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

THE TROUBADOUR.
CANTO II.
THE TROUBADOUR.
CANTO II.
The first, the very first; oh! none Can feel again as they have done; In love, in war, in pride, in all The planets of life's coronal, However beautiful or bright,— What can be like their first sweet light?
 When will the youth feel as he felt, When first at beauty's feet he knelt?
As if her least smile could confer A kingdom on its worshipper; Or ever care, or ever fear Had cross'd love's morning hemisphere. And the young bard, the first time praise Sheds its spring sunlight o'er his lays, Though loftier laurel, higher name, May crown the minstrel's noontide fame, They will not bring the deep content Of his lure's first encouragement. And where the glory that will yield The flush and glow of his first field To the young chief? Will Raymond ever Feel as he now is feeling?—Never.
 The sun went down or ere they gain'd The glen where the chief band remain'd.
It was a lone and secret shade, As nature form'd an ambuscade For the bird's nest and the deer's lair, Though now less quiet guests were there. On one side like a fortress stood A mingled pine and chesnut wood; Autumn was falling, but the pine Seem'd as it mock'd all change; no sign Of season on its leaf was seen, The same dark gloom of changeless green. But like the gorgeous Persian bands 'Mid the stern race of northern lands, The chesnut boughs were bright with all That gilds and mocks the autumn's fall.
 Like stragglers from an army's rear Gradual they grew, near and less near,
Till ample space was left to raise, Amid the trees, the watch-fire's blaze; And there, wrapt in their cloaks around, The soldiers scatter'd o'er the ground.
 One was more crowded than the rest, And to that one was Raymond prest;— There sat the chief: kind greetings came At the first sound of Raymond's name. "Am I not proud that this should be, Thy first field to be fought with me: Years since thy father's sword and mine Together dimm'd their maiden shine. We were sworn brothers; when he fell 'Twas mine to hear his last farewell: And how revenged I need not say, Though few were left to tell that day.—
Thy brow is his, and thou wilt wield A sword like his in battle-field. Let the day break, and thou shalt ride Another Raymond by my side; And thou shalt win and I confer, To-morrow, knightly brand and spur."
 With thoughts of pride, and thoughts of grief, Sat Raymond by that stranger chief, So proud to hear his father's fame, So sad to hear that father's name, And then to think that he had known That father by his name alone; And aye his heart within him burn'd When his eye to De Valence turn'd,
Mark'd his high step, his warlike mien,— "And such my father would have been!"
 A few words of years past away, A few words of the coming day, They parted, not that night for sleep; Raymond had thoughts that well might keep Rest from his pillow,—memory, hope, In youth's horizon had full scope To blend and part each varied line Of cloud and clear, of shade and shine. —He rose and wander'd round, the light Of the full moon fell o'er each height; Leaving the wood behind in shade, O'er rock, and glen, and rill it play'd.
He follow'd a small stream whose tide Was bank'd by lilies on each side, And there, as if secure of rest, A swan had built her lonely nest; And spread out was each lifted wing, Like snow or silver glittering. Wild flowers grew around the dale, Sweet children of the sun and gale; From every crag the wild vine fell, To all else inaccessible; And where a dark rock rose behind, Their shelter from the northern wind, Grew myrtles with their fragrant leaves, Veil'd with the web the gossamer weaves, So pearly fair, so light, so frail, Like beauty's self more than her veil.—
And first to gaze upon the scene, Quiet as there had never been Heavier step than village maid With flowers for her nuptial braid, Or louder sound than hermit's prayer, To crush its grass or load its air. Then to look on the armed train, The watch-fire on the wooded plain, And think how with the morrow's dawn, Would banner wave, and blade be drawn; How clash of steel, and trumpet's swell, Would wake the echoes of each dell. —And thus it ever is with life, Peace sleeps upon the breast of Strife, But to be waken'd from its rest, Till comes that sleep the last and best.
And Raymond paused at last, and laid Himself beneath a chesnut's shade, A little way apart from all, That he might catch the waterfall, Whose current swept like music round,— When suddenly another sound Came on the ear; it was a tone,  Rather a murmur than a song, As he who breathed deem'd all unknown  The words, thoughts, echo bore along. Parting the boughs which hung between, Close, thick, as if a tapestried screen, Raymond caught sight of a white plume Waving o'er brow and cheek of bloom; And yet the song was sad and low, As if the chords it waked were woe.