No motion made the priest as Brunhild paused; His eyes avoided hers. She was as one Towering over the departed years, The sea of years her memory like a shell Held echoes of, and reminiscent sounds. And above all her insults and disgrace, The burden of her age, the bitter wrongs, She rose into a calm, majestic realm, That eagles might inhabit, with her mind Intent upon the spectacle of life, Yet heedless of her fate; no shame could touch The soul that breathed in so serene an air, Superior to mortal accidents. But the priest felt that effluence from her Shed a strange glory round the humid cell And fill him with a fearful sense of fate: The blind, remorseless progress of the world. Sombre and threatening, her figure cut Prow-like, and loomed through huge, tempestuous night, Toward a doom obscure and imminent. She spoke again in slow and weary words: “Merow remained with Gregory; but time Brought no release for his imprisoned feet Or the wild soul pent in that cloistral peace Among the gilt and painted images Of the dead saints, the effigies of stone, The prisoned light, the windless, silent air That came not fresh from out the heart of dawn, But hung upon him heavily as death, Damp with its charnels; and the solemn chants Filled him with longing for the loud-voiced larks, And he was eager for my lips again. “Ah, God! what ruin lurked within his love. He fled by night from that safe harbourage, On foot, into the woods, and careless roamed Through unknown ways, and couched with herds of deer In brakes and bowery hollows, that the sound Of their swift flight when wolves drew close at night, Warned and awakened him; or he would creep At evening to some lone sequestered farm, Hid in a fold of hills, and win his food, His place beside the fire, with merry songs Tuned to a rustic harp, deluding hosts With tales of how he lived by minstrelsy: Yet never rested longer than the night, But with the dawn departed, ere the birds Woke to their song, and man from healing sleep To his laborious struggle with the earth; Silent he slipped from them, that none might know The path he travelled, and next night would lie On some lone upland underneath the stars. While, as he wandered, drawing close to me, I dreamed him still at Tours, and had no hope To see him, for my lords were turbulent, Grown headstrong in mine absence, and my son Had not yet learned the art of governance: To play on rival jealousies, and split Alliances in factions; to dissolve Confederacies, as an acid eats Through base alloy of idols composite, Till the whole crumble; to lead many weak Against one strong, and win the name of Right, Come in full arms to succour the distressed, And break the bonds of tyranny; to pay The world with phrases; lead the ductile mob, Swayed by a momentary need, to ends Imperial, that crown our finished work. So wrought I with my proud rebellious lords, Rousing the populace against their strength, Sowing among them mutual distrust, And fear, and drove them out with ruthless hands, To herd with their own fellows, the lean wolves Of winter, famishing, who bay in pack, When the full moon hangs low, and golden grows, Over the rim of the Atlantic waste. “So swept I out my house and garnished it, In preparation for the perfect guest, Who comes on dove’s wings silently, nor thought That one on sable wings, more silently, Would enter in and take the seat of Love. Rumour, that travels on each wanton wind, Swifter than birds may fly, from tongue to tongue Came laden with the news of violence wrought In Rouen, by command of Fredegonde On Praetextatus, the poor kindly priest, Who took the ring from Merow for my hand, And blessed the union that had been so brief. Then there awoke in me that sense which feels Strange intuitions of approaching doom, And Fear crept through my dreams on stealthy feet, Or crouched beside me, and the darkness seemed Alive with evil; but I steeled my heart To wait on time and all that time might bring Of good or evil. Then from Gregory Came messengers, who told of Merow’s flight, And that the hounds of Fredegonde pursued The fugitive through all frequented ways, And forests, and waste places, and the lone Bare mountains, sterile underneath the stars, Yea, every valley, every hidden place, Lest they should lose him, and the harlot queen Avenge on them her seat grown insecure, Through lack of vigilance. God, how the days Lengthened their minutes into weary hours, And weary hours to days! as if the time Were frozen with the fear that gripped my heart, And moved not onward to the destined end, Ordained ere time. I could but send some men Toward the frontier of her land and mine; Yet some I trusted knew that to my love There were no frontiers but that boundary Between the quick and dead. They went in quest; I waited.