GLAD the day that saw Christina, broad of brain though young in years,
Take the crown of glorious Vasa, girt with Sweden's proudest peers.
Regal was the face they looked at, regal were the form and guise,
Regal were the light blue splendors of her Scandinavian eyes.
"She will rule us," cried the people, "like her sire, Gustavus Great;
War at this girl's frown shall thunder; peace upon her smile shall wait.
"Yet below her kingdom ever, civic wisdom, patriot love,
Shall be pediments majestic to the monument above!"
Time with happy confirmation proved the praise whose welcome strain,
Like an archway for a conqueror, spanned the threshold of her reign.
Ten bright years her lifted sceptre loomed in power o'er lands and seas;
Norway, Prussia, Denmark, Austria trembled at her calm decrees.
War in righteous loathing held she, yet no dastard armistice made;
Half Minerva, half Brunhilda, Sweden's destiny she swayed.
Oxenstiern, the astute old statesman, oft her might of mind would own;
Grotius, poet and historian, laid allegiance at her throne.
Torstenston, the unrivalled soldier, served her with his valiant men;
Blunt Salmacius, wily Vossius, flattered her with tongue and pen.
Keen Descartes, who grandly brooded on the spells of time and space,
Lost his learning in the sorcery fashioned by her virgin face.
Milton, he whose thought was earthquake in an age of sloth and swoon,
Praised her as the lark the morning, as the nightingale the moon.
Many a suitor sought her favor; princes hotly vied with peers;
Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie sued her with tempestuous tears.
Uladislaus, king of Poland, tried her maiden heart to thrill;
Spain's fourth Philip strove to tempt her with alliance loftier still.
But alike entreaty or protest ineffectual found her mood;
She was adamant to all men, howsoever subtly wooed.
Yet would sages, wits and pundits, bards, philosophers and priests,
In her palace at Upsala, throng to share her stately feasts.
Here, one evening, 'tis recorded, lights in plenteous measure played
Through the imperial apartments on a mirthful masquerade;
And of multitudes assembled none so lured the royal glance
As De Liar, the chevalier, jovial, handsome, fresh from France.
He, like all except Christina, wore a mask of envious fold,
Yet the Queen, through secret signal, his identity had told.
Speech urbane her lips addressed him; radiant looks on him she bent;
Other suitors, keenly watching, gnawed their beards in discontent.
"'Tis the Frenchman," they would whisper; "fortunate he should be wed,
Else perchance our bold young sovereign by some wild caprice were led."
Later, when the night grew merrier, when the feasting-hall was gay,
Stealthily De Liar glided to a chamber yards away.
Here, where old Norse gods were pictured on the drapery's fold and flow,
Glided stealthily to meet him a mysterious domino.
From a face of blooming witchery soon its mask of velvet fell;
The Chevalier stood confronted by the wife that loved him well.
"Come," she laughs, "my wandering gallant, say me frank and say me fair:
Have you left your heart entangled in the Swedish queen's gold hair?"
Laughing back with amorous ardor, the Chevalier makes reply:
"Nay, already in your brown tresses doth my heart entangled lie."
"Flatterer!" mocks the wife — but kisses all her raillery swiftly choke,
Fond as those that lily or poppy may from buoyant bee invoke.
"Fear not, lady of mine," he murmurs, "lest new love your rights profane;
I to this crowned queen am colder than the ice-flowers on her pane!
"Pettier is her dull self-worship, fed by parasitic prate,
Than the crowd of salaried pedants truckling to her trivial state!
"Hers a royalty to reverence! Nay, we witnessed, you and I,
Our own lordly and gracious Louis, on his white stairs at Versailles!
"Hers, forsooth, a court of splendor! Nay, we saw, in other years,
Those great pomps that made the Tuileries one pale blaze of chandeliers!"
Thus he spoke, far less of slander than bravado on his tongue,
Spoke, nor ever dreamed how deeply his audacious words had stung.
For with blue eyes glittering icy, with fierce wrath in all her mien,
Near at hand, behind an arras, cowered the unsuspected Queen!
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In the heaven of royal favor, slowly from that fateful night
Rose the star of the Chevalier, sweeping up to haughtier height.
Military rank was given him; orders gleamed upon his breast;
Often at Queen Christina's table he would sit a welcome guest.
Soon his poor wife pined and languished; faith and hope were rudely wrecked;
Snared by dizzying dreams of greatness, he had galled her with neglect.
Wherefore now, when supplications and remonstrances had failed,
Equally in scorn and sorrow back to her own land she sailed.
The Chevalier to detain her strove at last with strong dismay, —
But she had learned what potent magic in the Queen's least whisper lay.
"I will share his love," she murmured, while the dark ship spread its wings,
"With no other living woman, be she born of churls or kings!"
So to France the sad wife journeyed; and ambition's greedy flame
From the conscience of De Liar banished his remorseful shame.
Through the future's mist that mantles every deed our spirits dare,
He beheld a shadowy sceptre, waving, beckoning in the air!
On it ever seemed to tempt him, till there came a pregnant hour
When he almost felt his fingers clasp it with impetuous power.
Once again, while sumptuous revels turned her palace-halls aglow,
Did the Queen upon De Liar bounteous blandishments bestow.
"Now," they said, "he nears the summit of his insolent success;
Every glance Christina gives him hides and harbors a caress.
"He to-day is virtual Regent; in his name large mandates meet;
On what loftier grade of lordship may to-morrow land his feet?"
While in babbling throngs they gossiped, the Chevalier drank his fill
Of that dangerous wine Christina could so craftily distill.
Through the dance beside her suitor moved she with august repose;
Now her eyes were melting sapphires, now her mouth an opening rose.
Once by hardier courage prompted, in her ear he dared to sigh:
"Since Diana loved Endymion, wherefore did she let him die?
Low he leaned to catch her answer, low it came in loitering tone:
"Turn your metaphors more nicely. 'Twas Endymion's fault alone!"
Flushed the infatuate young Chevalier while he thought: "Perchance she means
My divorce were given for asking by the priests that cringe to queens!"
But aloud he breathed: "Be piteous, O my lady of light and grace!"
"Look," she smiled, "our last cotillon. . . . Come, Chevalier, take your place."
In the dance like one delirious near the queen he paced and bowed,
Till her clear voice clove his spirit as a moonbeam cleaves a cloud:
"I depart . . . yet seek me later at my boudoir's private door . . .
Take the long south gallery leading past the sculptured bust of Thor.
"Fear no guards; I have dismissed them; none will wait to watch or snare
They that are most wise at hoping prove but dullards in despair!"
Through the lane of bending courtiers fled Christina from his look;
Off his mind its trance of rapture slowly the Chevalier shook.
Soon he sought the wide south gallery, fancying that he fared unseen,
Reached the door and lightly unclosed it, crossed the threshold, met the Queen.
Now his heart beat fast and furious while he knelt with burning sigh . . .
"Nay, for once," Christina faltered, "let the obeisances go by.
"If indeed your love's large fervor from your soul confession draws,
Bravely speak it like a soldier, though a queen hath been its cause!"
"Oh, my sovereign, my enchantress!" leaping to his feet he cried;
And he flung both arms about her, drunk with passion and with pride.
But Christina darted shivering from the imperious embrace.
"Do you love me?" rang her answer. "See how such love brings disgrace!"
Then she shrieked "Help! help!" and straightway, as responsive to her need,
Guards and gentlemen-in-waiting filled the room at break-neck speed.
"Hear me all! proclaimed Christina. "He, the wretch that yonder stands,
Dared profane our sacred person with his sacrilegious hands!
"Like a thief he sought our chamber, yet with wish more wild and bad;
We should deal him death immediate, did we not believe him mad!"
"Mad?" the assemblage loudly echoed, though in dazed and wondering style;
"Mad?" the poor Chevalier shuddered, awed by such abysmal guile.
"Mad, indeed," shot back Christina; "yet some pity attends our scorn;
"To the mad-house at Upsala let him instantly be borne!"
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Five slow years of stern immurement followed as De Liar's doom,
Till the new king, Charles Gustavus, loosed him from his living tomb.
But at last he hailed his freedom with no greetings warm or glad;
Misery, self-reproach and bondage had in good truth made him mad.
Back to Stockholm soon he drifted, and in beggary spent his days,
With his face of ravaged beauty, with his memory-haunted gaze!
And he oft would say to passers, like a man of wandering wit:
"Can you tell me where's my country? I have lost my way to it!"
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Who recalls not how Christina threw aside the robe she wore,
Roaming other lands of Europe, joyed to be a queen no more?
Strange the fortunes that befell her, bright or sombre, harsh or sweet . . .
All remember Monaldeschi, dying suppliant at her feet!
Oft her name was dipped in odium, till her people, far aloof,
Learned to clothe it with the colors of perpetual reproof.
Feared alike for plots and scandals, now in Paris, now in Rome,
Tired at last she grew of exile and bethought herself of home.
Northward faring past the frontier she as monarch had surveyed,
Wroth she grew that sullen silence over all the land was laid.
Not a trace of tribute met her till old Nórkoping she gained;
Here, through many a dismal street-way, night with desolation reigned.
"What!" she fumed; no troops, no escort! Every window dark as fate!
Fickle Swedes that once adored me, has your love so soon turned hate?"
But the words thus framed in anger died upon her lips in fright,
For a glimmering apparition dawned that moment on her sight.
Round about the royal carriage, giddy and volatile it sped,
And the starlight showed it vaguely, like the resurrected dead.
Back the snow-white hair blew ghastly from a face of idiot leer,
As it tossed its antic tatters, whirling there and wheeling here.
"Look," it cried, "the great She-Spider to her web hath crawled again!
Bolt the portal, bar the casement, Swedish maids and Swedish men!
"Bar the casement, bolt the portal! Lie ye still and give no sign,
Lest she suck your heart's blood as she sucked the blood from mine!"
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So Christina, home returning (fame, love, power one cold eclipse!)
Found the mockery of this welcome from the mad De Liar's lips!
