United States or Trinidad and Tobago ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The kingdom which had come to him from Hyvarnion and Rivanone was his all his life long; and though he no longer wandered painfully from town to town, the songs which he made wandered still from heart to heart. And long, long afterwards their echo made music through the land of Brittany, as the fragrance of a flower lasts long after the flower has passed on its way elsewhere. Dear Saint Hervé!
I dare say one can hear him yet in the greeny pond outside that old French castle. NOW after many years of wandering, of singing, of making beautiful songs, of teaching and wandering again, Hervé's dear mother Rivanone died. But he still had some one to love and look for him and the wolf when he came home from his travels.
Gourvoyed, the brother of Rivanone, was a holy hermit who lived alone in the forest, and he would teach Hervé, his nephew, for love of him. For Gourvoyed was a wise man, skilled in all things, but especially in the making of songs. It was a blessed morning when Hervé started for his school in the woods; he was going to his kingdom!
Sometimes the carols which they sang together were the only breakfast to begin the day. Sometimes the songs Rivanone made beside his bed at night were the only food Hervé had tasted since sunrise. Sometimes they were both so hungry that they could not sing at all; and those were sad times indeed. But when Hervé was seven years old a great idea came to him.
But even in a kingdom of this sort one has to bear sorrows and discomforts, just as folk do in other kingdoms which are less fair. Hervé's name meant bitterness, and there was much bitterness in his little life before he learned what a Prince he really was. For he was blind and could not play with the other children. Rivanone was a poor widow and there was no one to earn bread for the two.
He longed to go to school and be taught things, to grow wise like his father, who had been called the Little Sage, and to learn how to make songs for himself. For he felt that it was time for him to come into the kingdom of Hyvarnion and Rivanone; and the songs shut in his heart were bursting to come out.
Because Rivanone had foreseen only too well the need of them which would come to her. For when, after a year or two, their little son was born, his blue eyes were sightless and all the colored wonders of the world were secrets which he could never know. So they named him Hervé, which means Bitterness, the first bitterness which had come into their lives of joy. But it was not the last.
And no one can ever be taught to make poetry unless he has it in his soul, as Hervé had. For that is a royal gift, and it came to Hervé from Hyvarnion and Rivanone, the King and Queen of music and of song. It was Hervé's kingdom, and it was given him to take away the bitterness from his name, to make it remembered as sweet, sweet, sweet.
Rivanone lay ill and miserable, and there was nothing to eat in the house. Hervé sat by her side holding her hand, and wishing there was something he could do about it. Blind as he was he had never been out of the house alone. But suddenly courage came to him and hope, through his great idea. "I will save you, dear mother!" he cried, throwing his arms about her neck.
Not long after the little Hervé came, golden-haired Hyvarnion lay ill and dying. And because on that spring morning, Rivanone had not found the herb of life, she could not keep him from going away to find it for himself in that fair country where it is the only plant that grows, with wonderful blossoms which no living man has ever seen.
Word Of The Day