Poems (Piatt)/Volume 2/The Child Mozart and St John of Bohemia

by Sarah Piatt

THE CHILD MOZART AND ST. JOHN OF BOHEMIA.

The two stood in a faëry place
 On some Bohemian hill.
The boy seemed not of our own race,
 He was so slight and still;

A lovely alien, who had strayed
 When some strange star went by,
Out of its shining ways, and stayed
 On earth, he knew not why.

Bare-headed, on that lonesome height,
 Where yet the dew was cold,
He took, as by some gracious right,
 The sun's salute of gold;

With lambs, above the world of men,
 There in the world of birds,
So looked the young Apollo, when
 He—quite forgot the herds.

Perhaps it was the winds and bees,
 Perhaps his sweet ears rung
With snatches of the melodies
 The morning stars had sung.

Yet this fair little foreign guest,
 Born somewhere in the sky,
Knew—(if the truth must be confest)
 The boy knew how to cry.

"Look, sister, look," he sadly said,
 While great tears gathered slow,
"There is no butter on my bread."
 She answered him: "I know.

"We are so poor, and that is why."
 "Well, what do people do
When they are poor?" "Sometimes they cry."
 (Their mother did, she knew.)

"But don't they pray, too, sometimes?" "Yes."
 "Then, good St. John, I say
My mother needs a prettier dress;—
 Please send one right away."

(St. John, hurled from a parapet
 At some wild Emperor's frown:
Five stars brood on the Moldan yet,
 Five stars that saw him drown.)

"We want a new piano, too;
 Our old one used to play,
But it forgets its music. You
 Are kind to all who pray?

"And there's the butter, too. But see,—
 Why, here he is!" And then
Came laughing from behind a tree
 The handsomest of men,

Clothed in dark forest-green, his head
 High as an oak's need be,
And shadowed by a plume. He said:
 "Come, little ones, with me."

And so the children's saint, the blest,
 The beautiful St. John,
Walked with them—(rather oddly drest
 You think. Of this anon).

That day a sudden dinner, such
 As they had never seen,
Came to their table. And how much
 They thanked the saint in green!

Bright as an autumn-leaf in bloom
 Their mother moved, and yet
That night—the absence in her room
 Made cheek and pillow wet.

That night the old piano, too,
 Grieved like a living thing,—
For the blonde boy, right well it knew,
 Had vanished with the King.

(The King, I said, but, on my word,
 It's quite another thing,—
Somewhere in history I have heard
 The Queen was then the King.^[1])

Into a place of shining state
 The child-musician went,
In violet velvet, to await
 Court-kiss and compliment.

. . . And lo, a palace maiden bright,
 A vision to admire,
A creature made of rose and white
 And gold, in brave attire!

The boy raised his flower-face as she
 Passed him with slow regret:
"I say, and will you marry me,
 Miss Marie Antoinette?"

"I dare not; what would mother say?—
 I mean the Empress, child,"
The enchanted princess answered. They
 Who listened stared and smiled.

She tossed her shining head a bit,
 With one bright backward glance;
And Wolfgang Mozart wept when it
 Gilded the axe of France.

1. "Long live our King—Maria Theresa!"