No sentinels stand guard upon these ramparts,
yellow wall-flowers have overgrown their stones;
the only motion here is when these blooms
are stirred by the breeze.
Here comes a woman , head bowed in shame,
descending the convent’s rocky stairs
furtively, as though she sought a place to hide.
Three soldiers follow her, pikes on their shoulders,.
The noon Angelus bell rings out over them.
They’re silent, subdued by the August heat.
At times, as they descend the hill,
they get a glimpse of fallow fields
or the Rhine far below. The way is steep
and sun-baked dust white. At times
the woman’s cloak parts to show
(like a stream in a summer forest)
the blue and gold of her splendid dress.
The guards catch their breath. Lorelei
is no less Lorelei. The road is rough,
her escort armed, and she is beautiful.
She has no more tears, but looks straight ahead
at the road—wide and frightening as a chasm.
The murderous world, which has no mercy
on innocents, rejects and exiles her.
No pardon, not even justice. All of them—
from the mayor, to that complicit bishop,
to the far-off cloister which opens its gates
even to assassins—all cast her away
with disgust, like rotten fruit. Now Lorelei,
head bowed beneath her shame, rejected by her people,
by the priest with his frigid pity,
she walks, exhausted, beneath the lead-heavy
rays of summer sun.
Where is she going, heart sick with old resentments
and new loathings? To a lepers’ hospital,
chosen (with dismal cruelty)
for her future, there to grow old
changing bandages and washing oozy sores.
In the hedges all around her
nesting birds chirp. Poppies blaze
in the fields of ripe wheat. A rising wind
bends the grain, the armed escort,
is a military silhouette
against the azure August sky.
The distant walled town, Lorelei’s home,
looks unreal as a stage backdrop,
all slate roofs and slender bell towers,
like a castle bristling with turrets
painted in miniature
on an ancient missal’s vellum page.
At the turning of the road she pauses, pale,
unsteady on her feet, as if she were drunk.
She takes in the sky, dazzling as brass,
her town now outlined on the horizon.
Childhood memories return at random:
tender recollections of a poem she’d recited
while plucking a flower’s petals one by one;
lost beliefs, angels long since flown.
In rush images of her parents’ home,
old and dark, on the outskirts of the noisy crowded town;
her tall frail grandfather with his long white hair,
bent to tend the hearth fire between the gorgon-headed
andirons; her room with hexagonal
leaded windows, their purple stained-glass lilies
made to flame by the dawn,
the pot of basil on the windowsill.
She recalled her first lover,
then the young German soldier, then the captain,
then many a rich and handsome lord
—how proud she’d been—and now? Cursed by all.
Her eyes, dull and fixed
like those of someone who’s been tortured,
turned to her escorts impatient of more delay.
Calmly she unfastened her heavy necklace
(with its great aquamarine, a goldsmith’s masterpiece)
from her splendid neck. She said, “Let this repay you
for the time it takes for one last look
at my home, a last goodbye, the final wish
of an exile. Let me stand on this cliff
that overlooks the river, fix in memory
my country, my childhood, all I leave.
Indulge a poor madwoman. You smile?
Yes, it’s foolish, but the foolish hearts of women
live and die for such.” As she spoke, her look
became soft, endearing, irresistible
as it had been when she’d commanded dukes
and barons. He beauty seemed royal,
holy, intoxicating! All together they said yes,
as though they’d been that lady’s squires.
She stood then on that rocky prominence,
smiling at her captors, exalted, glorious,
shining like a pearl against the velvet reds
of sunset, her hair transfigured in its rays.
“I forgive you, guilty, stupid world,
and entrust myself to you, last refuge
of the wretched, old Father Rhine.”
She crossed her arms
over her bosom, closed her eyes.
As if in a dream, she fell forward.
While the river carried away the body
of the beautiful criminal, the three armed men
crouched on the rock and argued
about how much they could get for the necklace.