Canticle of the Tower

Abroad in country not my own, I rode through fields overgrown,
Through whose golden-bearded bounty had a scythe not lately cleaved;
Through whose wilderness I wended, through whose tawny trail untended
I by morning light resplendent in the distance spied reprieve:
A hamlet in a verdant vale by hills around relieved –
A signpost read Vers Valle-Vive.

Along we trod with sigh and neigh, through dewy glen and verdure fey,
But as I rode into the hamlet I found none upon the square.
“Does not a single soul abide?” I asked the vacant ville I tried,
“If but inside they shyly hide, what explains this disrepair?”
Then as I neared the church I saw a sign that read beware:
The Tower Panoptes – beware!

“Odd tidings, these,” I said to me, and thereabouts I thought to flee,
When in the yard behind the church I found the pastor piling stones.
“Is that a cairn? Are all here dead?” I asked as crept upon me dread,
And he was silent, so I pled, “What east wind through here has blown?”
He pointed to the highest hill: the Tower loomed alone –
It loomed a monarch dark enthroned.

Though from the hill It reigned remote, the Tower took me by the throat,
And I was stricken, frozen as I felt Its gaze bizarre!
So did Its shadow make me weak, Its facade my mare to shriek;
Afraid, I begged the man to speak! He said, “I am but Belshazzar,
And the Writing on the Wall appeared from me a hill too far –
Now Valle-Vive is Tour-Noir.”

My mare dethroned me from my perch! The pastor brought me in the church,
Where warded by the Lux Lucet he told what came to pass:
“My flock I gathered in Parìs, but we were guilty of belief,
So here I led them for relief, and we partook of Valdo’s Mass.
As we settled in the shadow of the Tower did some ask –
‘What signifies Its shadow cast?’

‘But not all things are signs,’ I said, ‘No more than Christ is truly dead,
Nor the shadow of the Tower but a cool and pleasant shade.’
Yet still I heard them speak of doom, ‘A witch’s roost, a wizard’s tomb,’
And all the while ‘Those Ruins’ loomed, and therebeneath our children played.
‘Driven from Parìs,’ I thought, ‘still of persecution they’re afraid –
The Tower but a spectre made.’

Deep one night I dreaming slept when into mind the Tower crept,
And Its embrasures were as eyes that with a secret fire flashed.
Upon the vale Its shadow danced! Its fire on the town advanced!
In fear! In fear! In fear entranced, I watched as down the Tower crashed!
I woke and in a fever to the Tower’s top I dashed –
I found Its braziers white with ash.”

I asked, “To wit, with embers fresh?” He answered, “New as risen flesh,”
And doubting of the Lux Lucet his fear was on his face.
“But none had gone aloft,” he said, “None upon Its hill had tread,
Nor any seen Its fire red, so I from mind this dream effaced.
I thought, ‘It’s but the fear of persecution giving chase –
The embers but a phantom trace.’

“So life continued in the vale, whereon the Light of God availed,
And in the shadow of the Tower we the autumn harvest reaped.
Our yield was more than we could scythe, even more than we could tithe;
And all were merry, all were blithe as for the year we plenty heaped.
But Valdo said ‘be poor as Christ and innocent as sheep’ –
The Tower looked so very steep.

“Then on the night of giving thanks, the clouds a-rumble closed their ranks...
Whence the Tower on the hill was with a bolt of lightning smote!
Its ancient braziers came alight! In terror we were put to flight!
‘Doom upon us comes tonight, as John the Revelator wrote!’
Thus we were driven mad as Babel’s architects unrote –
Maddened by the Tower smote!

“Thunder bellowed! Lightning seethed! The Tower was in fire wreathed!
In the madness, in the terror, man against his brother turned.
Our friends we stamped, our neighbors killed; and blood ran red along the rills,
And Judgement stood upon the hill as Valle-Vive convicted burned.
Now the flock is scattered and its guilty shepherd spurned –
Take abroad what here you learned.”

I left him to his pile of stones. I rode from Piedmont onto Rome.
I swore that ever would I tell this tale of strange, uncanny fright.
I know not if I should believe, or if indeed I can conceive
What truly came of Valle-Vive when on it fell that fated night.
But as I rode from out the vale did I pass a fiendish sight –
A Darkness looming in the Light.