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diff --git a/15432-h/15432-h.htm b/15432-h/15432-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4863575 --- /dev/null +++ b/15432-h/15432-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6477 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Henry Brocken, by Walter J. de la Mare</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:5%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + hr.full { width: 100%; } + pre {font-size: 8pt;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Henry Brocken, by Walter J. de la Mare</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Henry Brocken</p> +<p> His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance</p> +<p>Author: Walter J. de la Mare</p> +<p>Release Date: March 21, 2005 [eBook #15432]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRY BROCKEN***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Melissa Er-Raqabi,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (https://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h1>HENRY BROCKEN</h1> + +<div style="margin-left: 30%; margin-right: 15%;"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>With a heart of furious fancies,<br /></span> +<span>Whereof I am commander:<br /></span> +<span>With a burning spear,<br /></span> +<span>And a horse of air,<br /></span> +<span>To the wilderness I wander;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>With a Knight of ghosts and shadows,<br /></span> +<span>I summoned am to Tourney:<br /></span> +<span>Ten leagues beyond<br /></span> +<span>The wide world's end;<br /></span> +<span>Methinks it is no journey.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—ANON. (<i>Tom o' Bedlam</i>).<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1>HENRY BROCKEN</h1> + +<h2>HIS TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES<br /> +IN THE RICH, STRANGE, SCARCE-IMAGINABLE<br /> +REGIONS OF ROMANCE</h2> + +<h2>BY WALTER J. DE LA MARE</h2> + +<h3>("WALTER RAMAL")</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="center">LONDON</p> +<p class="center">JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.</p> +<p class="center">1904</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<p>I. <a href="#I">WHITHER?</a></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>Come hither, come hither, come hither!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—SHAKESPEARE.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>II. <a href="#II">LUCY GRAY</a></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray;<br /></span> +<span>And, when I crossed the wild,<br /></span> +<span>I chanced to see at break of day<br /></span> +<span>The solitary child.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—WORDSWORTH.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>III. <a href="#III">JANE EYRE</a></p> + +<blockquote><p>I used to rush into strange dreams at night: dreams ... where +amidst unusual scenes ... I still again +and again met Mr. Rochester;... and then the +sense of being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting +his eye, touching his hand and cheek, loving him, being +loved by him—the hope of passing a lifetime at his side, +would be renewed, with all its first force and fire.</p> + +<p>—CHARLOTTE BRONTË (<i>Jane Eyre</i>, Ch. xxxii.).</p></blockquote> + + +<p>IV. <a href="#IV">JULIA, ELECTRA, DIANEME</a></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,<br /></span> +<span>Old Time is still a-flying:<br /></span> +<span>And this same flower that smiles to-day<br /></span> +<span>To-morrow will be dying.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun,<br /></span> +<span>The higher he's a-getting,<br /></span> +<span>The sooner will his race be run,<br /></span> +<span>And nearer he's to setting.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>That age is best which is the first,<br /></span> +<span>When youth and blood are warmer;<br /></span> +<span>But being spent, the worse, and worst<br /></span> +<span>Times still succeed the former.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Then be not coy, but use your time;<br /></span> +<span>And while ye may, go marry:<br /></span> +<span>For having lost but once your prime,<br /></span> +<span>You may for ever tarry.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>ANTHEA—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Now is the time when all the lights wax dim,<br /></span> +<span>And thou, Anthea, must withdraw from him<br /></span> +<span>Who was thy servant. Dearest, bury me<br /></span> +<span>Under the holy-oak or gospel tree;...<br /></span> +<span>Or, for mine honour, lay me in that tomb<br /></span> +<span>In which thy sacred relics shall have room:<br /></span> +<span>For my embalming, sweetest, there will be<br /></span> +<span>No spices wanting when I'm laid by thee.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—HERRICK (<i>Hesperides</i>).<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>V. <a href="#V">NICK BOTTOM</a></p> + +<blockquote><p>BOT. A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac; +find out moonshine, find out moonshine.</p> + +<p>—<i>A Midsummer Night's Dream</i>, Act III., Sc. i.</p></blockquote> + + +<p>VI. <a href="#VI">SLEEPING BEAUTY</a></p> + + +<p>VII. & VIII. <a href="#VII">LEMUEL GULLIVER</a></p> + +<blockquote><p>I must freely confess that since my last return some +corruptions of my Yahoo nature have revived in me, +by conversing with a few of your species, and particularly +those of my own family, by an unavoidable necessity; +else I should never have attempted so absurd a +project as that of reforming the Yahoo race in this +kingdom: but I have done with all such visionary +schemes for ever.—<i>Gulliver's Letter to his Cousin.</i></p> + +<p>The first money I laid out was to buy two young +stone horses, which I kept in a good stable, and next to +them the groom is my greatest favourite; for I feel +my spirits revived by the smell he contracts in the +stable.</p> + +<p>—SWIFT (<i>A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms</i>, Ch. xi.).</p></blockquote> + + +<p>IX. & X. <a href="#IX">MISTRUST, OBSTINATE, LIAR, ETC.</a></p> + +<blockquote><p>And as he read he wept and trembled; and not being +able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable +cry, saying, "What shall I do?"...</p> + +<p>The neighbours also came out to see him run; and +as he ran, some mocked, others threatened, and some +cried after him to return.</p></blockquote> + +<p> ATHEIST—</p> + +<blockquote><p>Now, after awhile, they perceived afar off, one coming +softly and alone, all along the highway, to meet them.</p> + +<p>—BUNYAN (<i>The Pilgrim's Progress</i>).</p></blockquote> + + +<p>XI. <a href="#XI">LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI</a></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,<br /></span> +<span>Alone and palely loitering?<br /></span> +<span>The sedge has withered from the lake,<br /></span> +<span>And no birds sing.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>"O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,<br /></span> +<span>So haggard and so woe-begone?<br /></span> +<span>The squirrel's granary is full,<br /></span> +<span>And the harvest's done."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—KEATS.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>XII. <a href="#XII">SLEEP AND DEATH</a></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>Death will come when thou art dead,<br /></span> +<span>Soon, too soon—<br /></span> +<span>Sleep will come when thou art fled;<br /></span> +<span>Of neither would I ask the boon<br /></span> +<span>I ask of thee, beloved Night—<br /></span> +<span>Swift be thine approaching flight,<br /></span> +<span>Come soon, soon!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—SHELLEY.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>XIII. & XIV. <a href="#XIII">A DOCTOR OF PHYSIC</a></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>Well, well, well,—<br /></span> +<span>... God, God forgive us all!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—<i>Macbeth</i>, Act V., Sc. i.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>XV. <a href="#XV">ANNABEL LEE</a></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>I was a child, and she was a child<br /></span> +<span>In this kingdom by the sea;<br /></span> +<span>And we loved with a love that was more than love—<br /></span> +<span>I and my Annabel Lee—<br /></span> +<span>With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven<br /></span> +<span>Coveted her and me.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—EDGAR ALLAN POE.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>XVI. <a href="#XVI">CRISEYDE</a></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>... Love hadde his dwellinge<br /></span> +<span>With-inne the subtile stremes of hir yën.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Book I., 304-5.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Y-wis, my dere herte, I am nought wrooth,<br /></span> +<span>Have here my trouthe and many another ooth;<br /></span> +<span>Now speek to me, for it am I, Criseyde!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Book III., 1110-2.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>And fare now wel, myn owene swete herte!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Book V., 1421.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—CHAUCER (<i>Troilus and Criseyde</i>).<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>THE TRAVELLER<br /> +TO<br /> +THE READER</h3> + + + + +<p>The traveller who presents himself in this +little book feels how tedious a person he may +prove to be. Most travellers, that he ever +heard of, were the happy possessors of audacity +and rigour, a zeal for facts, a zeal for Science, +a vivid faith in powder and gold. Who, then, +will bear for a moment with an ignorant, +pacific adventurer, without even a gun?</p> + +<p>He may, however, seem even more than +bold in one thing, and that is in describing +regions where the wise and the imaginative +and the immortal have been before him. +For that he never can be contrite enough. +And yet, in spite of the renown of these +regions, he can present neither map nor chart +of them, latitude nor longitude: can affirm +only that their frontier stretches just this +side of Dream; that they border Impossibility; +lie parallel with Peace.</p> + +<p>But since it is his, and only his, journey +and experiences, his wonder and delight in +these lands that he tells of—a mere microcosm, +as it were—he entreats forgiveness of +all who love them and their people as much +as he loves them—scarce "on this side +idolatry."</p> + +<p>H.B.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I" id="I" ></a>I</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Oh, what land is the Land of Dream?</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—WILLIAM BLAKE.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>I lived, then, in the great world once, in +an old, roomy house beside a little wood of +larches, with an aunt of the name of Sophia. +My father and mother died a few days +before my fourth birthday, so that I can +conjure up only fleeting glimpses of their +faces by which to remember what love was +then lost to me. Both were youthful at death, +but my Aunt Sophia was ever elderly. She +was keen, and just, seldom less than kind; +but a child was to her something of a little +animal, and it was nothing more. In consequence, +well fed, warmly clad, and in +freedom, I grew up almost in solitude between +my angels, hearkening with how +simple a curiosity to that everlasting warfare +of persuasion and compulsion, terror +and delight.</p> + +<p>Which of them it was that guided me, +before even I could read, to the little room +dark with holly trees that had been of +old my uncle's library, I know not. Perhaps +at the instant it chanced there had +fallen a breathless truce between them, and +I being solitary, my own instinct took me. +But having once found that pictured haven, +I had found somewhat of content.</p> + +<p>I think half my youthful days passed in +that low, book-walled chamber. The candles +I burned through those long years of evening +would deck Alps' hugest fir; the dust I +disturbed would very easily fill again the +measure that some day shall contain my +own; and the small studious thumbmarks +that paced, as if my footprints, leaf by leaf +of that long journey, might be the history +of life's experience in little,—from clearer, to +clear, to faint—how very faint at last!</p> + +<p>I do not remember ever to have been +discovered in this retreat. I was (by nature) +prompt at meals, and wary to be in bed at +my hour, however transitory its occupation +might be. Indeed, I very well recollect +dawn painting the page my eyes dwelt on, +surprising me with its mystery and stealth +in a house as silent as the grave.</p> + +<p>Thus entertained then by insubstantial +society I grew up, and began to be old, +before I had yet learned age is disastrous. +And it was there, in that cold, bright +chamber, one snowy twilight, first suddenly +awoke in me an imperative desire for +distant lands.</p> + +<p>Even while little else than a child I had +begun to cast my mind to travel. I doubt +if ever Columbus suffered such vexation +from an itch to be gone.</p> + +<p>But whither?</p> + +<p>Now, it seemed clear to me after long +brooding and musing that however beautiful +were these regions of which I never wearied +to read, and however wild and faithful and +strange and lovely the people of the books, +somewhere the former must remain yet, +somewhere, in immortality serene, dwell they +whom so many had spent life in dreaming +of, and writing about.</p> + +<p>In fact, take it for all in all, what could +these authors have been at, if they laboured +from dawn to midnight, from laborious +midnight to dawn, merely to tell of what +never was, and never by any chance could +be? It was heaven-clear to me, solitary +and a dreamer; let me but gain the key, +I would soon unlock that Eden garden-door. +Somewhere yet, I was sure, Imogen's +mountains lift their chill summits into +heaven; over haunted sea-sands Ariel flits; +at his webbed casement next the stars +Faust covets youth, till the last trump shall +ring him out of dream.</p> + +<p>It was on a blue March morning, with +all the trees of my aunt's woods in a pale-green +tumult of wind, that, quite unwittingly, +I set out on a journey that has not yet +come to an end.</p> + +<p>There was a hint in the air at my waking, +I fancied, not quite of mere earth, the perfume +of the banners of Flora, of the mould +where in melting snow the crocus blows. I +looked from my window, and the western +clouds drew gravely and loftily in the illimitable +air towards the whistling house. +Strange trumpets pealed in the wind. Even +my poor, aged Aunt Sophia had changed +with the universal change; her great, +solitary face reminded me of some long-forgotten +April.</p> + +<p>And a little before eleven I saddled my +uncle's old mare Rosinante (poor female +jade to bear a name so glorious!), and rode +out (as for how many fruitless seasons I +had ridden out!), down the stony, nettle-narrowed +path that led for a secret mile or +more, beneath lindens, towards the hills.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II" id="II" ></a>II</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Still thou art blest compared wi' me!</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—ROBERT BURNS.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>It is to be wondered at that in so bleak a +wind I could possibly fall into reverie. But +the habit was rooted deep in me; Rosinante +was prosaic and trustworthy; the country +for miles around familiar to me as the palm +of my hand. Yet so deeply was I involved, +and so steadily had we journeyed on, that +when at last I lifted my eyes with a great +sigh that was almost a sob, I found myself +in a place utterly unknown to me.</p> + +<p>But more inexplicable yet, not only was +the place strange, but, by some incredible +wizardry, Rosinante seemed to have carried +me out of a March morning, blue and +tumultuous and bleak, into the grey, sweet +mist of a midsummer dawn.</p> + +<p>I found that we were ambling languidly +on across a green and level moor. Far +away, whether of clouds or hills I could not +yet tell, rose cold towers and pinnacles into +the last darkness of night. Above us in the +twilight invisible larks climbed among the +daybeams, singing as they flew. A thick dew +lay in beads on stick and stalk. We were +alone with the fresh wind of morning and the +clear pillars of the East.</p> + +<p>On I went, heedless, curious, marvelling; +my only desire to press forward to the goal +whereto destiny was directing me. I suppose +after this we had journeyed about an hour, +and the risen sun was on the extreme verge +of the gilded horizon, when I espied betwixt +me and the deep woods that lay in the +distance a little child walking.</p> + +<p>She, at any rate, was not a stranger to this +moorland. Indeed, something in her carriage, +in the grey cloak she wore, in her light, insistent +step, in the old lantern she carried, in +the shrill little song she or the wind seemed +singing, for a moment half impelled me to +turn aside. Even Rosinante pricked forward +her ears, and stooped her gentle face to view +more closely this light traveller. And she +pawed the ground with her great shoe, and +gnawed her bit when I drew rein and leaned +forward in the saddle to speak to the child.</p> + +<p>"Is there any path here, little girl, that I +may follow?" I said.</p> + +<p>"No path at all," she answered.</p> + +<p>"But how then do strangers find their way +across the moor?" I said.</p> + +<p>She debated with herself a moment. "Some +by the stars, and some by the moon," she +answered.</p> + +<p>"By the moon!" I cried. "But at day, +what then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, then, sir," she said, "they can +see."</p> + +<p>I could not help laughing at her demure +little answers. "Why!" I exclaimed, "what +a worldly little woman! And what is your +name?"</p> + +<p>"They call me Lucy Gray," she said, +looking up into my face. I think my heart +almost ceased to beat.</p> + +<p>"Lucy Gray!" I repeated.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said most seriously, as if to +herself, "in all this snow."</p> + +<p>"'Snow,'" I said—"this is dewdrops shining, +not snow."</p> + +<p>She looked at me without flinching. "How +else can mother see how I am lost?" she +said.</p> + +<p>"Why!" said I, "how else?" not knowing +how to reach her bright belief. "And what +are those thick woods called over there?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "There is no name," +she said.</p> + +<p>"But you have a name—Lucy Gray; and +you started out—do you remember?—one +winter's day at dusk, and wandered on and +on, on and on, the snow falling in the dark, +till—Do you remember?"</p> + +<p>She stood quite still, her small, serious +face full to the east, striving with far-off +dreams. And a merry little smile passed +over her lips. "That will be a long time +since," she said, "and I must be off home." +And as if it had been but an apparition of +my eyes that had beset and deluded me, she +was gone; and I found myself sitting astride +in the full brightness of the sun's first beams, +alone.</p> + +<p>What omen was this, then, that I should +meet first a phantom on my journey? One +thing only was clear: Rosinante could trust +to her five wits better than I to mine. So +leaving her to take what way she pleased, +I rode on, till at length we approached the +woods I had descried. Presently we were +jogging gently down into a deep and misty +valley flanked by bracken and pines, from +which issued into the crisp air of morning +a most delicious aromatic smell, that seemed +at least to prove this valley not far remote +from Araby.</p> + +<p>I do not think I was disturbed, though I +confess to having been a little amazed to see +how profound this valley was into which we +were descending, yet how swiftly climbed the +sun, as if to pace with us so that we should +not be in shadow, howsoever fast we journeyed. +I was astonished to see flowers of other +seasons than summer by the wayside, and to +hear in June, for no other month could bear +such green abundance, the thrush sing with +a February voice. Here too, almost at my +right hand, perched a score or more of robins, +bright-dyed, warbling elvishly in chorus as if +the may-boughs whereon they sat were white +with hoarfrost and not buds. Birds also +unknown to me in voice and feather I saw, +and little creatures in fur, timid yet not wild; +fruits, even, dangled from the trees, as if, like +the bramble, blossom and seed could live here +together and prosper.</p> + +<p>Yet why should I be distracted by these +things, thought I. I remembered Maundeville +and Hithlodaye, Sindbad and Gulliver, and +many another citizen of Thule, and was reassured. +A man must either believe what +he sees, or see what he believes; I know no +other course. Why, too, should I mistrust +the bounty of the present merely for the +scarcity of the past? Not I!</p> + +<p>I rode on, and it seemed had advanced +but a few miles before the sun stood overhead, +and it was noon. We were growing +weary, I think, of sheer delight: Rosinante, +with her mild face beneath its dark forelock +gazing this side, that side, at the uncustomary +landscape; and I ever peering forward beneath +my hat in eagerness to descry some living +creature a little bigger than these conies and +squirrels, to prove me yet in lands inhabited. +But the sun was wheeling headlong, and the +stillness of late afternoon on the woods, when, +dusty and parched and heavy, we came to a +break in the thick foliage, and presently to +a green gate embowered in box.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="III" id="III" ></a>III</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Thou art so true, that thoughts of thee suffice</i><br /></span> +<span><i>To make dreams truth, and fables histories.</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—JOHN DONNE.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>I dismounted and, with the nose of my +beast in my bosom, stood awhile gazing, in +the half-dream weariness brings, across the +valley at the dense forests that covered the +hills. And while thus standing, doubtful +whether to knock at the little gate or to +ride on, it began to open, and a great particoloured +dog looked out on us. There was +certainly something unusual in the aspect of +this animal, for though he lifted on us grave +and sagacious eyes, he scarcely seemed to +see us, manifested neither pleasure nor disapproval, +neither wagged his tail to give us +welcome nor yawned to display his armament. +He seemed a kind of dream-dog, +a dog one sees without zeal, and sees again +partly with the eye, but most in recollection.</p> + +<p>Thus however we stood, stranger, horse, +and dog, till a morose voice called somewhere +from beyond, "Pilot, sir, come here, +Pilot." Semi-dog or no, he knew his master. +Whereupon, tying up my dejected Rosinante +to a ring in the gateway, I followed boldly +after "Pilot" into that sequestered garden.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, however, he had disappeared—down +a thick green alley to the left, I +supposed. So I went forward by a clearer +path, and when I had advanced a few paces, +met face to face a lady whose dark eyes +seemed strangely familiar to me.</p> + +<p>She was evidently a little disquieted at +meeting a stranger so unceremoniously, but +stood her ground like a small, black, fearless +note of interrogation.</p> + +<p>I explained at once, therefore, as best I +could, how I came to be there: described +my journey, my bewilderment, and how +that I knew not into what country nor +company fate had beguiled me, except that +the one was beautiful, and the other in +some delightful way familiar, and I begged +her to tell me where I really was, and how +far from home, and of whom I was now +beseeching forgiveness.</p> + +<p>Her thoughts followed my every word, +passing upon her face like shadows on the +sea. I have never seen a listener so completely +still and so completely engrossed in +listening. And when I had finished, she +looked aside with a transient, half-sly smile, +and glanced at me again covertly, so that I +could not see herself for seeing her eyes; +and she laughed lightly.</p> + +<p>"It is indeed a strange journey," she replied. +"But I fear I cannot in the least +direct you. I have never ventured my own +self beyond the woods, lest—I should penetrate +too far. But you are tired and hungry. +Will you please walk on a few steps till +you come to a stone seat? My name is +Rochester—Jane Rochester"—she glanced up +between the hollies with a sigh that was all +but laughter—"Jane Eyre, you know."</p> + +<p>I went on as she had bidden, and seated +myself before an old, white, many-windowed +house, squatting, like an owl at noon, beneath +its green covert. In a few minutes +the great dog with dripping jowl passed +almost like reality, and after him his mistress, +and on her arm her master, Mr. +Rochester.</p> + +<p>There seemed a night of darkness in that +scarred face, and stars unearthly bright. +He peered dimly at me, leaning heavily on +Jane's arm, his left hand plunged into the +bosom of his coat. And when he was come +near, he lifted his hat to me with a kind +of Spanish gravity.</p> + +<p>"Is this the gentleman, Jane?" he enquired.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"He's young!" he muttered.</p> + +<p>"For otherwise he would not be here," +she replied.</p> + +<p>"Was the gate bolted, then?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rochester desires to know if you +had the audacity, sir, to scale his garden +wall," Jane said, turning sharply on me. +"Shall I count the strawberries, sir?" she +added over her shoulder."</p> + +<p>"Jane, Jane!" he exclaimed testily. "I +have no wish to be uncivil, sir. We are +not of the world—a mere dark satellite. I +am dim; and suspicious of strangers, as this +one treacherous eye should manifest. I'll +but ask your name, sir,—there are yet a +few names left, once pleasing to my ear."</p> + +<p>"My name is Brocken, sir—Henry Brocken," +I answered.</p> + +<p>"And—did you walk? Pah! there's the +mystery! God knows how else you could +have come, unless you are a modern Ganymede. +Where then's your aquiline steed, +sir? We have no neighbours here—none +to stare, and pry, and prate, and slander."</p> + +<p>I informed him that I was as ignorant as +he what power had spirited me to his house, +but that so far as obvious means went, my +old horse was probably by this time fast +asleep beside the green gate at which I had +entered. Jane stood on tip-toe and whispered +in his ear, and, nodding imperiously +at him, withdrew into the house.</p> + +<p>Complete silence fell between us after +her departure. The woods stood dark and +motionless in the yellow evening light. +There was no sound of wind or water, +no sound of voices or footsteps; only far +away the clear, scarce-audible warbling of a +sleepy bird.</p> + +<p>"Well, sir," Mr. Rochester said suddenly, +"I am bidden invite you to pass the night +here. There are stranger inhabitants than +Mr. and Mrs. Rochester in these regions +you have by some means strayed into—wilder +denizens, by much; for youth's +seraphic finding. Not for mine, sir, I vow. +Depart again in the morning, if you will: +we shall neither of us be displeased by then +to say farewell, I dare say. I do not seek +company. My obscure shell is enough." +I rose. "Sit down—sit down again, my dear +sir; there's no mischief in the truth between +two men of any world, I suppose, assuredly +not of this. My wife will see to your comfort. +There! hushie now, here he floats; +sit still, sit still—I hear his wings. It is my +'Four Evangels,' sir!"</p> + +<p>It was a sleek blackbird that had alighted +and now set to singing on the topmost twig +of a lofty pear-tree near by; and with his +first note Jane reappeared. And while we +listened, unstirring, to that rich, undaunted +voice, I had good opportunity to observe +her, and not, I think, without her knowledge, +not even without her approval.</p> + +<p>This, then, was the face that had returned +wrath for wrath, remorse for remorse, passion +for passion to that dark egotist Jane in the +looking-glass. Yet who, thought I, could be +else than beautiful with eyes that seemed to +hide in fleeting cloud a flame as pure as +amber? The arch simplicity of her gown, +her small, narrow hands, the exquisite cleverness +of mouth and chin, the lovely courage +and sincerity of that yet-childish brow—it +seemed even Mr. Rochester's "Four Evangels" +out of his urgent rhetoric was summoning +with reiterated persuasions, "Jane Eyre, Jane +Eyre, Jane Eyre, Ja ... ne!"</p> + +<p>Light faded from the woods; a faint +wind blew cold upon our faces. Jane took +Mr. Rochester's hand and looked into his +face.</p> + +<p>She turned to me. "Will you come in, +Mr. Brocken? I have seen that your horse +is made quite easy. He was fast asleep, +poor fellow, as you surmised; and, I think, +dreaming; for when I proffered him a lump +of sugar, he thrust his nose into my face +and breathed as if I were a peck of corn. +The candles are lit, sir; supper is ready."</p> + +<p>We went in slowly, and Jane bolted the +door. "But who it is that can be bolted +out," she said, "I know not; though there's +much to bolt in. I have stood here, Mr. +Brocken, on darker nights as still as this, +and have heard what seemed to be the sea +breaking, far away, leagues upon leagues +beyond the forests—the gush forward, the +protracted, heavy retreat,—listened till I +could have wept to think that it was only +my own poor furious heart beating. You +may imagine, then, I push the bolts home."</p> + +<p>"But why, Jane—why?" cried Mr. +Rochester incredulously. "Violent fancies, +child!"</p> + +<p>"Why, sir, it was, I say, not the sea I +heard, but a trickling tide one icy tap +might stay, if it found but entry there."</p> + +<p>"You talk wildly, Jane—wildly, wildly; +the air's afloat with listeners; so it seems, +so it seems. Had I but one clear lamp +in this dark face!"</p> + +<p>We sat down in the candle-lit twilight +to supper. It was to me like the supper +of a child, taken at peace in the clear +beams, ere he descend into the shadow of +sleep.</p> + +<p>They sat, try as I would not to observe +them, hand touching hand throughout the +meal. But to me it was as if one might +sit to eat before a great mountain ruffled +with pines, and perpetually clamorous with +torrents. All that Mr. Rochester said, every +gesture, these were but the ghosts of words +and movements. Behind them, gloomy, imperturbable, +withdrawn, slumbered a strange, +smouldering power. I began to see how +very hotly Jane must love him, she who +loved above all things storm, the winds of +the equinox, the illimitable night-sky.</p> + +<p>She begged him to take a little wine with +me, and filled his glass till it burned like +a ruby between their hands.</p> + +<p>"It paints both our hands!" she cried +glancing up at him.</p> + +<p>"Ay, Janet," he answered; "but where +is yours?"</p> + +<p>"And what goal will you make for when +you leave us," she enquired of me. "<i>Is</i> +there anywhere else?" she added, lifting +her slim eyebrows.</p> + +<p>"I shall put trust in Chance," I replied, +"which at least is steadfast in change. So +long as it does not guide me back, I care +not how far forward I go."</p> + +<p>"You are right," she answered; "that is +a puissant battlecry, here and hereafter."</p> + +<p>Mr. Rochester rose hastily from his chair. +"The candles irk me, Jane. I would like to +be alone. Excuse me, sir." He left the room.</p> + +<p>Jane lifted a dark curtain and beckoned +me to bring the lights. She sat down +before a little piano and desired me to sit +beside her. And while she played, I know +not what, but only it seemed old, well-remembered +airs her mood suggested, she +asked me many questions.</p> + +<p>"And am I indeed only like that poor +mad thing you thought Jane Eyre?" she +said, "or did you read between?"</p> + +<p>I answered that it was not her words, +not even her thoughts, not even her poetry +that was to me Jane Eyre.</p> + +<p>"What then is left of me?" she enquired, +stooping her eyes over the keys and smiling +darkly. "Am I indeed so evanescent, a +wintry wraith?"</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "Jane Eyre is left."</p> + +<p>She pressed her lips together. "I see," she +said brightly. "But then, was I not detestable +too? so stubborn, so wilful, so demented, +so—vain?"</p> + +<p>"You were vain," I answered, "because—"</p> + +<p>"Well?" she said, and the melody died +out, and the lower voices of her music +complained softly on.</p> + +<p>"For a barrier," I answered.</p> + +<p>"A barrier?" she cried.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes," I said, "a barrier against +cant, and flummery, and coldness, and +pride, and against—why, against your own +vanity too."</p> + +<p>"That's really very clever—penetrating," +she said; "and I really desired to know, not +because I did not know already, but to know +I knew all. You are a perspicacious observer, +Mr. Brocken; and to be that is to be alive +in a world of the moribund. But then +too how high one must soar at times; for +one must ever condescend in order to observe +faithfully. At any rate, to observe all one +must range at an altitude above all."</p> + +<p>"And so," I said, "you have taken your +praise from me—"</p> + +<p>"But you are a man, and I a woman: +we look with differing eyes, each sex to the +other, and perceive by contrast. Else—why, +how else could you forgive my presumption? +He sees me as an eagle sees the creeping +tortoise. I see him as the moon the sun, +never weary of gazing. I borrow his radiance +to observe him by. But I weary you with +my garrulous tongue.... Have you no plan +at all in your journey? 'Tis not the dangers, +but to me the endless restlessness of such a +venture—that 'Oh, where shall wisdom be +found?'... Will you not pause?—stay with +us a few days to consider again this rash +journey? To each his world: it is surely +perilous to transgress its fixed boundaries."</p> + +<p>"Who knows?" I cried, rather arrogantly +perhaps. "The sorcery that lured me hither +may carry me as lightly back. But I have +tasted honey and covet the hive."</p> + +<p>She glanced sidelong at me with that +stealthy gravity that lay under all her lightness.</p> + +<p>"That delicious Rosinante!" she exclaimed +softly.... "And I really believe too <i>I</i> must +be the honey—or is it Mr. Rochester? Ah! +Mr. Brocken, they call it wasp-honey when +it is so bitter that it blisters the lips." She +talked on gaily, as if she had forgotten I was +but a stranger until now. Yet none the less +she perceived presently my eyes ever and +again fixed upon the little brooch of faintest +gold hair at her throat, and flinched and +paled, playing on in silence.</p> + +<p>"Take the whole past," she continued +abruptly, "spread it out before you, with all +its just defeats, all its broken faith, and overweening +hopes, its beauty, and fear, and love, +and its loss—its loss; then turn and say: this, +this only, this duller heart, these duller eyes, +this contumacious spirit is all that is left—myself. +Oh! who could wish to one so dear +a destiny so dark?" She rose hastily from +the piano. "Did I hear Mr. Rochester's step +by the window?" she said.</p> + +<p>I crossed the room and looked out into +the night. The brightening moon hung +golden in the dark clearness of the sky. +Mr. Rochester stood motionless, Napoleon-wise, +beneath the black, unstirring foliage. +And before I could turn, Jane had begun to +sing:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>You take my heart with tears;<br /></span> +<span>I battle uselessly;<br /></span> +<span>Reft of all hopes and doubts and fears,<br /></span> +<span>Lie quietly.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>You veil my heart with cloud;<br /></span> +<span>Since faith is dim and blind,<br /></span> +<span>I can but grope perplex'd and bow'd,<br /></span> +<span>Seek till I find.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Yet bonds are life to me;<br /></span> +<span>How else could I perceive<br /></span> +<span>The love in each wild artery<br /></span> +<span>That bids me live?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Jane's was not a rich voice, nor very sweet, +and yet I fancied no other voice than this +could plead and argue quite so clearly and +with such nimble insistency—neither of bird, +nor child, nor brook; because, I suppose, it +was the voice of Jane Eyre, and all that was +Jane's seemed Jane's only.</p> + +<p>The music ceased, the accompaniment died +away; but Mr. Rochester stood immobile +yet—a little darker night in that much +deeper. When I turned, Jane was gone +from the room. I sat down, my face towards +the still candles, as one who is awake, +yet dreams on. The faint scent of the earth +through the open window; the heavy, sombre +furniture; the daintiness and the alertness in +the many flowers and few womanly gew-gaws: +these too I shall remember in a +tranquillity that cannot change.</p> + +<p>A sudden, trembling glimmer at the window +lit the garden and, instantaneously, the +distant hills; lit also the figures of Jane and +Mr. Rochester beneath the trees. They +entered the house, and once more Jane drew +the bolts against that phantom fear. A tinge +of scarlet stood in her cheeks, an added +lustre in her eyes. They were strange lovers, +these two—like frost upon a cypress tree; +yet summer lay all around us.</p> + +<p>I bade them good night and ascended to +the little room prepared for me. There was +a great pincushion on the sprigged and portly +toilet table, and I laboured till the constellations +had changed beyond my window, in +printing from a box of tiny pins upon that +lavendered mound, "Ave, Ave, atque Vale!"</p> + +<p>Far in the night a dreadful sound woke +me. I rose and looked out of the window, +and heard again, deep and reverberating, +Pilot baying I know not what light minions +of the moon. The Great Bear wheeled +faintly clear in the dark zenith, but the +borders of the east were grey as glass; and +far away a fierce hound was answering from +his echo-place in the gloom, as if the dread +dog of Acheron kept post upon the hills.</p> + +<p>A light tap woke me in the sunlight, and +a lighter voice. Mr. Rochester took breakfast +with us in a gloomy old dressing-room, +moody and taciturn, unpacified by sleep. +But Jane, whimsical and deft, had tied a +yellow ribbon in the darkness of her hair.</p> + +<p>Rosinante awaited me at the little green +gate, eyeing forlornly the steep valley at her +feet. And I rode on. The gate was shut +on me; and Mr. Rochester again, perhaps, +at his black ease.</p> + +<p>I had jogged on, with that peculiar gravity +age brings to equine hoofs, about a mile, +when the buttress of a thick wall came into +view abutting on the lane, and perched +thereon what at first I deemed a coloured +figment of the mist that festooned the +branches and clung along the turf. But +when I drew near I saw it was indeed +a child, pink and gold and palest blue. +And she raised changeling hands at me, and +laughed and danced and chattered like the +drops upon a waterfall; and clear as if a +tiny bell had jingled I heard her cry.</p> + +<p>And my heart smote me heavily since I +had of my own courtesy not remembered +Adèle.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV" ></a>IV</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, tu-witta-woo.</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—THOMAS NASH.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>It was yet early, and refreshing in the +chequered shade. We plodded earnestly after +our gaunt shadow in the dust, and ever downward, +till at last we drew so near to the +opposite steep that I could well nigh count +its pines.</p> + +<p>It was about the hour when birds seek +shade and leave but few among their fellows +to sing, that at a stone's throw from the +foot of the hill I came to where a faint +bridle-path diverged. And since it was +smooth with moss, and Rosinante haply +tired of pebbles; since any but the direct +road seems ever the more delectable, I too +turned aside, and broke into the woods +through which this path meandered.</p> + +<p>Maybe it is because all woods are enchanted +that the path seemed more than many miles +long. Often too we loitered, or stood, head +by head, to listen, or to watch what might be +after all only wings, mere sunbeams. Shall +I say, then, that it began to be thorny, and, +where the thorns were, pale with roses, when +at length the knitted boughs gradually drew +asunder, and I looked down between twitching, +hairy ears upon a glade so green and +tranquil, I deemed it must be the Garden of +the Hesperides?</p> + +<p>And because there ran a very welcome +brook of water through this glade, I left +Rosinante to follow whithersoever a sweet +tooth might dictate, and climbed down into +the weedy coolness at the waterbrink.</p> + +<p>I confess I laughed to see so puckered a +face as mine in the clear blue of the flowing +water. But I dipped my hands and my +head into the cold shallows none the less +pleasantly, and was casting about for a deeper +pool where I might bathe unscorned of the +noonday, when I heard a light laughter behind +me, and, turning cautiously, perceived under +the further shadow of the glade three ladies +sitting.</p> + +<p>Not even vanity could persuade me that +they were laughing at anything more grotesque +than myself, so, putting a bold face +on matters so humiliating, I sauntered as +carelessly and loftily as I dared in their +direction. My courage seemed to abash +them a little; they gathered back their petticoats +like birds about to fly. But at hint +of a titter, they all three began gaily laughing +again till their eyes sparkled brighter than +ever, and their cheeks seemed shadows of +the roses above their heads.</p> + +<p>"Ladies," I began gravely, "I have left my +horse, that is very old and very thirsty, above +in the wood. Is there any path I may discover +by which she may reach the water +without offence?"</p> + +<p>"Is she very old?" said one.</p> + +<p>"She is very old," I said.</p> + +<p>"But is she very thirsty?" said another.</p> + +<p>"She is perhaps very thirsty," I said.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps!" cried they all.</p> + +<p>"Because, ladies," I replied, "being by +nature of a timid tongue, and compelled to +say something, and having nothing apt to +say, I remembered my old Rosinante above +in the wood."</p> + +<p>They glanced each at each, and glanced +again at me.</p> + +<p>"But there is no path down that is not +steep," said the fairest of the three.</p> + +<p>"There never was a path, not even, we +fear, for a traveller on foot," continued the +second.</p> + +<p>I waited in silence a moment. "Forgive +me, then," I said; "I will offend no longer."</p> + +<p>But this seemed far from their design.</p> + +<p>"You see, being come," began the fairest +again, "Julia thinks Fortune must have +brought you. Are we not all between Fortune's +finger and thumb?"</p> + +<p>"If pinching is to prove anything," said +the other.</p> + +<p>"And Fortune is fickle, too," added Julia—"that's +early wisdom; but not quite so fickle +as you would wish to show her. Here we +have sat in these mortal glades ever since our +poor Herrick died. And here it seems we +are like to sit till he rises again. It is all so—dubious. +But since Electra has invited you +to rest awhile, will you not really rest? There +is shade as deep, and fruit to refresh you, in +a little arbour yonder. Perhaps even Anthea +will dip out of her weeping awhile if she hears +that ... a poor old thirsty horse is tethered in +the woods."</p> + +<p>They rose up together with a prolonged +rustling as of a peacock displaying his plumes; +and I found myself irretrievably their captive.</p> + +<p>Moreover, even if they were but sylphs +and fantasies of the morning, they were +fantasies lovely as even their master had +portrayed; while the dells through which they +led me were green and deep and white and +golden with buds.</p> + +<p>It was now, I suppose, about the middle of +the morning, yet though the sun was high, +his heat was that of dawn. Dawn lingered +in the shadows, as snow when winter is over +and gone, and dwelt among the sunbeams. +Dew lay heavy on the grass, as the dainty +heels of my captresses testified, yet they trod +lightly upon daisies wide-open to the blue +sky, while daffadowndillies stooped in a silence +broken only by their laughter.</p> + +<p>We came presently to a little stone summerhouse +or arbour, enclustered with leaves +and flowers of ivy and convolvulus, wherein +two great dishes of cherries stood and bowls +of honeycomb and sillabub.</p> + +<p>There we sat down; but they kept me +close too in the midst of the arbour, where +perhaps I was not so ill-content to be as I +should like to profess. How then could I else +than bob for cherries as often as I dared, and +prove my wit to conceal my hunger?</p> + +<p>"And now, Sir Traveller," said she of the +sparkling eyes, named Dianeme, "since we +have got you safe, tell us of all we have never +heard or seen!"</p> + +<p>"And oh! are we forgot?" cried Electra, +laying a lip upon a cherry.</p> + +<p>"There's not a poet in his teens but warbles +of you morn, noon, and night," I answered. +"There's not a lover mad, young, true, and +tender, but borrows your azure, and your +rubies, and your roses, and your stars, to +deck his sweetheart's name with."</p> + +<p>"Boys perhaps," cried Julia softly, "but +<i>men</i> soon forget."</p> + +<p>"Youth never," I replied.</p> + +<p>"Why 'Youth'?" said Dianeme. "Herrick +was not always young."</p> + +<p>"Ay, but all men once were young, please +God," I said, "and youth is the only 'once' +that's worth remembrance. Youth with the +heart of youth adores you, ladies; because, +when dreams come thick upon them, they +catch your flying laughter in the woods. +When the sun is sunk, and the stars kindle in +the sky, then your eyes haunt the twilight. +You come in dreams, and mock the waking. +You the mystery; you the bravery and +danger; you the long-sought; you the never-won; +memories, hopes, songs ere the earth +is mute. You will always be loved, believe +me, O bright ladies, till youth fades, turns, +and loves no more." And I gazed amazed +on cherries of such potency as these.</p> + +<p>"But once, sir," said Julia timidly, "we +were not only loved but <i>told</i> we were loved."</p> + +<p>"Where is the pleasure else?" cried +Dianeme.</p> + +<p>"Besides," said Electra, "Anthea says if +we might but find where Styx flows one +draught—my mere palmful—would be +sweeter than all the poetry ever writ, save +some."</p> + +<p>"It is idle," cried Dianeme; "Herrick +himself admired us most on paper."</p> + +<p>"And ink makes a cross even of a kiss, +that is very well known," said Julia.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said I, "all men have eyes; few +see. Most men have tongues: there is but +one Robin Herrick."</p> + +<p>"I will tell you a secret," said Dianeme.</p> + +<p>And as if a bird of the air had carried +her voice, it seemed a hush fell on sky and +greenery.</p> + +<p>"We are but fairy-money all," she said, +"an envy to see. Take us!—'tis all dry +leaves in the hand. Herrick stole the +honey, and the bees he killed. Blow never +so softly on the tinder, it flames—and dies."</p> + +<p>"I heard once," said Electra, with but a +thought of pride, "that had I lived a little, +little earlier, I might have been the Duchess +of Malfi."</p> + +<p>"I too, Flatterer," cried Julia, "I +too—Desdemona slain by a blackamoor. To +some it is the cold hills and the valleys +'green and sad,' and the sea-birds' wailing," +she continued in a low, strange voice, "and +to some the glens of heather, and the +mountain-brooks, and the rowans. But, +come to an end, what are we all? This +man's eyes will tell ye! I would give +white and red, nectar and snow and roses, +and all the similes that ever were for—"</p> + +<p>"For what?" said I.</p> + +<p>"I think, for Robin Herrick," she said.</p> + +<p>It was a lamentable confession, for that +said, gravity fled away; and Electra fetched +out a lute from a low cupboard in the +arbour, and while she played Julia sang to +a sober little melody I seemed to know of +old:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>Sighs have no skill<br /></span> +<span>To wake from sleep<br /></span> +<span>Love once too wild, too deep.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Gaze if thou will,<br /></span> +<span>Thou canst not harm<br /></span> +<span>Eyes shut to subtle charm.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Oh! 'tis my silence<br /></span> +<span>Shows thee false,<br /></span> +<span>Should I be silent else?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Haste thou then by!<br /></span> +<span>Shine not thy face<br /></span> +<span>On mine, and love's disgrace!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Whereat Dianeme lifted on me so naïve +an afflicted face I must needs beseech +another song, despite my drowsy lids. +Wherefore I heard, far away as it were, +the plucking of the strings, and a voice +betwixt dream and wake sing:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>All sweet flowers<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wither ever,<br /></span> +<span>Gathered fresh<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or gathered never;<br /></span> +<span>But to live when love is gone!—<br /></span> +<span>Grieve, grieve, lute, sadly on!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>All I had—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'Twas all thou gav'st me;<br /></span> +<span>That foregone,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ah! what can save me?<br /></span> +<span>If the exórcised spirit fly,<br /></span> +<span>Nought is left to love me by.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Take thy stars,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My tears then leave me;<br /></span> +<span>Thine my bliss,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As thine to grieve me;<br /></span> +<span>Take....<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>For then, so insidious was the music, +and not quite of this earth the voice, my +senses altogether forsook me, and I fell +asleep.</p> + +<p>Would that I could remember much else! +But I confess it is the heart remembers, +not the poor, pestered brain that has so +many thoughts and but one troubled thinker. +Indeed, were I now to be asked—Were +the fingers cold of these bright ladies? +Were their eyes blue, or hazel, or brown? +or, haply, were Dianeme's that incomparable, +dark, sparkling grey? Wore Julia azure, +and Electra white? And was that our +poet wrote our poet's only, or truly theirs, +and so even more lovely?—I fear I could +not tell.</p> + +<p>I fell asleep; and when I awoke no lute +was sounding. I was alone; and the arbour +a little house of gloom on the borders +of evening. I caught up yet one more +handful of cherries, and stumbled out, heavy +and dim, into a pale-green firmanent of +buds and glow-worms, to seek the poor +Rosinante I had so heedlessly deserted.</p> + +<p>But I was gone but a little way when I +was brought suddenly to a standstill by +another sound that in the hush of the garden, +in the bright languor after sleep, went to my +heart: it was as if a child were crying.</p> + +<p>I pushed through a thick and aromatic +clump of myrtles, and peering between the +narrow leaves, perceived the cold, bright face +of a little marble god beneath willows; and, +seated upon a starry bank near by, one whom +by the serpentry of her hair and the shadow +of her lips I knew to be Anthea.</p> + +<p>"Why are you weeping?" I said.</p> + +<p>"I was imitating a little brook," she said.</p> + +<p>"It is late; the bat is up; yet you are +alone," I said.</p> + +<p>"Pan will protect me," she said.</p> + +<p>"And nought else?"</p> + +<p>She turned her face away. "None," she +said. "I live among shadows. There was +a world, I dreamed, where autumn follows +summer, and after autumn, winter. Here it +is always June, despite us both."</p> + +<p>"What, then, would you have?" I said.</p> + +<p>"Ask him," she replied.</p> + +<p>But the little god looking sidelong was +mute in his grey regard.</p> + +<p>"Why do you not run away? What keeps +you here?"</p> + +<p>"You ask many questions, stranger! Who +can escape? To live is to remember. To +die—oh, who would forget! Even had I been +weeping, and not merely mocking time away, +would my tears be of Lethe at my mouth's +corners? No," said Anthea, "why feign +and lie? All I am is but a memory lovely +with regret."</p> + +<p>She rose, and the myrtles concealed her +from me. And I, in the midst of the dusk +where the tiny torches burned sadly—I turned +to the sightless eyes of that smiling god.</p> + +<p>What he knew, being blind, yet smiling, I +seemed to know then. But that also I have +forgotten.</p> + +<p>I whistled softly and clearly into the air, +and a querulous voice answered me from afar—the +voice of a grasshopper—Rosinante's.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="V" id="V" ></a>V</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>How should I your true love know</i><br /></span> +<span><i>From another one?</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>But even then she was difficult finding, so +cunningly had ivy and blackberry and bindweed +woven snares for the trespasser's foot.</p> + +<p>But at last—not far from where we had +parted—I found her, a pillar of smoke in the +first shining of the moon. She turned large, +smouldering eyes on me, her mane in elf +locks, her flanks heaving and wet, her forelock +frizzed like a colt's. Yet she showed +only pleasure at seeing me, and so evident +a desire to unburden the day's history, that +I almost wished I might be Balaam awhile, +and she—Dapple!</p> + +<p>It would be idle to attempt to ride through +these thick, glimmering brakes. The darkness +was astir. And as the moon above the +valley brightened, casting pale beams upon +the folded roses and drooping branches, if +populous dream did not deceive me, a tiny +multitude was afoot in the undergrowth—small +horns winding, wee tapers burning.</p> + +<p>Presently as with Rosinante's nose at my +shoulder we pushed slowly forward, a nightingale +burst close against my ear into so +passionate a descant I thought I should be +gooseflesh to the end of my days.</p> + +<p>The heedless tumult of her song seemed +to give courage to sounds and voices much +fainter. Soon a lovelit rival in some distant +thicket broke into song, and far and near their +voices echoed above the elfin din of timbrel and +fife and hunting-horn. I began to wish the +moon away that dazzled my eyes, yet could +not muffle my ears.</p> + +<p>In the heavy-laden boughs dim lanterns +burned. There, indeed, when we dipped +into the deeper umbrage of some loftier tree, +I espied the pattering hosts—creatures my +Dianeme might have threaded for a bangle, +yet breeched and armed and fiercely martial.</p> + +<p>Down, too, in a watery dell of harts-tongue, +around the root of a swelling +fungus, a lovely company floated of an insubstantiality +subtile as taper-smoke, and of a +beauty as remote as the babes in children's +eyes.</p> + +<p>We passed unheeded. Four bearded hoofs +rose and fell upon the moss with all the +circumspection snorting Rosinante could compass. +But one might as well go snaring +moonbeams as dream to crush such airy +beings. Ever and again a gossamer company +would soar like a spider on his magic thread, +and float with a whisper of remotest music +past my ear; or some bolder pigmy, out +of the leaves we brushed in passing, skip +suddenly across the rusty amphitheatre of +my saddle into the further covert.</p> + +<p>So we wandered on, baffled and confused, +through a hundred pathless glens and dells till +already gold had begun to dim the swelling +moon's bright silver, and by the freshness +and added sweetness of the air it seemed dawn +must be near, when, on a sudden, a harsh, +preposterous voice broke on my ear, and such +a see-saw peal of laughter as I have never +tittered in sheer fellowship with before, or +since. We stood listening, and the voice +broke out again.</p> + +<p>"Tittany—nay, Tittany, you'll crack my +sides with laughing. Have again at you! love +your master and you'll wax nimble. Bottom +will learn you all. Trust Time and Bottom; +though in sooth your weeny Majesty is +something less than natural. Drive thy +straw deeper, Mounsieur Mustardseed! there +squats a pestilent sweet notion in that +chamber could spellican but set him capering. +Prithee your mousemilk hand on this +smooth brow, mistress! Your nectar throbbeth +like a blacksmith's anvil. Master Moth, +draw you these bristling lashes down, they +mirk the stars and call yon nothing Quince +to mind—a vain, official knave, in and out, +to and fro, play or pleasure; and old Sam +Snout, the wanton! Lad's days and all—'twas +life, Tittany; and I was ever foremost. +They'd bob and crook to me like spaniels at +a trencher. Mine was the prettiest conceit, +this way, that way, past all unravelling +till envy stretched mine ears. Now I'm old +dreams. Gone all men's joy, your worships, +since Bully Bottom took to moonshine. +Where floats your babe's-hand now, Dame +Lovepip?"</p> + +<p>There he lolled, immortal Bottom, propped +on a bed of asphodel and moly that seemed +to curd the moonshine; and at his side, +Titania slim and scarlet, and shimmering +like a bride-cake. The sky was dark above +the tapering trees, but here in the secret +woods light seemed to cling in flake and +scarf. And it so chanced as our two +noses leaned forward into his retreat that +Bottom's head lolled back upon its pillow, +and his bright, simple eyes stared deep into +our own.</p> + +<p>"Save me, ye shapes of nought," he bellowed, +"no more, no more, for love's sake. +I begin to see what men call red Beelzebub, +and that's an end to all true fellowship. +Whiffle your tufted bee's wing, Signior Cobweb, +I beseech you—a little fiery devil with +four eyes floats in my brain, and flame's +a frisky bedfellow. Avaunt! avaunt ye! +Would now my true friend Bottom the +weaver were at my side. His was a courage +to make princes great. Prithee, Queen +Tittany, no more such cozening possets!"</p> + +<p>I drew Rosinante back into the leaves.</p> + +<p>"Droop now thy honeyed lids, my dearest +love!" I heard a clear voice answer. "There's +nought can harm thee in these silvered woods: +no bird that pipes but love incites his throat, +and never a dewdrop wells but whispers +peace!"</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay, 'tis very well, you have a gift, you +have a gift, Tittany's for twisting words to +sugarsticks. But la, there, what wots your +trickling whey of that coal-piffling Prince of +Flies! I'm Bottom the weaver, I am. He +knows not his mother's ring-finger that knows +not Nick Bottom. Back, back, ye jigging +dreams! 'Tis Puckling nods. Ha' done, ha' +done—there's no sweet sanity in an asshead +more if I quaff their elvish ... Out now ... Ha' +done, I say!"</p> + +<p>Then indeed he slumbered truly, this engarlanded +weaver, his lids concealing all bright +speculation, his jowl of vanity (foe of the +Philistine) at peace: and I might gaze unperceived. +The moon filled his mossy cubicle +with her untrembling beams, streamed upon +blossoms sweet and heavy as Absalom's hair, +while tiny plumes wafted into the night the +scent of thyme and meadow-sweet.</p> + +<p>I know not how long they would have kept +me prisoner with their illusive music. I dared +not move, scarce wink; for much as immortality +may mollify hairiness, I had no wish to +live too frank.</p> + +<p>How, also, would this weaver who slumbered +so cacophonously welcome a rival to his +realms. I say I sat still, like Echo in the +woods when none is calling; like too, I grant, +one who ached not a little after jolts and jars +and the phantasmal mists of this engendering +air. But none stirred, nor went, nor came. +So resting my hands cautiously on a little +witch's guild of toadstools that squatted cold +in shade, I lifted myself softly and stood alert.</p> + +<p>And in a while out of that numerous company +stepped one whom by his primrose face +and mien I took to be Mounsieur Mustardseed, +and I followed after him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI" ></a>VI</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Care-charming Sleep ...</i><br /></span> +<span><i>... sweetly thyself dispose</i><br /></span> +<span><i>On this afflicted prince!</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—JOHN FLETCHER.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>Away with a blink of his queer green +eye over his shoulder he sauntered by a +devious path out of the dell. Forgetful of +thorn and brier, trickery and wantonness, +we clambered down after him, out of the +moonlight, into a dark, clear alley, soundless +and solitary amid these enchanted woods.</p> + +<p>As I have said already, another air than +that of night was abroad in the green-grey +shadows of the woods. Yet between the +lofty and heavy-hooded pines scarce a beam +of dawn pierced downward.</p> + +<p>Wider swept the avenue, but ever dusky +and utterly silent. Deeper moss couched +here; unfallen moondrops glistened; mistletoe +palely sprouted from the gnarled boughs. +Nor could I discern, though I searched +close enough, elder or ash tree or bitter rue. +We journeyed softly on till I lost all count +of time, lost, too, all guidance; for as a +flower falls had vanished Mustardseed.</p> + +<p>Far away and ever increasing in volume +I heard the trembling crash of some great +water falling. What narrow isles of sky +were visible between the branches lay sunless +and still. Yet already, on a mantled +pool we journeyed softly by, the waterlily +was unfolding, the swan afloat in beauty.</p> + +<p>In a dim, still light we at last slowly +descended out of the darker glade into a +garden of grey terraces and flowerless walks. +Even Rosinante seemed perturbed by the +stillness and solitude of this wild garden. +She trod with cautious foot and peering +eye the green, rainworn paths, that led us +down presently to where beneath the vault +of its trees a river flowed.</p> + +<p>Surely I could not be mistaken that +here a voice was singing as if out of the +black water-deeps, so clear and hollow were +the notes. I burst through the knotted +stalks of the ivy, and stooping like some +poor travesty of Narcissus, with shaded face +pierced down deep—deep into eyes not +my own, but violet and unendurable and +strange—eyes of the living water-sprite +drawing my wits from me, stilling my +heart, till I was very near plunging into +that crystal oblivion, to be fishes evermore.</p> + +<p>But my fingers still grasped my friend's +kind elf-locks, and her goose-nose brooded +beside mine upon that water of undivulged +delight. Out of the restless silence of the +stream floated this long-drawn singing:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>Pilgrim forget; in this dark tide<br /></span> +<span>Sinks the salt tear to peace at last;<br /></span> +<span>Here undeluding dreams abide,<br /></span> +<span>All sorrow past.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Nods the wild ivy on her stem;<br /></span> +<span>The voiceless bird broods on the bough;<br /></span> +<span>The silence and the song of them<br /></span> +<span>Untroubled now.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Free that poor captive's flutterings,<br /></span> +<span>That struggles in thy tired eyes,<br /></span> +<span>Solace its discontented wings,<br /></span> +<span>Quiet its cries!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Knells now the dewdrop to its fall,<br /></span> +<span>The sad wind sleeps no more to rove;<br /></span> +<span>Rest, for my arms ambrosial<br /></span> +<span>Ache for thy love!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I cannot think how one so meekened +with hunger as I, resisted that water-troubled +hair, eyes that yet haunt me, that +heart-alluring voice.</p> + +<p>"No, no," I said faintly, and the words of +Anthea came unbidden to mind, "to sleep—oh! +who would forget? You plead merely +with some old dream of me—not <i>all</i> me, you +know. Gold is but witchcraft. And as for +sorrow—spread me a magical table in this +nettle-garden, I'll leave all melancholy!"</p> + +<p>I must indeed have been exhausted to +chop logic with a water-witch. As well +argue with minnows, entreat the rustling +of ivy-leaves. It was Rosinante, wearying, +I suppose, of the reflection of her own +mild countenance, that drew me back from +dream and disaster. She turned with arched +neck seeking a more wholesome pasture than +these deep mosses.</p> + +<p>Leaving her then to her own devices, +and yet hearkening after the voice of the +charmer, I came out again into the garden, +and perceived before me a dark palace +with one lofty tower.</p> + +<p>It seemed strange I had not seen the +tower at my first coming into this wilderness. +It stood with clustered summit and +stooping gargoyles, appealing as it were to +fear, in utter silence.</p> + +<p>Though I knew it must be day, there +was scarcely more than a green twilight +around me, ever deepening, until at last I +could but dimly discern the upper windows +of the palace, and all sound waned but the +roar of distant falling water.</p> + +<p>Then it was I found that I was not +alone in the garden. Two little leaden +children stood in an attitude of listening +on either side of the carved porch of the +palace, and between them a figure that +seemed to be watching me intently.</p> + +<p>I looked and looked again—saw the +green-grey folds, the tawny locks, the +mistletoe, the unearthly eyes of this unstirring +figure, yet, when I advanced but +one strenuous pace, saw nought—only the +little leaden boys and the porch between +them.</p> + +<p>These childish listeners, the straggling +briers, the impenetrable thickets, the +emerald gloaming, the marble stillness of +the lofty lichenous tower: I took courage. +Could such things be in else than Elfland? +And she who out of beauty and being +vanishes and eludes, what else could she +be than one of Elfland's denizens from +whom a light and credulous heart need +fear nothing.</p> + +<p>I trod like a shadow where the phantom +had stood and opened the unused door. I +was about to pass into the deeper gloom of +the house when a hound appeared and stood +regarding me with shining eyes in the faint +gloaming. He was presently joined by one +as light-footed, but milk-white and slimmer, +and both turned their heads as if in question +of their master, who had followed close +behind them.</p> + +<p>This personage, because of the gloom, or +the better to observe the intruder on his +solitude, carried a lantern whose beams were +reflected upon himself, attired as he was +from head to foot in the palest primrose, +but with a countenance yet paler.</p> + +<p>There was no hint of enmity or alarm or +astonishment in the colourless eyes that were +fixed composedly on mine, nothing but +courtesy in his low voice.</p> + +<p>"Back, Safte!—back, Sallow!" he cried softly +to his hounds; "is this your civility? Indeed, +sir," he continued to me, "it was all I could +do to dissuade the creatures from giving +tongue when you first appeared on the terrace +of my solitary gardens. I heard too the +water-sprite: she only sings when footsteps +stray upon the banks." He smiled wanly, +and his nose seemed even sharper in his pale +face, and his yellow hair leaner about his +shoulders. "I feared her voice might prove +too persuasive, and deprive me of the first +strange face I have seen these many decades +gone."</p> + +<p>I bowed and murmured an apology for +my intrusion, just as I might perhaps to +some apparition of nightmare that over-stayed +its welcome.</p> + +<p>"I beseech you, sir," he replied, "say no +more! It may be I deemed you at first a +visitor perchance even more welcome—if it +be possible,... yet I know not that either. +My name is Ennui,"—he smiled again—"Prince +Ennui. You have, perchance, heard +somewhere our sad story. This is the perpetual +silence wherein lies that once-happy +princess, my dear sister, Sleeping Beauty."</p> + +<p>His voice seemed but an echo amongst +the walls and arches of this old house, and +he spoke with a suave enunciation as if in +an unfamiliar tongue.</p> + +<p>I replied that I had read the ever-lovely +story of Sleeping Beauty, indeed knew it by +heart, and assured him modestly that I had +not the least doubt of a happy ending—"that +is, if the author be the least authority."</p> + +<p>He narrowed his lids. "It is a tradition," +he replied; "meanwhile, the thickets broaden."</p> + +<p>Whereupon I begged him to explain how +it chanced that among that festive and +animated company I had read of, he alone +had resisted the wicked godmother's spell.</p> + +<p>He smiled distantly, and bowed me into +the garden.</p> + +<p>"That is a simple thing," he said.</p> + +<p>Yet for the life of me I could not but +doubt all he told me. He who could pass +spring on to spring, summer on to summer, +in the company of beasts so sly and silent, +so alert and fleet as these hounds of his, +could not be quite the amiable prince he +feigned to be. I began to wish myself in +homelier places.</p> + +<p>It seems that on the morning of the fatal +spindle, he had gone coursing, with this Safte +and Sallow and his horse named "Twilight," +and after wearying and heating himself at +the sport, a little after noon, leaving his +attendants, had set out to return to the palace +alone. But allured by the cool seclusion of a +"lattice-arbour" in his path, he had gone in, +and then and there, "Twilight" beneath +the willows, his hounds at his feet, had fallen +asleep.</p> + +<p>Undisturbed, dreamless, "the unseemly +hours sped light of foot." He awoke again, +between sunset and dark; the owl astir; +"the silver gnats yet netting the shadows," +and so returned to the palace.</p> + +<p>But the spell had fallen—king and courtier, +queen and lady and page and scullion, hawk +and hound, slept a sleep past waking—"while +I, roamed and roam yet in a solitary +watch beyond all sleeping. Wherefore, sir, +I only of the most hospitable house in these +lands am awake to bid you welcome. But +as for that, a few dwindling and harsh fruits +in my orchards, and the cold river water +that my dogs lap with me, are all that +is left to offer you. For I who never +sleep am never hungry, and they who never +wake—I presume—never thirst. Would, +sir, it were otherwise! After such long +silence, then, conceive how strangely falls +your voice on ears that have heard only +wings fluttering, dismal water-songs, and the +yelp and quarrel and night-voice of unseen +hosts in the forests."</p> + +<p>He glanced at me with a mild austerity +and again lowered his eyes. I cannot now +but wonder how the rhythm of a voice so +soft, so monotonous, could give such pleasure +to the ear. I almost doubted my own eyes +when I looked upon his yellow, on that +unmoved, sad, mad, pale face.</p> + +<p>I had no doubt of his dogs, however, and +walked scarcely at ease beside him, while they, +shadow-footed, closely followed us at heel.</p> + +<p>"Prince Ennui" conducted me with shining +lantern into a dense orchard thickly under-grown, +marvellously green, with a small, hard +fruit upon its branches, shaped like a medlar, +of a crisp, sweet odour and, despite its hardness, +a delicious taste. The interwoven twigs +of the stooping trees were thickly nested; a +veritable wilderness of moonlike and starry +flowers ran all to seed amid the nettles and +nightshade of this green silence. And while +I ate—for I was hungry enough—Prince +Ennui stood, his hand on Sallow's muzzle, +lightly thridding the dusky labyrinths of the +orchard with his faint green eyes.</p> + +<p>Mine, too, were not less busy, but rather +with its lord than with his orchard. And the +strange thought entered my mind, Was he +in very deed the incarnation of this solitude, +this silence, this lawless abundance? Somewhere, +in the green heats of summer, had he +come forth, taken shape, exalted himself? +What but vegetable ichor coursed through +veins transparent as his? What but the +swarming mysteries of these thick woods +lurked in his brain? As for his hounds, theirs +was the same stealth, the same symmetry, the +same cold, secret unhumanity as his. Creatures +begotten of moonlight on silence they seemed +to me, with instincts past my workaday wits +to conceive.</p> + +<p>And Rosinante! I laughed softly to think +of her staid bones beside the phantom +creature this prince had called up to me at +mention of "Twilight."</p> + +<p>I ate because I was ravenously hungry, but +also because, while eating, I was better at my +ease.</p> + +<p>Suddenly out of the stillness, like an arrow, +Safte was gone; and far away beneath the +motionless leaves a faint voice rang dwindling +into silence. I shuddered at my probable +fate.</p> + +<p>Prince Ennui glanced lightly. "When the +magic horn at last resounds," he said, "how +strange a flight it will be! These thorny +briers encroach ever nearer on my palace walls. +I am a captive ever less at ease. Summer by +summer the sun rises shorn yet closer of his +beams, and now the lingering transit of the +moon is but from one wood by a narrow +crystal arch to another. They will have me +yet, sir. How weary will the sleepy ones be +of my uneasy footfall!"</p> + +<p>And even as Safte slipped softly back to his +watching mate, the patter and shrill menace +of voices behind him hinted not all was +concord between these hidden multitudes and +their unseemly prince.</p> + +<p>The master-stars shone earlier here; already +sparkling above the tower was a canopy of +clearest darkness spread, while the leafy fringes +of the sky glowed yet with changing fires.</p> + +<p>We returned to the lawns before the palace +porch, and, with his lantern in his hand, the +Prince signed to me to go in. I was not a +little curious to view that enchanted household +of which I had read so often and with so +much delight as a child.</p> + +<p>In the banqueting-hall only the matted +windows were visible in the lofty walls. +Prince Ennui held his lantern on high, and by +its flame, and the faint light that flowed in +from above, I could presently see, distinct in +gloom, as many sleepers as even Night could +desire.</p> + +<p>Here they reclined just as sorcerous sleep +had overtaken them. But how dimmed, how +fallen! For Time that could not change the +sleeper had changed with quiet skill all else. +Tarnished, dusty, withered, overtaken, yellowed, +and confounded lay banquet and cloth-of-gold, +flagon, cup, fine linen, table, and stool. +But in all the ruin, like buds of springtime in +a bare wood, or jewels in ashes, slumbered +youth and beauty and bravery and delight.</p> + +<p>I lifted my eyes to the King. The gold of +his divinity was fallen, his splendour quenched; +but life's dark scrutiny from his face was gone. +He made no stir at our light, slumbered untreasoned +on. The lids of his Queen were +lightlier sealed, only withheld beauty as a +cloud the sky it hides. His courtiers flattered +more elusively, being sincerely mute, and only +a little red dust was all the wine left.</p> + +<p>I seemed to hear their laughter clearer now +that the jest was forgotten, and to admire +better the pomp, and the mirth, and the grace, +and the vanity, now that time had so far +travelled from this little tumult once their +triumph.</p> + +<p>In a kind of furtive bravado, I paced the +length of the long, thronged tables. Here +sat a little prince that captivated me, dipping +his fingers into his cup with a sidelong +glance at his mother. There a high officer, +I know not how magnificent and urgent +when awake, slumbered with eyes wide open +above his discouraged moustaches.</p> + +<p>Simply for vanity of being awake in such +a sleepy company, I strutted conceitedly to +and fro. I bent deftly and pilfered a little +cockled cherry from between the very fingertips +of her whose heart was doubtless like +its—quite hard. And the bright lips never +said a word. I sat down, rather clownishly I +felt, beside an aged and simpering chancellor +that once had seemed wise, but now seemed +innocent, nibbling a biscuit crisp as scandal. +For after all the horn <i>would</i> sound. Childhood +had been quite sure of that—needed not +even the author's testimony. They were alert +to rise, scattering all dust, victors over Time +and outrageous Fortune.</p> + +<p>Almost with a cry of apprehension I perceived +again the solitary Prince. But he +merely smiled faintly. "You see, sir," he said, +"how weary must a guardianship be of them +who never tire. The snow falls, and the +bright light falls on all these faces; yet not +even my Lady Melancholy stirs a dark lid. +And all these dog-days—" He glanced at +his motionless hounds. They raised languidly +their narrow heads, whimpering softly, as if +beseeching of their master that long-delayed +supper—haplessly me. "No, no, sirs," said +the Prince, as if he had read their desire +as easily as he whom it so much concerned. +"Guard, guard, and hearken. This gentleman +is not the Prince we await, Sallow; +not the Prince, Safte! And now, sir,"—he +turned again to me—"there is yet one +other sleeper—she who hath brought so much +quietude on a festive house."</p> + +<p>We climbed the staircase where dim light +lay so invitingly, and came presently to a +little darker chamber. Green, blunt things +had pushed and burst through the casement. +The air smelled faintly-sour of brier, and +was as still as boughs of snow. There the +not-unhappy Princess reclined before a +looking-glass, whither I suppose she had +run to view her own alarm when the sharp +needle pierced her thumb. All alarm was +stilled now on her face. She, one might +think, of all that company of the sleepy, +was the only one that dreamed. Her youthful +lips lay a little asunder; the heavy +beauty of her hair was parted on her forehead; +her childish hands sidled together like +leverets in her lap. "Why!" I cried aloud, +almost involuntarily, "she breathes!"</p> + +<p>And at sound of my voice the hounds +leapt back; and, on a traveller's oath, I +verily believe, once, and how swiftly, and +how fearfully and brightly, those childish +lids unsealed their light as of lilac that lay +behind, glanced briefly, fleetingly, on one +who had ventured so far, and fell again to +rest.</p> + +<p>"And when," I cried harshly, "when +will that laggard burst through this agelong +silence? Here's dust enough for all to see. +And all this ruin, this inhospitable peace!"</p> + +<p>Prince Ennui glanced strangely at me.</p> + +<p>"I assure you, O suddenly enkindled," +he said in his suave, monotonous voice, "it +is not for <i>my</i> indifference he does not come. +I would willingly sleep; these—my dear +sister, all these old fineries and love-jinglers +would as fain wake." He turned away his +treacherous eyes from me. "Maybe the +Lorelei hath snared him!..." he said, +smiling.</p> + +<p>I relished not at all the thought of sleeping +in this mansion of sleep. Yet it seemed +politic to refrain from giving offence to +fangs apparently so eager to take it. +Accordingly I followed this Ennui to a +loftier chamber yet that he suggested for +me.</p> + +<p>Once there, however, and his soft footfall +passed away, I looked about me, first to +find a means for keeping trespassers from +coming in, and next to find a means for +getting myself out.</p> + +<p>It was a long and arduous, but not a +perilous, descent from the window by the +thick-grown greenery that cumbered the +walls. But I determined to wait awhile +before venturing,—wait, too, till I could see +plainly where Rosinante had made her +night-quarters. By good fortune I discovered +her beneath the greenish moon +that hung amid mist above the forest, +stretching a disconsolate neck at the waterside +as if in search of the Lorelei.</p> + +<p>When, as it seemed to me, it must be +nearing dawn, though how the hours flitted +so swiftly passed my comprehension, I very +cautiously climbed out of my narrow window +and descended slowly to the lawns +beneath. My foot had scarcely touched +ground when ringing and menacing from +some dark gallery of the palace above me +broke out a distant baying.</p> + +<p>Nothing shall persuade me to tell how +fast I ran; how feverishly I haled poor +Rosinante out of sleep, and pushed her +down into the deeps of that coal-black +stream; with what agility I clambered into +the saddle.</p> + +<p>Yet I could not help commiserating the +while the faithful soul who floated beneath +me. The stream was swift but noiseless, the +water rather rare than cold, yet, despite all +the philosophy beaming out of her maidenly +eyes across the smooth surface of the tide, +Rosinante must have preferred from the +bottom of her heart dry land.</p> + +<p>I, too, momentarily, when I discovered +that we were speedily approaching the +roaring fall whose reverberations I had +heard long since.</p> + +<p>Out of the emerald twilight we floated +from beneath the overarching thickets. Pale +beams were striking from the risen sun upon +the gliding surface, and dwelt in splendour +where danger sat charioted beneath a palely +gorgeous bow. Yet I doubt if ever mortal +man swept on to defeat at last so rapturously +as I.</p> + +<p>The gloomier trees had now withdrawn +from the banks of the river. A pale morning +sky over-canopied the shimmering forests. +Here rose the solitary tower where Echo +tarried for the Hornblower. And straight +before us, across that level floor, beyond +a tremulous cloud of foam and light and +colour, lurked the unseen, the unimaginable, +the ever-dreamed-of, Death.</p> + +<p>Heedless of Lorelei, heedless of all save +the beauty and terror and glory in which +they rode, down swept snorting ship and +master to doom.</p> + +<p>The crystal water jargoned past my +saddle. Sky, earth, and tower, like the +panorama of a dream, wheeled around me. +Light blinded me; clamour deafened me; +foam and the pure wave and cold darkness +whelmed over me. We surged, paused, +gazed, nodded, crashed:—and so an end to +Ennui.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII" ></a>VII</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>He loves to talk with marineres</i><br /></span> +<span><i>That come from a far countree.</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>How long my body was the sport of that +foaming water I cannot tell. But when I +again opened my eyes, I found, first, that the +sun was shining dazzling clear high above +me, and, next, that the delightful noise of +running water babbled close against my ear. +I lay upon a strip of warm sward by the river's +brink. Near by me grew some rank-smelling +waterside plant, and overhead the air seemed +peopled with larks.</p> + +<p>I crawled, confused and aching, to the +water, and dipped my head and hands into the +cold rills. This soon refreshed me, for the +sun had, it would seem, long been dwelling on +that passive corse of mine by the waterside +and had parched it to the skin.</p> + +<p>But it was some little while yet before my +mind returned fully to what had passed, and +so to my loss.</p> + +<p>I sat looking at the grey, noisy water, +almost incredulous that Rosinante could be +gone. It might be that the same hand as +must have drawn myself from drowning had +snatched her bridle also out of Fate's grasp. +Perhaps even now she was seeking her master +by the greener pasture of the wide plains +around me. Perhaps the far-off sea was her +green sepulchre. But many waters cannot +quench love. I faced, friendless and discomfited, +a region as strange to me as the +farther side of the moon.</p> + +<p>Without more ado I rose, shook myself, +and sadly began to go forward. But I had +taken only a few steps along the banks of +the stream—for here was fresh water, at +least—when a sound like distant thunder +rolled over these flat, green lands towards +me, increasing steadily in volume.</p> + +<p>I stood, lost in wonder, and presently, at the +distance, perhaps, of a little less than a mile, +descried an innumerable herd of horses streaming +across these level pastures, and at the +extremity, it seemed, of a wide ellipse, that +had brought them near, and now was galloping +them away.</p> + +<p>My heart beat a little faster at this extraordinary +spectacle. And while I stood in +uncertainty gazing after the retreating concourse, +I perceived a figure running towards +me, lifting his hands and crying out in a voice +sonorous and inhuman. He was of a stature +much above my own, yet so gross in shape +and immense of head he seemed at first almost +dwarfish. He came to a stand twenty paces +or so from me, on the ridge of a gentle +inclination, and gazed down on me with wild, +bright eyes. Even at this distance I could +perceive the almost colourless lustre of his +eyes beneath his thick locks of yellow hair. +When he had taken his fill of me, he lifted +his head again and cried out to me a few +words of what certainly might be English, +but was neither intelligible nor reassuring.</p> + +<p>I stood my ground and stared him in the +face, till I could see nothing but wind-blown +yellow, and strange, brutal eyes. Then he +advanced a little nearer. Whereupon I also +raised my hand with a gesture like his own, +and demanded loudly where I was, what was +this place, and who was he. His very ears +pricked forward, he listened so intently. He +came nearer yet, then stayed, tossed his head +into the air, whirled the long leather thong +he carried above his head, and, signing to me +to follow, set off with so swift and easy a +stride as would soon have carried him out of +sight, had he not turned and perceived how +slowly I could follow him.</p> + +<p>He slackened his pace then, and, thus +running, we came in sight at length of what +appeared to be a vast wooden shed, or barn, +with one rude chimney, and surrounded by +a thick fence, or stockade, many feet high +and apparently of immense strength and +stability.</p> + +<p>In the gateway of this fence stood the +master of these solitudes, his eyes fixed +strangely on my coming with an intense, I +had almost said incredulous, interest. Nor +did he cease so to regard me, while the +creature that had conducted me thither, told, +I suppose, where he had found me, and poured +out with childish zeal his own amazement and +delight. By this time, too, his voice had +begun to lose its first strangeness, and to take +a meaning for me. And I was presently +fully persuaded he spoke a kind of English, +and that not unpleasingly, with a liquid, shrill, +voluminous ease. His master listened patiently +awhile, but at last bade his servant be silent, +and himself addressed me.</p> + +<p>"I am informed, Yahoo," he said with peculiar +deliberation, "that you have been borne +down into my meadows by the river, and +fetched out thence by my servant. Be aware, +then, that all these lands from horizon to +horizon are mine and my people's. I desire +no tidings of what follies may be beyond my +boundaries, no aid, and no amity. I admit no +trespasser here and will bear with none. It +appears, however, that your life has passed +beyond your own keeping: I may not, therefore, +refuse you shelter and food, and to have +you conducted in safety beyond my borders. +Have the courtesy, then, to keep within +shelter of these walls till the night be over. +Else"—he gazed out across the verdant +undulations—"else, Yahoo, I have no power +to protect you."</p> + +<p>He turned once more, and regarded me +with a lofty yet tender recognition, as if, little +though his speech might profess it, he very +keenly desired my safety.</p> + +<p>He then stepped aside and bade me rather +sharply enter the gate before him. I tried to +show none of the mistrust I felt at passing out +of these open lands into this repellent yard. +I glanced at the shock-haired creature, alert, +half-human, beside me; across the limitless +savannah around me, echoing yet, it seemed, +with the rumour of innumerable hoofs; and +bowing, as it were, to odds, I went in.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, I felt my host had been +frank with me. If this was indeed the same +Lemuel Gulliver whose repute my infancy had +prized so well, I need have no fear of blood +and treachery at his hands, however primitive +and disgusting his household, or distorted his +intellect might be. He who had proved +no tyrant in Lilliput, nor quailed before the +enormities of Brobdingnag, might abhor the +sight of me; he would not play me false.</p> + +<p>His servant, or whatsoever else he might +be, I considered not quite so calmly. Yet +even in <i>his</i> broad countenance dwelt a something +like bright honesty, less malice than +simplicity.</p> + +<p>Wherefore, I say, I ordered down my +cowardice, and, looking both of them as +squarely in the face as I knew how, passed +out of the open into the appalling yard of +this wooden house.</p> + +<p>I say "appalling," but without much +reason. Perhaps it was the unseemly hugeness +of its balks, the foul piles of skins, +the mounds of refuse that lay about within; +perhaps the all-pervading beastly stench, the +bareness and filthiness under so glassy-clear +and fierce a sun that revolted me. All +man's seemliness and affection for the natural +things of earth were absent. Here was +only a brutal and bald order, as of an +intelligence like that of the yellow-locked, +swift-footed creature behind me. Perhaps +also it was the mere unfamiliarity of much +I saw there that estranged me. All lay +in neglect, cracked and marred with rough +usage,—coarse strands of a kind of rope, +strips of hide, gaping tubs, a huge and +rusty brazier, and in one corner a great +cage, many feet square and surmounted +with an iron ring.</p> + +<p>I know not. I almost desired Sallow at +my side, and would to heaven Rosinante's +nose lay in my palm.</p> + +<p>Within the house a wood-fire burned in +the sun, its smoke ascending to the roof, +and flowing thence through a rude chimney. +A pot steamed over the fire, burdening the +air with a savour at first somewhat faint +and disgusting,—perhaps because it was +merely strange to me. The walls of this +lofty room were of rough, substantial timber, +bare and weatherproof; the floor was of the +colour of earth, seemingly earth itself. A +few rude stools, a bench, and a four-legged +table stood beside the unshuttered window. +And from this stretched the beauteous +green of the grass-land or prairie beyond the +stockade.</p> + +<p>The house, then, was built on the summit +of a gentle mound, and doubtless commanded +from its upper window the extreme +reaches of this sea of verdure.</p> + +<p>I sat down where Mr. Gulliver directed +me, and was not displeased with the warmth +of the fire, despite the sun. I was cold +after that long, watery lullaby, and cold too +with exhaustion after running so far at the +heels of the creature who had found me. +And I dwelt in a kind of dream on the +transparent flames, and watched vacantly the +seething pot, and smelt till slowly appetite +returned the smoke of the stuff that bubbled +beneath its lid.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gulliver himself brought me my +platter of this pottage, and though it tasted +of nothing in my experience—a kind of +sweet, cloying meat—I was so tired of the +fruits to which enterprise had as yet condemned +me, I ate of it hungrily and +heartily. Yet not so fast as that the +young "Gulliver" had not finished his +before me, and sat at length watching every +mouthful I took from beneath his sun-enticing +thatch of hair. Ever and again +he would toss up his chin with a shrill +guffaw, or stoop his head till his eyeballs +were almost hidden beneath their thick +lashes, so regarding me for minutes together +with a delightful simulation of intelligence, +yet with that peculiar wistful affection his +master had himself exhibited at first sight +of me.</p> + +<p>But when our meal was done, Mr. +Gulliver ordered him about his business. +Without a murmur, with one last, long, +brotherly glance at me, he withdrew. And +presently after I heard from afar his high, +melancholy "cooee," and the crack of his +thong in the afternoon air as he hastened +out to his charges.</p> + +<p>My companion did not stir. Only the +flames waved silently along the logs. The +beam of sunlight drew across the floor. +The crisp air of the pasture flowed through +the window. What wonder, then, that, +sitting on my stool, I fell asleep!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII" ></a>VIII</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>If I see all, ye're nine to ane!</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—OLD BALLAD.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>I was awoke by a sustained sound as of +an orator speaking in an unknown tongue, +and found myself in a sunny-shadowy loft, +whither I suppose I must have been carried +in my sleep. In a delicious languor between +sleeping and waking I listened with +imperturbable curiosity awhile to that voice +of the unknown. Indeed, I was dozing +again when a different sound, enormous, +protracted, abruptly aroused me. I got up, +hot and trembling, not yet quite my own +master, to discover its cause.</p> + +<p>Through a narrow slit between the timbers +I could view the country beneath me, far +and wide. I saw near at hand the cumbrous +gate of the stockade ajar, and at a little +distance on the farther side Mr. Gulliver +and his half-human servant standing. In +front of them was an empty space—a narrow +semicircle of which Gulliver was the centre. +And beyond—wild-eyed, dishevelled, stretching +their necks as if to see, inclining their +heads as if to hearken, ranging in multitude +almost to the sky's verge—stood assembled, +it seemed to me, all the horses of the +universe.</p> + +<p>Even in my first sensation of fear admiration +irresistibly stirred. The superb freedom +of their unbridled heads, the sun-nurtured +arrogance of their eyes, the tumultuous, sea-like +tossing of crest and tail, their keenness +and ardour and might, and also in simple +truth their numbers—how could one marvel +if this solitary fanatic dreamed they heard +him and understood?</p> + +<p>Unarmed, bareheaded, he faced the brutal +discontent of his people. Words I could not +distinguish; but there was little chance of +misapprehending the haughty anguish with +which he threatened, pleaded, cajoled. Clear +and unfaltering his voice rose and fell. He +dealt out fearlessly, foolishly, to that long-snouted, +little-brained, wild-eyed multitude, +reason beyond their instinct, persuasion beyond +their savagery, love beyond their heed.</p> + +<p>But even while I listened, one thing I +knew those sleek malcontents heard too—the +Spirit of man in that small voice of his—perplexed, +perhaps, and perverted, and out of +tether; but none the less unconquerable and +sublime.</p> + +<p>What less, thought I, than power unearthly +could long maintain that stern, impassable +barrier of green vacancy between their hoofs +and him? And I suppose for the very reason +that these were beasts of a long-sharpened +sagacity, wild-hearted, rebellious, yet not the +slaves of impulse, he yet kept himself their +king who was, in fact, their captive.</p> + +<p>"Houyhnhnms?" I heard him cry; "pah—Yahoos!" +His voice fell; he stood confronting +in silence that vast circumference +of restless beauty. And again broke out +inhuman, inarticulate, immeasurable revolt. +Far across over the tossing host, rearing, +leaping, craning dishevelled heads, went pealing +and eddying that hostile, brutal voice.</p> + +<p>Gulliver lifted his hand, and a tempestuous +silence fell once more. "Yahoos! Yahoos!" +he bawled again. Then he turned, and passed +back into his hideous garden. The gate was +barred and bolted behind him.</p> + +<p>Thus loosed and unrestrained, surged as if +the wind drove them, that concourse upon the +stockade. Heavy though its timbers were, +they seemed to stoop at the impact. A kind +of fury rose in me. I lusted to go down and +face the mutiny of the brutes; bit, and saddle, +and scourge into obedience man's serfs of the +centuries. I watched, on fire, the flame of +the declining sun upon those sleek, vehement +creatures of the dust. And then, I know not +by what subtle irony, my zeal turned back—turned +back and faded away into simple longing +for my lost friend, my peaceful beast-of-evening, +Rosinante. I sat down again in the +litter of my bed and earnestly wished myself +home; wished, indeed, if I must confess it, +for the familiar face of my Aunt Sophia, my +books, my bed. If these were this land's horses, +I thought, what men might here be met! The +unsavouriness, the solitude, the neighing and +tumult and prancing induced in me nothing +but dulness at last and disgust.</p> + +<p>But at length, dismissing all such folly, at +least from my face, I lifted the trap-door and +descended the steep ladder into the room +beneath.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gulliver sat where I had left him. +Defeat stared from his eyes. Lines of insane +thought disfigured his face. Yet he sat, +stubborn and upright, heedless of the uproar, +heedless even that the late beams of the sun +had found him out in his last desolation. So +I too sat down without speech, and waited +till he should come up out of his gloom, +and find a friend in a stranger.</p> + +<p>But day waned; the sunlight went out +of the great wooden room; the tumult +diminished; and finally silence and evening +shadow descended on the beleaguered house. +And I was looking out of the darkened +window at a star that had risen and stood +shining in the sky, when I was startled by a +voice so low and so different from any I had +yet heard that I turned to convince myself it +was indeed Mr. Gulliver's.</p> + +<p>"And the people of the Yahoos, Traveller," +he said, "do they still lie, and flatter, and +bribe, and spill blood, and lust, and covet? +Are there yet in the country whence you +come the breadless bellies, the sores and rags +and lamentations of the poor? Ay, Yahoo, +and do vicious men rule, and attain riches; +and impious women pomp and flattery?—hypocrites, +pandars, envious, treacherous, +proud?" He stared with desolate sorrow +and wrath into my eyes.</p> + +<p>Words in disorder flocked to my tongue. I +grew hot and eager, yet by some instinct held +my peace. The fluttering of the dying flames, +the starry darkness, silence itself; what were +we who sat together? Transient shadows both, +phantom, unfathomable, mysterious as these.</p> + +<p>I fancied he might speak again. Once he +started, raised his arm, and cried out as if +acting again in dream some frenzy of the past. +And once he wheeled on me extraordinary +eyes, as if he half-recognised some idol of +the irrevocable in my face. These were +momentary, however. Gloom returned to his +forehead, vacancy to his eyes.</p> + +<p>I heard the outer gate flung open, and a +light, strange footfall. So we seated ourselves, +all three, for a while round the smouldering +fire. Mr. Gulliver's servant scarcely took his +eyes from my face. And, a little to my confusion, +his first astonishment of me had now +passed away, and in its stead had fallen such a +gentleness and humour as I should not have +supposed possible in his wild countenance. +He busied himself over his strips of skin, but +if he caught my eye upon his own he would +smile out broadly, and nod his great, hairy +head at me, till I fancied myself a child again +and he some vast sweetheart of my nurse.</p> + +<p>When we had supped (sitting together in +the great room), I climbed the ladder into +the loft and was soon fast asleep. But from +dreams distracted with confusion I awoke +at the first shafts of dawn. I stood beside the +narrow window in the wall of the loft and +watched the distant river change to silver, +the bright green of the grass appear.</p> + +<p>This seemed a place of few and timorous +birds, and of fewer trees. But all across the +dews of the grasses lay a tinge of powdered +gold, as if yellow flowers were blooming in +abundance there. I saw no horses, no sign of +life; heard no sound but the cadent wail of +the ash-grey birds in their flights. And when +I turned my eyes nearer home, and compared +the distant beauty of the forests and their +radiant clouds with the nakedness and desolation +here, I gave up looking from the window +with a determination to be gone as soon as +possible from a country so uncongenial.</p> + +<p>Moreover, Mr. Gulliver, it appeared, had +returned during the night to his first mistrust +of my company. He made no sign he saw +me, and left his uncouth servant to attend +on me. For him, indeed, I began to feel a +kind of affection springing up; he seemed +so eager to befriend me. And whose is +the heart quite hardened against a simple +admiration? I rose very gladly when, after +having stuffed a wallet with food, he signed +to me to follow him. I turned to Mr. +Gulliver and held out my hand.</p> + +<p>"I wish, sir, I might induce you to accompany +me," I said. "Some day we would +win our way back to the country we have +abandoned. I have known and loved your +name, sir, since first I browsed on pictures—Being +measured for your first coat in Lilliput +by the little tailors:—Straddling the pinnacled +city. Ay, sir, and when the farmers picked +you up 'twixt finger and thumb from among +their cornstalks...."</p> + +<p>I had talked on in hope to see his face +relax; but he made no sign he saw or heard +me. I very speedily dropped my hand and +went out. But when my guide and I had +advanced about thirty yards from the stockade, +I cast a glance over my shoulder towards the +house that had given me shelter. It rose, +sad-coloured and solitary, between the green +and blue. But, if it was not fancy, Mr. +Gulliver stood looking down on me from the +very window whence I had looked down on +him. And there I do not doubt he stayed +till his fellow-yahoo had passed across his +inhospitable lands out of his sight for ever.</p> + +<p>I was glad to be gone, and did not, at first, +realise that the least danger lay before us. +But soon, observing the extraordinary vigilance +and caution my companion showed, I began +to watch and hearken, too. Evidently our +departure had not passed unseen. Far away +to left and to right of us I descried at whiles +now a few, now many, swift-moving shapes. +But whether they were advancing with us, or +gathering behind us, in hope to catch their +tyrant alone and unaware, I could not properly +distinguish.</p> + +<p>Once, for a cause not apparent to me, my +guide raised himself to his full height, and, +thrusting back his head, uttered a most +piercing cry. After that, however, we saw no +more for a while of the beasts that haunted +our journey.</p> + +<p>All morning, till the sun was high, and the +air athrob with heat and stretched like a great +fiddlestring to a continuous, shrill vibration, +we went steadily forward. And when at last +I was faint with heat and thirst, my companion +lifted me up like a child on to his +back and set off again at his great, easy +stride. It was useless to protest. I merely +buried my hands in his yellow hair to keep +my balance in such a camel-like motion.</p> + +<p>A little after noon we stayed to rest by +a shallow brook, beneath a cluster of trees +scented, though not in blossom, like an +English hawthorn. There we ate our meal, +or rather I ate and my companion watched, +running out ever and again for a wider +survey, and returning to me like a faithful +dog, to shout snatches of his inconceivable +language at me.</p> + +<p>Sometimes I seemed to catch his meaning, +bidding me take courage, have no fear, he +would protect me. And once he shaded his +eyes and pointed afar with extreme perturbation, +whining or murmuring while he stared.</p> + +<p>Again we set off from beneath the sweet-scented +shade, and now no doubt remained +that I was the object of very hostile evolutions. +Sometimes these smooth-hooved battalions +would advance, cloudlike, to within fifty yards +of us, and, snorting, ruffle their manes and +wheel swiftly away; only once more in turn +to advance, and stand, with heads exalted, +gazing wildly on us till we were passed on a +little. But my guide gave them very little +heed. Did they pause a moment too long +in our path, or gallop down on us but a +stretch or two beyond the limit his instinct +had set for my safety, he whirled his thong +above his head, and his yell resounded, and +like a shadow upon wheat the furious companies +melted away.</p> + +<p>Evidently these were not the foes he looked +for, but a subtler, a more indomitable. It +was at last, I conjectured, at scent, or sight, +or rumour of these that he suddenly swept me +on to his shoulders again, and with a great +sneeze or bellow leapt off at a speed he +had, as yet, given me no hint of.</p> + +<p>Looking back as best I could, I began to +discern somewhat to the left of us a numerous +herd in pursuit, sorrel in colour, and of a +more magnificent aspect than those forming +the other bands. It was obvious, too, despite +their plunging and rearing, that they were +gaining on us—drew, indeed, so near at last +that I could count the foremost of them, and +mark (not quite callously) their power and +fleetness and symmetry, even the sun's gold +upon their reddish skins.</p> + +<p>Then in a flash my captor set me down, +toppled me over (in plain words) into the +thick herbage, and, turning, rushed bellowing, +undeviating towards their leaders, till it +seemed he must inevitably be borne down +beneath their brute weight, and so—farewell +to summer. But almost at the impact, the +baffled creatures reared, neighing fearfully in +consort, and at the gibberish hurled back on +them by their flamed-eyed master, broke in +rout, and fled.</p> + +<p>Whereupon, unpausing, he ran back to me, +only just in time to rescue me from the nearer +thunder yet of those who had seized the +very acme of their opportunity to beat out +my brains.</p> + +<p>It was a long and arduous and unequal +contest. I wished very heartily I could bear +a rather less passive part. But this fearless +creature scarcely heeded me; used me like +a helpless child, half tenderly, half roughly, +displaying ever and again over his shoulder +only a fleeting glance of the shallow glories of +his eyes, as if to reassure me of his power +and my safety.</p> + +<p>But the latter, those distant savannahs +will bear witness, seemed forlorn enough. +My eyes swam with weariness of these crested, +earth-disdaining battalions. I sickened of the +heat of the sun, the incessant sidelong jolting, +the amazing green. But on we went, fleet +and stubborn, into ever-thickening danger. +How feeble a quarry amid so many hunters!</p> + +<p>Two things grew clearer to me each +instant. First, that every movement and +feint of our pursuers was of design. Not a +beast that wheeled but wheeled to purpose; +while the main body never swerved, thundered +superbly on toward the inevitable end. And +next I perceived with even keener assurance +that my guide knew his country and his +enemy and his own power and aim as perfectly +and consummately; knew, too—this was the +end.</p> + +<p>Far distant in front of us there appeared +to be a break in the level green, a fringe of +bushes, rougher ground. For this refuge he +was making, and from this our mutinous +Houyhnhnms meant to keep us.</p> + +<p>There was no pausing now, not a glance +behind. His every effort was bent on speed. +Speed indeed it was. The wind roared in +my ears. Yet above its surge I heard the +neighing and squealing, the ever-approaching +shudder of hoofs. My eyes distorted all they +looked on. I seemed now floating twenty +feet in air; now skimming within touch of +ground. Now that sorrel squadron behind me +swelled and nodded; now dwindled to an +extreme minuteness of motion.</p> + +<p>Then, of a sudden, a last, shrill paean rose +high; the hosts of our pursuers paused, billow-like, +reared, and scattered—my poor Yahoo +leapt clear.</p> + +<p>For an instant once again in this wild +journey I was poised, as it were, in space, +then fell with a crash, still clutched, sure +and whole, to the broad shoulders of my +rescuer.</p> + +<p>When my first confusion had passed away, +I found that I was lying in a dense green glen +at the foot of a cliff. For some moments I +could think of nothing but my extraordinary +escape from destruction. Within reach of my +hand lay the creature who had carried me, +huddled and motionless; and to left and to +right of me, and one a little nearer the base of +the cliff, five of those sorrel horses that had +been chief of our pursuers. One only of them +was alive, and he, also, broken and unable to +rise—unable to do else than watch with +fierce, untamed, glazing eyes (a bloody froth +at his muzzle,) every movement and sign of +life I made.</p> + +<p>I myself, though bruised and bleeding, had +received no serious injury. But my Yahoo +would rise no more. His master was left +alone amidst his people. I stooped over him +and bathed his brow and cheeks with the +water that trickled from the cliffs close at +hand. I pushed back the thick strands of +matted yellow hair from his eyes. He made +no sign. Even while I watched him the +life of the poor beast near at hand welled +away: he whinnied softly, and dropped his +head upon the bracken. I was alone in the +unbroken silence.</p> + +<p>It seemed a graceless thing to leave the +carcasses of these brave creatures uncovered +there. So I stripped off branches of the +trees, and gathered bundles of fern and +bracken, with which to conceal awhile their +bones from wolf and fowl. And him whom I +had begun to love I covered last, desiring he +might but return, if only for a moment, to +bid me his strange farewell.</p> + +<p>This done, I pushed through the undergrowth +from the foot of the sunny cliffs, and +after wandering in the woods, came late in the +afternoon, tired out, to a ruinous hut. Here +I rested, refreshing myself with the unripe +berries that grew near by.</p> + +<p>I remained quite still in this mouldering +hut looking out on the glens where fell the +sunlight. Some homely bird warbled endlessly +on in her retreat, lifted her small voice +till every hollow resounded with her content. +Silvery butterflies wavered across the sun's +pale beams, sipped, and flew in wreaths away. +The infinite hordes of the dust raised their +universal voice till, listening, it seemed to me +their tiny Babel was after all my own old, +far-off English, sweet of the husk.</p> + +<p>Fate leads a man through danger to his +delight. Me she had led among woods. Nameless +though many of the cups and stars and +odours of the flowers were to me, unfamiliar +the little shapes that gamboled in fur and +feather before my face, here dwelt, mummy +of all earth's summers, some old ghost of me, +sipper of sap, coucher in moss, quieter than +dust.</p> + +<p>So sitting, so rhapsodising, I began to +hear presently another sound—the rich, juicy +munch-munch of jaws, a little blunted maybe, +which yet, it seemed, could never cry Enough! +to these sweet, succulent grasses. I made no +sign, waited with eyes towards the sound, +and pulses beating as if for a sweetheart. +And soon, placid, unsurprised, at her extreme +ease, loomed into sight who but my ox-headed +Rosinante in these dells, cropping her +delightful way along in search of her drowned +master.</p> + +<p>I could but whistle and receive the slow, +soft scrutiny of her familiar eyes. I fancied +even her bland face smiled, as might elderliness +on youth. She climbed near with +bridle broken and trailing, thrust out her nose +to me, and so was mine again.</p> + +<p>Sunlight left the woods. Wind passed +through the upper branches. So, with rain in +the air, I went forward once more; not quite +so headily, perhaps, yet, I hope, with undiminished +courage, like all earth's travellers +before me, who have deemed truth potent as +modesty, and themselves worth scanning print +after.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX" ></a>IX</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>A ... shop of rarities.</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—GEORGE HERBERT.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>A little before darkness fell we struck +into a narrow road traversing the wood. +This, though apparently not much frequented, +would at least lead me into lands inhabited, +so turning my face to the West, that I +might have light to survey as long as any +gleamed in the sky, I trudged on. But I +went slow enough: Rosinante was lame; +I like a stranger to my body, it was so +bruised and tumbled.</p> + +<p>The night was black, and a thin rain +falling when at last I emerged from the +interminable maze of lanes into which the +wood-road had led me. And glad I was +to descry what seemed by the many lights +shining from its windows to be a populous +village. A gay village also, for song +came wafted on the night air, rustic and +convivial.</p> + +<p>Hereabouts I overtook a figure on foot, +who, when I addressed him, turned on me +as sharply as if he supposed the elms above +him were thick with robbers, or that mine +was a voice out of the unearthly hailing +him.</p> + +<p>I asked him the name of the village we +were approaching. With small dark eyes +searching my face in the black shadow of +night, he answered in a voice so strange +and guttural that I failed to understand a +word. He shook his fingers in the air; +pointed with the cudgel he carried under +his arm now to the gloom behind us, now +to the homely galaxy before us, and gabbled +on so fast and so earnestly that I began to +suppose he was a little crazed.</p> + +<p>One word, however, I caught at last from +all this jargon, and that often repeated +with a little bow to me, and an uneasy +smile on his white face—"Mishrush, Mishrush!" +But whether by this he meant to +convey to me his habitual mood, or his +own name, I did not learn till afterwards. +I stopped in the heavy road and raised +my hand.</p> + +<p>"An inn," I cried in his ear, "I want +lodging, supper—a tavern, an inn!" as if +addressing a child or a natural.</p> + +<p>He began gesticulating again, evidently +vain of having fully understood me. Indeed, +he twisted his little head upon his shoulders +to observe Rosinante gauntly labouring on. +"'Ame!—'ame!" he cried with a great effort.</p> + +<p>I nodded.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he cried piteously.</p> + +<p>He led me, after a few minutes' journey, +into the cobbled yard of a bright-painted +inn, on whose signboard a rising sun glimmered +faintly gold, and these letters standing +close above it—"The World's End."</p> + +<p>Mr. "Mishrush" seemed not a little +relieved at nearing company after his +lonely walk; triumphant, too, at having +guided me hither so cunningly. He lifted +his nimble cudgel in the air and waved it +conceitedly to and fro in time to the song +that rose beyond the window. "Fau'ow +er Wur'!—Fau'ow er Wur'!" he cried +delightedly again and again in my ear, +eager apparently for my approval. So we +stood, then, beneath the starless sky, listening +to the rich <i>choragium</i> of the "World's +End." They sang in unison, sang with a +kind of forlorn heat and enthusiasm. And +when the song was ended, and the roar of +applause over, Night, like a darkened water +whelmed silently in, engulfed it to the echo:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>Follow the World—<br /></span> +<span>She bursts the grape,<br /></span> +<span>And dandles man<br /></span> +<span>In her green lap;<br /></span> +<span>She moulds her Creature<br /></span> +<span>From the clay,<br /></span> +<span>And crumbles him<br /></span> +<span>To dust away:<br /></span> +<span>Follow the World!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>One Draught, one Feast,<br /></span> +<span>One Wench, one Tomb;<br /></span> +<span>And thou must straight<br /></span> +<span>To ashes come:<br /></span> +<span>Drink, eat, and sleep;<br /></span> +<span>Why fret and pine?<br /></span> +<span>Death can but snatch<br /></span> +<span>What ne'er was thine:<br /></span> +<span>Follow the World!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It died away, I say, and an ostler softly +appeared out of the shadow. Into his +charge, then, I surrendered Rosinante, and +followed my inarticulate acquaintance into +the noise and heat and lustre of the Inn.</p> + +<p>It was a numerous company there +assembled. But their voices fell to a +man on the entry of a stranger. They +scrutinised me, not uncivilly, but closely, +seeking my badge, as it were by which to +recognise and judge me ever after.</p> + +<p>Mr. Mistrust, as I presently discovered +my guide's name indeed to be, was volubly +explaining how I came into his company. +They listened intently to what, so far as +I could gather, might be Houyhnhnmish or +Double-Dutch. And then, as if to show +me to my place forthwith, a great fleshy +fellow that sat close beside the hearth this +summer evening continued in a loud voice +the conversation I had interrupted.</p> + +<p>Whereupon Mr. Mistrust with no little +confidence commended me in dumb show +to the landlady of the Inn, a Mrs. Nature, +if I understood him aright. This person +was still comely, though of uncertain age, +wore cherry ribbons, smiled rather vacantly +from vague, wonderful, indescribable eyes +that seemed to change colour, like the +chameleon, according to that they dwelt on.</p> + +<p>I am afraid, as much to my amusement +as wonder, I discovered that this landlady +of so much apparent <i>bonhomie</i> was a deaf-mute. +If victuals, or drink, or bed were +required, one must chalk it down on a little +slate she carried at her girdle for the purpose. +Indeed, the absence of two of her +three chief senses had marvellously sharpened +the remaining one. Her eyes were on all, +vaguely dwelling, lightly gone, inscrutable, +strangely fascinating. She moved easily and +soundlessly (as fat women may), and I +doubt if ever mug or pot of any of that +talkative throng remained long empty, except +at the tippler's reiterated request.</p> + +<p>She laid before me an excellent supper +on a little table somewhat removed beside +a curtained window. And while I ate I +watched, and listened, not at all displeased +with my entertainment.</p> + +<p>The room in which we sat was low-ceiled +and cheerful, but rather close after the +rainy night-air. Gay pictures beautified the +walls. Here a bottle, a cheese, grapes, a +hare, a goblet—in a clear brown light that +made the guest's mouth water to admire. +Here a fine gentleman toasting a simpering +chambermaid. Above the chimney-piece a +bloated old man in vineleaves that might +be Silenus. And over against the door of +the parlour what I took to be a picture +of Potiphar's wife, she looked out of the +paint so bold and beauteous and craftily. +Birds and fishes in cases stared glassily,—owl +and kestrel, jack and eel and gudgeon. +All was clean and comfortable as a hospitable +inn can be.</p> + +<p>But they who frequented it interested me +much more—as various and animated a +gathering as any I have seen. Yet in some +peculiar manner they seemed one and all +not to the last tittle quite of this world. +They were, so to speak, more earthy, too +definite, too true to the mould, like figures +in a bleak, bright light viewed out of darkness. +Certainly not one of them was at +first blush prepossessing. Yet who finds +much amiss with the fox at last, though all +he seems to have be cunning?</p> + +<p>Near beside me, however, sat retired a +man a little younger and more at his ease +than most of the many there, and as busy +with his eyes and ears as I. His name, I +learned presently, was Reverie; and from +him I gathered not a little information regarding +the persons who talked and sipped +around us.</p> + +<p>He told me at whiles that his house was +not in the village, but in a valley some +few miles distant across the meadows; that +he sat out these bouts of argument and +slander for the sheer delight he had in +gathering the myriad strands of that strange +rope Opinion; that he lived (heart, soul, and +hope) well-nigh alone; that he deeply mistrusted +this place, and the company we +were in, yet not for its mistress's sake, +who was at least faithful to her instincts, +candid to the candid, made no favourites, +and, eventually, compelled order. He told +me also that if friends he had, he deemed +it wiser not to name them, since the least +sibilant of the sound of the voice incites to +treachery; and in conclusion, that of all men +he was acquainted with, one at least never +failed to right his humour; and that one +was yonder flabby, pallid fellow with the +velvet collar to his coat, and the rings on +his fingers, and the gold hair, named Pliable, +who sat beside Mr. Stubborn on the settle +by the fire.</p> + +<p>When, then, I had finished my supper, I +drew in my chair a little closer to Mr. +Reverie's and, having scribbled my wants on +the Landlady's slate, turned my attention to +the talk.</p> + +<p>At the moment when I first began to listen +attentively they seemed to be in heated +dispute concerning the personal property of +a certain Mr. Christian, who was either +dead or had inexplicably disappeared. Mr. +Obstinate, I gathered, had taken as his right +this Christian's "easy-chair"; a gentleman +named Smoothman most of his other goods +for a debt; while a Parson Decorum had +appropriated as heretical his books and various +peculiar MSS.</p> + +<p>But there now remained in question a +trifling sum of money which a Mr. Liar +loudly demanded in payment of an "affair of +honour." This, however, he seemed little +likely to obtain, seeing that an elderly uncle +by marriage of Christian's, whose name was +Office, was as eager and affable and frank +about the sum as he was bent on keeping +it; and rattled the contents of his breeches' +pocket in sheer bravado of his means to go +to law for it.</p> + +<p>"He left a bare pittance, the merest pittance," +he said. "What could there be of +any account? Christian despised money, +professed to despise it. That alone would +prove my wretched nephew queer in the +head—despised <i>money</i>!</p> + +<p>"Tush, friend!" cried Obstinate from his +corner. "Whether the money is yours, or +neighbour Liar's—and it is as likely as not +neither's—that talk about despising money's +what but a silly lie? 'Twas all sour grapes—sour +grapes. He had cunning enough for +envy, and pride enough for shame; and at last +there was naught but cunning left wherewith +to patch up a clout for him and his shame to +be gone in. I watched him set out on his +pestilent pilgrimage, crazed and stubborn, and +not a groat to call his own."</p> + +<p>"Yet I have heard say he came of a +moneyed stock," said Pliable. "The Sects +of Privy Opinion were rare wealthy people, +and they, so 'tis said, were his kinsmen. Truth +is, for aught I know, Christian must have +been in some degree a very liberal rascal, with +all his faults." He tittered.</p> + +<p>"Oh! he was liberal enough," said Mr. +Malice suavely: "why, even on setting out, +he emptied his wife's purse into a blind +beggar's hat!—his that used to bleat, 'Cast +thy bread—cast thy bread upon the waters!' +whensoever he spied Christian stepping along +the street. They say," he added, burying +his clever face in his mug, "the Heavenly +Jerusalem lieth down by the weir."</p> + +<p>"But we must not contemn a man for his +poverty, neighbours," said Liar, gravely composing +his hairless face. "Christian's was a +character of beautiful simplicity—beautiful! +<i>How</i> many rickety children did he leave +behind him?"</p> + +<p>A shrill voice called somewhat I could not +quite distinguish, for at that moment a youth +rose abruptly near by, and went hastily out.</p> + +<p>Obstinate stared roundly. "Thou hast a +piercing voice, friend Liar!"</p> + +<p>"I did but seek the truth," said Liar.</p> + +<p>"But whether or no, Christian believed in +it—verily he seemed to believe in it. Was +it not so, neighbour Obstinate?" enquired +Pliable, stroking his leg.</p> + +<p>"Believed in what, my friend?" said +Obstinate, in a dull voice.</p> + +<p>"About Mount Zion, and the Crowns of +Glory, and the Harps of Gold, and such like," +said Pliable uneasily—"at least, it is said so; +so 'tis said."</p> + +<p>"Believed!" retorted a smooth young man +who seemed to feel the heat, and sat by the +staircase door. "That's an easy task—to +believe, sir. Ask any pretty minikin!"</p> + +<p>"And I'd make bold to enquire of yonder +Liveloose," said a thick, monotonous voice (a +Mr. Dull's, so Reverie informed me), "if +mebbe he be referring to one of his own, or +that fellow Sloth's devilish fairy tales? I +know one yet he'll eat again some day."</p> + +<p>At which remark all laughed consumedly, +save Dull.</p> + +<p>"Well, one thing Christian had, and none +can deny it," said Pliable, a little hotly, "and +that was Imagination? <i>I</i> shan't forget the +tales he was wont to tell: what say you, +Superstition?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Superstition lifted dark, rather vacant +eyes on Pliable. "Yes, yes," he said: +"Flame, and sigh, and lamentation. My +God, my God, gentlemen!"</p> + +<p>"Oo-ay, Oo-ay," yelped the voice of Mistrust, +startled out of silence.</p> + +<p>"Oo-ay," whistled Malice, under his breath.</p> + +<p>"Tush, tush!" broke in Obstinate again, and +snapped his fingers in the air. "And what is +this precious Imagination? Whither doth it +conduct a man, but to beggary, infamy, and +the mad-house? Look ye to it, friend Pliable! +'Tis a devouring flame; give it but wind and +leisure, the fairest house is ashes."</p> + +<p>"Ashes; ashes!" mocked one called Cruelty, +who had more than once taken my attention +with his peculiar contortions—"talking of +ashes, what of Love-the-log Faithful, Master +Tongue-stump? What of Love-the-log +Faithful?"</p> + +<p>At which Liveloose was so extremely +amused, the tears stood in his eyes for +laughing.</p> + +<p>I looked round for Mistrust, and easily +recognised my friend by his hare-like face, +and the rage in his little active eyes. But +unfortunately, as I turned to enquire somewhat +of Reverie, Liveloose suddenly paused +in his merriment with open mouth; and the +whole company heard my question, "But who +was Love-the-log Faithful?"</p> + +<p>I was at once again the centre of attention, +and Mr. Obstinate rose very laboriously from +his settle and held out a great hand to me.</p> + +<p>"I'm pleased to meet thee," he said, with +a heavy bow. "There's a dear heart with +my good neighbour Superstition yonder who +will present a very fair account of that misguided +young man. Madam Wanton, here's +a young gentleman that never heard tell of +our old friend Love-the-log."</p> + +<p>A shrill peal of laughter greeted this sally.</p> + +<p>"Why, Faithful was a young gentleman, +sir," explained the woman civilly enough, +"who preferred his supper hot."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Madam Wanton, my dear, my dear!" +cried a long-nosed woman nearly helpless with +amusement.</p> + +<p>I saw Superstition gazing darkly at me. +He shook his head as I was about to reply, +so I changed my retort. "Who, then, was +Mr. Christian?" I enquired simply.</p> + +<p>At that the house shook with the roar of +laughter that went up.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="X" id="X" ></a>X</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>... <i>Large draughts of intellectual day.</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—RICHARD CRASHAW.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>"Believe me, neighbours," said Malice +softly, when this uproar was a little abated, +"there is nought so strange in the question. +It meaneth only that this young gentleman +hath not enjoyed the pleasure of your company +before. Will it amaze you to learn, my +friends, that Christian is like to be immortal +only because you <i>talk</i> him out of the grave? +One brief epitaph, gentlemen, would let him +rot."</p> + +<p>"Nay, but I'll tell the gentleman who +Christian was, and with pleasure," cried a +lucid, rather sallow little man that had sat +quietly smiling and listening. "My name, let +me tell you, is Atheist, sir; and Christian was +formerly a very near neighbour of an old +friend of my family's—Mr. Sceptic. They +lived, sir—at least in those days—opposite +to one another."</p> + +<p>"He is a great talker," whispered Reverie in +my ear. But the company evidently found +his talk to their taste. They sat as still and +attentive around him, as though before an +extemporary preacher.</p> + +<p>"Well, sir," continued Atheist, "being, in a +sense, neighbours, Christian in his youth would +often confide in my friend; though, assuredly, +Sceptic never sought his confidences. And +it seemeth he began to be perturbed and +troubled over the discovery that it is impossible—at +least in this plain world—to eat +your cake, yet have it. And by some ill +chance he happened at this time on a mouldy +old folio in my friend's house that had been +the property of his maternal grandmother—the +subtlest old tome you ever set eyes on, +though somewhat too dark and extravagant +and heady for a sober man of the world like +me. 'Twas called the Bible, sir—a collection +of legends and fables of all times, tongues, and +countries threaded together, mighty ingeniously +I grant, and in as plausible a style as +any I know, if a little lax and flowery in +parts.</p> + +<p>"Well, Christian borroweth the book of my +friend—never to return it. And being feeble +and credulous, partly by reason of his simple +wits, and partly by reason of the sad condition a +froward youth had reduced him to, he accepts +the whole book—from Apple to Vials—for +truth. In fact, 'he ate the little book,' as one +of the legendary kings it celebrates had done +before him."</p> + +<p>"Ay," broke in Cruelty wildly, "and has +ever since gotten the gripes."</p> + +<p>Atheist inclined his head. "Putting it +coarsely, gentlemen, such was the case," he +said. "And away at his wit's end he hasteneth, +waning and shivering, to a great bog or +quagmire—that my friend Pliable will answer +to—and plungeth in. 'Tis the same story +repeated. He could be temperate in nought. +<i>I</i> knew the bog well; but I knew the stepping-stones +better. Believe me, I have traversed +the narrow way this same Christian took, +seeking the harps and pearls and the <i>elixir vitæ</i>, +these many years past. The book inciteth +ye to it. It sets a man's heart on fire—that's +weak enough to read it—with its pomp, and +rhetoric, and far-away promises, and lofty +counsels. Oh, fine words, who is not their +puppet! I climbed 'Difficulty.' I snapped +my fingers at the grinning Lions. I passed +cautiously through the 'Valley of the Shadow'—wild +scenery, sir! I visited that prince of +bubbles also, Giant Despair, in his draughty +castle. And—though boasting be far from +me!—fetched Liveloose's half-brother out of +a certain charnel-house near by.</p> + +<p>"<i>Thus far</i>, sir, I went. But I have not +yet found the world so barren of literature +as to write a book about it. I have not yet +found the world so barren of ingratitude as +to seek happiness by stabbing in the back +every friend I ever had. I have not yet +forsaken wife and children; neighbours and +kinsmen; home, ease, and tenderness, for a +whim, a dream, a passing qualm. No, sir; +'tis this Christian's ignorant hardness-of-heart +that is his bane. Knowing little, he prateth +much. He would pinch and contract the +Universe to his own fantastical pattern. He +is tedious, he is pragmatical, and—I affirm it +in all sympathy and sorrow—he is crazed. +Malice, haply, is a little sharp at times. And +neighbour Obstinate dealeth full weight with +his opinions. But this Christian Flown-to-Glory, +as the urchins say, pinks with a +bludgeon. He cannot endure an honest doubt. +He distorteth a mere difference of opinion +into a roaring Tophet. And because he is +helpless, solitary, despised in the world; +because he is impotent to refute, and too +stubborn to hear and suffer people a little +higher and weightier, a leetle wiser than he—why, +beyond the grave he must set his hope +in vengeance. Beyond the grave—bliss for his +own shade; fire and brimstone, eternal woe +for theirs. Ay, and 'tis not but for a season +will he vex us, but for ever, and for ever, +and for ever—if he knoweth in the least +what he meaneth by the phrase. And this +he calls 'Charity.'</p> + +<p>"Yes, sirs, beyond the grave he would +condemn us, beyond the grave—a place of +peace whereto I deem there are not many +here but will be content at length to come; +and I not least content, when my duty is +done, my children provided for, and my last +suspicion of fear and folly suppressed.</p> + +<p>"To conclude, sir—and beshrew me, gentlemen, +how time doth fly in talk!—this +Christian goeth his way. We, each in accord +with his caprice and conscience, go ours. We +envy him not his vapours, his terrors, or his +shameless greed of reward. Why, then, doth +he envy us our wealth, our success, our gaiety, +our content? He raves. He is haunted. +What is man but as grass, and the flower of +grass? Come the sickle, he is clean gone. +I can but repeat it, sir, our poor neighbour +was crazed: 'tis Christian in a word."</p> + +<p>A sigh, a murmur of satisfaction and relief, +rose from the company, as if one and all had +escaped by Mr. Atheist's lucidity out of a +very real peril.</p> + +<p>I thanked him for his courtesy, and in +some confusion turned to Reverie with the +remark that I thought I now recollected to +have heard Christian's name, but understood +he had indeed arrived, at last, at the Celestial +City for which he had set out.</p> + +<p>"Celestial twaddle, sir!" cried Mr. Obstinate +hoarsely. "He went stark, staring mad, and +now is dust, as we shall soon all be, that's +certain."</p> + +<p>Then Cruelty rose out of his chair and +elbowed his way to the door. He opened it +and looked out.</p> + +<p>"I would," he said, "I had known of this +Christian before he started. Step you down +to Vanity Fair, Sir Stranger, if the mood take +you; and we'll show you as pretty a persuasion +against pilgrimage as ever you saw." +He opened his mouth where he stood between +me and the stars. "... There's many more!" +he added with difficulty, as if his rage was too +much for him. He spat into the air and +went out.</p> + +<p>Presently after Liveloose rose up, smiling +softly, and groped after him.</p> + +<p>A little silence followed their departure.</p> + +<p>"You must tell your friend, Mr. Reverie," +said Atheist good-humouredly, "that Mr. +Cruelty says more than he means. To my +mind he is mistaken—too energetic; but +his intentions are good."</p> + +<p>"He's a staunch, dependable fellow," said +Obstinate, patting down the wide cuffs he +wore.</p> + +<p>But even at that moment a stranger softly +entered the inn out of the night. His face +was of the grey of ashes, and he looked once +round on us all with a still, appalling +glance that silenced the words on my lips.</p> + +<p>We sat without speech—Obstinate yawning, +Atheist smiling lightly, Superstition +nibbling his nails, Reverie with chin drawn +a little back, Pliable bolt upright, like a +green and white wand, Mistrust blinking +his little thin lids; but all with eyes fixed +on this stranger, who deemed himself, it +seemed, among friends.</p> + +<p>He turned his back on us and sipped his +drink under the heedless, deep, untroubled +gaze of Mrs. Nature, and passed out softly +and harmlessly as he had come in.</p> + +<p>Reverie stood up like a man surprised +and ill at ease. He turned to me. "I +know him only by repute, by hearsay," he +said with an effort. "He is a stranger to +us all, indeed, sir—to all."</p> + +<p>Obstinate, with a very flushed face, thrust +his hand into his breeches' pocket. "Nay, +sir," he said, "my purse is yet here. What +more would you have?"</p> + +<p>At which Pliable laughed, turning to the +women.</p> + +<p>I put on my hat and followed Reverie to +the door.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, sir," I said, "but I have no +desire to stay in this house over-night. +And if you would kindly direct me to the +nearest way out of the village, I will have +my horse saddled now and be off."</p> + +<p>And then I noticed that Superstition stood +in the light of the doorway looking down +on us.</p> + +<p>"There's Christian's way," he said, as if +involuntarily....</p> + +<p>"Lodge with me to-night," Reverie answered, +"and in the morning you shall +choose which way to go you will."</p> + +<p>I thanked him heartily and turned in to +find Rosinante.</p> + +<p>The night was now fine, but moist and +sultry, and misty in the distance. It was +late, too, for few candles gleamed beneath +the moonlight from the windows round +about the smooth village-green. Even as we +set out, I leading Rosinante by her bridle, +and Superstition on my left hand, out of +heavenly Leo a bright star wheeled, fading +as it fell. And soon high hedges hid utterly +the "World's End" behind us, out of sight +and sound.</p> + +<p>I observed when the trees had laid their +burdened branches overhead, and the thick-flowered +bushes begun to straiten our way, +that this Mr. Superstition who had desired +to accompany us was of a very different +courage from that his manner at the inn +seemed to profess.</p> + +<p>He walked with almost as much caution +and ungainliness as Mistrust, his deep and +shining eyes busily searching the gloom to +left and right of him. Indeed, those same +dark eyes of his reminded me not a little +of Mrs. Nature's, they were so full of what +they could not tell.</p> + +<p>He was on foot; my new friend Reverie, +like myself, led his horse, a pale, lovely +creature with delicate nostrils and deep-smouldering +eyes.</p> + +<p>"You must think me very bold to force +my company on you," said Superstition +awkwardly, turning to Reverie, "but my +house is never so mute with horror as in +these moody summer nights when thunder +is in the air. See there!" he cried.</p> + +<p>As if the distant sky had opened, the +large, bright, harmless lightning quivered +and was gone, revealing on the opposing +hills forest above forest unutterably dark +and still.</p> + +<p>"Surely," I said, "that is not the way +Christian took?"</p> + +<p>"They say," Reverie answered, "the +Valley of the Shadow of Death lies between +those hills."</p> + +<p>"But Atheist," I said, "<i>that</i> acid little +man, did he indeed walk there alone?"</p> + +<p>"I have heard," muttered Superstition, +putting out his hand, "'tis fear only that +maketh afraid. Atheist has no fear."</p> + +<p>"But what of Cruelty," I said, "and +Liveloose?"</p> + +<p>"Why," answered Superstition, "Cruelty +works cunningest when he is afraid; and +Liveloose never talks about himself. None +the less there's not a tree but casts a shadow. +I met once an earnest yet very popular +young gentleman of the name of Science, +who explained almost everything on earth +to me so clearly, and patiently, and fatherly, +I thought I should evermore sleep in peace. +But we met at noon. Believe me, sir, I +would have followed Christian and his friend +Hopeful very willingly long since; for as +for Cruelty and Obstinate and all that +clumsy rabble, I heed them not. Indeed +my cousin Mistrust <i>did</i> go, and as you see +returned with a caution; and a poor young +school-fellow of mine, Jack Ignorance, came +to an awful end. But it is because I owe +partly to Christian and not all to myself +this horrible solitude in which I walk that +I dare not risk a deeper. It would be, I +feel sure. And so I very willingly beheld +Faithful burned; it restored my confidence. +And here, sir," he added, almost with gaiety, +"lives my friend Mrs. Simple, a widow. +She enjoys my company and my old fables, +and we keep the blinds down against these +mountains, and candles burning against the +brighter lightnings."</p> + +<p>So saying, Superstition bade us good-night +and passed down a little by-lane on +our left towards a country cottage, like a +dreaming bower of roses beneath the moon.</p> + +<p>But Reverie and I continued on as if the +moon herself as patiently pursued us. And +by-and-by we came to a house called +Gloom, whose gardens slope down with +plashing fountains and glimmering banks of +flowers into the shadow and stillness of a +broad valley, named beneath the hills of +Silence, Peace.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XI" id="XI" ></a>XI</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,</i><br /></span> +<span><i>And be among her cloudy trophies hung.</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—JOHN KEATS.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>Even as we entered the gates of Mr. Reverie's +house beneath embowering chestnuts, there +advanced across the moonlit spaces to meet +us a figure on foot like ourselves, leading his +horse. He was in armour, yet unarmed. +His steel glittered cold and blue; his fingers +hung ungauntleted; and on his pale face dwelt +a look never happy warrior wore yet. He +seemed a man Mars lends to Venus out of +war to unhappy idleness. The disillusionment +of age was in his face: yet he was youthful, +I suppose; scarce older than Mercutio, and +once, perhaps, as light of wit.</p> + +<p>He took my hand in a grasp cold and +listless, and smiled from mirthless eyes.</p> + +<p>Yet there was something strangely taking +in this solitary knight-at-arms. She for whom +he does not fight, I thought, must have somewhat +of the immortals to grace her warrior +with. And if it were only shadows that beset +him and obscured his finer heart, shadows +they were of myrtle and rhododendron, with +voices shrill and small as the sparrows', and +eyes of the next-to-morning stars.</p> + +<p>Indeed, these gardens whispered, and the +wind at play in the air seemed to bear far-away +music, dying and falling.</p> + +<p>We entered the house and sat down to +supper in a low room open to the night. +Reverie recounted our evening's talk. "I +wish," he said, turning to his friend, "you +would accompany Mr. Brocken and me one +night to the 'World's End' to hear these +fellows talk. Such arrogance, such assurance, +such bigotry and blindness and foxiness!—yet, +on my word, a kind of gravity with it all, as +if the scarecrows had some real interest in the +devil's tares they guard. Come now, let it be +a bargain between us, and leave this endless +search awhile."</p> + +<p>But the solitary knight shook his head. +"They would jeer me out of knowledge," he +said. "Why, Reverie, the children cease their +play when I pass, and draw their tops and +marbles out of the dust, and gaze till I am +hid from sight."</p> + +<p>"It is fancy, only fancy," replied Reverie; +"children stare at all things new to them in +the world. How else could they recognise +and learn again—how else forget? But as for +this rabble's mockery, there is a she-bear left +called Oblivion which is their mistress, and +will some day silence every jeer."</p> + +<p>The solitary knight shook his head again, +eyeing me solemnly as if in hope to discern +in my face the sorcery that held himself in +thrall.</p> + +<p>The few wax tapers gave but light enough +to find the way from goblet to mouth. As +for Reverie's wine, I ask no other, for it had +the poppy's scarlet, and overcame weariness +so subtly I almost forgot these were the +hours of sleep we spent in waking; forgot, +too, as if of the lotus, all thought of effort +and hope.</p> + +<p>After all, thought I as I sipped, effort is the +flaw that proves men mortal; while as for +hope, who would seek a seed that floats on +every wind and smothers the world with weeds +that bear no fruit? It was, in fact, fare very +different from the ale and cheese of the +"World's End."</p> + +<p>"But you yourself," I said to Mr. Reverie +presently; "in all the talk at the inn you kept +a very scrupulous silence—discreet enough, I +own. But now, what truly <i>was</i> this Christian +of whom we heard so much? and why, may +I ask, do his neighbours slander the dead? +You yourselves, did you ever meet with +him?" I turned from one to the other of +my companions as they glanced uneasily each +at each.</p> + +<p>"Well, sir," said Reverie rather deliberately, +"I have met him and talked with him. I +often think of him, in spite of myself. Yet he +was a man of little charm. He certainly had +a remarkable gift for estranging his friends. +He was a foe to the most innocent compromise. +For myself, I found not much +humour in him, no eye for grace or art, and +a limited imagination that was yet his absolute +master. Nevertheless, as you hint, these +fellows, no more than I, can forget him. Nor +you?" He turned to the other.</p> + +<p>"Christian," he replied, "I remember him. +We were friends a little while. Faithful I +knew also. Faithful was to the last my friend. +Ah! Reverie, then—how many years ago!—there +was a child we loved, all three: do you +remember? I see the low, green wall, cool +from how many a summer's shadows, the +clusters of green apples on the bough. And +in the early morning we would go, carrying +torn-off branches, and shouting our songs +through the fields, till we came to the shadow +and the hush of the woods. Ay, Reverie, +and we would burst in on silence, each his +heart beating, and play there. And perhaps +it was Hopeful who would steal away from +us, and the others play on; or perhaps you +into the sunlight that maddened the sheltered +bird to flit and sing in the orchard where +the little child we loved played—not yet +sad, but how much beloved; not yet weary +of passing shadows, and simple creatures, and +boy's rough gifts and cold hands. But I—with +me it was ever evening, when the +blackbird bursts harshly away. Then it was +so still in the orchard, and in the curved +bough so solitary, that the nightingale, +cowering, would almost for fear begin to sing, +and stoop to the bending of the bough, her +sidelong eyes in shade; while the stars began +to stand in the stations above us, ever bright, +and all the night was peace. Then would I +dream on—dream of the face I loved, Innocence, +O Innocence!"</p> + +<p>It was a strange outburst. His voice rose +almost to a chant, full of a forlorn music. +But even as he ceased, we heard in the +following silence, above the plashing of the +restless fountains, beyond, far and faint, a wild +and stranger music welling. And I saw from +the porch that looks out from the house called +Gloom, "La belle Dame sans Merci" pass +riding with her train, who rides in beauty +beneath the huntress, heedless of disguise. +Across from far away, like leaves of autumn, +skirred the dappled deer. The music grew, +timbrel and pipe and tabor, as beneath the +glances of the moon the little company sped, +transient as a rainbow, elusive as a dream. +I saw her maidens bound and sandalled, with +all their everlasting flowers; and advancing +soundless, unreal, the silver wheels of that +unearthly chariot amid the Fauns. On, on +they gamboled, hoof in yielding turf, blowing +reed melodies, mocking water, their lips laid +sidelong, their eyes aleer along the smoothness +of their flutes.</p> + +<p>And when I turned again to my companions, +with I know not what old folly in +my eyes, I know not what unanswerable cry in +my heart, Reverie alone was at my side. I +seemed to see the long fringes of the lake, +the sedge withered, the grey waters restless in +the bonds of the wind, tuneless and chill; all +these happy gardens swept bare and flowerless; +and the far hills silent in the unattainable dawn.</p> + +<p>"She pipes, he follows," said Reverie; "she +sets the tune, he dances. Yet, sir, on my +soul, I believe it is the childish face of that +same Innocence we kept tryst with long ago +he pursues on and on, through what sad +labyrinths we, who dream not so wildly, +cannot by taking thought come to guess."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The next two days passed serenely and +quietly at Reverie's. We read together, +rode, walked, and talked together, and +listened in the evening to music. For a +sister of Reverie's lived not far distant, who +visited him while I was there, and took +supper with us, delighting us with her wit +and spirit and her youthful voice.</p> + +<p>But though Reverie more than once +suggested it, I could not bring myself to +return to the "World's End" and its +garrulous company. Whether it was the +moist, grey face of Mr. Cruelty I most +abhorred, or Stubborn's slug-like eye, or +the tongue-stump of my afflicted guide, I +cannot say.</p> + +<p>Moreover, I had begun to feel a very +keen curiosity to see the way that had +lured Christian on with such graceless +obstinacy. They had spoken of remorse, +poverty, pride, world-failure, even insanity, +even vice: but these appeared to me only +such things as might fret a man to set +violently out on, not to persist in such +a course; or likelier yet, to abandon hope, +to turn back from heights that trouble +or confusion set so far, and made seem +dreams.</p> + +<p>How could I help, too, being amused to +think how vastly strange these fellows considered +a man's venturing whither his star +beckoned; though that star were only power, +only fame, only beauty, only peace? What +wonder they were many?</p> + +<p>Not far from this place, Reverie informed +me, were pitched the booths of Vanity Fair. +This, by his account, was a place one ought +to visit, if only for the satisfaction of leaving +it behind. But I have heard more animated +accounts of it elsewhere.</p> + +<p>As for Reverie himself, he seemed only +desirous to contemplate; never to taste, to +win, or to handle. He needed but refuse +reality to what shocked or teased him, to +find it harmless and entertaining. He was +a dreamer whom the heat and shout of +battle could not offend.</p> + +<p>Perhaps he perceived my restlessness to be +gone, for he himself suggested that I should +stay till the next morning, and then, if I +so pleased, he would see me a mile or two +on my way.</p> + +<p>"For the Pitiless Lady," he said, smiling, +"takes many disguises, sometimes of the sun, +sometimes of evening, sometimes of night; +and I would at least save you from the fate +that has made my poor friend a phantom +before he is a shade."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XII" id="XII" ></a>XII</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>The many men, so beautiful!</i><br /></span> +<span><i>And they all dead did lie.</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—S.T. Coleridge.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>So Reverie, as he had promised, rode out +with me a few miles to see me on my way. +Above the gloom and stillness of the valley +the scene began to change again. I was +glad as I could be to view once more the +tossing cornfields and the wind at play with +shadow. Near and far, woods and pastures +smoked beneath the sun. I know not +through how many arches of the elms and +green folds of the meadows I kept watch +on the chimneys of a farmhouse above its +trees.</p> + +<p>But Reverie, the further we journeyed, +the less he said. I almost chafed to see his +heedless eyes turned upon some inward +dream, while here, like life itself, stood cloud +and oak, warbled bird and brook beneath +the burning sun. I saw again in memory +the silver twilight of the moon, and the +crazy face of Love's Warrior, haunter of +shade. Let him but venture into the open, +I thought, hear again the distant lowing of +the oxen, the rooks cawing in the elms, +see again the flocks upon the hillside!</p> + +<p>I suppose this was her home my heart +had turned to. This was my dust; night's +was his. For me the wild rose and the +fields of harvest; for him closed petals, the +chantry of the night wind, phantom lutes +and voices. And, as if he had overheard +my thoughts, Reverie turned at the cross-ways.</p> + +<p>"You will come back again," he said. +"They tell me in distant lands men worship +Time, set up a shrine to him in every +street, and treasure his emblem next their +hearts. There, they say, even the lover +babbles of hours, and the dreamer measures +sleep with a pendulum. Well, my house is +secluded, and the world is far; and to me +Time is naught. Return, sir, then, when it +pleases you. Besides," he added, smiling +faintly, "there is always company at the +World's End."</p> + +<p>The crisp sunbeams rained upon his pale +and delicate horse, its equal-plaited mane, +on the darkness of his cloak, that dream-delighted +face. Here smouldered gold, here +flushed crimson, and here the curved +damaskening of his bridle glistened and +gleamed. He was a strange visitant to the +open day, between the green hedges, beneath +the enormous branching of the elms. And +there I bade him farewell.</p> + +<p>Some day, perhaps, I shall return as he +has foretold, for it is ever easy to find again +the house of Reverie—to them who have +learned the way.</p> + +<p>On I journeyed, then, following as I had +been directed the main road to Vanity Fair. +But whether it is that the Fair is more +difficult to arrive at than to depart from, +or is really a hard day's journey even from +the gay parlour of the World's End, it +already began to be evening, and yet no +sign of bunting or booth or clamour or +smoke.</p> + +<p>And it was at length to a noiseless Fair, +far from all vanity, that I came at sunset—the +cypresses of a solitary graveyard. I was +tired out and desired only rest; so dismounting +and leading Rosinante, I turned +aside willingly into its peace.</p> + +<p>It seemed I had entered a new earth. +The lane above had wandered on in the +gloaming of its hedges and over-arching +trees. Here, all the clouds of sunset stood, +caught up in burning gold. Even as I +paused, dazzled a moment by the sudden +radiance, from height to height the wild +bright rose of evening ran. Not a tottering +stone, black, well-nigh shapeless with age, +not a green bush, but seemed to dwell unconsumed +in its own fire above this desolate +ground. The trees that grew around me—willow +and yew, thorn and poplar—were +but flaming cages for the wild birds that +perched in their branches.</p> + +<p>Above these sound-dulled mansions trod +lightly, as if of thought, Rosinante's gilded +shoes. I wandered on in a strange elation +of mind, filled with a desperate desire ever +to remember how flamed this rose between +earth and sky, how throbbed this jargon of +delight. And turning as if in hope to share +my enthusiasm, a childish peal of laughter +showed me I was not alone.</p> + +<p>Beneath a canopy of holly branches and +yew two children sat playing. The nearer +child's hair was golden, glistening round his +face of roses, and he it was who had laughed, +tumbling on the sward. But the face of +the further child was white almost as crystal, +and the dark hair that encircled his head +with its curved lines seemed as it were the +shadow of the gold it showed beside. These +children, it was plain, had been running and +playing across the tombs; but now they +were stooping together at some earnest +sport. To me, even if they had seen me, +they as yet paid no heed.</p> + +<p>I passed slowly towards them, deeming +them at first of solitude's creation, my eyes +dazzled so with the sun. But as I approached, +so the branches beneath which +they played gradually disparted, and I saw +not far distant from them one sitting +who evidently had these jocund boys in +charge.</p> + +<p>I could not but hesitate awhile as I surveyed +them. These were no mortal children +playing naked amid the rose of evening: +nor she who sat veiled and beautiful +beneath the ruinous tombs. I turned with +sudden dismay to depart from their presence +unobserved as I had entered; but the +children had now espied me, and came +running, filled with wonder of Rosinante and +the stranger beside her.</p> + +<p>They stayed at a little distance from us +with dwelling eyes and parted lips. Then +the fairer and, as it seemed to me, elder of +the brothers stooped and plucked a few +blades of grass and proffered them, half +fearfully, to the beast that amazed him. +But the other gave less heed to Rosinante, +fixed the filmy lustre of his eyes on me, +his wonderful young face veiled with that +wisdom which is in all children, and of an +immutable gravity.</p> + +<p>But by this time, she who it seemed had +the charge of these children had followed +them with her eyes. To her then, leaving +Rosinante in an ecstasy of timidity before +such god-like boys, I addressed myself.</p> + +<p>So might a traveller lost beneath strange +stars address unanswering Night. She, however, +raised a compassionate face to me +and listened with happy seriousness as to a +child returned in safety at evening from +some foolhardy venture. Yet there seemed +only a deeper youthfulness in her face for +all its eternity of brooding on her beauteous +children. Narrow leaves of olive formed her +chaplet. The darker wine-colours of the sea +changed in her eyes. There was no sense +of gloom or sorrowfulness in her company. +I began to see how the same still breast +might bear celestial children so diverse as +these, whose names, she told me presently, +were Sleep and Death.</p> + +<p>I looked at the two children at play, +"Ah! now," I said, almost involuntarily +"the golden boy who has caught my horse's +bridle in his hand, is not he Sleep? and he +who considers his brother's boldness—that +one is Death?"</p> + +<p>She smiled with lovely vanity, and told +me how strange of heart young children +are. How they will alter and vary, never +the same for long together, but led by +indiscoverable caprices and obedient to some +further will. She smiled and said how that +sometimes, when the birds hush suddenly +from song, Sleep would creep tenderly and +sadly to her knees, and Death clasp her +roguishly, as if in some secret with the +beams of morning. So would they change, +one to the likeness of the other. But Sleep +was, perhaps, of the gentler disposition; a +little obstinate and headstrong; at times, +indeed, beyond all cajolery; yet very sweet +of impulse and ardent to make amends. +But Death's caprices baffled even her. He +seemed now so pitiless and unlovely of +heart; and now, as if possessed, passionate +and swift; and now would break away +burning from her arms in an infinite +tenderness.</p> + +<p>But best she loved them when there came +a transient peace to both; and looking upon +them laid embraced in the shadow-casting +moonbeam, not even she could undoubtingly +touch the brow of each beneath their likened +hair, and say this is the elder, and this the +dreamless younger of the boys.</p> + +<p>Seeing, too, my eyes cast upon the +undecipherable letters of the tomb by which +we sat, she told me how that once, near +before dawn, she had awoke in the twilight +to find their places empty where the children +had lain at her side, and had sought on, at +last to find them even here, weeping and +quarrelling, and red with anger. Little by +little, and with many tears, she had gleaned +the cause of their quarrel—how that, like +very children, they had run a race at +cockcrow, and all these stones and the +slender bones and ashes beneath to be the +prize; and how that, running, both had +come together to the goal set, and both +had claimed the victory.</p> + +<p>"Yet both seem happy now to share it," +I said, "or how else were they comforted?" +Nor did I consider before she told me +that they will run again when they be +grown men, Sleep and Death, in just such +a thick darkness before dawn; and one +called Love will then run with them, who +is very vehement and fleet of foot, and +never turns aside, nor falters. He who then +shall win may ask a different prize. For +truth to tell, she said, only children can find +delight for long in dust and ruin.</p> + +<p>At that moment Death himself came +hastening to his mother, and, taking her +hand, turned to the enormous picture of +the skies as if in some faint apprehension. +But Sleep saw nothing amiss, lay at full +length among the "cool-rooted flowers," +while Rosinante grazed beside him.</p> + +<p>I told her also, in turn, of my journey; +and that although transient, or everlasting, +solace of all restlessness and sorrow and too-wild +happiness may be found in them, yet +men think not often on these divine children.</p> + +<p>"As for this one," I said, looking down +into the pathless beauty of Death's grey +eyes, "some fear, some mock, some despise +him; some violently, some without complaint +pursue; most men would altogether +dismiss, and forget him. He is but a +child, no older than the sea, no stranger +than the mountains, pure and cold as the +water-springs. Yet to the bolster of fever +his vision flits; and pain drags a heavy +net to snare him; and silence is his echoing +gallery; and the gold of Sleep his final veil. +They shall play on; and see, lady, flame has +left the clouds; the birds are at rest. The +earth breathes in, and it is day; and exhales +her breath, and it is night. Let them then +play secret and innocent between her breasts, +comfort her with silence above the tempest +of her heart.... But I!—what am I?—a +traveller, footsore and far."</p> + +<p>And then it was that I became conscious +of a warm, sly, youthful hand in mine, and +turned, half in dread, to see only happy +Sleep laughing under his glistening hair into +my eyes. I strove in vain against his +sorcery; rolled foolish orbs on that pure, +starry face; and then I smelled as it were +rain, and heard as it were tempestuous +forest-trees—fell asleep among the tombs.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII" ></a>XIII</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>I warmed both hands before the fire of life.</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>Surely some hueless poppy blossomed in +the darkness of those ruins, or the soulless +ashes of the dead breathe out a drowsy +influence. Never have I slept so heavily, +yet never perhaps beneath so cold a tester. +Sunbeams streaming between the crests of +the cypresses awoke me. I leapt up as if a +hundred sentinels had shouted—where none +kept visible watch.</p> + +<p>An odour of a languid sweetness pervaded +the air. There was no wind to stir the +dew-besprinkled trees. The old, scarred +gravestones stood in a thick sunshine, afloat +with bees. But Rosinante had preferred to +survey sunshine out of shade. In lush grass +I found her, the picture of age, foot crook'd, +and head dejected.</p> + +<p>Yet she followed me uncomplaining along +these narrow avenues of silence, and without +more ado turned her trivial tail on Death +and his dim flocks, and well-nigh scampered +me off into the vivid morning. Soon afterwards, +with Hunger in the saddle, we began +to climb a road almost precipitous, and +stony in the extreme. Often enough we +breathed ourselves as best we could in the +still, sultry air, and rested on the sun-dappled +slopes. But at length we came out +upon the crest, and surveyed in the first +splendour of day a region of extraordinary +grandeur.</p> + +<p>Beneath a clear sky to the east stood a +range of mountains, cold and changeless +beneath their snows. At my feet a great +river flowed, broken here and there with +isles in the bright flood. The dark champaign +that flanked its shores was of an unusual +verdure. Mystery and peril brooded on +those distant ravines, the vapours of their +far-descending cataracts. In such abysmal +fastnesses as these the Hyrcan tiger might +hide his surly generations. This was an air +for the sun-disdaining eagle, a country of +transcendent brightness, its flowers strangely +pure and perfect, its waters more limpid, its +grazing herds, its birds, its cedar trees, the +masters of their kind.</p> + +<p>Yet not on these nearer glories my eyes +found rest. But, with a kind of heartache, +I gazed, as it were towards home, upon the +distant waters of the sea. Here, on the +crest of this green hill, was silence. There, +too, was profounder silence on the sea's +untrampled floor. Whence comes that angel +out of nought whispering into the ear strange +syllables? I know not; but so seemed I to +stand—a shattered instrument in the world, +past all true music, o'er which none the less +the invisible lute-master stooped. Could I +but catch, could I but in words express the +music his bent fingers intended, the mystery, +the peace—well; then I should indeed +journey solitary on the face of the earth, +a changeling in its cities.</p> + +<p>I half feared to descend into a country +so diverse from any I had yet seen. +Hitherto at least I had encountered little +else than friendliness. But here—doves in +eyries! I stood, twisting my fingers in +Rosinante's mane, debating and debating. +And she turned her face to me, and looked +with age into my eyes: and I know not +how woke courage in me again.</p> + +<p>"On then?" I said, on the height. And +the gentle beast leaned forward and coughed +into the valley what might indeed be +"Yea!"</p> + +<p>So we began to descend. Down we went, +alone, yet not unhappy, until in a while +I discovered, about a hundred yards in +advance of me, another traveller on the +road, ambling easily along at an equal pace +with mine. I know not how far I followed +in his track debating whether to overtake +and to accost him, or to follow on till a +more favourable chance offered.</p> + +<p>But Chance—avenger of all shilly-shally—settled +the matter offhand. For my traveller, +after casting one comprehensive glance +towards the skies, suddenly whisked off at a +canter that quickly carried him out of sight.</p> + +<p>A chill wind had begun to blow, lifting +in gusts dust into the air and whitening +the tree-tops. As suddenly, calm succeeded. +A cloud of flies droned fretfully about my +ears. And I watched advancing, league-high, +transfigured with sunbeams, the +enormous gloom of storm. The sun smote +from a silvery haze upon its peaks and +gorges. Wind, far above the earth, moaned, +and fell; only to sound once more in the +distance in a mournful trumpeting. Lightnings +played along the desolate hills. The +sun was darkened. A vast flight of snowy, +arrow-winged birds streamed voiceless beneath +his place. And day withdrew its boundaries, +spread to the nearer forests a bright +amphitheatre, fitful with light, whereof it +seemed to me Rosinante with her poor +burden was the centre and the butt. I +confess I began to dread lest even my +mere surmise of danger should engage the +piercing lightnings; as if in the mystery of +life storm and a timorous thought might +yet be of a kin.</p> + +<p>We hastened on at the most pathetic of +gallops. Nor seemed indeed the beauteous +lightning to regard at all that restless mote +upon the cirque of its entranced fairness. +In an instantaneous silence I heard a tiny +beat of hoofs; in instantaneous gloom +recognised almost with astonishment my +own shape bowed upon the saddle. It +was a majestic entry into a kingdom so +far-famed.</p> + +<p>The storm showed no abatement when at +last I found shelter. From far away I had +espied in the immeasurable glare a country +barn beneath trees. Arrived there, I almost +fell off my horse into as incongruous and +lighthearted a company as ever was seen.</p> + +<p>In the midst of the floor of the barn, +upon a heap of hay, sat a fool in +motley blowing with all his wind into a +pipe. It was a cunning tune he played +too, rich and heady. And so seemed the +company to find it, dancers—some thirty or +more—capering round him with all the +abandon heart can feel and heel can +answer to. As for pose, he whose horse +now stood smoking beside my own first +drew my attention—a smooth, small-bearded, +solemn man, a little beyond his prime. He +lifted his toes with such inimitable agility, +postured his fingers so daintily, conducted +his melon-belly with so much elegance, and +exhaled such a warm joy in the sport that +I could look at nothing else at first for +delight in him.</p> + +<p>But there were slim maids too among the +plumper and ruddier, like crocuses, like +lilac, like whey, with all their fragrance +and freshness and lightness. Such eyes +adazzle dancing with mine, such nimble and +discreet ankles, such gimp English middles, +and such a gay delight in the mere grace +of the lilting and tripping beneath rafters +ringing loud with thunder, that Pan himself +might skip across a hundred furrows for +sheer envy to witness.</p> + +<p>As for the jolly rustics that were jogging +their wits away with such delightful gravity, +but little time was given me to admire +them ere I also was snatched into the ring, +and found brown eyes dwelling with mine, +and a hand like lettuces in the dog-days. +Round and about we skipped in the golden +straw, amidst treasuries of hay, puffing and +spinning. And the quiet lightnings quivered +between the beams, and the monstrous +"Ah!" of the thunder submerged the pipe's +sweetness. Till at last all began to gasp +and blow indeed, and the nodding Fool to +sip, and sip, as if <i>in extremis</i> over his +mouthpiece. Then we rested awhile, with +a medley of shrill laughter and guffaws, +while the rain streamed lightning-lit upon +the trees and tore the clouds to tatters.</p> + +<p>With some little circumstance my +traveller picked his way to me, and with +a grave civility bowed me a sort of general +welcome. Whereupon ensued such wit and +banter as made me thankful when the +opening impudence of a kind of jig set +the heels and the petticoats of the company +tossing once more. We danced the lightning +out, and piped the thunder from the +skies. And by then I was so faint with +fasting, and so deep in love with at least +five young country faces, that I scarcely +knew head from heels; still less, when a +long draught of a kind of thin, sweet ale +had mounted to its sphere.</p> + +<p>Away we all trooped over the flashing +fields, noisy as jays in the fresh, sweet air, +some to their mowing, some to their milking, +but more, indeed, I truly suspect, to that +exquisite <i>Nirvana</i> from which the tempest's +travail had aroused them. I waved my +hand, striving in vain to keep my eyes on +one blest, beguiling face of all that glanced +behind them. But, she gone, I turned +into the rainy lane once more with my new +acquaintance, discreeter, but not less giddy, +it seemed, than I.</p> + +<p>We had not far to go—past a meadow +or two, a low green wall, a black fish-pool—and +soon the tumbledown gables of +a house came into view. My companion +waved his open fingers at the crooked +casements and peered into my face.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he said, "we will talk, we will +talk, you and I: I view it in your eye, +sir—clear and full and profound—such ever +goes with eloquence. 'Tis my delight. +What are we else than beasts?—beasts that +perish? I never tire; I never weary;—give +me to dance and to sing, but ever to talk: +then am I at ease. Heaven is just. Enter, +sir—enter!"</p> + +<p>He led me by a shady alley into his +orchard, and thence to a stable, where we +left Rosinante at hob-a-nob with his mare +over a friendly bottle of hay. And we ourselves +passed into the house, and ascended +a staircase into an upper chamber. This +chamber was raftered, its walls hung with +an obscure tapestry, its floor strewn with +sand, and its lozenged casement partly +shuttered against the blaze of sunshine that +flowed across the forests far away to the west.</p> + +<p>My friend eyed me brightly and busily as +a starling. "You danced fine, sir," he said. +"Oh! it is a <i>pleasure</i> to me. Ay, and now +I come to consider it, methought I did +hear hoofs behind me that might yet be +echo. No, but I did <i>not</i> think: 'twas but +my ear cried to his dreaming master. Ever +dreaming; God help at last the awakening! +But well met, well met, I say again. I am +cheered. And you but just in time! Nay, +I would not have missed him for a ransom. +So—so—this leg, that leg; up now—hands +over down we go! Lackaday, I am old +bones for such freaks. Once!... '<i>Memento +mori</i>!' say I, and smell the shower the +sweeter for it. Be seated, sir, bench or +stool, wheresoever you'd be. You're looking +peaked. That burden rings in my skull +like a bagpipe. Toot-a-tootie, toot-a-toot! +Och, sad days!"</p> + +<p>We devoured our meal of cold meats +and pickled fish, fruit and junket and a kind +of harsh cheese, as if in contest for a wager. +And copious was the thin spicy wine with +which we swam it home. Ever and again +my host would desist, to whistle, or croon +(with a packed mouth) in the dismallest of +tenors, a stave or two of the tune we had +danced to, bobbing head and foot in sternest +time. Then a great vacancy would overspread +his face turned to the window, as +suddenly to gather to a cheerful smile, and +light, irradiated, once more on me. Then +down would drop his chin over his plate, +and away go finger and spoon among his +victuals in a dance as brisk and whole-hearted +as the other.</p> + +<p>He took me out again into his garden +after supper, and we walked beneath the +trees.</p> + +<p>"'Tis bliss to be a bachelor, sir," he said, +gazing on the resinous trunk of an old +damson tree. "I gorge, I guzzle; I am +merry, am melancholy; studious, harmonical, +drowsy,—and none to scold or deny me. +For the rest, why, youth is vain: yet youth +had pleasure—innocence and delight. I +chew the cud of many a peaceful acre. +Ay, I have nibbled roses in my time. But +now, what now? I have lived so long +far from courts and courtesy, grace and +fashion, and am so much my own close +and indifferent friend—Why! he is happy +who has solitude for housemate, company for +guest. I say it, I say it; I marry daily +wives of memory's fashioning, and dream at +peace."</p> + +<p>It seemed an old bone he picked with +Destiny.</p> + +<p>"There's much to be said," I replied as +profoundly as I could.</p> + +<p>The air he now lulled youth asleep with +was a very cheerless threnody, but he +brightened once more at praise of his delightful +orchard.</p> + +<p>"You like it, sir? You speak kindly, sir. +It is my all; root and branch: how many +a summer's moons have I seen shine hereon! +I know it—there is bliss to come;—miraculous +Paradise for men even dull +as I. Yet 'twill be strange to me—without +my house and orchard. Age tends +to earth, sir, till even an odour may awake +the dead—a branch in the air call with its +fluttering a face beyond Time to vanquish +dear. 'Soul, soul,' I cry, 'forget thy dust, +forget thy vaunting ashes!'—and speak in +vain. So's life!"</p> + +<p>And when we had gone in again, and +candles had been lit in his fresh and narrow +chamber, seeing a viol upon a chest, I +begged a little music.</p> + +<p>He quite eagerly, with a boyish peal of +laughter, complied; and sat down with a +very solemn face, his brows uplifted, and +sang between the candles to a pathetic air +this doggerel:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>There's a dark tree and a sad tree,<br /></span> +<span>Where sweet Alice waits, unheeded,<br /></span> +<span>For her lover long-time absent,<br /></span> +<span>Plucking rushes by the river.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Let the bird sing, let the buck sport,<br /></span> +<span>Let the sun sink to his setting;<br /></span> +<span>Not one star that stands in darkness<br /></span> +<span>Shines upon her absent lover.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>But his stone lies 'neath the dark tree,<br /></span> +<span>Cold to bosom, deaf to weeping;<br /></span> +<span>And 'tis gathering moss she touches,<br /></span> +<span>Where the locks lay of her lover.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"A dolesome thing," he said; "but my +mother was wont to sing it to the virginals. +'Cold to bosom,'" he reiterated with a +plangent cadence; "I remember them all, +sir; from the cradle I had a gift for music." +And then, with an ample flirt of his bow, +he broke, all beams and smiles, into this +ingenuous ditty:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>The goodman said,<br /></span> +<span>"'Tis time for bed,<br /></span> +<span>Come, mistress, get us quick to pray;<br /></span> +<span>Call in the maids<br /></span> +<span>From out the glades<br /></span> +<span>Where they with lovers stray,<br /></span> +<span>With love, and love do stray."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Nay, master mine,<br /></span> +<span>The night is fine,<br /></span> +<span>And time's enough all dark to pray;<br /></span> +<span>'Tis April buds<br /></span> +<span>Bedeck the woods<br /></span> +<span>Where simple maids away<br /></span> +<span>With love, and love do stray.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Now we are old,<br /></span> +<span>And nigh the mould,<br /></span> +<span>'Tis meet on feeble knees to pray;<br /></span> +<span>When once we'd roam,<br /></span> +<span>'Twas else cried, 'Come,<br /></span> +<span>And sigh the dusk away,<br /></span> +<span>With love, and love to stray.'"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>So they gat in<br /></span> +<span>To pray till nine;<br /></span> +<span>Then called, "Come maids, true maids, away!<br /></span> +<span>Kiss and begone,<br /></span> +<span>Ha' done, ha' done,<br /></span> +<span>Until another day<br /></span> +<span>With love, and love to stray!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Oh, it were best<br /></span> +<span>If so to rest<br /></span> +<span>Went man and maid in peace away!<br /></span> +<span>The throes a heart<br /></span> +<span>May make to smart<br /></span> +<span>Unless love have his way,<br /></span> +<span>In April woods to stray!—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>In April woods to stray!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And that finished with another burst of +laughter, he set very adroitly to the mimicry +of beasts and birds upon his frets. Never +have I seen a face so consummately the +action's. His every fibre answered to the +call; his eyebrows twitched like an orator's; +his very nose was plastic.</p> + +<p>"Hst!" he cried softly; "hither struts +chanticleer!" "Cock-a-diddle-doo!" crowed +the wire. "Now, prithee, Dame Partlett!" +and down bustled a hen from an egg like +cinnamon. A cat with kittens mewed along +the string, anxious and tender.</p> + +<p>"A woodpecker," he cried, directing +momentarily a sedulous, clear eye on me. +And lo, "inviolable quietness" and the +smooth beech-boughs! "And thus," he said, +sitting closer, "the martlets were wont to +whimper about the walls of the castle of +Inverness, the castle of Macbeth."</p> + +<p>"Macbeth!" I repeated—"Macbeth!"</p> + +<p>"Ay," he said, "it was his seat while yet +a simple soldier—flocks and flocks of them, +wheeling hither, thither, in the evening air, +crying and calling."</p> + +<p>I listened in a kind of confusion. "... And +Duncan," I said....</p> + +<p>He eyed me with immense pleasure, and +nodded with brilliant eyes on mine.</p> + +<p>"What looking man was he?" I said at +last as carelessly as I dared. "... The +King, you mean,—of Scotland."</p> + +<p>He magnanimously ignored my confusion, +and paused to build his sentence.</p> + +<p>"'Duncan'?" he said. "The question +calls him straight to mind. A lean-locked, +womanish countenance; sickly, yet never +sick; timid, yet most obdurate; more sly +than politic. An <i>ignis fatuus</i>, sir, in a +world of soldiers." His eye wandered.... +"'Twas a marvellous sanative air, crisp and +pure; but for him, one draught and outer +darkness. I myself viewed his royal entry +from the gallery—pacing urbane to slaughter; +and I uttered a sigh to see him. 'Why, +sir, do you sigh to see the king?' cried one +softly that stood by. 'I sigh, my lord,' I +answered to the instant, 'at sight of a +monarch even Duncan's match!'"</p> + +<p>He looked his wildest astonishment at me.</p> + +<p>"Not, I'd have you remember—not that +'twas blood I did foresee.... To kill in +blood a man, and he a king, so near to +natural death ... foul, foul!"</p> + +<p>"And Macbeth?" I said presently—"Macbeth...?"</p> + +<p>He laid down his viol with prolonged care.</p> + +<p>"His was a soul, sir, nobler than his fate. +I followed him not without love from boyhood—a +youth almost too fine of spirit; +shrinking from all violence, over-nicely; +eloquent, yet chary of speech, and of a dark +profundity of thought. The questions he +would patter!—unanswerable, searching earth +and heaven through.... And who now +was it told me the traitor Judas's hair was +red?—yet not red his, but of a reddish +chestnut, fine and bushy. Children have +played their harmless hands at hide-and-seek +therein. O sea of many winds!</p> + +<p>"For come gloom on the hills, floods, +discolouring mist; breathe but some grandam's +tale of darkness and blood and +doubleness in his hearing: all changed. +Flame kindled; a fevered unrest drove him +out; and Ambition, that spotted hound of +hell, strained at the leash towards the Pit.</p> + +<p>"So runs the world—the ardent and the +lofty. We are beyond earth's story as 'tis +told, sir. All's shallower than the heart of +man.... Indeed, 'twas one more shattered +altar to Hymen."</p> + +<p>"'Hymen!'" I said.</p> + +<p>He brooded long and silently, clipping his +small beard. And while he was so brooding, +a mouse, a moth, dust—I know not what, +stirred the listening strings of his viol to +sound, and woke him with a start.</p> + +<p>"I vowed, sir, then, to dismiss all memory +of such unhappy deeds from mind—never +to speak again that broken lady's name. +Oh! I have seen sad ends—pride abased, +splendour dismantled, courage to terror +come, guilt to a crying guilelessness."</p> + +<p>"'Guilelessness?'" I said. "Lady Macbeth +at least was past all changing."</p> + +<p>The doctor stood up and cast a deep +scrutiny on me, which yet, perhaps, was +partly on himself.</p> + +<p>"Perceive, sir," he said, "this table—broader, +longer, splendidly burdened; and all +adown both sides the board, thanes and their +ladies, lords, and gentlemen, guests bidden +to a royal banquet. 'Twas then in that +bleak and dismal country—the Palace of +Forres. Torches flared in the hall; to every +man a servant or two: we sat in pomp."</p> + +<p>He paused again, and gravely withdrew +behind the tapestry.</p> + +<p>"And presently," he cried therefrom, +suiting his action to the word, "to the blast +of hautboys enters the king in state thus, +with his attendant lords. And with all +that rich and familiar courtesy of which +he was master in his easier moods he +passed from one to another, greeting with +supple dignity on his way, till he came at +last softly to the place prepared for him +at table. And suddenly—shall I ever +forget, it, sir?—it seemed silence ran like a +flame from mouth to mouth as there he +stood, thus, marble-still, his eyes fixed in +a leaden glare. And he raised his face and +looked once round on us all with a forlorn +astonishment and wrath, like one with a +death-wound—I never saw the like of such +a face.</p> + +<p>"Whereat, beseeching us to be calm, and +pay no heed, the queen laid her hand on +his and called him. And his orbs rolled +down once more upon the empty place, and +stuck as if at grapple with some horror seen +within. He muttered aloud in peevish +altercation—once more to heave up his +frame, to sigh and shake himself, and lo!—"</p> + +<p>The viol-strings rang to his "lo!"</p> + +<p>"Lo, sir, the Unseen had conquered. His +lip sagged into his beard, he babbled with +open mouth, and leaned on his lady with +such an impotent and slavish regard as I +hope never to see again man pay to +woman.... We thought no more of supper +after that....</p> + +<p>"But what do I—?" The doctor laid +a cautioning finger on his mouth.</p> + +<p>"The company was dispersed, the palace +gloomy with night (and they were black +nights at Forres!), and on the walls I heard +the sentinel's replying.... In the wood's last +glow I entered and stood in his self-same +station before the empty stool. And even +as I stood thus, my hair creeping, my will +concentred, gazing with every cord at +stretch, fell a light, light footfall behind +me." He glanced whitely over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Sir, it was the queen come softly out of +slumber on my own unquiet errand."</p> + +<p>The doctor strode to the door, and peered +out like a man suspicious or guilty of +treachery. It was indeed a house of broken +silences. And there, in the doorway, he +seemed to be addressing his own saddened +conscience.</p> + +<p>"With all my skill, and all a leal man's +gentleness, I solaced and persuaded, and +made an oath, and conducted her back to +her own chamber unperceived. How weak +is sleep!... It was a habit, sir, contracted +in childhood, long dormant, that Evil +had woke again. The Past awaits us all. +So run Time's sands, till mercy's globe is +empty and ..."</p> + +<p>He stooped and whispered it across to +me: "... A child, a comparative child, +shrunk to an anatomy, her beauty changed, +ghostly of youth and all its sadness, baffled +by a word, slave to a doctor's nod! None +knew but I, and, at the last, one of her +ladies—a gentle, faithful, and fearful creature. +Nor she till far beyond all mischief....</p> + +<p>"Wild deeds are done. But to have blood +on the hands, a cry in the ears, and one +same glassy face eye to eye, that nothing +can dim, nor even slumber pacify—dreams, +dreams, intangible, enorm! Forefend them, +God, from me!"</p> + +<p>He stood a moment as if he were +listening; then turned, smiling irresolutely, +and eyed me aimlessly. He seemed afraid +of his own house, askance at his own +furniture. Yet, though I scarce know why, +I felt he had not told me the whole truth. +Something fidelity had yet withheld from +vanity. I longed to enquire further. I put +aside how many burning questions awhile!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV" ></a>XIV</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>And if we gang to sea, master,</i><br /></span> +<span><i>I fear we'll come to harm.</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—OLD BALLAD.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>By and by less anxious talk soothed him. +Indeed it was he who suggested one last +bright draught of air beneath his trees before +retiring. Down we went again with some +unnecessary clatter. And here were stars +between the fruited boughs, silvery Capella +and the Twins, and low on the sky's moonlit +border Venus excellently bright.</p> + +<p>He asked me whither I proposed going, if +I needs must go; besought there and then in +the ambrosial night-air the history of my +wanderings—a mere nine days' wonder; and +told me how he himself much feared and +hated the sea.</p> + +<p>He questioned me also with not a little +subtilty (and double-dealing too, I fancied,) +regarding my own country, and of things +present, and things real. In fact nothing, +I think, so much flattered his vanity—unless +it was my wonder at Dame Partlett's +clucking on his viol-strings—as to learn himself +was famous even so far as to ages yet +unborn. He gazed on the simple moon +with limpid, amiable eyes, and caught my +fingers in his.</p> + +<p>How, then, could I even so much as hint +to enquire which century indeed was his, +who had no need of any? How could I +abash that kindly vanity of his by adding +also that, however famous, he must needs +be to all eternity—nameless?</p> + +<p>We conversed long and earnestly in the +coolness. He very frankly counselled me not +to venture unconducted further into this +country. The land of Tragedy was broad. +And though on this side it lay adjacent +to the naïve and civil people of Comedy; +on the further, in the shadow of those +bleak, unfooted mountains, lurked unnatural +horror and desolation, and cruelty beyond all +telling.</p> + +<p>He very kindly offered me too, if I was +indeed bent on seeking the sea, an old boat, +still seaworthy, that lay in a creek in the river +near by, from which he was wont to fish. +As for Rosinante, he supposed a rest would +be by no means unwelcome to so faithful a +friend. He himself rode little, being indolent, +and a happier host than guest; and when I +returned here, she should be stuffed with +dainties awaiting me.</p> + +<p>To this I cordially and gratefully agreed; +and also even more cordially to remain with +him the next day; and the next night after +that to take my watery departure.</p> + +<p>So it was. And a courteous, versatile, and +vivacious companion I found him. Rare tales +he told me, too, of better days than these, +and rarest of his own never-more-returning +youth. He loved his childhood, talked on +of it with an artless zeal, his eyes a nest of +singing-birds. How contrite he was for spirit +lost, and daring withheld, and hope discomfited! +How simple and urbane concerning +his present lowly demands on life, on love, +and on futurity! All this, too, with such +packed winks and mirth and mourning, that I +truly said good-night for the second time to +him with a rather melancholy warmth, since +to-morrow ... who can face unmoved that +viewless sphinx? Moreover, the sea is wide, +has fishes in plenty, but never too many +coraled grottoes once poor mariners.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XV" id="XV" ></a>XV</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>'Tis now full tide 'tween night and day.</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—JOHN WEBSTER.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>On the stroke of two next morning the +doctor conducted me down to the creek in +the river-bank where he kept his boat. There +was little light but of the stars in the sky; +nothing stirring. She floated dim and monstrous +on the softly-running water, a navy +in germ, and could have sat without danger +thirty men like me. We stood on the bank, +side by side, eyeing her vacancy. And (I can +answer for myself) night-thoughts rose up in +us at sight of her. Was it indeed only wind +in the reeds that sighed around us? only +the restless water insistently whispering and +calling? only of darkness were these forbidding +shadows?</p> + +<p>I looked up sharply at the doctor from +such pensive embroidery, and found him as +far away as I. He nodded and smiled, and +we shook hands on the bank in the thick +mist.</p> + +<p>"There's biscuits and a little meat, wine, +and fruit," he said in an undertone. "God be +with you, sir! I sadly mistrust the future. +... 'Tis ever my way, at parting."</p> + +<p>We said good-bye again, to the dream-cry +of some little fluttering creature of the rushes. +And well before dawn I was floating midstream, +my friend a memory, Rosinante in +clover, and my travels, so far as this brief +narrative will tell, nearly ended.</p> + +<p>I saw nothing but a few long-haired, +grazing cattle on my voyage, that eyed me but +cursorily. I passed unmolested among the +waterfowl, between the never-silent rushes, +beneath a sky refreshed and sweetened with +storm. The boat was enormously heavy and +made slow progress. When too the tide +began to flow I must needs push close in to +the bank and await the ebb. But towards +evening of the third day I began to approach +the sea.</p> + +<p>I listened to the wailing of its long-winged +gulls; snuffed with how broad-nostrilled a +gusto that savour not even pinewoods can +match, nor any wild flower disguise; and heard +at last the sound that stirs beneath all music—the +deep's loud-falling billow.</p> + +<p>I pushed ashore, climbed the sandy bank, +and moored my boat to an ash tree at the +waterside. And after scrambling some little +distance over dunes yet warm with the sun, +I came out at length, and stood like a Greek +before the sea.</p> + +<p>Here my bright river disembogued in noise +and foam. Far to either side of me stretched +the faint gold horns of a bay; and beyond +me, almost violet in the shadow of its waves, +the shipless sea.</p> + +<p>I looked on the breaking water with a +divided heart. Its light, salt airs, its solitary +beauty, its illimitable reaches seemed tidings +of a region I could remember only as one +who, remembering that he has dreamed, +remembers nothing more. Larks rose, singing, +behind me. In a calm, golden light my eager +river quarrelled with its peace. Here indeed +was solitude!</p> + +<p>It was in searching sea and cliff for the +least sign of life that I thought I descried +on the furthest extremity of the nearer of +the horns of the bay the spires and +smouldering domes of a little city. If I +gazed intently, they seemed to vanish away, +yet still to shine above the azure if, raising +my eyes, I looked again.</p> + +<p>So, caring not how far I must go so long +as my path lay beside these breaking waters, +I set out on the firm, white sands to prove +this city the mirage I deemed it.</p> + +<p>What wonder, then, my senses fell asleep +in that vast lullaby! And out of a daydream +almost as deep as that in which I +first set out, I was suddenly aroused by a +light tapping sound, distinct and regular +between the roaring breakers.</p> + +<p>I lifted my eyes to find the city I was +seeking evanished away indeed. But nearer +at hand a child was playing upon the beach, +whose spade among the pebbles had caused +the birdlike noise I had heard.</p> + +<p>So engrossed was she with her building +in the sand that she had not heard me approaching. +She laboured on at the margin +of the cliff's shadow where the sea-birds +cried, answering Echo in the rocks. So +solitary and yet so intent, so sedate and +yet so eager a little figure she seemed in +the long motionlessness of the shore, by the +dark heedlessness of the sea, I hesitated to +disturb her.</p> + +<p>Who of all Time's children could this be +playing uncompanioned by the sea? And +at a little distance betwixt me and her in +the softly-mounded sand her spade had +already scrawled in large, ungainly capitals, +the answer—"Annabel Lee." The little +flounced black frock, the tresses of black +hair, the small, beautiful dark face—this then +was Annabel Lee; and that bright, phantom +city I had seen—that was the vanishing +mockery of her kingdom.</p> + +<p>I called her from where I stood—"Annabel +Lee!" She lifted her head and +shook back her hair, and gazed at me +startled and intent. I went nearer.</p> + +<p>"You are a very lonely little girl," I said.</p> + +<p>"I am building in the sand," she answered.</p> + +<p>"A castle?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"It was in dreams," she said, flushing +darkly.</p> + +<p>"What kind of dream was it in then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! I often dream it; and I build it in +the sand. But there's never time: the sea +comes back."</p> + +<p>"Was the tide quite high when you +began?" I asked; for now it was low.</p> + +<p>"Just that much from the stones," she +said; "I waited for it ever so long."</p> + +<p>"It has a long way to come yet," I said; +"you will finish it <i>this</i> time, I dare say."</p> + +<p>She shook her head and lifted her spade.</p> + +<p>"Oh no; it is much bigger, more than +twice. And I haven't the seaweed, or +the shells, and it comes back very, very +quickly."</p> + +<p>"But where is the little boy you play +with down here by the sea?"</p> + +<p>She glanced at me swiftly and surely; +and shook her head again.</p> + +<p>"He would help you."</p> + +<p>"He didn't in my dream," she said +doubtfully. She raised long, stealthy eyes +to mine, and spoke softly and deliberately. +"Besides, there isn't any little boy."</p> + +<p>"None, Annabel Lee?" I said.</p> + +<p>"Why," she answered, "I have played +here years and years and years, and there are +only the gulls and terns and cormorants, and +that!" She pointed with her spade towards +the broken water.</p> + +<p>"You know all their names then?" I said.</p> + +<p>"Some I know," she answered with a little +frown, and looked far out to sea. Then, +turning her eyes, she gazed long at me, +searchingly, forlornly on a stranger. "I am +going home now," she said.</p> + +<p>I looked at the house of sand and smiled. +But she shook her head once more.</p> + +<p>"It never <i>could</i> be finished," she said firmly, +"though I tried and tried, unless the sea +would keep quite still just once all day, +without going to and fro. And then," she +added with a flash of anger—"then I +would not build."</p> + +<p>"Well," said I, "when it is nearly finished, +and the water washes up, and up, and +washes it away, here is a flower that came +from Fairyland. And that, dear heart, is +none so far away."</p> + +<p>She took the purple flower I had plucked +in Ennui's garden in her slim, cold hand.</p> + +<p>"It's amaranth," she said; and I have +never seen so old a little look in a child's +eyes.</p> + +<p>"And all the flowers' names too?" I said.</p> + +<p>She frowned again. "It's amaranth," she +said, and ran off lightly and so deftly +among the rocks and in the shadow that +was advancing now even upon the foam of +the sea, that she had vanished before I had +time to deter, or to pursue her. I sought +her awhile, until the dark rack of sunset +obscured the light, and the sea's voice +changed; then I desisted.</p> + +<p>It was useless to remain longer beneath +the looming caves, among the stones of so +inhospitable a shore. I was a stranger to +the tides. And it was clear high-water +would submerge the narrow sands whereon +I stood.</p> + +<p>Yet I cannot describe how loth I was to +leave to night's desolation the shapeless +house of a child. What fate was this that +had set her to such profitless labour on the +uttermost shores of "Tragedy"? What +history lay behind, past, or, as it were, +never to come? What gladness too high +for earth had nearly once been hers? Her +sea-mound took strange shapes in the gloom—light +foliage of stone, dark heaviness of +granite, wherein rumour played of all that +restless rustling; small cries, vast murmurings +from those green meadows, old as +night.</p> + +<p>I turned, even ran away, at last. I found +my boat in the gloaming where I had left +her, safe and sound, except that all the +doctor's good things had been nosed and +tumbled by some hungry beast in my +absence. I stood and thought vacantly of +Crusoe, and pig, and guns. But what use +to delay? I got in.</p> + +<p>If it were true, as the excellent doctor had +informed me, that seamen reported islands +not far distant from these shores, chance +might bear me blissfully to one of these. +And if not true ... I turned a rather +startled face to the water, and made haste +not to think. Fortune pierces deep, and +baits her hooks with sceptics. Away I +went, bobbing mightily over the waves that +leapt and wrestled where sea and river met. +These safely navigated, I rowed the great +creature straight forward across the sea, my +face towards dwindling land, my prow to +Scorpio.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI" ></a>XVI</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Art thou pale for weariness.</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>—PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>The constellations of summer wheeled above +me; and thus between water and starry +sky I tossed solitary in my boat. The faint +lustre of the sultry night hung like a mist +from heaven to earth. Far away above the +countries I had left perhaps for ever, the +quiet lightnings played innocently in the +heights.</p> + +<p>I rowed steadily on, guiding myself by +some much ruddier star on the horizon. +The pale phosphorescence on the wave, the +simple sounds as of fish stirring in the +water—the beauty and wonder of Night's +dwelling-place seemed beyond content of +mortality.</p> + +<p>I leaned on my oars in the midst of the +deep sea, and seemed to hear, as it were, +the mighty shout of Space. Faint and +enormous beams of light trembled through +the sky. And once I surprised a shadow +as of wings sweeping darkly across, star on +to glittering star, shaking the air, stilling +the sea with the cold dews of night.</p> + +<p>So rowing, so resting, I passed the mark +of midnight. Weariness began to steal over +me. Between sleep and wake I heard +strange cries across the deep. The thin +silver of the old moon ebbed into the east. +A chill mist welled out of the water and +shrouded me in faintest gloom. Wherefore, +battling no more against such influences, I +shipped my oars, made my prayer in the +midst of this dark womb of Life, and +screening myself as best I could from the +airs that soon would be moving before +dawn, I lay down in the bottom of the +boat and fell asleep.</p> + +<p>I slept apparently without dream, and +woke as it seemed to the sound of voices +singing some old music of the sea. A scent +of a fragrance unknown to me was eddying +in the wind. I raised my head, and saw +with eyes half-dazed with light an island of +cypress and poplar, green and still above +the pure glass of its encircling waters. +Straight before me, beyond green-bearded +rocks dripping with foam, a little stone +house, or temple, with columns and balconies +of marble, stood hushed upon the cliff by +the waterside.</p> + +<p>All now was soundless. They that sang, +whether Nereids or Sirens, had descended to +dimmer courts. The seamews floated on the +water; the white dove strutted on the ledge; +only the nightingales sang on in the thick +arbours.</p> + +<p>I pushed my boat between the rocks +towards the island. Bright and burning +though the beams of the sun were, here +seemed everlasting shadow. And though at +my gradual intrusion, at splash or grating of +keel, the startled cormorant cried in the air, +and with one cry woke many, yet here too +seemed perpetual stillness.</p> + +<p>How could I know what eyes might not +be regarding me from bowers as thick and +secluded as these? Yet this seemed an isle +in some vague fashion familiar to me. To +these same watery steps of stone, to this +same mooring-ring surely I had voyaged +before in dream or other life? I glanced +into the water and saw my own fantastic +image beneath the reflected gloom of +cypresses, and knew at least, though I a +shadow might be, this also was an island in +a sea of shadows. Far from all land its +marbles might be reared, yet they were +warm to my touch, and these were nightingales, +and those strutting doves beneath the +little arches.</p> + +<p>So very gradually, and glancing to and +fro into these unstirring groves, I came +presently to the entrance court of the +solitary villa on the cliff-side. Here a +thread-like fountain plashed in its basin, +the one thing astir in this cool retreat. +Here, too, grew orange trees, with their +unripe fruit upon them.</p> + +<p>But I continued, and venturing out upon +the terrace overlooking the sea, saw again +with a kind of astonishment the doctor's +green, unwieldy boat beneath me and the +emerald of the nearer waters tossing above +the yellow sands.</p> + +<p>Here I had sat awhile lost in ease when +I heard a footstep approaching and the +rhythmical rustling of drapery, and knew +eyes were now regarding me that I feared, +yet much desired to meet.</p> + +<p>"Oh me!" said a clear yet almost languid +voice. "How comes any man so softly?"</p> + +<p>Turning, I looked in the face of one +how long a shade!</p> + +<p>I strove in vain to hide my confusion. +This lady only smiled the deeper out of her +baffling eyes.</p> + +<p>"If you could guess," she said presently, +"how my heart leapt in me, as if, poor +creature, any oars of earth could bring it +ease, you would think me indeed as +desolate as I am. To hear the bird scream, +Traveller! I hastened from the gardens as +if the black ships of the Greeks were come +to take me. But such is long ago. Tell +me, now, is the world yet harsh with men +and sad with women? Burns yet that +madness mirth calls Life? or truly does the +puny, busy-tongued race sleep at last, nodding +no more at me?"</p> + +<p>I told as best I could how chance had +fetched me; told, too, that earth was yet +pestered with men, and heavenly with +women. "And the madness mirth calls Life +flickers yet," I said; "and the little race +tosses on in nightmare."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" she replied, "so ever run travellers' +tales. I too once trusted to seem indifferent. +But you, if shadow deceives me not, may +yet return: I, only to the shades whence +earth draws me. Meanwhile," she said, +looking softly at the fountain playing in the +clear gloom beyond, "rest and grow weary +again, for there flock more questions to my +tongue than spines on the blackthorn. The +gardens are green with flowers, Traveller; let +us talk where rosemary blows."</p> + +<p>Following her, I thought of the mysterious +beauty of her eyes, her pallor, her slimness, +and that faint smile which hovered between +ecstasy and indifference, and away went my +mind to one whom the shrewdest and tenderest +of my own countrymen called once Criseyde.</p> + +<p>She led me into a garden all of faint-hued +flowers. There bloomed no scarlet +here, nor blue, nor yellow; but white and +lavender and purest purple. Here, also, +like torches of the sun, stood poplars each +by each in the windless air, and the +impenetrable darkness of cypresses beneath +them.</p> + +<p>Here too was a fountain whose waters +leapt no more, mossy and time-worn. I +could not but think of those other gardens +of my journey—Jane's, Ennui's, Dianeme's; +and yet none like this for the shingley +murmur of the sea, and the calmness of +morning.</p> + +<p>"But, surely," I said, "this must be very +far from Troy."</p> + +<p>"Far indeed," she said.</p> + +<p>"Far also from the hollow ships."</p> + +<p>"Far also from the hollow ships," she +replied.</p> + +<p>"Yet," said I, "in the country whence I +come is a saying: Where the treasure is—"</p> + +<p>"Alack! <i>there</i> gloats the miser!" said +Criseyde; "but I, Traveller, have no +treasure, only a patchwork memory, and +that's a great grief."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, forget! Why try in vain?" +I said.</p> + +<p>She smiled and seated herself, leaning a +little forward, looking upon the ground.</p> + +<p>"Soothfastness <i>must</i>,"' she said very +gravely, raising her long black eyebrows; +"yet truly it must be a forlorn thing to +be remembered by one who so lightly forgets. +So then I say, to teach myself to be +true—'Look now, Criseyde, yonder fine, +many-hearted poplar—that is Paris; and all +that bank of marriage-ivy—that is marriageable +Helen, green and cold; and the waterless +fountain—that truly is Diomed; and the +faded flower that nods in shadow, why, that +must be me, even me, Criseyde!'"</p> + +<p>"And this thick rosemary-bush that smells +of exile, who, then, is that?" I said.</p> + +<p>She looked deep into the shadow of the +cypresses. "That," she said, "I think I +have forgot again."</p> + +<p>"But," I said, "Diomed, now, was he quite +so silent—not one trickle of persuasion?"</p> + +<p>"Why," she said, "I think 'twas the +fountain was Diomed: I know not. And +as for persuasion; he was a man forked, +vain, and absolute as all. Let the waterless +stone be sudden Diomed—you will confuse +my wits, Mariner; where, then, were I?" +She smiled, stooping lower. "You have +voyaged far?" she said.</p> + +<p>"From childhood to this side regret," I +answered rather sadly.</p> + +<p>"'Tis a sad end to a sweet tale," she said, +"were it but truly told. But yet, and yet, +and yet—you may return, and life heals +every, every wound. <i>I</i> must look on the +ground and make amends. 'Tis this same +making amends men now call 'Purgatory,' +they tell me."</p> + +<p>"'Amends,'" I said; "to whom? for +what?"</p> + +<p>"Welaway," said she, with a narrow fork +between her brows; "to most men and to +all women, for being that Criseyde." She +gazed half solemnly at some picture of +reverie.</p> + +<p>"But which Criseyde?" I said. "She +who was every wind's, or but one perfect +summer's?"</p> + +<p>She glanced strangely at me. "Ask of +the night that burns so many stars," she +said. "All's done; all passes. Yet my poor +busy Uncle Pandar had no such changes, +nor Hector, nor ... Men change not: +they love and love again—one same tune +of a myriad verses."</p> + +<p>"All?" I said.</p> + +<p>She tossed lightly a little dust from her +hand.</p> + +<p>"Nay—all," she replied; "but what is that +to me? Mine only to see Charon on the +wave pass light over and return. Man of +the green world, prithee die not yet awhile! +'Tis dull being a shade. See these cold +palms! Yet my heart beats on."</p> + +<p>"For what?" I said.</p> + +<p>Criseyde folded her hands and leaned her +cheek sidelong upon the stone.</p> + +<p>"For what?" I repeated.</p> + +<p>"For what but idle questions?" she said; +"for a traveller's vanity that deems looking +love-boys into a woman's eyes her sweeter +entertainment than all the heroes of Troy. +Oh, for a house of nought to be at peace +in! Oh, gooseish swan! Oh, brittle vows! +Tell me, Voyager, is it not so?—that men +are merely angry boys with beards; and +women—repeat not, ye who know! Never +yet set I these steadfast eyes on a man that +would not steal the moon for taper—would +she but come down." She turned an arch +face to me: "And what is to be faithful?"</p> + +<p>"I?" said I—"'to be faithful?'"</p> + +<p>"It is," she said, "to rise and never set, +O sun of utter weariness! It is to kindle +and never be quenched, O fretting fire of +midsummer! It is to be snared and always +sing, O shrilling bird of dulness! It is to +come, not go; smile, not sigh; wake, never +sleep. Couldst <i>thou</i> love so many nots to +a silk string?"</p> + +<p>"What, then, is to change,... to be +fickle?" I said.</p> + +<p>"Ah! to be fickle," she said, "is showers +after drought, seas after sand; to cry, +unechoed; to be thirsty, the pitcher broken. +And—ask now this pitiless darkness of the +eyes!—to be remembered though Lethe +flows between. Nay, you shall watch even +hope away ere another comes like me to +mope and sigh, and play at swords with +Memory."</p> + +<p>She rose to her feet and drew her hands +across her face, and smiling, sighed deeply. +And I saw how inscrutable and lovely she +must ever seem to eyes scornful of mean +men's idolatries.</p> + +<p>"And you will embark again," she said +softly; "and in how small a ship on seas so +mighty! And whither next will fate entice +you, to what new sorrows?"</p> + +<p>"Who knows?" I said. "And to what +further peace?"</p> + +<p>She laughed lightly. "Speak not of +mockeries," she said, and fell silent.</p> + +<p>She seemed to be thinking quickly and +deeply; for even though I did not turn to +her, I could see in imagination the restless +sparkling of her eyes, the stillness of her +ringless hands. Then suddenly she turned.</p> + +<p>"Stranger," she said, drawing her finger +softly along the cold stone of the bench, +"there yet remain a few bright hours to +morning. Who knows, seeing that felicity +is with the bold, did I cast off into the +sea—who knows whereto I'd come! 'Tis +but a little way to being happy—a touch +of the hand, a lifting of the brows, a +shuddering silence. Had I but man's +courage! Yet this is a solitary place, and +the gods are revengeful."</p> + +<p>I cannot say how artlessly ran that voice +in this still garden, by some strange power +persuading me on, turning all doubt aside, +calming all suspicion.</p> + +<p>"There is honeycomb here, and the fruit +is plenteous. Yes," she said, "and all +travellers are violent men—catch and kill +meat—that I know, however doleful. 'Tis +but a little sigh from day to day in these +cool gardens; and rest is welcome when the +heart pines not. Listen, now; I will go +down and you shall show me—did one have +the wit to learn, and courage to remember—show +me how sails your wonderful little +ship; tell me, too, where on the sea's +horizon to one in exile earth lies, with all +its pleasant things—yet thinks so bitterly of +a woman!"</p> + +<p>"Tell me," I said; "tell me but one +thing of a thousand. Whom would <i>you</i> +seek, did a traveller direct you, and a boat +were at your need?"</p> + +<p>She looked at me, pondering, weaving her +webs about me, lulling doubt, and banishing +fear.</p> + +<p>"One could not miss—a hero!" she said, +flaming.</p> + +<p>"That, then, shall be our bargain," I +replied with wrath at my own folly. "Tell +me this precious hero's name, and though +all the dogs of the underworld come to +course me, you shall take my boat, and +leave me here—only this hero's name, a +pedlar's bargain!"</p> + +<p>She lowered her lids. "It must be +Diomed," she said with the least sigh.</p> + +<p>"It must be," I said.</p> + +<p>"Nay, then, Antenor, or truly Thersites," +she said happily, "the silver-tongued!"</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, then," I said.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," she replied very gently. +"Why, how could there be a vow between +us? I go, and return. You await me—me, +Criseyde, Traveller, the lonely-hearted. That +is the little all, O much-surrendering +Stranger! Would that long-ago were now—before +all chaffering!"</p> + +<p>Again a thousand questions rose to my +tongue. She looked sidelong at the dry +fountain, and one and all fell silent.</p> + +<p>"It is harsh, endless labour beneath the +burning sun; storms and whirlwinds go +about the sea, and the deep heaves with +monsters."</p> + +<p>"Oh, sweet danger!" she said, mocking me.</p> + +<p>I turned from her without a word, like +an angry child, and made my way to the +steps into the sea, pulled round my boat +into a little haven beside them, and shewed +her oars and tackle and tiller; all the toil, +and peril, the wild chances."</p> + +<p>"Why," she cried, while I was yet full +of the theme, "I will go then at once, and +to-morrow Troy will come."</p> + +<p>I looked long at her in silence; her slim +beauty, the answerless riddle of her eyes, the +age-long subtilty of her mouth, and gave +no more thought to all life else.</p> + +<p>Day was already waning. I filled the +water-keg with fresh water, put fruit and +honeycomb and a pillow of leaves into the +boat, proffered a trembling hand, and led her +down.</p> + +<p>The sun's beams slanted on the foamless +sea, glowed in a flame of crimson on marble +and rock and cypress. The birds sang +endlessly on of evening, endlessly, too, it +seemed to me, of dangers my heart had no +surmise of.</p> + +<p>Criseyde turned from the dark green waves. +"Truly, it is a solitary country; pathless," +she said, "to one unpiloted;" and stood +listening to the hollow voices of the water. +And suddenly, as if at the consummation +of her thoughts, she lifted her eyes on me, +darkly, with unimaginable entreaty.</p> + +<p>"What do you seek else?" I cried in a +voice I scarcely recognised. "Oh, you speak +in riddles!"</p> + +<p>I sprang into the boat and seized the +heavy oars. Something like laughter, or, as +it were, the clapper of a scarer of birds, +echoed among the rocks at the rattling of +the rowlocks. As if invisible hands withdrew +it from me, the island floated back.</p> + +<p>I turned my prow towards the last +splendour of the sun. A chill breeze played +over the sea: a shadow crossed my eyes.</p> + +<p>Buoyant was my boat; how light her +cargo!—an oozing honeycomb, ashy fruits, a +few branches of drooping leaves, closing +flowers; and solitary on the thwart the +wraith of life's unquiet dream.</p> + +<p>So fell night once more, and made all +dim. And only the cold light of the +firmament lit thoughts in me restless as the +sea on which I tossed, whose moon was +dark, yet walked in heaven beneath the +distant stars.</p> + + +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<p class="center"><i>Printed and bound by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.</i></p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRY BROCKEN***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 15432-h.txt or 15432-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/4/3/15432">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/4/3/15432</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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