Norembega

The winding way the serpent takes     The mystic water took,     From where, to count its beaded lakes,     The forest sped its brook.     A narrow space 'twixt shore and shore,     For sun or stars to fall,     While evermore, behind, before,     Closed in the forest wall.     The dim wood hiding underneath     Wan flowers without a name;     Life tangled with decay and death,     League after league the same.     Unbroken over swamp and hill     The rounding shadow lay,     Save where the river cut at will     A pathway to the day.     Beside that track of air and light,     Weak as a child unweaned,     At shut of day a Christian knight     Upon his henchman leaned.     The embers of the sunset's fires     Along the clouds burned down;     "I see," he said, "the domes and spires     Of Norembega town."     "Alack! the domes, O master mine,     Are golden clouds on high;     Yon spire is but the branchless pine     That cuts the evening sky."     "Oh, hush and hark! What sounds are these     But chants and holy hymns?"     "Thou hear'st the breeze that stirs the trees     Though all their leafy limbs."     "Is it a chapel bell that fills     The air with its low tone?"     "Thou hear'st the tinkle of the rills,     The insect's vesper drone."     "The Christ be praised! He sets for me     A blessed cross in sight!"     "Now, nay, 't is but yon blasted tree     With two gaunt arms outright!"     "Be it wind so sad or tree so stark,     It mattereth not, my knave;     Methinks to funeral hymns I hark,     The cross is for my grave!     "My life is sped; I shall not see     My home-set sails again;     The sweetest eyes of Normandie     Shall watch for me in vain.     "Yet onward still to ear and eye     The baffling marvel calls;     I fain would look before I die     On Norembega's walls.     "So, haply, it shall be thy part     At Christian feet to lay     The mystery of the desert's heart     My dead hand plucked away.     "Leave me an hour of rest; go thou     And look from yonder heights;     Perchance the valley even now     Is starred with city lights."     The henchman climbed the nearest hill,     He saw nor tower nor town,     But, through the drear woods, lone and still,     The river rolling down.     He heard the stealthy feet of things     Whose shapes he could not see,     A flutter as of evil wings,     The fall of a dead tree.     The pines stood black against the moon,     A sword of fire beyond;     He heard the wolf howl, and the loon     Laugh from his reedy pond.     He turned him back: "O master dear,     We are but men misled;     And thou hast sought a city here     To find a grave instead."     "As God shall will! what matters where     A true man's cross may stand,     So Heaven be o'er it here as there     In pleasant Norman land?     "These woods, perchance, no secret hide     Of lordly tower and hall;     Yon river in its wanderings wide     Has washed no city wall;     "Yet mirrored in the sullen stream     The holy stars are given     Is Norembega, then, a dream     Whose waking is in Heaven?     "No builded wonder of these lands     My weary eyes shall see;     A city never made with hands     Alone awaiteth me     "'-Urbs Syon mystica-;' I see     Its mansions passing fair,     '/Condita caelo/;' let me be,     Dear Lord, a dweller there!"     Above the dying exile hung     The vision of the bard,     As faltered on his failing tongue     The song of good Bernard.     The henchman dug at dawn a grave     Beneath the hemlocks brown,     And to the desert's keeping gave     The lord of fief and town.     Years after, when the Sieur Champlain     Sailed up the unknown stream,     And Norembega proved again     A shadow and a dream,     He found the Norman's nameless grave     Within the hemlock's shade,     And, stretching wide its arms to save,     The sign that God had made,     The cross-boughed tree that marked the spot     And made it holy ground     He needs the earthly city not     Who hath the heavenly found