Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE HILL OF STONES; A LEGEND OF FOUNTAINBLEU, by SILAS WEIR MITCHELL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE HILL OF STONES; A LEGEND OF FOUNTAINBLEU, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: We two, my guide and I, through dusty ways
Last Line: About the statue of their stony queen.
Subject(s): Chivalry; Courtship; Fools; Love - Unrequited; Idiots


WE two, my guide and I, through dusty ways
And formal avenues of well pruned trees,
Went past the village and thy dark gray walls,
Antique, deserted Fontainebleau; and still
With talk of him the shade of whose despair
Lies on thy courtyard yet, we loitering
Strolled through the deeper wood, and found at last
A barren space that crowned a hill's green slope,
Where, lonely as a king, a single oak,
Crippled in boisterous battle with the winds,
And gay with leafy flattery of the spring,
Seemed like an old man, cheated suddenly
With some gay dream of childhood's tender hours.
"Here let us rest," he said, and casting down
His woodman's staff, set out upon the grass
Twin flasks of Léoville and fair white loaves;
There as at ease we lay, and ate and drank,
My roving gaze in pleasant wanderings went
Down the green hill, along the valley's range.
The noonday sun hung half asleep in heaven,
And in the drowsied wood no leaflet's stir
Broke the still shadows slumbering on the ground.
Adown the hill, beside a brook that lay
A silver thread, heat-wasted,—far below,
Gaunt rocks in wild confusion tumbled lay,
Thick strewn along the narrowing vale, and barred
The distant thickets with their broken lines.
High on the further hill, twin mount to ours,
A single slab, time-worn, imperial, towered,
And all around it cumbering the sod
A time-worn host of barren rocks was cast
Each upon each,—as after battle lie
The dead upon the dead, to war no more,—
Whilst over them the hot and curdled air
Shook in uneasy whirls that broke the crests
Of distant trees and hilltops far away.
In musing wonder tranced I lay and gazed
Down the cleft valley o'er the waste of stones,—
The while my comrade, stretched upon the grass,
Lay whistling cheerily his ballad gay
Of good king Dagobert; or smiling told,
With frequent urging, in his rough patois,
Some broken bit of legendary lore,
And at the last a story of these stones.

A thousand noisy years ago, 't is said,
Along yon silent vale at eventide
A bearded king, grown weary of the chase,
Rode thoughtful home, but pausing here awhile,
Said: "When life palls, and I no more can ride
With lance in rest, or smite with gleaming blade,
When sorrows sweeten the near cup of death,
Then in this valley's quiet I will build
A palace, where the wise and old shall come,
And none shall talk of what has been, and all
Shall ponder, with clear vision looking on
To that which is to be."
Then pensive still
He turned away, and westward rode again,
Whilst after him an hundred barons came,
And riding swiftly, starred at intervals
The dark wood spaces with their robes of gold.
Next morn at Fontainebleau the bearded king
Held, 'neath the oaks, his court, when suddenly
A young knight, breaking through the outer guard,
Leapt featly from his jaded horse and cried,
Like one whom some dream-wonder spurs to speech:
"Good Sire, last night a lonely man I slept
Upon the hill you love; and where at eve
The bald brown summit lay a dreary waste,
And where the sun of yesterday looked down
On utter solitude, and sowed the ground
With wild-eyed violets—O my liege, to-day
There stands a castle fair with courts and towers
And turrets tall and fretted pinnacles
Upgrown by night, in one still summer night,
As if fay-builded, and around it leap
A thousand soaring fountains, and the air
Reluctant from its bowered garden floats
Sweet with strange odors. Underneath a porch
Of leaf-carved masonry, I saw, my lord,
As peering through the thicket's fence I gazed,
The queen of women holding wondrous court
Of maidens only just less fair than she."
Then said the king: "The good knight's brain is crazed;
Or hath he dreamed? or do we live anew
An age of magic?"
"Nay," the knight replied;
"I dreamed it not;" and smiled his bearded lord,
While merry laughter shook the mailèd ring.
"Give me, good Sire, to seek again the hill,
And fill me with the beauty that doth glow
In her deep eyes, and either I will bring
This royal woman back again with me,
Or if there be delusion in my words,
The dream will break, and I ashamed shall come
To this fair court no more." Then as the king
In silence bent, he took his palfrey's rein,
And downward gazing parted wide the crowd,
And passed the yielding wood.
Whereon the king:
"The test is fair; 't is chivalrous and just
That no man follow him;" and so with this
He went alone, and was no more with men.
Along the valley up the tufted sward
By cold-eyed statues underneath an arch
Of swaying fountains silently he went,
And half dismayed the rosy hedges broke,
And saw the lady and her maiden court.
Then there was sweet confusion, and a maze
Of white and shining arms in wonder raised,
And low, quick, modest cries from girls who fled
For shelter in the thickets, or took flight
Behind their queenly mistress. She alone
Towered, red and angry, one foot forward set.
"O woman wonderful," he cried—and bent
Before the tempest of her stormy eyes,—
"Send me not forth alone for aye, to hold
Thy memory only like a dagger sharp
To my sad heart; more sweet by far were death."
"Go, sir," she cried; "what right hast thou in me?
Mine only is my beauty." "Nay," he urged,
"Save that God put them in the world with us,
What right have we in yonder wide estate
Of sun and sky and flower-haunted sod?"
"No man on earth is peer of mine," she said,—
And saying this her cold eyes fell on him.
Her cold eyes fell on him; and deadly pale,
Bereft of thought, as one who gropes along,
He turned and went, while scornful laughter rang
From briery thickets everywhere around,
And chased his quick uncertain steps, that brake
The garden paths, till on the lone hillside
A sudden coldness fettered limb and trunk,
And in his veins the liquid life grew still,
While form and feature shrunk, and, half-way down
On the drear mountain-side, a weight of stone
The knight at evening lay, to love no more.
Then quoth the waiting king as days went by:
"He hath not as he promised brought us back
The stately mistress of his fairy hall.
Who is there here, of all my lords, will seek
Yon magic palace, and with winsome wiles
And all the pleasant archery of love,
Fetch me this woman, captive of the heart?"
"And I, and I, and I," an hundred said;
And the sharp clangor of their shaken mail
Rang through the forest ways, as up they leapt.
So, one by one, as the cast die decreed,
They laughing went, and were no more with men.
But as the golden days of summer fled,
Thick-clustered stones upon the hillside marked
Where slept the flower of all that kingly court,
And heard no more the tread of dainty feet
Hail footfalls round them, when the mellow tones
Of music floating from the terraced lawns
Struck echoes from their stony forms that lay
To wait their brothers when the curse should fall.
And so it chanced, that as the hillside grew
Aghast with stony death, all living things
Its deadly boundaries fled, and man and beast
Turned from it ever with unquiet steps.
Yet now and then, when from a distant steep
The shepherd gazed, he saw some fated man
Climb with quick strides the hill, and through the stones
Depart from view; and looking then again,
Or hours or days thereafter, scared he saw
The same man, cold and palsied, issue forth
And reel and die, and smite the summer grass
With stony weight. And yet while men amazed
Stared, wondering that God and this could be,
The palace towers, ivy-curtained, stood
Unmoved and stern, as if a century long
Their breadth of shade, with each day's march, had crossed
The garden moats, and seen the lily buds
Unbosom tenderly to wild wind wooing
Each wanton morning of a hundred Junes;
Still ever through the silence of the night
A thousand fountains trembled high in air,
And not a breeze but rich as laden bee
Sailed from the garden, heavy with the freight
Of endless music, and the tender chime
Of cadenced voices, echoed high or low
From porch and hall and windowed gallery.

Again came June to lordly Fontainebleau,
And once again on field and woodland fell
The lazy lull of noontide drowsiness,
Where in cool caves of shadows slept the winds,
Whilst warm and still the moveless forest lay.
Therein betimes, at fitful intervals,
The quiet mystery of this noonday trance,
Distant and grave, a solemn anthem filled,
And, soaring lark-like through the listening leaves
That trembled with its sorrow, died away;
But in its place a hymn rose, sweet and clear,
Such as at evening, coming from the wells,
With balanced water-jars upon their heads,
The maidens sing.
And thus from leafy shades
A knight full-armed rode, singing as he went:—

In olden days did Christ decree
Twelve knightly hearts with him to be,
And bade them wear no armor bright
Save charity and conscience white.

And through all lands they went and came,
Not covetous of earthly fame,
And gave the alms of Christian cheer
To lowly serf and haughty peer.

For Christ they fought with word and prayer,
For Christ they died,—oh, birthright fair!
Sweet Mary Mother, grant to me
That I, like them, pure-hearted be.

Then, as the knight rode on through sun to shade,
And sang how good deeds, mightier than kings,
Are as the holy accolade of God,
And bid the poorest rise a knight of Christ,
From branch and thicket came the birds, and sailed
Around his silver casque, and carolling
Awoke the sleeping breezes, till he rode
With tossing plumes upon the open hill.
There all day long in silence wrapt, the knight
Knelt on the green turf gathering faith and strength;
And all day long the same sweet retinue
Of summer songsters circled round his head.
When fell the night he rose, and, stern and calm,
Unlaced his armor slowly, piece by piece,
Laid down his helmet and his spurs of gold,
Ungirt his sword, and cast its jewelled weight
Beside his spear upon the burdened grass.
Then all unarmed and weaponless, he strode
Adown the hill, and sad and silent wound
Its cumbering stones among, till by the brook
Kneeling he crossed himself, and stayed no more,
But through the night, white robed and tranquil, went,
Passed in among the wood of founts that shook
Their silvery leafage in the moonlight gray,
Crossed with quick step the flower-beds, and passed
Where gleaming statues sentinelled the path;
Then, while the mirth rose wildest, and the sound
Of merry music shook the stems he touched,
He broke the rose-hedge, and untroubled stood
Amidst the wonder of the magic court.
Grave, glancing right and left, quoth he aloud:
"The peace of God, which passeth other peace,
Be on ye ever,"—and so trembling stood,
Dazed by the mystery of half-seen limbs
And rosy secrets, chastened by the moon.
Swift moving through her shrinking court, the queen,
A head above them towering, flushed with wrath,
Shook from white neck and arms the roses red
That, ere he came, a hundred laughing girls
Showered from quick hands, which on a sudden checked,
Drooped with their flowery loads,—and "Sir," she cried:
"Dost dream, as others have, to woo us home?"
"Most near the holy love of God," he said,
"Is such deep worship as a knightly heart
Doth give in some one woman unto all;
For whatsoever hath love's sweet disguise
Should in the tender eye of woman win
The gentle estimate of charity."
"A priest," she cried,—and smote the ground and shook
The lingering roses from her fallen hair;
Upon the ground the good knight kneeling prayed:
"God grant," he murmured, "all my heart be pure;
Such love I give thee, woman, as thou hadst
For yonder stones, my brothers, they who lie
Awaiting God upon the mountain-side."
"Enough," she cried; "go, fool, and share with them
Their folly and their fate." And so on him
Her cool-eyed anger fell, and still and chill
In the white moonlight they too stood and gazed
Each on the other, steady, eye to eye,
And yet he went not, though through trunk and limb
The slow blood crept, and on his lip a prayer
Died in the saying.
"Thou shalt go," she cried;
And, bending, garnered from the flowery fence
A rosy handful. Then in haste cast back
The snowy cloak that drifted from her neck,
And crying once a shrill and gnarled phrase,
Smote with the roses red his startled face.
On brow and cheek the flying roses struck,
And fell not down again, for suddenly
Twin petals flashed to wings; and they who looked
Saw bud and blossom turned to flitting birds,
Which through the broken moonlight went and came,
And sang sweet carols round the white-robed knight.
This while the lady stood amazed and still
And all her court of wonder-fettered maids
Like silence kept for fear, till at the last
The good knight, marvelling, put out his hand,
And took the lady's finger-tips, and went
With knightly courtesy and whispered prayer
Along the garden paths. And as they passed,
Behind their steps the wind-tossed grasses shrunk,
The flowers drooped, the busy fountains ceased,
And vase and statue, fading into mist,
Went floating formless from the mountain-top.
Still on they moved, she like a lily bent,
And all her women slowly followed her.
"Here pause," he said, and on the middle slope
Her trembling maids fell moaning round their queen,
A silver ring upon the dark green turf.
"Behold, morn waketh," said the knight; "no more,
No more for you shall any morning wake;
I charge you look along yon valley drear."
Thereon she silent raised her head and gazed
Adown the hillside thick with deathful stones,
And felt in heart and vein the pulsing blood
Stand still and curdle. So, the hand he held
Stayed pointing down the valley, and he leapt
Across the ring of cold and moveless forms,
And walked in wonder down the mountain-side,
And she and they stayed waiting on the hill,
A tumbled heap of dreary rocks, that lay
About the statue of their stony queen.





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