THE ROAD TO HIRSCHAU

PRINCE HENRY and ELSIE, with their attendants on horseback.

ELSIE.
Onward and onward the highway runs to the distant city,
     impatiently bearing
Tidings of human joy and disaster, of love and of hate,
     of doing and daring!

PRINCE HENRY.
This life of ours is a wild aeolian harp of many
     a joyous strain,
But under them all there runs a loud perpetual wail,
     as of souls in pain.

ELSIE.
Faith alone can interpret life, and the heart
     that aches and bleeds with the stigma
Of pain, alone bears the likeness of Christ,
     and can comprehend its dark enigma.

PRINCE HENRY.
Man is selfish, and seeketh pleasure with little care
     of what may betide,
Else why am I travelling here beside thee,
     a demon that rides by an angel's side?

ELSIE.
All the hedges are white with dust, and the great dog
     under the creaking wain
Hangs his head in the lazy heat, while onward
     the horses toil and strain.

PRINCE HENRY.
Now they stop at the wayside inn, and the wagoner laughs
     with the landlord's daughter,
While out of the dripping trough the horses
     distend their leathern sides with water.

ELSIE.
All through life there are wayside inns,
     where man may refresh his soul with love;
Even the lowest may quench his thirst
     at rivulets fed by springs from above.

PRINCE HENRY.
Yonder, where rises the cross of stone,
     our journey along the highway ends,
And over the fields, by a bridle path,
     down into the broad green valley descends.

ELSIE.
I am not sorry to leave behind the beaten road
     with its dust and heat
The air will be sweeter far, and the turf will be softer
     under our horses' feet.

They turn down a green lane.

ELSIE.
Sweet is the air with the budding haws,
     and the valley stretching for miles below
Is white with blossoming cherry-trees,
     as if just covered with lightest snow.

PRINCE HENRY.
Over our heads a white cascade is gleaming
     against the distant hill;
We cannot hear it, nor see it move, but it hangs
     like a banner when winds are still.

ELSIE.
Damp and cool is this deep ravine, and cool
     the sound of the brook by our side!
What is this castle that rises above us,
     and lords it over a land so wide?

PRINCE HENRY.
It is the home of the Counts of Calva;
     well have I known these scenes of old,
Well I remember each tower and turret, remember the brooklet,
     the wood, and the wold.

ELSIE.
Hark! from the little village below us the bells
     of the church are ringing for rain!
Priests and peasants in long procession come forth
     and kneel on the arid plain.

PRINCE HENRY.
They have not long to wait, for I see in the south
     uprising a little cloud,
That before the sun shall be set will cover
     the sky above us as with a shroud.

They pass on.

THE CONVENT OF HIRSCHAU IN THE BLACK FOREST.

The Convent cellar.  FRIAR CLAUS comes in with a light and a
basket of empty flagons.

FRIAR CLAUS.
I always enter this sacred place
With a thoughtful, solemn, and reverent pace,
Pausing long enough on each stair
To breathe an ejaculatory prayer,
And a benediction on the vines
That produce these various sorts of wines!
For my part, I am well content
That we have got through with the tedious Lent!
Fasting is all very well for those
Who have to contend with invisible foes;
But I am quite sure it does not agree
With a quiet, peaceable man like me,
Who am not of that nervous and meagre kind,
That are always distressed in body and mind!
And at times it really does me good
To come down among this brotherhood,
Dwelling forever underground,
Silent, contemplative, round and sound;
Each one old, and brown with mould,
But filled to the lips with the ardor of youth,
With the latent power and love of truth,
And with virtues fervent and manifold.

I have heard it said, that at Easter-tide,
When buds are swelling on every side,
And the sap begins to move in the vine,
Then in all cellars, far and wide,
The oldest as well as the newest wine
Begins to stir itself, and ferment,
With a kind of revolt and discontent
At being so long in darkness pent,
And fain would burst from its sombre tun
To bask on the hillside in the sun;
As in the bosom of us poor friars,
The tumult of half-subdued desires
For the world that we have left behind
Disturbs at times all peace of mind!
And now that we have lived through Lent,
My duty it is, as often before,
To open awhile the prison-door,
And give these restless spirits vent.

Now here is a cask that stands alone,
And has stood a hundred years or more,
Its beard of cobwebs, long and hoar,
Trailing and sweeping along the floor,
Like Barbarossa, who sits in his cave,
Taciturn, sombre, sedate, and grave,
Till his beard has grown through the table of stone!
It is of the quick and not of the dead!
In its veins the blood is hot and red,
And a heart still beats in those ribs of oak
That time may have tamed, but has not broke!
It comes from Bacharach on the Rhine,
Is one of the three best kinds of wine,
And costs some hundred florins the ohm;
But that I do not consider dear,
When I remember that every year
Four butts are sent to the Pope of Rome.
And whenever a goblet thereof I drain,
The old rhyme keeps running in my brain;

  At Bacharach on the Rhine,
  At Hochheim on the Main,
  And at Wurzburg on the Stein,
  Grow the three best kinds of wine!

They are all good wines, and better far
Than those of the Neckar, or those of the Ahr.
In particular, Wurzburg well may boast
Of its blessed wine of the Holy Ghost,
Which of all wines I like the most.
This I shall draw for the Abbot's drinking,
Who seems to be much of my way of thinking.

Fills a flagon.

Ah! how the streamlet laughs and sings!
What a delicious fragrance springs
From the deep flagon, while it fills,
As of hyacinths and daffodils!
Between this cask and the Abbot's lips
Many have been the sips and slips;
Many have been the draughts of wine,
On their way to his, that have stopped at mine;
And many a time my soul has hankered
For a deep draught out of his silver tankard,
When it should have been busy with other affairs,
Less with its longings and more with its prayers.
But now there is no such awkward condition,
No danger of death and eternal perdition;
So here's to the Abbot and Brothers all,
Who dwell in this convent of Peter and Paul!