BEETLING walls with ivy grown, Frowning heights of mossy stone; Turret, with its flaunting flag Flung from battlemented crag; Dungeon-keep and fortalice Looking down a precipice O'er the darkly glancing wave By the Lurline-haunted cave; Robber haunt and maiden bower, Home of Love and Crime and Power, -- That's the scenery, in fine, Of the Legends of the Rhine. One bold baron, double-dyed Bigamist and parricide, And, as most the stories run, Partner of the Evil One; Injured innocence in white, Fair but idiotic quite, Wringing of her lily hands; Valor fresh from Paynim lands, Abbot ruddy, hermit pale, Minstrel fraught with many a tale, -- Are the actors that combine In the Legends of the Rhine. Bell-mouthed flagons round a board; Suits of armor, shield, and sword; Kerchief with its bloody stain; Ghosts of the untimely slain; Thunder-clap and clanking chain; Headsman's block and shining axe; Thumbscrews, crucifixes, racks; Midnight-tolling chapel bell, Heard across the gloomy fell, -- These, and other pleasant facts, Are the properties that shine In the Legends of the Rhine. Maledictions, whispered vows Underneath the linden boughs; Murder, bigamy, and theft; Travellers of goods bereft; Rapine, pillage, arson, spoil, -- Everything but honest toil, Are the deeds that best define Every Legend of the Rhine. That Virtue always meets reward, But quicker when it wears a sword; That Providence has special care Of gallant knight and lady fair; That villains, as a thing of course, Are always haunted by remorse, -- Is the moral, I opine, Of the Legends of the Rhine. |