THE VAUDOIS TEACHER.
This poem was suggested by the account given of the
manner which the Waldenses disseminated their principles
among the Catholic gentry. They gained access
to the house through their occupation as peddlers of
silks, jewels, and trinkets. “Having disposed
of some of their goods,” it is said by a writer
who quotes the inquisitor Rainerus Sacco, “they
cautiously intimated that they had commodities far
more valuable than these, inestimable jewels, which
they would show if they could be protected from the
clergy. They would then give their purchasers
a Bible or Testament; and thereby many were deluded
into heresy.” The poem, under the title
Le Colporteur Vaudois, was translated into French by
Professor G. de Felice, of Montauban, and further naturalized
by Professor Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet, who quoted
it in his lectures on French literature, afterwards
published. It became familiar in this form to
the Waldenses, who adopted it as a household poem.
An American clergyman, J. C. Fletcher, frequently
heard it when he was a student, about the year 1850,
in the theological seminary at Geneva, Switzerland,
but the authorship of the poem was unknown to those
who used it. Twenty-five years later, Mr. Fletcher,
learning the name of the author, wrote to the moderator
of the Waldensian synod at La Tour, giving the information.
At the banquet which closed the meeting of the synod,
the moderator announced the fact, and was instructed
in the name of the Waldensian church to write to me
a letter of thanks. My letter, written in reply,
was translated into Italian and printed throughout
Italy.
“O lady fair, these silks of mine
are beautiful and rare,—
The richest web of the Indian loom, which beauty’s
queen might wear;
And my pearls are pure as thy own fair neck, with
whose
radiant light they vie;
I have brought them with me a weary way,—will
my
gentle lady buy?”
The lady smiled on the worn old man through the
dark and clustering
curls
Which veiled her brow, as she bent to view his
silks and glittering
pearls;
And she placed their price in the old man’s
hand
and lightly turned away,
But she paused at the wanderer’s earnest call,—
“My gentle lady,
stay!
“O lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer
lustre flings,
Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown on
the lofty brow of kings;
A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtue
shall not decay,
Whose light shall be as a spell to thee and a
blessing on thy way!”
The lady glanced at the mirroring steel where her
form of grace was seen,
Where her eye shone clear, and her dark locks
waved their clasping
pearls between;
“Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth, thou
traveller gray and old,
And name the price of thy precious gem, and my
page shall count thy
gold.”
