I think of that friend of the people that lady of long ago,
That high-born dame of Hungary who felt the common woe—
Who loved the work-worn multitude whose pillow is a stone,
And felt beat in upon her heart their sorrow as her own.
She bent to lift, for in her blood ran some heroic strain
Of simple serving majesty strayed down from Charlemagne.
Queen of a hundred legends, star of a misty past,
While cities rise and cities fade, her memory will last.
It was upon a Christmas eve, and all the world was white
With snow that sent an awesome hush on hollow and on height;
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And green boughs bended with hoar weight, and under them the birds
Huddled together, making friends with little hornèd herds.
And far from soundless gorges in the soundless forest deep,
The wild boar humped up closer in the hollow of his heap;
And workers huddled in their huts among the stiffened trees,
The doorstones blue with ice, the eaves with frosty filigrees.
And Horsel’s peak hung ghostly still upon the wintry sky,
But Wartburg’s castle-hall was filled with many a joyous cry,
With hurrying feet and merry fleer of scullion, churl, and maid,
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For now within a happy hour the banquet must be laid.
Pert pages in their purfled shoes went twinkling in and out,
And from the towers came snatch of song and many a ruddy shout.
Elizabeth was there above, among her maiden band,
Spinning the new-cut wool to warm the naked of her land.
(O serving queen, I honor thee—queen of a day gone down,
Who carried dimly in thy heart the meaning of the crown!)
And now the steward gave a sign, and on the frosty moats
The sceptered heralds blew again their crisp and crinkling notes.
There fell a momentary hush upon the corridors;
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Then stir of feet, then whisper of silk gowns across the floors
Came onward like the tumult of white barley in the breeze;
Then young Elizabeth the Moon, leading her Pleiades!
Their robes were shot with thread of gold that into blossom broke,
And jewels darkling in their hair at every motion woke—
Yolinda, Bertrade, Thekla, Brune, Bertilla, Hildegarde,
And Kinga, tallest of the seven, and by her side the bard,
Gray Vogelweide, the lyric swan, telling with flash of youth,
How once he stood against the world for Hungary and truth—
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How singing in this knightly hall, circled by courtly throng,
He fought the star of Austria in Wartburg’s War of Song.
Then the young sovereign Lewis and his guests swept glowing in—
Lord, liegeman, shaggy baron, gallant knight and paladin,
Each with a winsome lady and a wreath of storied days:
Dark Rudolph home from Holy War with Lion Richard’s praise;
Walter the Falconer, and Franz, the flower of Hesse’s men,
Who brought Elizabeth a sword torn from a Saracen;
Hellgraf with jewelled glove agleam high in his helmet’s hold,
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A glove she gave a beggar once and he bought back with gold.
And so the throng came eddying in, and with the splendor went
Ripple of silver laughter and of whispered compliment.
The torches flamed and faltered, sending up white whirls of smoke,
To hang as twilight in the roof raftered with crookèd oak.
Up from the chimney log the notes of many woodlands sang;
Quick through the flame the colors of a hundred summers sprang.
The blaze threw on the arrased wall a gush of golden light,
Where hung Saint Stephen’s shield between two angels in still flight,
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Forever moving upward toward the cherubs overhead,
Now sinking into shade and now breaking to rosy red.
A swinging door, a spicy smell, and beaming Hugolin
With smoking boar’s head lifted high came proudly panting in.
And as the sparkling feast went on the board began to stir
With talk of knightly valor and the Holy Sepulchre,
With prattle of the tidings from Jerusalem and Rome;
But sweet Elizabeth, her thoughts were not so far from home.
In spite of rosy radiance, in spite of trumpet calls,
The Sorrow of the People sent its shadow through the walls.
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For sitting there beside her lord a sudden silence came
Upon her soul, and all the voices and the horn’s acclaim
Died; and the glowing pageant broke and faded into air,
And only the faces of the poor whose tables are so bare
Pressed in upon her soul that night, pressed in that gala night;
Only the toilers’ cheerless homes rose on her inward sight.
And then a graver thought let in a darkness on her heart—
A thought of all the feasts they spread of which they have no part—
A thought, too, of this splendor on this holy Christmas eve,
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A splendor wrung from toiling hands by those that tax and thieve.
Of all those fragrant dishes only two would not profane;
Only the bread and water there had come of honest gain;
These only were not pilfered from the toiler’s lean supply;
And these she took with happy hands, but let the rest go by.
And so the table roared away into the winter night,
Until the toasts went round the board with laughter at the height.
They drank to saints and prophets old, to Peter and Isadore,
To Stephen, Vincent, Boniface, and to a dozen more.
Then valiant Wolfram in his turn upstarted with a cry:
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“Drink to Archangel Michael, that good fighter in the sky,
That prince of God that all the hosts of Satan could not tame!”
Up to their feet the feasters sprang at that great angel’s name.
Clinking their cups from side to side, they made, in the torches’ flare,
The sign of the cross with their jewelled cups high flashing in the air.
Now cried the duke: “Not all the saints have felt the wind of death;
Come, drink to one who walks the Earth, my wife Elizabeth;
And I will pledge her beauty with this water in her cup.”
So stooping down he caught and swung her golden goblet up,
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And tasted—paused—tasted again, for lo, it was rare wine!
More strangely sweet than any juice pressed from an earthly vine.
“Ho, varlet, from what pipe this wine and from what cellar shelf?”
“From good Saint Kilian’s well, sire, and I drew it up myself!”
She flushed; the table stared; the duke looked foolishly about,
The hall so still they heard far bells breaking the night without.
Then up spake Helias the Seer: “I saw the water poured—
Saw, too, an angel bending by our lady at the board,
Pouring with courteous gesture from a flagon of red wine,
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Then fading in the brightness of the firelight’s dancing shine.”
She heard in glad amaze: he wins God’s favor unawares
Who, self-forgot in brother love, a brother’s burden bears.
And this seven centuries ago. And now her sainted feet
Are on the fields of Paradise, making its old paths sweet.
And there she has her fill of love where the Friendly City is,
Her warm hands white with labor in God’s busy palaces.
