# The Troubadour; Catalogue of Pictures, and Historical Sketches/Disillusion

see Notes to The Troubadour
Where is the heart that has not bow'd A slave, eternal Love, to thee:  Look on the cold, the gay, the proud, And is there one among them free? The cold, the proud,—oh! Love has turn'd The marble till with fire it burn'd; The gay, the young,—alas that they Should ever bend beneath thy sway! Look on the cheek the rose might own, The smile around like sunshine thrown; The rose, the smile, alike are thine, To fade and darken at thy shrine.
And what must love be in a heart  All passion's fiery depths concealing, Which has in its minutest part  More than another's whole of feeling.
 And Raymond's heart; love's morning sun On fitter altar never shone; Loving with all the snow-white truth, That is found but in early youth; Freshness of feeling as of flower, That lives not more than spring's first hour; And loving with that wild devotion, That deep and passionate emotion, With which the minstrel soul is thrown On all that it would make its own.
And Raymond loved; the veriest slave That e'er his life to passion gave: Upon his ear no murmur came That seem'd not echoing her name; The lightest colour on her cheek Was lovelier than the morning break. He gazed upon her as he took His sense of being from her look:— Sometimes it was idolatry,  Like homage to some lovely star, Whose beauty though for hope too high,  He yet might worship from afar. At other times his heart would swell With tenderness unutterable: He would have borne her to an isle Where May and June had left their smile;
And there, heard but by the lone gale, He would have whisper'd his love tale; And without change, or cloud, or care, Have kept his bosom's treasure there. And then, with all a lover's pride, He thought it shame such gem to hide: And imaged he a courtly scene Of which she was the jewell'd queen,— The one on whom each glance was bent, The beauty of the tournament, The magnet of the festival, The grace, the joy, the life of all,— But she, alas for her false smile! Adeline loved him not the while.
 And is it thus that woman's heart Can trifle with its dearest part,
Its own pure sympathies?—can fling The poison'd arrow from the string In utter heartlessness around, And mock, or think not of the wound? And thus can woman barter all That makes and gilds her gentle thrall,— The blush which should be like the one White violets hide from the sun,— The soft, low sighs, like those which breathe In secret from a twilight wreath,— The smile like a bright lamp, whose shine Is vow'd but only to one shrine; All these sweet spells,—and can they be Weapons of reckless vanity? And woman, in whose gentle heart From all save its sweet self apart,
Love should dwell with that purity Which but in woman's love can be: A sacred fire, whose flame was given To shed on earth the light of heaven,— That she can fling her wealth aside In carelessness, or sport, or pride!
 It was not form'd for length of bliss, A dream so fond, so false as this; Enough for Adeline to win The heart she had no pleasure in,— Enough that bright eyes turn'd in vain On him who bow'd beneath her chain:— Then came the careless word and look, All the fond soul so ill can brook, The jealous doubt, the burning pain, That rack the lover's heart and brain;
The fear that will not own it fear, The hope that cannot disappear; Faith clinging to its visions past, And trust confiding to the last. And thus it is: ay, let Love throw Aside his arrows and his bow; But let him not with one spell part, The veil that binds his eyes and heart. Woe for Love when his eyes shall be Open'd upon reality!
 One day a neighbouring baron gave A revel to the fair and brave,— And knights upon their gallant steeds,  And ladies on their palfreys gray, All shining in their gayest weeds,  Held for the festival their way.
A wanderer on far distant shores, That baron had brought richest stores To his own hall, and much of rare And foreign luxury was there: Pages, with colour'd feathers, fann'd The odours of Arabia's land; The carpets strewn around each room Were all of Persia's purple loom; And dark slaves waited on his guests, Each habited in Moorish vests, With turbann'd brows, and bands of gold Around their arms and ancles roll'd. And gazed the guests o'er many a hoard, Like Sinbad's, from his travel stored. They look'd upon the net work dome, Where found the stranger birds a home,
With rainbow wings and gleaming eyes, Seen only beneath Indian skies. At length they stood around the ring, Where stalk'd, unchain'd, the forest king, With eyes of fire and mane erect, As if by human power uncheck'd.
 Full ill had Raymond's spirit borne The wayward mood, the careless scorn, With which his mistress had that day Trifled his happiness away.— His very soul within him burn'd, When, as in chance, her dark eye turn'd On him, she spoke in reckless glee,— "Is there a knight who, for love of me, Into the court below will spring, And bear from the lion the glove I fling?"
A shriek!—a pause,—then loud acclaim Rose to the skies with Raymond's name. Oh, worthy of a lady's love! Raymond has borne away the glove. He laid the prize at the maiden's feet, Then turn'd from the smile he dared not meet: A moment more he is on the steed, The spur has urged to its utmost speed, As that he could fly from himself, and all The misery of his spirit's thrall.
 The horse sank down, and Raymond then Started to see the foaming rein, The drops that hung on the courser's hide, And the rowel's red trace on its panting side; And deep shame mingled with remorse, As he brought the cool stream to his fallen horse.
The spot where he paused was a little nook, Like a secret page in nature's book,— Around were steeps where the wild vine Hung, wreathed in many a serpentine, Wearing each the colour'd sign Of the autumn's pale decline. Like a lake in the midst was spread  A grassy sweep of softest green, Smooth, flower-dropt, as no human tread  Upon its growth had ever been. Limes rose around, but lost each leaf, Like hopes luxuriant but brief; And by their side the sycamore Grew prouder of its scarlet store: The air was of that cold clear light That heralds in an autumn night,—
The amber west had just a surge Of crimson on its utmost verge; And on the east were piled up banks Where darkness gather'd with her ranks Of clouds, and in the midst a zone Of white with transient brightness shone From the young moon, who scarcely yet Had donn'd her lighted coronet.
 With look turn'd to the closing day, As he watch'd every hue decay, Sat Raymond; and a passer by Had envied him his reverie;— But nearer look had scann'd his brow, And started at its fiery glow, As if the temples' burning swell Had made their pulses visible.
Too glazed, too fix'd, his large eyes shone To see aught that they gazed upon. Not his the paleness that may streak The lover's or the minstrel's cheek, As it had its wan colour caught From moods of melancholy thought; 'Twas that cold, dark, unearthly shade, But for a corpse's death look made; Speaking that desperateness of pain, As one more pang, and the rack'd brain Would turn to madness; one more grief, And the swoln heart breaks for relief.
 Oh, misery! to see the tomb Close over all our world of bloom; To look our last in the dear eyes Which made our light of paradise;
To know that silent is the tone Whose tenderness was all our own; To kiss the cheek which once had burn'd At the least glance, and find it turn'd To marble; and then think of all Of hope, that memory can recall. Yes, misery! but even here There is a somewhat left to cheer, A gentle treasuring of sweet things  Remembrance gathers from the past, The pride of faithfulness, which clings  To love kept sacred to the last. And even if another's love Has touch'd the heart to us above The treasures of the east, yet still There is a solace for the ill.
Those who have known love's utmost spell Can feel for those who love as well; Can half forget their own distress, To share the loved one's happiness. Oh, but to know our heart has been, Like the toy of an Indian queen, Torn, trampled, without thought or care,— Where is despair like this despair!—
 All night beneath an oak he lay, Till nature blush'd bright into day; When, at a trumpet's sudden sound, Started his courser from the ground: And his loud neigh waked Raymond's dream, And, gazing round, he saw the gleam Of arms upon a neighbouring height, Where helm and cuirass stream'd in light.
As Raymond rose from his unrest He knew De Valence's falcon crest; And the red cross that shone like a glory afar, Told the warrior was vow'd to the holy war.
 "Ay, this," thought Raymond, "is the strife To make my sacrifice of life; What is it now to me that fame Shall brighten over Raymond's name; There is no gentle heart to bound, No cheek to mantle at the sound: Lady's favour no more I wear,— My heart, my helm—oh! what are there? A blighted hope, a wither'd rose. Surely this warfare is for those Who only of the victory crave A holy but a nameless grave."
Short greeting past; De Valence read All that the pale lip left unsaid; On the wan brow, in the dimm'd eye, The whole of youth's despondency, Which at the first shock it has known Deems its whole world of hope o'erthrown. And it was fix'd, that at Marseilles, Where the fleet waited favouring gales, Raymond should join the warrior train, Leagued 'gainst the infidels of Spain.
 They parted:—Over Raymond's thought Came sadness mingled too with shame;  When suddenly his memory brought The long forgotten Eva's name. Oh! Love is like the mountain tide, Sweeping away all things beside,
Till not another trace appears But its own joys, and griefs, and fears. He took her cross, he took her chain From the heart where they still had lain; And that heart felt as if its fate Had sudden grown less desolate, In thus remembering love that still Would share and sooth in good and ill.
 He spurr'd his steed; but the night fall Had darken'd ere he reach'd the hall; And gladly chief and vassal train Welcomed the youthful knight again. And many praised his stately tread, His face with darker manhood spread; But of those crowding round him now, Who mark'd the paleness of his brow,
But one, who paused till they were past, Who look'd the first but spoke the last: Her welcome in its timid fear Fell almost cold on Raymond's ear; A single look,—he felt he gazed  Upon a gentle child no more, The blush that like the lightning blazed,  The cheek then paler than before, A something of staid maiden grace, A cloud of thought upon her face; She who had been, in Raymond's sight, A plaything, fancy, and delight,— Was changed: the depth of her blue eye Spoke to him now of sympathy, And seem'd her melancholy tone A very echo of his own;
And that pale forehead, surely care Has graved an early lesson there.
 They roved through many a garden scene, Where other, happier days had been; And soon had Raymond told his all Of hopes, like stars but bright to fall; Of feelings blighted, changed, and driven Like exiles from their native heaven; And of an aimless sword, a lute Whose chords were now uncharm'd and mute. But Eva's tender blandishing Was as the April rays, that fling A rainbow till the thickest rain Melts into blue and light again.
There is a feeling in the heart Of woman which can have no part In man; a self devotedness, As victims round their idols press, And asking nothing, but to show How far their zeal and faith can go. Pure as the snow the summer sun Never at noon hath look'd upon,— Deep as is the diamond wave, Hidden in the desart cave,— Changeless as the greenest leaves Of the wreath the cypress weaves,— Hopeless often when most fond, Without hope or fear beyond Its own pale fidelity,— And this woman's love can be!
And Raymond although not again Dreaming of passion's burning chain, Yet felt that life had still dear things To which the lingering spirit clings. More dear, more lovely Eva shone In thinking of that faithless one; And read he not upon the cheek All that the lip might never speak, All the heart cherish'd yet conceal'd, Scarce even to itself reveal'd. And Raymond, though with heart so torn By anger, agony, and scorn, Might ill bear even with love's name, Yet felt the maiden's hidden flame Come like the day-star in the east, When every other light has ceased;
Sent from the bosom of the night To harbinger the morning light.
 Again they parted: she to brood O'er dreaming hopes in solitude, And every pitying saint to pray For Raymond on the battle day. And he no longer deem'd the field But death to all his hopes could yield. To other, softer dreams allied, He thought upon the warrior's pride. But as he pass'd the castle gate He left so wholly desolate, His throbbing pulse, his burning brain, The sudden grasp upon the rein, The breast and lip that gasp'd for air, Told Love's shaft was still rankling there.
That night, borne o'er the bounding seas, The vessel swept before the breeze, Loaded the air, the war-cry's swell, Woe to the Moorish infidel; And raising their rich hymn, a band Of priests were kneeling on the strand, To bless the parting ship, and song Came from the maidens ranged along The sea wall, and who incense gave, And flowers, like offerings to the wave That bore the holy and the brave.
 And Raymond felt his spirit rise, And burn'd his cheek, and flash'd his eyes With something of their ancient light, While plume and pennon met his sight;
While o'er the deep swept the war-cry, And peal'd the trumpet's voice on high, While the ship rode the waves as she Were mistress of their destiny. And muster'd on the deck the band, Till died the last shout from the strand; But when the martial pomp was o'er, And, like the future, dim the shore On the horizon hung, again Closed Raymond's memory, like a chain The spirit struggles with in vain.
 The sky with its delicious blue, The stars like visions wandering through: Surely, if Fate had treasured there Her rolls of life, they must be fair;
The mysteries their glories hide Must be but of life's brightest side; It cannot be that Fate would write Her dark decrees in lines of light. And Raymond mused upon the hour When, comrade of the star and flower, He watch'd beside his lady's bower; He number'd every hope and dream, Like blooms that threw upon life's stream Colours of beauty, and then thought On knowledge, all too dearly bought; Feelings lit up in waste to burn,  Hopes that seem but shadows fair, All that the heart so soon must learn,  All that it finds so hard to bear.
The young moon's vestal lamp that hour Seem'd pale as that it pined for love;  No marvel such a night had power, So calm below, so fair above, To wake the spirit's finest chords Till minstrel thoughts found minstrel words.