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OCTOBER
 

Torquemada (continued)

Upon the morrow, after early mass,
While yet the dew was glistening on the grass,
And all the woods were musical with birds,
The old Hidalgo, uttering fearful words,
Walked homeward with the Priest, and in his room
Summoned his trembling daughters to their doom.
When questioned, with brief answers they replied,
Nor when accused evaded or denied;
Expostulations, passionate appeals,
All that the human heart most fears or feels,
In vain the Priest with earnest voice assayed;
In vain the father threatened, wept, and prayed;
Until at last he said, with haughty mien,
"The Holy Office, then, must intervene!"
And now the Grand Inquisitor of Spain,
Will all the fifty horsemen of his train,
His awful name resounding, like the blast
Of funeral trumpets, as he onward passed,
Came to Valladolid, and there began
To harry the rich Jews with fire and ban.
To him the Hidalgo went, and at the gate
Demanded audience on affairs of state,

He heard in silence the Hildago’s tale,
Then answered in a voice that made him quail;
“Son of the Church! When Abraham of old
To sacrifice his only son was told,
He did not pause to parley nor protest,
But hastened to obey the Lord’s behest.
In him it was accounted righteousness;
The Holy Church expects of thee no less!”

A sacred Frenzy seized the Father’s brain,
And mercy from that hour implored in vain,
Ah! Who will e’er believe the words I say?
His daughters he accused, and the same day
They both were cast into the dungeon’s gloom,
The dismal antechamber of the tomb.
Arraigned, condemned, and sentenced to the flame,
The secret torture and the public shame.
Then to the Grand Inquisitor once more
The Hidalgo went more than before,
And said: “When Abraham offered up his son,
He clave the wood wherewith it might be done.
By his example taught, let me too bring
Wood from the forest for my offering!”
And the deep voice without a pause replied;
“Son of the Church, by faith now justified,
Complete thy sacrifice, even as thou wilt;
The Church absolves thy conscience from all guilt!”

Then this most wretched father went his way
Into the woods that round his castle lay.
Then with his mind on one dark purpose bent,
Again to the Inquisitor he went,
And said: “Behold, the fagots I have brought,
And now, less my atonement be as naught,
Grant me one more request, one last desire,
With my own hand to light the funeral fire!”
Then Torquemada answered from his seat,
“Son of the Church! Thine offering is complete;
Her servants through all ages shall not cease
To magnify thy deed. Depart in peace.”

Upon the market-place, builded of stone
The scaffold rose, whereon Death claimed his own.
Round which was gathering fast the eager crowd,
With clamor of voices dissonant and loud,
And every roof and window was alive
With restless gazers, swarming like a hive.

The church bells tolled, the chant of monks drew near,
Loud trumpets stammered forth their notes of fear,
A line of torches smoked along the street,
There was stir, a rush, a tramp of feet,
And, with its banners floating in the air,
Slowly the long procession crossed the square,
And with the statues of the prophets bound,
The victims stood, with fagots piled around.
Then all the air, a blast of trumpets shook,
And louder sang the monks with bell and book,
And the Hidalgo, lofty, stern, and proud,
Lifted his torch, and, bursting through the crowd,
Lighted in haste the fagots, and then fled.
Lest those imploring eyes should strike him dead!
O pitiless skies! Why did your clouds retain
For peasants’ field their floods of hoarded rain?
O pitiless earth! Why open no abyss
To bury in its chasm a crime like this?

That night, a mingled column of fire and smoke
From the dark thickets of the forest broke,
And, glaring o’er the landscape leagues away,
Made all the field and hamlets bright as day.
Wrapped in a sheet of flame the castle blazed,
And as the villagers in terror gazed
They saw the figure of that cruel knight
Lean from a window in the turret’s height,
His ghastly face illumined with the glare,
His hands upraised above his head in prayer,
Till the floor sank beneath him, and he fell
Down the black hollow of that burning well.

Three centuries and more above his bones
Have piled the oblivious years like funeral stones,
His name has perished with him, and no trace
Remains on earth of his afflicted race;
But Torquemada’s name, with clouds o’er-cast;
Looms in the distant landscape of the past,
Like a burnt tower on a blackened heath,
Lit by the fires of burning woods beneath!

-Unknown-
 

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