A Poet Of Provence Poem by Jewell Miller

THE ARRIVAL

The sunlight of a waning winter day
Sent one long ray, aflame, across the gloom
Where Ludovico, Count of Ventimiglia,
Bowed his head ... and duly kneeled to pray;
It scattered coins of gold about the room
And gilded all the paneled walls of wood,
Playing upon their sombre tints, and cold,
Warming the scrolls to hues of molten gold.
The youth at length from his devotions rising,
Drawn by the radiant-flaming aureole
Of glass, moved slowly toward the amber casement
To bend a questioning gaze upon the scene ...
The rugged hills, green vales, and moated knoll.
An ardent, restless soul looked from his eyes;
His striking raiment was a strange surprise,
At variance it seemed with his demean.
A flowing gown of white ... a cowl of black,
(The habit of an Augustinian monk)
Within these ebon folds a white face shrunk!

The door of Ludovico's still retreat
Swung open wide. Filippo, gray in service
Of Ventimiglia's Lord, emitted nervous
Harsh cluckings from his throat to grain attention.
The youth turned sharply from the oriel-seat;
His angry mien denied a presence there,
For none dared enter while he was at prayer.
'If it please my Lord,' Filippo humbly said,
'An august guest has reached the castle gate.
The daughter of our neighbor, Lord of Boglia,
With gallant retinue has come in state.'
Count Ludovico, of the House of Tenda,
Took one swift step toward his gray servitor
As if to strike, or drive him from the door,-
Then paused and said; 'Go tell the Count I wait
His pleasure. If he wills that I descend
Unto the hall to meet his guests tonight
And break my fasting, then I shall attend.'
Filippo, bowing low, withdrew. Faint light
Showed dust upon an empty carven lectern.
The young monk sighed. His slender hands were pressed
Hard for a moment on his white-clad breast.

THE MEETING

The hall was decked in muffling, sombre glory;
Count Ludovico, clad in priestly robes,
Stood close beside his sire. The vivid story
Of the fair guest they now awaited, sent
His blood full-coursing through his veins, before he
Heard the gold-voiced trumpet that announced
Her coming. Then, with undulating grace,
The fair donzella, beautiful Tiburgia,
Proud daughter of a well-born stalwart race
Long powerful in feudal-bound Liguria,
Advanced toward him. A mist enveloped her ...
He could not see the oval of her face.
The crimson color of her velvet gown,
In coruscation, flooded all the room;
It brought a glow into that heavy gloom
Brighter than the rosy blush of pomegranates!
About her tiny feet a swirl of lace ...
Her girlish form was sheathed with witching grace
In clinging folds that held her ivory flesh
Within a sanctity of mesh on mesh.
As calyx holds the bud.

And from her breathed
The rhythm of youth. A pause ... a slow, sweet cadence
Exquisite ... subtle ... thrilled with radiance
Through Ludovico's strong and tense-strung frame.
Across the throbbing space he heard her name,
As when an instrument vibrates and sings
If a bow is slowly drawn athwart taut strings.
The scene and all about him swayed a moment
Before his eyes could focus on her face ...
Framed in by lucent bands, where limpid pearls
Dripped moonbeams through her dancing ebon curls.

Standing erect, a shadow near the fire,
Lascaris felt but cold. A sudden blight
Had fallen on him. This visitant of light
Was from another world than his! Ah, he
Had never dreamed of this when he had vowed
Himself to heaven ... his years to celibacy.
They met as youth forever meets with youth,-
No time for inward searching for the truth,
If right be wrong ... or wrong be ever right?
The bird will always seize its right to flight ...
The heart of youth proclaim its right to song!

From boyhood dedicated to the Church,
The pledged youth knew that he could never gain
The sanction of his stern, hard-bitten sire;
He knew his solemn irrevocable vow
Must hold him ever an Augustinian friar ...
That he must earthly Paradise forego.
Oblivious to youth, the young monk's father,
The Lord of Tenda long had lost his fire;
Grown old with war's grim heritage of woe,
Dulled by his years, sword-scarred by many a foe,
His sight was failing now ... life had grown dim,
Hearing and every sense burned low in him.

Within the watch-towers of his citadel
The lovers met by night, when all was still;
Before the first moon waned on Tenda's hill,
The youth and maid had drunk love's philtered wine;
With quivering lips pressed close against her hair,
Ludovico whispered not of psalms. No prayer
He uttered ... save one urgent cry that he
Should listen to his ardent, heart-wrung plea!

THE FLIGHT

A serpentine road, running from right to left,
Unwinding like a ghostly, looped reata
Beneath the moon. A pulsing in the air ...
A shivering prescience of danger and of flight!
Along the brow of a gaunt, precipitous height,
Like black-cowled priests all motionless at prayer,
Their shadows crossed like swords to bar the way!
A treacherous wind had died within the night,
While stealthy clouds recrossed the lambent light
About the moon. Long rays of silver ... slight
And palpitant, pierced shifting cloud-wracks through
To flash a thousand jewels on wet rocks
That jutted sharply from the churning spray
Where foaming torrents dashed, with beating shocks,
Upon the futile barriers of stone.

Above the rushing waters rose a span
Resounding to the beat of plunging hoofs,
As through the broken night an errant man
Fled madly from his far, ancestral home.
The lunging horse was spent ... and flecked with foam.
A maiden crumpled on the saddle-bow,
Her white face lay upturned beneath the sky,
For she was held all senseless in a swoon
By one who would both heaven and earth defy.
The road ran round about the beetling crags ...
A swinging rope beneath the crescent moon;
From purple shadows menacing, tense hands
Whipped out its treacherous length in far-flung curves;
Beyond this perilous way of maddening swerves
That lessened at the surge of their advance,
The goal of Ludovice lay ... Provence!

All through the night the goaded horse plunged on,
To stumble, broken, as the coming dawn
Set conquering banners on the rosy hills.
The vanquished night, the anguish and the thrills
Of dread pursuit were over ... the horror passed.
Now fragrances of mimosa's pungent breath
Shook out from plumes of gold upon the breeze,-
And there beneath the blue of heaven's dome
They found a holy altar in the trees;
The silent slender boles as pillars stood
Within the sanctuary of the wood.

A friar lost. A knight created there,
Discarding his known world, without a care,
To claim his heritage ... the woman, wife,
That he had won. A glorious new life
Begun within the hour ... a dedication, sum
Of all his years before and those to come!
The gentle donzella Tiburgia, reft of fear,
Sank like a homing dove at last to rest ...
He smoothed her silken hair, stilled her alarms,
And whispering tender words bade her forget
Her home ... his broken vows, - that no reget
Should mar the wondrous passing of the hour,
In that sequestered spot of old Provence
Eternal love was vowed and pledged anew.

A year they wandered, hidden and alone.
Forgotten, living humbly ... so that few
Could recognize in their new low estate
Tiburgia, the high-born heiress. Yet how great
Was she ... a brave support, faithful and true,
To this lost scion of a noble house.
Though perilously sweet the hours passed
Lascaris knew this thralldom could not last;
Of chivalric gallantry, his soul abhorred
That he should hide the woman he adored;
To live a coward, veriest knave, untrue,
Concealing her he had betrayed ... none knew
How this embittered every weighted hour!
His being's roots denuded of old soil
Cried for fresh earth, demanded a new foil;
True bonds he craved, stout lines to strain against,-
Yet knew not what his rôle might be ... nor whence
Some need might summon him to great events?

Learning in time a secret, hostile plan
Brewing in Aix, leige city of Provence,
Against the shaken throne of good Queen Jeanne,
The young Count pledged his sword to her support,
Then, growing desperate, declared his name ...
And threw himself on the mercy of the Court.
He told the love he held all else above
And pled his union be acknowledged ere
False shame should fall upon a child of love!
Queen Jeanne with eagerness accepted then
His knightly sword to shield and guard Provence ...
Of faithful followers she had but few;
She hearkened, promised with alacrity
To send an urgent message to the Pope.
The Holy Father listened to their plea ...
There came a pardon full of joy and hope,
Giving the Count a special dispensation,
Forgiving him ... permitting him to live
'Within the World,' for five and twenty years
Absolved from priestly vows. Then to retire
To ways of contemplation,- a life higher
Than fleeting, worldly glories of the Court.

THE POET OF PROVENCE

As singing bard and troubadour of France,
Louis Lascaris of Aix, with peace of mind,
Held sway above all hearts. From war's mischance,
The Court was freed at last ;- a truce was signed
Between the warring Guelphs and Ghibellines.
In fair Provence the poet lived apart
From that severity of mind and heart
Which in his boyhood days had sucked the blood
From out his veins. A joyous-welling flood
Now took possession of his soul's estate.
Impetuous and not to be denied,
The wings of Eros beat through all his songs ...
And yet he boldly voiced the woes and wrongs
Of his new land. At times his words like bolts
Of Jove, heat-forged, poured forth torrentially
And those who heard felt patriotism burning!

Assembled Lords and Ladies of the land
Hearkened the poet's lays of art and learning;
The golden fruit of peace that he had wrought
Beguiled assemblies where rich dukes and courtiers
(Who only with a sword or rapier fought)
Came, dressed in sumptuous garb ;- their ladies gowned
In ermine capes and velvet robes, gold-fraught,-
A wealth of sparkling jewels in their hair.
Tiburgia rides a milk-white palfrey there,
Beneath the arching splendour of the trees;
His hoofs seem silver-shod ... fast-flying breeze
Ruffles his snowy mane as on they fare!
A falcon sits upon her slender wrist,
(Behooded and indifferent to prey)
Soft by the southern sun her hair is kissed,-
While from her hennin's towering, tapering tip
Translucent draperies sweep far behind ...
Elated by the whippings of the wind!

Protected by the love and admiration
Of his adopted people, Lascaris lived ...
Confounding their enemies, quite unafraid,
And of the royal court at Aix he made
A second Athens ... like that of ancient Greece,
And thus he wrote the golden screed of peace.
The country knew a classic interval ...
His poems in the lovely Provençal
So bravely sung, accompanied by his lute,
Rang through the listening land - and all who heard
His noble songs were spell-bound, still ... and mute.

Season succeeded season. Verdant leaf
Renewed the bronzed and meagre boughs of fall;
For nature smiles ... secure in her renewal.
Only to man time's passing is a thief
That pilfers all the treasures of his growth ...
Then fells his tree of life, both root and branch.
The sluggard, aimless, sterile in his sloth,
Feels no increasing need. No final flame
Illumes his waning years. Not so with him
Whose need expands with every breath he draws;
Impatient of defeat ... of mortal flaws ...
Life sends him panting, straining, toward his goal.
He runs a race for his immortal soul!

SWAN SONG

The five and twenty years, allotted him
By his most clement Pope, were nearly gone ...
The famous troubadour grew ill and wan.
At eve he heard more clear, increasingly,
The distant, reverent bells that fell upon
The dusk. They called to him unceasingly.
He knew the hour that he must separate
From his beloved Tiburgia would claim
The waning measure of his strength. His fame
Meant nothing to him now. A waiting cell
Might lend him shadowy trappings ... dreary refuge.
His soul grew strong in faith, to meet his knell.

How oft he saw Tiburgia turn away
To brush a teardrop from her cheek ... then, gay
With false pretense, smile up into his eyes!
The passing of the years had made her wise
To share the darkest hours of his need,-
She held his faith before him, and his creed;
Yet every throbbing fibre of her soul
Knew that the moment he must live apart
Would break his lute-strings ... and her tortured heart
Into their singing stole a cloud of sadness,
As when the mistral strips the land of gladness.

But soon mysterious nature eased his way ...
Stirring to life fair memories of his youth,-
Restored the meaning to his broken vows ...
Recalled the manner of another day.
He grasped forgotten, hidden, bonds that lay
Deep-chrismed ... anchored in eternal truth,
Before a mortal illness broke his flesh.

The feasting and life's banquet were no more.
Strange music, of celestial harmony,
Stole through his room from supernal shore ...
And yet the door was closed, the casement tight.
A dying fire, pulsing through graying ashes,
Tiburgia saw the face of her beloved
Now slowly ... slowly draining of its light.
She sank upon her knees beside his bed:
'My lord,' she whispered, 'O, my true-beloved,
But take my hand. Tomorrow will be well!
Your name is on the lips of all in prayer.
Have hope, dear lord! A new day comes ... and fair.'

The dying poet stirred ... his thin hand lifted:
'Carissima, cease, O cease! But let me rest
My head, soft-pillowed, here upon your breast.
My day is done. If from my youthful muteness
One golden-noted song rang clear and true,
It came not from myself, Carissima,-
It was not I ... I sang because of you!
This richness that has compassed me about
Of false and worldly shimmering was wrought ...
I need the silken vesture of your love,
The throb that deep within your voice is caught.
More dear than any earthly, present thing ...
Than shining day, than comfort, ease ... than all,
I hold the tender pressure of your hand
Within the night ... when clinging shadows fall.'
A spear of light flashed out and pierced the gloom.
The moon shone brightly through the silent room ...
The same orb shone long since on Tenda's hill;
'Kyrie Eleison ... Qyrie ...'
What echoes of the past filled all the air?
The swell of chanting voices ... and the sway
Of marching figures robed in black and white ...
The scene about Lascaris fell away!
He staggered to the casement - and the still
Far hills of Italy lay graven deep
Upon the heart of this now alien France.
He saw a road, running from right to left,
Spun as a spirit-trail beneath the moon.

Its far-flung curves of strangely gleaming light
Drew him with cords of amber through the night.
'Kyrie Eleison ... Kyrie ...'
Great shadows flashed sword-points to bar his way.
Tiburgia ... senseless in his arms! The sway
Of plunging steed ... the ring of pounding hoofs
Beat in his ears. And then a higher shelter
Than that where silent trees as pillars stood
Within the sanctuary of the wood.

All the starry firmament grew dim
As breath, and life itself passed out from him.