The Secret of the Busento

Deep beneath the flowing river

Sleeps the great Barbarian King,

While his requiem for ever

Overhead the waters sing.

There from man by nature guarded,

Was he laid in days of old,

In a triple bier enshrouded,

Wrought of silver, bronze, and gold.

Say, Busento, thou its keeper,

Where lies Alaric the Goth?

Thou hast sworn to hide the sleeper?

Time absolves thee of thy oath.

In the dead of night they brought him

To the startled river-bank;

While the world still living thought him,

They the coffined monarch sank.

By the torches' light they laid him

Deep within its rocky bed,

And a last farewell they bade him,

Him the greatest of their dead.

Ere the pearly light of morning

On the little party broke,

The Arian Chiefs a word of warning

To the listening River spoke;

"Our nation's richest treasure

To thy bosom we confide;

Let thy depths no stranger measure,

But the King for ever hide.

"As thy water onward dashes,

Let it keep his tomb from shame;

In thy charge we leave his ashes,

In the world's his endless fame.—

Thus in manner strange and hurried,

Under night's protecting wing,

Those stern Gothic warriors buried

Alaric their mighty King.

As the stream's retarded current

Rolled o'er his eternal home,

So the great barbaric torrent

Rolled on o'er the grave of Rome.

Goth and Vandal, Sueve and Lombard,

Hun and Alan, wave on wave,

None of all their kings unnumbered

Had as grand or safe a grave.

Guardian of a lonely glory,

Well hast thou the secret kept,

Fourteen centuries of story,

Undisturbed the Goth has slept.

Noble river, none could firmer

Keep his plighted word than thou;

Alone the poet in thy murmur

Hears the name of Alaric now.