?"--

Slow they enter'd with their master;
In the hall they laid him down.
On his coat were leaves and blood-stains,
On his brow an angry frown.

Dead her princely youthful husband
Lay before his youthful wife,
Bloody, 'neath the flaring sconces--
And the sight froze all her life.

* * * * *

In Vienna, by the Danube,
Kings hold revel, gallants meet.
Gay of old amid the gayest
Was the Duchess Marguerite.

In Vienna, by the Danube,
Feast and dance her youth beguiled.
Till that hour she never sorrow'd;
But from then she never smiled.

'Mid the Savoy mountain valleys
Far from town or haunt of man,
Stands a lonely church, unfinish'd,
Which the Duchess Maud began;

Old, that Duchess stern began it,
In gray age, with palsied hands;
But she died while it was building,
And the Church unfinish'd stands--

Stands as erst the builders left it,
When she sank into her grave;
Mountain greensward paves the chancel,
Harebells flower in the nave

"--In my castle all is sorrow,"
Said the Duchess Marguerite then;
"Guide me, some one, to the mountain!
We will build the Church again."--

Sandall'd palmers, faring homeward,
Austrian knights from Syria came.
"--Austrian wanderers bring, O warders!
Homage to your Austrian dame."--

From the gate the warders answer'd:
"--Gone, O knights, is she you knew!
Dead our Duke, and gone his Duchess;
Seek her at the Church of Brou!"--

Austrian knights and much-worn palmers
Climb the winding mountain-way--
Reach the valley, where the Fabric
Rises higher day by day.

Stones are sawing, hammers ringing;
On the work the bright sun shines,
In the Savoy mountain-meadows,
By the stream, below the pines.

On her palfrey white the Duchess
Sate and watch'd her working train--
Flemish carvers, Lombard gilders,
German masons, smiths from Spain.

Clad in black, on her white palfrey,
Her old architect beside--
There they found her in the mountains,
Morn and noon and eventide.

There she sate, and watc