamber of that good Queen.

  Twelve little altars have been there

  Erected, for the nonce;

  And the twelve tapers are set thereon,

  Which are all to be lit at once.

  Altars more gorgeously drest

  You nowhere could desire;

  At each there stood a minist’ring Priest

  In his most rich attire.

  A high altar hath there been raised,

  Where the crucifix you see;

  And the sacred Pix that shines with gold

  And sparkles with jewelry.

  Bishop Boyl, with his precious mitre on,

  Hath taken there his stand,

  In robes which were embroidered

  By the Queen’s own royal hand.

  In one part of the ante-room

  The Ladies of the Queen,

  All with their rosaries in hand,

  Upon their knees are seen.

  In the other part of the ante-room

  The Chiefs of the realm you behold,

  Ricos Omes, and Bishops and Abbots,

  And Knights and Barons bold.

  Queen Mary could behold all this

  As she lay in her state bed;

  And from the pillow needed not

  To lift her languid head.

  One fear she had, though still her heart

  The unwelcome thought eschew’d,

  That haply the unlucky lot

  Might fall upon St. Jude.

  But the Saints, she trusted, that ill chance

  Would certainly forefend;

  And moreover there was a double hope

  Of seeing the wish’d-for end:

  Because there was a double chance

  For the best of all good names;

  If it should not be Santiago himself,

  It might be the lesser St. James.

  And now Bishop Boyl hath said the mass;

  And as soon as the mass was done,

  The priests who by the twelve tapers stood

  Each instantly lighted one.

  The tapers were short and slender too,

  Yet to the expectant throng,

  Before they to the socket burnt,

  The time, I trow, seem’d long.

  The first that went out was St. Peter,

  The second was St. John;

  And now St Matthias is going,

  And now St. Matthew is gone.

  Next there went St. Andrew,

  There goes St. Philip too;

  And see I there is an end

  Of St. Bartholomew.

  St Simon is in the snuff;

  But it was a matter of doubt

  Whether he or St. Thomas could be said

  Soonest to have gone out.

  There are only three remaining,

  St Jude, and the two St. James;

  And great was then Queen Mary’s hope

  For the best of all good names.

  Great was then Queen Mary’s hope,

  But greater her fear, I guess,

  When one of the three went out,

  And that one was St James the Less.

  They are now within less than quarter-inch,

  The only remaining two!

  When there came a thief in St. James,

  And it made a gutter too!

  Up started Queen Mary,

  Up she sate in her bed:

  “I never can call him Judas!”

  She claspt her hands and said.

  “I never can call him Judas!”

  Again did she exclaim;

  “Holy Mother preserve us!

  It is not a Christian name!”

  She spread her hands and claspt them

  And the Infant in the cradle

  Set up a cry, an angry cry,

  As loud as he was able.

  “Holy Mother preserve us I”

  The Queen her prayer renew’d;

  When in came a moth at the window

  And flutter’d about St Jude.

  St. James hath fallen in the socket

  But as yet the flame is not out,

  And St Jude hath singed the silly moth

  That flutters so blindly about

  And before the flame and the molten wax

  That silly moth could kill,

  It hath beat out St. Jude with its wings.

  And St. James is burning still!

  Oh, that was a joy for Queen Mary’s heart

  The babe is christened James;

  The Prince of Aragon hath got

  The best of all good names!r />
  Glory to Santiago,

  The mighty one in war I

  James he is call’d, and he shall be

  King James the Conqueror!

  Now shall the Crescent wane,

  The Cross be set on high

  In triumph upon many a Mosque;

  Woe, woe to Mawmetry!

  Valencia shall be subdued;

  Majorca shall be won;

  The Moors be routed every where;

  Joy, joy, for Aragon!

  Shine brighter now, ye stars, that crown

  Our Lady del Pilar.

  And rejoice in thy grave, Cid Campeador,

  Ruydiez de Bivar!

  Keswick, 1829.

  ROPRECHT THE ROBBER.

  The story here versified is told by Taylor the Water Poet, in his ‘Three Weeks, Three Days, and Three Hours’ Observations from London to Hamburgh in Germany; amongst Jews and Gentiles, with Descriptions of Towns and Towers, Castles and Citadels, artificial Gallowses and natural Hangmen; and dedicated for the present to the absent Odcombian Knight Errant, Sir Thomas Cory at.” It is in the volume of his collected works, p. 82. of the third paging. Collein, which is the scene of this story, is more probably Kollen on the Elbe, in Bohemia, or a town of the same name in Prussia, than Cologne’ to which great city the reader will perceive I had good reasons for transferring it.

  PART I.

  ROPRECHT the Robber is taken at last,

  In Cologne they have him fast;

  Trial is over, and sentence past;

  And hopes of escape were vain he knew,

  For the gallows now must have its due.

  But though pardon cannot here be bought,

  It may for the other world, he thought;

  And so to his comfort, with one consent

  The Friars assured their penitent

  Money, they teach him, when rightly given,

  Is put out to account with Heaven;

  For suffrages therefore his plunder went,

  Sinfully gotten, but piously spent.

  All Saints, whose shrines are in that city,

  They tell him, will on him have pity,

  Seeing he hath liberally paid,

  In this time of need, for their good aid.

  In the Three Kings they bid him confide,

  Who there in Cologne lie side by side;

  And from the Eleven Thousand Virgins eke,

  Intercession for him will they bespeak.

  And also a sharer he shall be

  In the merits of their community;

  All which they promise, he need not fear,

  Through Purgatory will carry him clear.

  Though the furnace of Babylon could not compare

  With the terrible fire that rages there,

  Yet they their part will so zealously do

  He shall only but frizzle as he flies through.

  And they will help him to die well,

  And he shall be hang’d with book and bell;

  And moreover with holy water they

  Will sprinkle him, ere they turn away.

  For buried Roprecht must not be,

  He is to be left on the triple tree;

  That they who pass along may spy

  Where the famous Robber is hanging on high.

  Seen is that gibbet far and wide

  From the Rhine and from the Dusseldorff side;

  And from all roads which cross the sand,

  North, south, and west, in that level land.

  It will be a comfortable sight

  To see him there by day and by night;

  For Roprecht the Robber many a year

  Had kept the country round in fear.

  So the Friars assisted, by special grace,

  With book and bell to the fatal place;

  And he was hang’d on the triple tree,

  With as much honour as man could be.

  In his suit of irons he was hung,

  They sprinkled him then, and their psalm they sung;

  And turning away when this duty was paid,

  They said what a goodly end he had made.

  The crowd broke up and went their way;

  All were gone by the close of day;

  And Roprecht the Robber was left there

  Hanging alone in the moonlight air.

  The last who look’d back for a parting sight,

  Beheld him there in the clear moonlight;

  But the first who look’d when the morning shone,

  Saw in dismay that Roprecht was gone.

  PART II.

  THE stir in Cologne is greater to-day

  Than all the bustle of yesterday;

  Hundreds and thousands went out to see;

  The irons and chains, as well as he,

  Were gone, but the rope was left on the tree.

  A wonderful thing I for every one said

  He had hung till he was dead, dead, dead;

  And on the gallows was seen, from noon

  Till ten o’clock, in the light of the moon.

  Moreover the Hangman was ready to swear

  He had done his part with all due care;

  And that certainly better hang’d than he

  No one ever was, or ever could be.

  Neither kith nor kin, to bear him away

  And funeral rites in secret pay,

  Had he; and none that pains would take,

  With risk of the law, for a stranger’s sake.

  So’t was thought, because he had died so well

  He was taken away by miracle.

  But would he again alive be found?

  Or had he been laid in holy ground?

  If in holy ground his relics were laid,

  Some marvellous sign would show, they said;

  If restored to life, a Friar he would be,

  Or a holy Hermit certainly,

  And die in the odour of sanctity.

  That thus it would prove they could not doubt,

  Of a man whose end had been so devout;

  And to disputing then they fell

  About who had wrought this miracle.

  Had the Three Kings this mercy shown,

  Who were the pride and honour of Cologne?

  Or was it an act of proper grace,

  From the Army of Virgins of British race,

  Who were also the glory of that place?

  Pardon, some said, they might presume,

  Being a kingly act, from the Kings must come;

  But others maintained that St. Ursula’s heart

  Would sooner be moved to the merciful part.

  There was one who thought this aid divine

  Came from the other bank of the Rhine;

  For Roprecht there too had for favour applied,

  Because his birth-place was on that side.

  To Dusseldorff then the praise might belong,

  And its Army of Martyrs, ten thousand strong;

  But he for a Dusseldorff man was known,

  And no one would listen to him in Cologne,

  Where the people would have the whole wonder their own.

  The Friars, who help’d him to die so well,

  Put in their claim to the miracle;

  Greater things than this, as their Annals could tell,

  The stock of their merits for sinful men

  Had done before, and would do again.

  ‘T was a whole week’s wonder in that great town,

  And in all places, up the river and down:

  But a greater wonder took place of it then,

  For Roprecht was found on the gallows again!

  PART III.

  WITH that the whole city flocked out to see;

  There Roprecht was on the triple tree,

  Dead, past all doubt, as dead could be;

  But fresh he was as if spells had charm’d him,

  And neither wind nor weather had harm’d him.

  While the multitude stood in a muse,

  One said, I am sure he was hang�
�d in shoes!

  In this the Hangman and all concurr’d;

  But now, behold, he was booted and spurr’d!

  Plainly therefore it was to be seen,

  That somewhere on horseback he had been;

  And at this the people marvelled more,

  Than at any thing which had happened before.

  For not in riding trim was he

  When he disappeared from the triple tree;

  And his suit of irons he still was in,

  With the collar that clipp’d him under the chin.

  With that this second thought befell,

  That perhaps he had not died so well,

  Nor had Saints perform’d the miracle;

  But rather there was cause to fear,

  That the foul Fiend had been busy here!

  Roprecht the Robber had long been their curse,

  And hanging had only made him worse;

  For bad as he was when living, they said

  They had rather meet him alive than dead.

  What a horse must it be which he had ridden,

  No earthly beast could be so bestridden;

  And when by a hell-horse a dead rider was carried,

  The whole land would be fearfully harried I

  So some were for digging a pit in the place,

  And burying him there with a stone on his face;

  And that hard on his body the earth should be press’d,

  And exorcists be sent for to lay him at rest.

  But others, whose knowledge was greater, opined

  That this corpse was too strong to be confined;

  No weight of earth which they could lay

  Would hold him down a single day,