| |
| IN the Valley of the Vire | |
| Still is seen an ancient mill, | |
| With its gables quaint and queer, | |
| And beneath the window-sill, | |
| On the stone, | 5 |
| These words alone: | |
| “Oliver Basselin lived here.” | |
| |
| Far above it, on the steep, | |
| Ruined stands the old Château; | |
| Nothing but the donjon-keep | 10 |
| Left for shelter or for show. | |
| Its vacant eyes | |
| Stare at the skies, | |
| Stare at the valley green and deep. | |
| |
| Once a convent, old and brown, | 15 |
| Looked, but ah! it looks no more, | |
| From the neighboring hillside down | |
| On the rushing and the roar | |
| Of the stream | |
| Whose sunny gleam | 20 |
| Cheers the little Norman town. | |
| |
| In that darksome mill of stone, | |
| To the water’s dash and din, | |
| Careless, humble, and unknown, | |
| Sang the poet Basselin | 25 |
| Songs that fill | |
| That ancient mill | |
| With a splendor of its own. | |
| |
| Never feeling of unrest | |
| Broke the pleasant dream he dreamed; | 30 |
| Only made to be his nest, | |
| All the lovely valley seemed; | |
| No desire | |
| Of soaring higher | |
| Stirred or fluttered in his breast. | 35 |
| |
| True, his songs were not divine; | |
| Were not songs of that high art, | |
| Which, as winds do in the pine, | |
| Find an answer in each heart; | |
| But the mirth | 40 |
| Of this green earth | |
| Laughed and revelled in his line. | |
| |
| From the alehouse and the inn, | |
| Opening on the narrow street, | |
| Came the loud, convivial din, | 45 |
| Singing and applause of feet, | |
| The laughing lays | |
| That in those days | |
| Sang the poet Basselin. | |
| |
| In the castle, cased in steel, | 50 |
| Knights, who fought at Agincourt, | |
| Watched and waited, spur on heel; | |
| But the poet sang for sport | |
| Songs that rang | |
| Another clang, | 55 |
| Songs that lowlier hearts could feel. | |
| |
| In the convent, clad in gray, | |
| Sat the monks in lonely cells, | |
| Paced the cloisters, knelt to pray, | |
| And the poet heard their bells; | 60 |
| But his rhymes | |
| Found other chimes, | |
| Nearer to the earth than they. | |
| |
| Gone are all the barons bold, | |
| Gone are all the knights and squires, | 65 |
| Gone the abbot stern and cold, | |
| And the brotherhood of friars; | |
| Not a name | |
| Remains to fame, | |
| From those mouldering days of old! | 70 |
| |
| But the poet’s memory here | |
| Of the landscape makes a part; | |
| Like the river, swift and clear, | |
| Flows his song through many a heart; | |
| Haunting still | 75 |
| That ancient mill | |
| In the Valley of the Vire. | |
| |
