Canto V

Now marching on, those dread machines appeared,
Which death attended, and the rebels feared.
A hundred mouths poured forth the rapid balls,
And iron tempests rattled on the walls.
Now was employed, and exercised in vain
The zeal of party, and the wiles of Mayenne.
The guards of Paris, and the noisy crowd,
The prating doctors insolent, and loud,
Tried, but in vain, our hero to subdue,
Beneath whose feet victorious laurels grew.
By Rome and Philip were the thunders hurled,
But Rome diffused no terrors through the world.
His native sloth the old Iberian showed
And all his succors were too late bestowed.
Through Gallia’s realms the plundering troops enjoyed
The spoils of cities which their arms destroyed.
An easy conquest o’er oppressed allies
Was first and fairest in the traitor’s eyes.
The falling League but waited to receive
Whate’er the pride of tyranny could give,
When fate, that governs with supreme command,
Appeared suspended by a zealot’s hand.

Forgive, ye citizens, whose peaceful days
Are calm, and brightened by serener rays,
Forgive the bard who paints the horrid crimes
That stained the annals of preceding times.
Yourselves unsullied may the lays approve,
Whose hearts are warm with loyalty and love.

In every age, some venerable seer
For heaven’s pure joys has shed the pious tear ;
Some rigid anchorets with vows divine
Have heaped their incense on religion’s shrine.
Lost to.the world, to each idea lost
That friendship loves, or charity can boast,
Their gloomy shades and cloisters ever rude
The beams of fair humanity exclude.
Others in flowing periods have displayed
Religion’s truths by learning’s powerful aid.
In these ambition has produced desires
Mean and unworthy virtue’s sacred fires.
Oft have their schemes extended far and wide,
And all their piety been sunk in pride.
Thus by perverse, untoward abuses still
The highest good becomes the greatest ill.
Those, who the life of Dominic embraced,
In Spain with wreaths of glory have been graced,
From mean employments have with lustre shone,
Like painted insects glittering round the throne.
With equal zeal, but far unequal power.
The kindly patronage, from kings derived,
Might still attend them, had not Clément lived.
The soul of Clément, gloomy and austere,
Was formed to virtues rigid, and severe.
Soon as the torrent of rebellion flowed,
The tide he followed and pronounced it good.
Fell Discord rising had profusely shed
Infernal poisons o’er his youthful head.
The long-drawn aisle and venerable shrine
Witness what prayers fatigued the powers divine.
This was their form, before the throne of grace,
Whilst dust and ashes sanctified his face:

“Almighty Being, whose avenging arm
Protects religion, and her sons from harm,
How long shall justice sleep, or tyrants live,
The perjured flourish, and oppression thrive?
Let us, O God, Thy gracious mercies tell,
Thy fiery scourges let the sinner feel.
Dispel death’s horrid gloom, assist the brave,
And crush the tyrant, whom Thy fury gave.
Send Thy destroying angel from above,
Descend in flames, and let Thy thunders move.
Descend and quell the sacrilegious host,
Defeat their triumphs, and confound their boast.
Let ruin seize, great sovereign Lord of all,
Kings, chiefs, and armies in one common fall,
As gathering storms the leaves of autumn bear
O’er hills and valleys through the fields of air.
The League shall praise Thy name with holy tongue,
Whilst blood and murder elevate the song.”

Discord, attentive, heard his hideous cries,
And swift to Pluto’s dreary regions flies.
From those dark realms the worst of tyrants came,
Fanatic Demon is his horrid name.
Religion’s son, but rebel in her cause,
He tears her bosom, and disdains her laws.
’Twas he that guided Ammon’s frantic race,
Where silver Arnon winds his liquid maze.
When weeping mothers, with mad zeal possessed,
Slew their fond infants clinging to the breast.
Through him rash Jephthah vowed, the fiend imbrued
The father’s dagger in the daughter’s blood.
By him the impious Chalchas was inspired,
And tender Iphigenia’s death required.
Thy forests, France, the cruel power approved;
There smoked the incense which Teutates loved,
Thy shades have seen the human victims bleed,
While hoary druids authorized the deed.
From Rome’s proud capitol he gave the word,
When Christians shuddered at the pagan sword.
When Rome submitted to the Son of God,
High o’er the church he waved his iron rod.
Christians, once doomed to feel the flickering flame,
Were deaf to mercy, and unmoved by shame.
On Thames’s banks the seeds of faction grew,
Whose bloody arm the feeble monarch slew.
The same fierce genius fans the annual fire
At Lisbon, or Madrid, when Jews expire,
Unwilling to desert the cause of heaven,
Or quit the faith their ancestors have given.

Like some high priest his part the demon played,
In the pure vest of innocence arrayed.
Now, from the wardrobe of eternal night
For other crimes equipped, he sprang to light.
Deceit, forever plausible and fair,
Dressed him like Guise in person, height, and air,
The haughty Guise, whose artifice alone
Enchained the listless monarch on his throne,
Whose power still working, like some fatal star,
Foreboded ruin, and inspired to war.
The dreaded helmet glittered on his head;
The sword, prepared for every murderous deed,
Flamed in his hand—and many a wound could tell
How once at Blois the factious hero fell.
For vengeance calling loud, the crimson tide
Fast flowed in copious streams adown his side.
Clad in this mournful garb, when night had shed
Her peaceful slumbers over Clement’s head,
In that still hour, when horrid spectres meet,
He sought the zealot in his calm retreat.
Cabal, and superstition, nurse of sin,
Unbarred the doors, and let the chieftain in.

“Thy prayers,” he cried, “the powers of heaven receive,
But more than tears or prayers should Clement give.
The Leaguer’s God will other offerings claim ;
More fit, more worthy of His holy name.
Far other incense must adorn His shrine;
Offerings more pure, and worship more divine.
Had Judith only wept with plaintive sighs,
A female’s grief, and unavailing cries,
Had life been dearer than her country’s call,
Judith had seen Bethulia’s levelled wall.
These exploits copy, these oblations bring,
Derive thy currents from that sacred spring.
I see thee blush—go, fly at my command,
Let royal blood now consecrate thy hand.
Set wretched Paris from her tyrant free,
Avenging Rome, the universe, and me.
Go, murder Valois, as he murdered Guise,
Nor deem it faulty in religion’s eyes.
Who guards the Church, and vindicates her laws,
Is bravely acting in fair virtue’s cause.
When heaven commands, then every deed is good,
Attend her accents, and prepare for blood.’
Thrice happy, couldst thou join the tyrant’s death
To Bourbon’s fall, and gain a nobler wreath!
Oh, could thy citizens !—but fate denies
Thy hand the honors of that happy prize.
Yet, should thy fame with rays inferior shine,
Scorn not the gift, but finish heaven’s design.”

Thus spoke the phantom, and unsheathed the blade,
By hatred once in Stygian waters laid.
To Clement’s hand he gave the fatal steel,
Then swiftly fled, and downward sank to hell.
The young recluse, too easily deceived,
Himself the Almighty’s delegate believed:
Embraced the gift with reverential love,
And begged assistance from the powers above.
The fiend no superstitious influence spared,
But all his soul for parricide prepared.
How apt is error to mislead mankind!
And reason’s piercing eye how often blind!
The raging Clement, happy, and at ease,
Happy as those whom truth and virtue please ;
With downcast looks, and virtue’s clouded brow,
To heaven addressed the sacrilegious vow.
On as he marched, his penitential veil
Concealed from view the parricidal steel.
The fairest flowers each conscious friend bestowed,
And balmy odors to perfume the road.
These guides, in counsel or in praises, joined
To add new fervor to his zealous mind.
The holy calendar received his name,
Equal to saints in virtue, and in fame,
Now hailed as patron, now adored as God,
‘And fed with incense by the kneeling crowd.
Transports less warm, less moving raptures fired
The Christian heroes, and their souls inspired,
When pious brethren were consigned to death,
Firm, and intrepid to their latest breath.
They kissed each footstep, thought each torture gain,
And wished to feel the agonizing pain.
Fanatics thus religion’s ensigns bear,
Like worthies triumph, and like saints appear.
The same desire the good and impious draws,
Unnumbered martyrs fall in error’s cause.

Mayenne’s piercing eyes beheld the future blow,
And more was known, than what he seemed to know.
Intending wisely, when the blood was spilt,
To reap the profits, but avoid the guilt.
Sedition’s sons were left to guide the whole,
And steel with rage the impious zealot’s soul.
To Paris’ gates they lead the traitor on;
While the Sixteen with fond impatience run
To arts infernal, and devoutly pray
That heaven her secret counsels would display.
This science once distinguished Catherine’s reign,
Though always criminal, and often vain.
The servile people, that forever love
Each courtly vice, and what the great approve,
Fond of whate’er is marvelous or new,
The same impieties with zeal pursue.

When night’s still shades concealed the bands impure,
Silence conducts them to a vault obscure.
By the pale torch, which faintly pierced the gloom,
They raise an altar on the mouldering tomb.
There both the royal images appear,
Alike the objects of their rage and fear.
There to Almighty power their vows are paid,
And hellish demons summoned to their aid.
High on the walls, a hundred lances stood,
Mysterious, awful terrors! plunged in blood.
Their priest was one of that unhappy race
Proscribed on earth, and sentenced to disgrace,
Slaves long inured to superstition’s lore,
Whose crimes and sorrows spread from shore to shore.
The Leaguers next the sacrifice begin
With horrid cries, and bacchanalian din:
Now bathe their arms within the crimson tide;
‘Now on the altar strike at Valois’s side.
Now with more rage, the terror to complete,
See Henry’s image trod beneath their feet.
Death, as they thought, would aid the impious blow,
And send the heroes to the shades below.

The Hebrew tried by blasphemy to move
The depths beneath, and all the powers above;
Invoked the spirits that in ether dwell,
‘Swift lightnings, thunders, and the flames of hell.
Endor’s famed priestess erst such offerings made,
And raised by dire enchantments Samuel’s shade ;
Thus in Samaria once ’gainst Judah hung
The lying accent on the prophet’s tongue ;
And thus inflexibly Ateius rose
The high designs of Crassus to oppose.

The League’s mad ruler waited to receive
To charms and spells what answer heaven would give,
Convinced that vows, thus offered, wing their way
To the pure regions of eternal day.
Heaven heard the magic sounds, which only drew
From thence the vengeance to their errors due.
For them were stopped the laws which nature gave,
And plaintive murmurs filled the silent cave.
Successive lightnings in the depth of night
Flashed all around and gleamed with horrid light.
Great Henry shone amidst the lambent flames,
Encircled round with glory’s golden beams.
High on the car of triumph as he rode,
Grace on his brow the laurel wreath bestowed,
The royal sceptre glittered in his hand,
Emblem of power, and ensign of command.
Loud rolling thunders gave the fatal sign,
‘And opening earth received the flaming shrine.
The priest and Leaguers shuddered at the sight,
And veiled their crimes beneath the shades of night.
The rolling thunders and the fiery blaze
Declared that God had numbered Valois’s days.
Grim death rejoiced; and, such the Almighty’s will,
Crimes were allowed His sentence to fulfil.

Now Clement to the royal tent drew near,
And begged admission undismayed by fear.
For heaven, he said, had sent him to bestow
Reviving honors on the monarch’s brow ;
And secrets to unfold, which might appear
Worthy reception from his sovereign’s ear.
All mark his looks, and many a question ask
Lest his attire some bad design should mask.
He undisturbed, with calm and simple air
Returns them answers plausible and fair.
Each accent seems from innocence to spring.
The guards attend, and lead him to their king.

Calm as before, he bent the suppliant knee;
Unruffled, and unawed by majesty:
Marked where to strike, and thus, by falsehood’s‘ aid,
With treacherous lies his feigned addresses paid:

“Pardon, dread sovereign, him who trembling brings
Submissive praises to the king of kings.
Oh, let me thank kind heaven, whose gracious aid
Has showered down blessings on thy sacred head.
Potier the good, and Villerois the sage
Have faithful proved in this rebellious age.
Harlay the great, whose brave, intrepid zeal
Was ever active in the public weal,
Immured in prison, still thy cause defends,
Confounds the League, and animates thy friends.

“That mighty Being, whose all-piercing eyes
Defeat the counsels of the great and wise:
Whose will no human knowledge can withstand,
Whose works are finished by the weakest hand:
To Harlay guided thy devoted slave,
That loyal subject ever good and brave.
His sage advice and sentiments refined
Diffused a radiance o’er my clouded mind.
To bring these lines with eagerness I flew,
By Harlay counselled, and to Valois true.”

The king received the letters with surprise,
And tears of holy rapture filled his eyes.
“Oh, when,” he cried, “shall Valois’s hand supply
Rewards proportioned to thy loyalty?”
Thus spoke the monarch with affection warm,
Love undissembled, and extended arm.
Each motion well the monstrous traitor eyed,
And fiercely plunged the dagger in his side.
Soon as they saw the crimson torrents flow,
A thousand hands revenged the fatal blow.
The zealot wished not for a happier time,
But stood unmoved, and triumphed in his crime.
Through opening skies, he saw the heavenly dome,
And endless glories in the world to come;
Claimed the bright wreath of martyrdom from God,
And falling, blessed the hand that shed his blood.
Oh, dread illusion, terrible and blind,
Worthy the hate and pity of mankind.
Infectious preachers more deserved the blame,
From whom the madness and the poison came.

The hour arrived when Valois’s darkened sight
Faintly beheld the parting, glimmering light.
Surrounding slaves with many a falling tear
Expressed their griefs. dissembled or sincere.
For some there were, whose sorrows soon expired,
With pleasing hopes of future greatness fired.
Others, whose safety with the king was fled,
Themselves lamented, not the royal dead.
Amidst the various sounds of plaintive cries
Tears unaffected flowed from Henry’s eyes.
Thy foe, great Bourbon, fell; but souls like thine
In such dread moments every thought resign,
Save those which friendship and compassion claim:
Self-love destroys not the celestial flame.
The generous chief forgot his own renown,
Though to himself devolved the regal crown.
To raise his eyes the dying monarch strove,
And clasped his hand with tenderness and love.

“Bourbon,” he cried, “thy generous tears refrain,
Let others weep whose conduct I disdain.
Fly thou to vengeance, spread the dire alarm,
Go reign, and triumph with victorious arm.
I leave thee struggling on the stormy coast
Where shipwrecked Valois was forever lost.
My throne awaits thee, take it as thy due,
Its sole protection was derived from you.
Eternal thunders threaten Gallia’s kings,
Then fear the power from whom the glory springs.
By thee, from impious tenets undeceived,
Be all the honors of His shrine revived.
Farewell, brave prince, and reign by all adored,
Guarded by heaven from each assassin’s sword.
You know the League, with us begins the blow,
Nor stays its fury, but would end with you.
In future days perchance some barbarous hand,
Obedient slave to faction’s dread command,
Some arm—but oh! ye guardian angels, spare
Virtues so pure, so exquisite, and rare.
Permit’’—no more he said; departing breath
Consigned the monarch to the arms of death.

Now was all Paris filled with joyful cries,
And odious songs of triumph rent the skies.
The fanes are opened wide at Valois’s death,
And every Leaguer wears the flowery wreath.
All labor ends while faction blithe and gay,
To mirth and feasting consecrates the day.
Bourbon appeared the object of their sport,
And glorious valor seemed his sole support.
Say, could he rise, and e’er resist again
The strengthened League, the angry Church, and Spain,
The Roman thunders with such fury hurled,
And the bright treasures of the western world?

Some warlike few, who little understood
What most contributes to the public good,
Affecting scruples foolish and refined,
Calvin’s defence already had resigned.
Redoubled ardor in the royal cause
The rest inflamed, and ruled by other laws.
These generous soldiers, well approved in war,
Who long had rode on triumph’s radiant car,
To Bourbon give unsettled Gallia’s throne,
And all proclaim him worthy of the crown.
Those valiant knights, the Givris, and Daumonts,
The Montmorencys, Sancis, and Crillons,
Swear to remain inviolable friends,
And guard his person to earth’s utmost ends.
True to their laws, and faithful to their God,
They boldly march where honor points the road.

“From you, my friends,” cried Bourbon, “is derived
That lot which kindred heroes have received.
No peers have authorized our high command,
No holy oil, or consecrating hand.
All due allegiance, in the days of yore,
Your brave forefathers on their bucklers swore.
To victory’s laurelled field your hands confined
From there send forth the monarchs of mankind.”
Thus spoke the chief, and, marching first, prepared
By martial deeds to merit his reward.