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diff --git a/old/55049-0.txt b/old/55049-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 424bc77..0000000 --- a/old/55049-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,11797 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poems of Madison Cawein, Volume 1 (of 5), by -Madison Cawein - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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 -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Poems of Madison Cawein, Volume 1 (of 5) - -Author: Madison Cawein - -Illustrator: Eric Pape - -Release Date: July 5, 2017 [EBook #55049] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF MADISON CAWEIN, VOL 1 *** - - - - -Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Jane Robins and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - +----------------------------------------------------+ - | Note: | - | | - | _ around word indicated italics _Accolon of Gaul_ | - +----------------------------------------------------+ - - - - - - THE POEMS OF [Illustration] - MADISON CAWEIN - - VOLUME I - - LYRICS AND OLD WORLD - IDYLLS - -[Illustration] - - "It shall go hard with him through thee, unconquerable blade" - Page 270 - - _Accolon of Gaul_ - - - - - THE POEMS OF - MADISON CAWEIN - - _Volume I_ - - LYRICS AND OLD - WORLD IDYLLS - - WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY - EDMUND GOSSE - - _Illustrated_ - - WITH PHOTOGRAVURES AFTER PAINTINGS - BY ERIC PAPE - - - INDIANAPOLIS - THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY - PUBLISHERS - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1887, 1888, 1889, 1890, 1891, 1892, 1893, - 1898 AND 1907, BY MADISON CAWEIN - - - PRESS OF - BRAUNWORTH & CO. - BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS - BROOKLYN, N. Y. - - - - - TO - WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS - WHO WAS THE FIRST TO RECOGNIZE AND ENCOURAGE - MY ENDEAVORS, THIS VOLUME IS - INSCRIBED WITH AFFECTION, ADMIRATION - AND ESTEEM - - - - -PREFACE - - -This first collected edition of my poems contains all the verses I -care to retain except the translations from the German, published in -1895 under the title of _The White Snake_, and some of the poems in -_Nature-Notes and Impressions_, published in 1906. - -Several of the poems which I probably would have omitted I have retained -at the solicitation of friends, who have based their argument for their -retention upon the generally admitted fact that a poet seldom knows his -best work. - -The new arrangement under new titles I found was necessary for the sake -of convenience; and the poems in a manner grouped themselves in certain -classes. In eliminating the old titles--some eighteen in number--I have -disregarded entirely, except in the case of the first volume, the date of -the appearance of each poem, placing every one, according to its subject -matter, in its proper group under its corresponding title. - -Most of the poems, especially the earlier ones, have been revised; many -of them almost entirely rewritten and, I think, improved. - - MADISON CAWEIN. - - _Louisville, Kentucky._ - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -Since the disappearance of the latest survivors of that graceful and -somewhat academic school of poets who ruled American literature so long -from the shores of Massachusetts, serious poetry in the United States -seems to have been passing through a crisis of languor. Perhaps there is -no country on the civilized globe where, in theory, verse is treated with -more respect and, in practice, with greater lack of grave consideration -than in America. No conjecture as to the reason of this must be attempted -here, further than to suggest that the extreme value set upon sharpness, -ingenuity and rapid mobility is obviously calculated to depreciate and -to condemn the quiet practice of the most meditative of the arts. Hence -we find that it is what is called "humorous" verse which is mainly in -fashion on the western side of the Atlantic. Those rhymes are most warmly -welcomed which play the most preposterous tricks with language, which -dazzle by the most mountebank swiftness of turn, and which depend most -for their effect upon paradox and the negation of sober thought. It -is probable that the diseased craving for what is "smart," "snappy," -and wide-awake, and the impulse to see everything foreshortened and -topsy-turvy, must wear themselves out before cooler and more graceful -tastes again prevail in imaginative literature. - -Whatever be the cause, it is certain that this is not a moment when -serious poetry, of any species, is flourishing in the United States. The -absence of anything like a common impulse among young writers, of any -definite and intelligible, if excessive, _parti pris_, is immediately -observable if we contrast the American, for instance, with the French -poets of the last fifteen years. Where there is no school and no clear -trend of executive ambition, the solitary artist, whose talent forces -itself up into the light and air, suffers unusual difficulties, and -runs a constant danger of being choked in the aimless mediocrity that -surrounds him. We occasionally meet with a poet in the history of -literature, of whom we are inclined to say: "Charming as he is, he would -have developed his talent more evenly and conspicuously, if he had been -accompanied from the first by other young men like-minded, who would -have formed for him an atmosphere and cleared for him a space." This is -the one regret I feel in contemplating, as I have done for years past, -the ardent and beautiful talent of Mr. Madison Cawein. I deplore the -fact that he seems to stand alone in his generation; I think his poetry -would have been even better than it is, and its qualities would certainly -have been more clearly perceived, and more intelligently appreciated, if -he were less isolated. In his own country, at this particular moment, -in this matter of serious nature-painting in lyric verse, Mr. Cawein -possesses what Cowley would have called "a monopoly of wit." In one of -his lyrics Mr. Cawein asks-- - - "The song-birds, are they flown away, - The song-birds of the summer-time, - That sang their souls into the day, - And set the laughing hours to rhyme? - No cat-bird scatters through the hush - The sparkling crystals of her song; - Within the woods no hermit-thrush - Trails an enchanted flute along." - -To this inquiry, the answer is: the only hermit-thrush now audible seems -to sing from Louisville, Kentucky. America will, we may be perfectly -sure, calm herself into harmony again, and possess once more her school -of singers. In those coming days, history may perceive in Mr. Cawein the -golden link that bound the music of the past to the music of the future -through an interval of comparative tunelessness. - -The career of Mr. Madison Cawein is represented to me as being most -uneventful. He seems to have enjoyed unusual advantages for the -cultivation and protection of the poetical temperament. He was born on -the 23rd of March, 1865, in the metropolis of Kentucky, the vigorous -city of Louisville, on the southern side of the Ohio, in the midst of -a country celebrated for tobacco and whisky and Indian corn. These are -commodities which may be consumed in excess, but in moderation they -make glad the heart of man. They represent a certain glow of the earth, -they indicate the action of a serene and gentle climate upon a rich -soil. It was in this delicate and voluptuous state of Kentucky that Mr. -Cawein was born, that he was educated, that he became a poet, and that -he has lived ever since. His blood is full of the color and odor of his -native landscape. The solemn books of history tell us that Kentucky was -discovered in 1769, by Daniel Boone, a hunter. But he first discovers a -country who sees it first, and teaches the world to see it; no doubt some -day the city of Louisville will erect, in one of its principal squares, -a statue to "Madison Cawein, who discovered the Beauty of Kentucky." The -genius of this poet is like one of those deep rivers of his native state, -which cut paths through the forests of chestnut and hemlock as they hurry -towards the south and west, brushing with the impulsive fringe of their -currents the rhododendrons and calmias and azaleas that bend from the -banks to be mirrored in their flashing waters. - -Mr. Cawein's vocation to poetry was irresistible. I do not know that -he even tried to resist it. I have even the idea that a little more -resistance would have been salutary for a talent which nothing could -have discouraged, and which opposition might have taught the arts of -compression and selection. Mr. Cawein suffered at first, I think, from -lack of criticism more than from lack of eulogy. From his early writings -I seem to gather an impression of a Louisville more ready to praise -what was second-rate than what was first-rate, and practically, indeed, -without any scale of appreciation whatever. This may be a mistake of -mine; at all events, Mr. Cawein has had more to gain from the passage -of years in self-criticism than in inspiring enthusiasm. The fount -was in him from the first; but it bubbled forth before he had digged a -definite channel for it. Sometimes, to this very day, he sports with -the principles of syntax, as Nature played games so long ago with -the fantastic caverns of the valley of the Green River or with the -coral-reefs of his own Ohio. He has bad rhymes, amazing in so delicate -an ear; he has awkwardness of phrase not expected in one so plunged in -contemplation of the eternal harmony of Nature. But these grow fewer and -less obtrusive as the years pass by. - -The virgin timber-forests of Kentucky, the woods of honey-locust and -buckeye, of white oak and yellow poplar, with their clearings full of -flowers unknown to us by sight or name, from which in the distance are -visible the domes of the far-away Cumberland Mountains,--this seems to -be the hunting-field of Mr. Cawein's imagination. Here all, it must be -confessed, has hitherto been unfamiliar to the Muses. If Persephone -"of our Cumnor cowslips never heard," how much less can her attention -have been arrested by clusters of orchids from the Ocklawaha, or by the -song of the whippoorwill, rung out when "the west was hot geranium-red" -under the boughs of a black-jack on the slopes of Mount Kinnex. "Not -here," one is inclined to exclaim, "not here, O Apollo, are haunts meet -for thee," but the art of the poet is displayed by his skill in breaking -down these prejudices of time and place. Mr. Cawein reconciles us to -his strange landscape--the strangeness of which one has to admit is -mainly one of nomenclature,--by the exercise of a delightful instinctive -pantheism. He brings the ancient gods to Kentucky, and it is marvelous -how quickly they learn to be at home there. Here is Bacchus, with a spicy -fragment of calamus-root in his hand, trampling the blue-eyed grass, and -skipping, with the air of a hunter born, into the hickory thicket, to -escape Artemis, whose robes, as she passes swiftly with her dogs through -the woods, startle the humming-birds, silence the green tree-frogs, and -fill the hot still air with the perfumes of peppermint and pennyroyal. -It is a queer landscape, but one of new natural beauties frankly and -sympathetically discovered, and it forms a _mise en scene_ which, I make -bold to say, would have scandalized neither Keats nor Spenser. - -It was Mr. Howells,--ever as generous in discovering new talent as he is -unflinching in reproof of the effeteness of European taste,--who first -drew attention to the originality and beauty of Mr. Cawein's poetry. The -Kentucky poet had, at that time, published but one tentative volume, -the _Blooms of the Berry_, of 1887. This was followed, in 1888, by _The -Triumph of Music_, and since then hardly a year has passed without a -slender sheaf of verse from Mr. Cawein's garden. Among these (if a single -volume is to be indicated), the quality which distinguishes him from all -other poets,--the Kentucky flavor, if we may call it so,--is perhaps to -be most agreeably detected in _Intimations of the Beautiful_. - -But it is time that I should leave the American lyrist to make his own -appeal, with but one additional word of explanation, namely, that in -this introduction Mr. Cawein's narrative poems on medieval themes, and -in general his cosmopolitan writings, have been neglected of mention in -favor of such nature lyrics as would present him most vividly in his own -native landscape, no visitor in spirit to Europe, but at home in that -bright and exuberant West-- - - "Where, in the hazy morning, runs - The stony branch that pools and drips, - Where red haws and the wild-rose hips - Are strewn like pebbles; where the sun's - Own gold seems captured by the weeds; - To see, through scintillating seeds, - The hunters steal with glimmering guns. - To stand within the dewy ring - Where pale death smites the boneset's blooms, - And everlasting's flowers, and plumes - Of mint, with aromatic wing! - And hear the creek,--whose sobbing seems - A wild man murmuring in his dreams,-- - And insect violins that sing!" - -So sweet a voice, so consonant with the music of the singers of past -times, heard in a place so fresh and strange, will surely not pass -without its welcome from lovers of genuine poetry. - - EDMUND GOSSE. - - _London, England._ - - - - -CONTENTS - - - BLOOMS OF THE BERRY PAGE - - AT REST 45 - AVATARS 61 - CLOUDS 59 - DEAD LILY, A 40 - DEAD OREAD, THE 41 - DEFICIENCY 50 - DISTANCE 48 - DIURNAL 55 - DREAMER OF DREAMS, A 24 - DRYAD, THE 38 - FAMILY BURYING GROUND, THE 57 - HEPATICAS 17 - HERON, THE 60 - IN LATE FALL 72 - IN MIDDLE SPRING 12 - IN NOVEMBER 71 - LILLITA 63 - LONGINGS 9 - LOVELINESS 4 - MIDSUMMER 52 - MIDWINTER 79 - MIRABILE DICTU 22 - MIRIAM 65 - MOONRISE AT SEA 69 - OLD BYWAY, THE 32 - PAN 27 - PAX VOBISCUM 43 - SOUND OF THE SAP, THE 36 - SPIRITS OF SPRING 19 - SPRING SHOWER, A 14 - STORMY SUNSET, A 29 - SWEET O' THE YEAR, THE 10 - TWO DAYS 67 - TYRANNY 76 - WAITING 7 - WHAT YOU WILL 77 - WITH THE SEASONS 73 - WOOD GOD, THE 1 - WOODLAND GRAVE, A 30 - WOODPATH, THE 34 - - - IN THE GARDENS OF FALERINA - ALCALDE'S DAUGHTER, THE 187 - AMADIS AT MIRAFLORES 108 - AN ANTIQUE 129 - BLODEUWEDD 101 - EPIC, THE 183 - ERMENGARDE 125 - EVE OF ALL-SAINTS, THE 164 - FACE TO FACE 160 - GARDENS OF FALERINA, THE 85 - GUINEVERE, A 153 - HACKELNBERG 127 - HAWKING 117 - IN MYTHIC SEAS 193 - ISHMAEL 189 - JAAFER THE BARMECIDE 131 - KING, THE 138 - LOKÉ AND SIGYN 197 - LOVE AS IT WAS IN THE TIME OF LOUIS XIV 171 - MATER DOLOROSA 169 - MELANCHOLIA 141 - MINSTREL AND THE PRINCESS, THE 185 - MY ROMANCE 181 - ORLANDO 119 - PERLE DES JARDINS 156 - PRE-EXISTENCE, A 134 - ROMANCE 87 - TO GERTRUDE 83 - TROUBADOUR, THE 176 - URGANDA 112 - VALLEY OF MUSIC, THE 90 - WAR-SONG OF HARALD THE RED 207 - WOMAN OF THE WORLD, A 150 - YOLANDA OF THE TOWERS 121 - YULE 209 - - - OLD WORLD IDYLLS - - ACCOLON OF GAUL 219 - AFTER THE TOURNAMENT 340 - AN EPISODE 440 - ARABAH 458 - AT THE CORREGIDOR'S 437 - BEHRAM AND EDDETMA 476 - BLIND HARPER, THE 345 - CHILDE RONALD 347 - DARK TOWER, THE 342 - DAUGHTER OF MERLIN, THE 363 - DEMON LOVER, THE 358 - DREAM OF SIR GALAHAD, THE 335 - FORESTER, THE 371 - GERALDINE 431 - ISOLT 329 - KHALIF AND THE ARAB, THE 450 - KNIGHT-ERRANT, THE 368 - LADY OF THE HILLS, THE 356 - MAMELUKE, THE 466 - MOATED MANSE, THE 391 - MORGAN LE FAY 353 - MY LADY OF VERNE 422 - NORMAN KNIGHT, THE 448 - OLD TALE RETOLD, AN 409 - PEREDUR, THE SON OF EVRAWC 307 - PORTRAIT, THE 471 - PRINCESS OF THULE, A 360 - ROMAUNT OF THE ROSES 468 - ROSICRUCIAN, THE 445 - SEVEN DEVILS, THE 460 - SLAVE, THE 443 - THAMUS 462 - TO R. E. LEE GIBSON 217 - TORQUEMADA 485 - TRISTRAM TO ISOLT 365 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - "IT SHALL GO HARD WITH HIM THROUGH THEE, - UNCONQUERABLE BLADE" _Frontispiece_ - PAGE - - SHE RAISED HER OBLONG LUTE AND SMOTE SOME - CHORDS (See page 230) 124 - - IN HER ECSTASY A LOVELY DEVIL (See page 303) 250 - - AND GRASPED OF BOTH WILD HANDS, SWUNG - TRENCHANT (See page 285) 374 - - - - -LYRICS - - - _Wine-warm winds that sigh and sing - Led me, wrapped in many moods, - Through the green, sonorous woods - Of belated spring._ - - _Till I came where, glad with heat, - Waste and wild the fields were strewn, - Olden as the olden moon, - At my weary feet._ - - _Wild and white with starry bloom, - One far milky-way that dashed, - When some mad wind down it flashed, - Into billowy foam._ - - _I, bewildered, gazed around, - As one on whose heavy dreams - Comes a sudden burst of beams, - Like a mighty sound...._ - - _If the grander flowers I sought, - But these berry-blooms to you, - Evanescent as the dew, - Only these I brought._ - - - - -BLOOMS OF THE BERRY. - - - - -THE WOOD GOD - - -I - - What deity for dozing Laziness - Devised the lounging leafiness of this - Secluded nook?--And how!--did I distress - His musing ease that fled but now? or his - Communion with some forest-sister, fair - And shy as is the whippoorwill-flower there, - Did I disturb?--Still is the wild moss warm - And fragrant with late pressure,--as the palm - Of some hot Hamadryad, who, a-nap, - Props her hale cheek upon it, while her arm - Is wildflower-buried; in her hair the balm - Of a whole spring of blossoms and of sap.-- - - -II - - See, how the dented moss, that pads the hump - Of these distorted roots, elastic springs - From that god's late reclining! Lump by lump - Its points, impressed, rise in resilient rings, - As stars crowd, qualming through gray evening skies.-- - Invisible presence, still I feel thy eyes - Regarding me, bringing dim dreams before - My half-closed gaze, here where great, green-veined leaves - Reach, waving at me, their innumerable hands, - Stretched towards this water where the sycamore - Stands burly guard; where every ripple weaves - A ceaseless, wavy quivering as of bands. - - -III - - Of elfin chivalry, that, helmed with gold, - Invisible march, making a twinkling sound.-- - What brought thee here?--this wind, that steals the old - Gray legends from the forests and around - Whispers them now? Or, in those purple weeds - The hermit brook so busy with his beads?-- - Lulling the silence with his prayers all day, - Droning soft _Aves_ on his rosary - Of bubbles.--Or, that butterfly didst mark - On yon hag-taper, towering by the way, - A witch's yellow torch?--Or didst, like me, - Watch, drifting by, these curled, brown bits of bark? - - -IV - - Or con the slender gold of this dim, still - Unmoving minnow 'neath these twisted roots, - Thrust o'er the smoky topaz of this rill?-- - Or, in this sunlight, did those insect flutes, - Sleepy with summer, drowsily forlorn, - Remind thee of Tithonos and the Morn? - Until thine eyes dropped dew, the dimpled stream - Crinkling with crystal o'er the winking grail?-- - Or didst perplex thee with some poet plan - To drug this air with beauty to make dream,-- - Presence unseen, still watching in yon vale!-- - Me, wildwood-wandered from the haunts of man! - - - - -LOVELINESS - - -I - - Now let us forth to find the young witch Spring, - Seated amid her bow'rs and birds and buds, - Busy with loveliness.--And, wandering - Among old forests that the sunlight floods, - Or vales of hermit-holy solitudes, - Dryads shall beckon us from where they cling, - Their limbs an oak-bark brown; their hair--wild woods - Have perfumed--wreathed with earliest leaves: and they, - Regarding us with a dew-sparkling eye, - Shall whispering greet us, as the rain the rye, - Or from wild lips melodious welcome fling, - Like hidden waterfalls with winds at play. - - -II - - Let us surprise the Naiad ere she slips-- - Nude at her toilette--in her fountain's glass; - With damp locks dewy and evasive hips, - Cool-dripping, but an instant seen, alas! - When from indented moss and plushy grass-- - Fear in her great eyes' rainbow-blue--she dips, - Irised, the cloven water; as we pass - Making a rippled circle that shall hide, - From our exploring eyes, what watery path - She gleaming took; what crystal haunt she hath - In minnowy freshness, where her murmurous lips, - Bubbling, make merry 'neath the rocky tide. - - -III - - Then we may meet the Oread, whose eyes - Are dewdrops where twin heavens shine confessed: - She, all the maiden modesty's surprise - Rosying her temples,--to slim loins and breast - Tempestuous, brown, bewildering tresses pressed,-- - Shall stand a moment's moiety in wise - Of some delicious dream, then shrink, distressed, - Like some wild mist that, hardly seen, is gone, - Footing the ferny hillside without sound; - Or, like storm sunlight, her white limbs shall bound, - A thistle's instant, towards a woody rise, - A flying glimmer o'er the dew-drenched lawn. - - -IV - - And we may see the Satyrs in the shades - Of drowsy dells pipe, and, goat-footed, dance; - And Pan himself reel rollicking through the glades; - Or, hidden in bosky bow'rs, the Lust, perchance, - Faun-like, that waits with heated, animal glance - The advent of the Loveliness that wades - Thigh-deep through flowers, naked as Romance, - All unsuspecting, till two hairy arms - Clasp her rebellious beauty, panting white, - Whose tearful terror, struggling into might, - Beats the brute brow resisting, but evades - Not him, for whom the gods designed her charms. - - - - -WAITING - - - Were it but May now, while - Our hearts are yearning, - How they would bound and smile, - The young blood burning! - Around the tedious dial - No slow hands turning. - - Were it but May now!--say, - What joy to go, - Your hand in mine all day, - Where blossoms blow! - Your hand, more white than May, - May's flowers of snow. - - Were it but May now!--think, - What wealth she has! - The bluet and wild-pink, - Wild flowers,--that mass - About the wood-brook's brink,-- - And sassafras. - - Nights, that the large stars strew, - Heaven on heaven rolled; - Nights, pearled with stars and dew, - Whose heavens hold - Aromas, and the new - Moon's curve of gold. - - So mad, so wild is March!-- - I long, oh, long - To see the redbud's torch - Flame far and strong; - Hear, on my vine-climbed porch, - The bluebird's song. - - How slow the Hours creep, - Each with a crutch!-- - Ah, could my spirit leap - Its bounds and touch - That day, no thing would keep-- - Or matter much! - - But now, with you away, - Time halts and crawls, - Feet clogged with winter clay, - That never falls, - While, distant still, that day - Of meeting calls. - - - - -LONGINGS - - - Now when the first wild violets peer - All rain-filled at blue April skies, - As on one smiles one's sweetheart dear - With the big teardrops in her eyes: - - Now when the May-apples, I wis, - Bloom white along lone, greenwood creeks, - As bashful as the cheeks you kiss, - As waxen as your sweetheart's cheeks: - - Within the soul what longings rise - To stamp the town-dust from the feet! - Fare forth to gaze in Spring's clean eyes, - And kiss her cheeks so cool and sweet! - - - - -THE SWEET O' THE YEAR - - -I - - How can I help from laughing, while - The daffodillies at me smile? - The dancing dew winks tipsily - In clusters of the lilac-tree, - And crocus' mouths and hyacinths' - Storm through the grassy labyrinths - A mirth of pearl and violet; - While roses, bud by bud, - Laugh from each dainty-lacing net - Red lips of maidenhood. - - -II - - How can I help from singing when - The swallow and the hawk again - Are noisy in the hyaline - Of happy heavens, clear as wine? - The robin, lustily and shrill, - Pipes on the timber-belted hill; - And o'er the fallow skim the bold, - Mad orioles that glow - Like shining shafts of ingot gold - Shot from the morning's bow. - - -III - - How can I help from loving, dear, - Since love is of the sweetened year?-- - The very insects feel his power, - And chirr and chirrup hour on hour; - The bee and beetle in the noon, - The cricket underneath the moon:-- - What else to do but follow too, - Since youth is on the wing, - Lord Life who follows through the dew - Lord Love a-carolling. - - - - -IN MIDDLE SPRING - - - Now the fields are rolled into turbulent gold, - And a ripple of fire and pearl is blent - With the emerald surges of wood and of wold, - A flower-foam bursting redolent: - Now the dingles and deeps of the woodland old - Are glad with a sibilant life new sent, - Too rare to be told are the manifold, - Sweet fancies that quicken, eloquent, - In the heart that no longer is cold. - - How it knows of the wings of the hawk ere it swings - From the drippled dew scintillant seen! - Where the redbird hides, ere it flies or sings, - In melodious quiverings of green! - How the sun to the dogwood such kisses brings - That it laughs into blossoms of wonderful sheen; - While the wind, to the strings of his lute that rings, - Makes love to apple and nectarine, - Till the sap in them rosily springs. - - Go seek in the ray for a sworded fay, - The chestnut's buds into blooms that rips; - And look in the brook, that runs laughing gay, - For the Nymph with the laughing lips; - In the brake for the Dryad whose eyes are gray, - From whose bosom the perfume drips; - The Faun hid away, where the branches sway, - Thick ivy low down on his hips, - Pursed lips on a syrinx at play. - - So, ho! for the rose, the Romeo rose, - And the lyric it hides in its heart! - And, oh, for the epic the oak-tree knows, - Sonorous as Homer in art! - And it's ho! for the prose of the weed that grows - Green-writing Earth's commonest part!-- - What God may propose let us learn of those, - The songs and the dreams that start - In the heart of each blossom that blows. - - - - -A SPRING SHOWER - - - We stood where the fields were beryl, - The redolent woodland was warm; - And the heaven above us, now sterile, - Was alive with the pulse-winds of storm. - - We had watched the green wheat brighten - And gloom as it winced at each gust; - And the turbulent maples whiten - As the lane blew gray with dust. - - White flakes from the blossoming cherry, - Pink snows of the peaches were blown, - And star-bloom wrecks of the berry - And dogwood petals were sown. - - Then instantly heaven was sullied, - And earth was thrilled with alarm, - As a cloud, that the thunder had gullied, - Thrust over the sunlight its arm. - - The birds to dry coverts had hurried, - And hid in their leafy-built rooms; - And the bees and the hornets had buried - Themselves in the bells of the blooms. - - Then down from the clouds, as from towers, - Rode slant the tall lancers of rain, - And charged the fair troops of the flowers, - And trampled the grass of the plain. - - And the armies of blossoms were scattered; - Their standards hung draggled and lank; - And the rose and the lily were shattered, - And the iris lay crushed on its bank. - - But high in the storm was the swallow, - And the rock-loud voice of the fall, - From its ramparts of forest, rang hollow - Defiance and challenge o'er all. - - But the storm and its clouds passed over, - And left but one cloud in the west, - Wet wafts that were fragrant with clover, - And the sun slow-sinking to rest. - - Rain-drippings and rain in the poppies, - And scents as of honey and bees; - A touch of wild light on the coppice, - That turned into flames the drenched trees. - - Then the cloud in the sunset was riven, - And bubbled and rippled with gold, - And over the gorges of heaven, - Like a gonfalon vast was unrolled. - - - - -HEPATICAS - - - In the frail hepaticas-- - That the early Springtide tossed, - Sapphire-like, along the ways - Of the woodlands that she crossed-- - I behold, with other eyes, - Footprints of a dream that flies. - - One who leads me; whom I seek: - In whose loveliness there is - All the glamour that the Greek - Knew as wind-borne Artemis.-- - I am mortal. Woe is me! - Her sweet immortality! - - Spirit, must I always fare, - Following thy averted looks? - Now thy white arm, now thy hair, - Glimpsed among the trees and brooks? - Thou who hauntest, whispering, - All the slopes and vales of Spring. - - Cease to lure! or grant to me - All thy beauty! though it pain, - Slay with splendor utterly! - Flash revealment on my brain! - And one moment let me see - All thy immortality! - - - - -SPIRITS OF SPRING - - -I - - Over the summer seas, - From the Hesperides, - Warm as the southern breeze, - Gather the Spirits, - Clad on with sun and rain, - Fire in each ardent vein, - Who, with a wild refrain, - Waken the germs that the Season inherits. - - -II - - See, where they come, like mist, - Gleaming with amethyst, - Trailing the light that kissed - Vine-tangled mountains - Looming o'er tropic lakes, - Where every wind, that shakes - Tamarisk coverts, makes - Music that haunts like the falling of fountains. - - -III - - You may behold the beat - Of their wild hearts of heat, - And their rose-flashing feet - Flying before us: - Hear them among the trees - Whispering like far-off seas, - Waking the drowsy bees, - Wild-birds and flowers and torrents sonorous. - - -IV - - You may behold their eyes, - Star-like, that sapphire dyes, - To which the blossoms rise - Star-like; and shadows - Flee from: and, golden deep, - As through the woods they sweep, - See their wild curls that keep - Asphodel memories that kindle the meadows. - - -V - - Music of forest-streams, - Fragrance and dewy gleams, - Daybreak and dawn and dreams, - High things and lowly, - Mix in their limbs of light, - Which, what they touch of blight, - Quicken to blossom white, - Raise to be beautiful, perfect, and holy. - - -VI - - Come! do not sit and wait - Now that once desolate - Fields are intoxicate - With birds and flowers! - And all the woods are rife - With resurrected life, - Passion and purple strife - Of the warm winds and the turbulent showers. - - -VII - - Come! let us lie and dream - Here by the wildwood stream, - Where many a twinkling gleam - Falls on the rooty - Banks; and the forest glooms - Rain down their redbud blooms, - Armfuls of wild perfumes-- - Winds! or Auloniads busy with beauty. - - - - -MIRABILE DICTU - - -I - - There dwells a goddess in the West, - An Island in death-lonesome seas; - No towered towns are hers confessed, - No castled forts or palaces; - Hers, simple worshipers at best, - The buds, the birds, the bees. - - -II - - And she hath wonder-words of song, - So heavenly beautiful and shed - So sweetly from her honeyed tongue, - The savage creatures, it is said, - Hark, marble-still, their wilds among, - And nightingales fall dead. - - -III - - I know her not, nor have I known: - I only feel that she is there: - For when my heart is most alone, - Her deep communion fills the air,-- - Her influence calls me from my own,-- - Miraculously fair. - - -IV - - Then fain am I to sing and sing, - And then again to fly and fly, - Beyond the flight of cloud or wing, - Far under azure arcs of sky; - My love at her chaste feet to fling, - Behold her face and--die. - - - - -A DREAMER OF DREAMS - - - He lived beyond men, and so stood - Admitted to the brotherhood - Of beauty; dreams, with which he trod - Companioned as some sylvan god. - And oft men wondered, when his thought - Made all their knowledge seem as naught, - If he, like Uther's mystic son, - Had not been born for Avalon. - - When wandering 'mid the whispering trees, - His soul communed with every breeze; - Heard voices calling from the glades, - Bloom-words of the Leimoniads; - Or Dryads of the ash and oak, - Who syllabled his name and spoke - With him of presences and powers - That glimpsed in sunbeams, gloomed in showers. - - By every violet-hallowed brook, - Where every bramble-matted nook - Rippled and laughed with water sounds, - He walked like one on sainted grounds, - Fearing intrusion on the spell - That kept some fountain-spirit's well, - Or woodland genius, sitting where - Red, racy berries kissed his hair. - - Once when the wind, far o'er the hill, - Had fall'n and left the wildwood still - For Dawn's dim feet to glide across,-- - Beneath the gnarled boughs, on the moss, - The air around him golden ripe - With daybreak,--there, with oaten pipe, - His eyes beheld the wood-god, Pan, - Goat-bearded, and half-brute, half-man; - Who, shaggy-haunched, a savage rhyme - Blew in his reed to rudest time; - And swollen-jowled, with rolling eye-- - Beneath the slowly silvering sky, - Whose light shone through the forest's roof-- - Danced, while beneath his boisterous hoof - The branch was snapped, and, interfused - Between great roots, the moss was bruised. - - And often when he wandered through - Old forests at the fall of dew-- - A new Endymion who sought - A beauty higher than all thought-- - Some night, men said, most surely he - Would favored be of deity: - That in the holy solitude - Her sudden presence, long pursued, - Unto his gaze would be confessed; - The awful moonlight of her breast - Come, high with majesty, and hold - His heart's blood till his heart were cold, - Unpulsed, unsinewed, and undone, - And snatch his soul to Avalon. - - - - -PAN - - -I - - Haunter of green intricácies - Where the sunlight's amber laces - Deeps of darkest violet; - Where the shaggy Satyr chases - Nymphs and Dryads, fair as Graces, - Whose white limbs with dew are wet: - Piper in hid mountain places, - Where the blue-eyed Oread braces - Winds which in her sweet cheeks set - Of Aurora rosy traces; - While the Faun from myrtle mazes - Watches with an eye of jet: - What art thou and these dim races, - Thou, O Pan, of many faces, - Who art ruler yet? - - -II - - Tell me, piper, have I ever - Heard thy hollow syrinx quiver - Trickling music in the trees? - Where the hazel copses shiver, - Have I heard its dronings sever - The warm silence, or the bees? - Ripple murmurings that never - Could be born of fall or river, - Or the whispering breeze. - - -III - - Once in tempest it was given - Me to see thee,--where the leven - Lit the craggy wood with glare,-- - Dancing, while,--like wedges driven,-- - Thunder split the deeps of heaven, - And the wild rain swept thy hair.-- - What art thou, whose presence, even - While with fear my heart was riven, - Healed it as with prayer? - - - - -A STORMY SUNSET - - -I - - Soul of my body! what a death - For such a day of grief and gloom, - Unbroken sorrow of the sky!-- - 'Tis as if God's own loving breath - Had swept the piled-up thunder by, - And, bursting through the tempest's sheath, - Cleft from its pod a giant bloom. - - -II - - See how the glory grows! unrolled, - Expanding length on radiant length - Of cloud-wrought petals.--Vast, a rose - The western heavens of flame unfold, - Where, sparkling thro' the splendor, glows - The evening star, fresh-faced with strength-- - A raindrop in its heart of gold. - - - - -A WOODLAND GRAVE - - - White moons may come, white moons may go, - She sleeps where early blossoms blow; - Knows nothing of the leafy June, - That leans above her, night and noon, - Crowned now with sunbeam, now with moon, - Watching her roses grow. - - The downy moth at evening comes - And flutters round their honeyed blooms: - Long, languid clouds, like ivory, - That isle the blue lagoons of sky, - Grow red as molten gold and dye - With flame the pine-dark glooms. - - Dew, dripping from wet fern and leaf; - The wind, that shakes the blossom's sheaf; - The slender sound of water lone, - That makes a harp-string of some stone, - And now a wood-bird's twilight moan, - Seem whisp'rings there of grief. - - Her garden, where the lilacs grew, - Where, on old walls, old roses blew, - Head-heavy with their mellow musk, - Where, when the beetle's drone was husk, - She lingered in the dying dusk, - No more shall know that knew. - - Her orchard,--where the Spring and she - Stood listening to each bird and bee,-- - That, from its fragrant firmament, - Snowed blossoms on her as she went, - (A blossom with their blossoms blent) - No more her face shall see. - - White moons may come, white moons may go, - She sleeps where early blossoms blow; - Around her headstone many a seed - Shall sow itself; and briar and weed - Shall grow to hide it from men's heed, - And none will care or know. - - - - -THE OLD BYWAY - - - Its rotting fence one scarcely sees - Through sumac and wild blackberries. - Thick elder and the bramble-rose, - Big ox-eyed daisies where the bees - Hang droning in repose. - - The little lizards lie all day - Gray on its rocks of lichen-gray; - And there, gay Ariels of the sun, - The butterflies make bright its way, - And paths where chipmunks run. - - Its lyric there the redbird lifts, - While, overhead, the swallow drifts - 'Neath sun-soaked clouds of palest cream,-- - In which the wind makes azure rifts,-- - And there the wood-doves dream. - - The brown grasshoppers rasp and bound - 'Mid weeds and briars that hedge it round; - And in its grass-grown ruts,--where stirs - The harmless snake,--mole-crickets sound; - O'erhead the locust whirs. - - At evening, when the sad west turns - To lonely night a cheek that burns, - The tree-toads in the wild-plum sing; - And ghosts of long-dead flowers and ferns - The wind wakes, whispering. - - - - -THE WOODPATH - - - Here Spring her first frail violets blows; - Broadcast her whitest wind-flowers sows - Through starry mosses amber-fair, - And fronded ferns and briar-rose, - Hart's-tongue and maidenhair. - - Here fungus life is beautiful; - Slim mushroom and the thick toadstool,-- - As various colored as are blooms,-- - Dot their damp cones through shadows cool, - And breathe forth rain perfumes. - - Here stray the wandering cows to rest; - The calling cat-bird builds its nest - In spicewood bushes dark and deep; - Here raps the woodpecker its best, - And here young rabbits leap. - - Beech, oak, and cedar; hickories; - The pawpaw and persimmon trees; - And tangled vines and sumac-brush, - Make dark the daylight, where the bees - Drone, and the wood-springs gush. - - Here to pale melancholy moons, - In haunted nights of dreamy Junes, - Wails wildly the weird whippoorwill, - Whose strains, like those the owlet croons, - Wild woods with phantoms fill. - - - - -THE SOUND OF THE SAP - - - When the ice was thick on the flower-beds, - And the sleet was caked on the briar; - When the frost was down in the brown bulb's heads, - And the ways were clogged with mire: - - When the snow on syringa and spiræa-tree - Seemed the ghosts of perished flowers; - And the days were sorry as sorry could be, - And Time limped, cursing his fardel of hours: - - Heigh-ho! had I not a book and the logs, - That chirped with the sap in the burning?-- - Or was it the frogs in the far-off bogs? - Or the bush-sparrow's song at the turning? - - And I strolled by ways that the Springtime knows, - In her mossy dells, and her ferny passes; - Where the earth was holy with lily and rose, - And the myriad life of the grasses. - - And I spoke with the Spring as a lover, who speaks - To his sweetheart; to whom he has given - A kiss that has kindled the rose of her cheeks, - And her eyes with the laughter of heaven. - - The sound of the sap!--What a simple thing!-- - But the sound of the sap had the power - To make the song-sparrow come and sing, - And the winter woodlands flower! - - - - -THE DRYAD - - - I have seen her limpid eyes, - Large with gradual laughter, rise - In the wild-rose nettles; - Slowly, like twin flowers, unfold, - Smiling,--when the wind, behold! - Whisked them into petals. - - I have seen her hardy cheek, - Like a molten coral, leak - Through the leaves around it - Of thick Chickasaws; but so, - When I made more certain, lo! - A red plum I found it. - - I have found her racy lips, - And her roguish finger-tips, - But a haw or berry; - Glimmers of her there and here, - Just, forsooth, enough to cheer, - And to make me merry. - - Often from the ferny rocks - Dazzling rimples of her locks - At me she hath shaken; - And I've followed--but in vain!-- - They had trickled into rain, - Sunlit, on the braken. - - Once her full limbs flashed on me, - Naked, where a royal tree - Checkered mossy places - With soft sunlight and dim shade,-- - Such a haunt as myths have made - For the Satyr races. - - There, it seemed, hid amorous Pan; - For a sudden pleading ran - Through the thicket, wooing - Me to search and, suddenly, - From the swaying elder-tree, - Flew a wild-dove, cooing. - - - - -A DEAD LILY - - - The South saluted her mouth - Till her breath was sweet with the South. - - The North in her ear breathed low, - Till her veins ran crystal and snow. - - The West 'neath her eyelids blew, - Till her heart beat honey and dew. - - And the East with his magic old - Changed her body to pearl and gold. - - And she stood like a beautiful thought - That a godhead of love had wrought.... - - How strange that the Power begot it - Only to kill it and rot it! - - - - -THE DEAD OREAD - - - Her heart is still and leaps no more - With holy passion when the breeze, - Her whilom playmate, as before, - Comes with the language of the bees, - Sad songs her mountain cedars sing, - And water-music murmuring. - - Her calm, white feet,--once fleet and fast - As Daphne's when a god pursued,-- - No more will dance like sunlight past - The gold-green vistas of the wood, - Where every quailing floweret - Smiled into life where they were set. - - Hers were the limbs of living light, - And breasts of snow, as virginal - As mountain drifts; and throat as white - As foam of mountain waterfall; - And hyacinthine curls, that streamed - Like mountain mists, and gloomed and gleamed. - - Her presence breathed such scents as haunt - Deep mountain dells and solitudes, - Aromas wild,--like some wild plant - That fills with sweetness all the woods;-- - And comradeship with stars and skies - Shone in the azure of her eyes. - - Her grave be by a mossy rock - Upon the top of some high hill, - Removed, remote from men who mock - The myths, the dreams of life they kill; - Where all of love and naught of lust - May guard her solitary dust. - - - - -PAX VOBISCUM - - -I - - I know that from thine eyes - The Spring her violets grew; - Those bits of April skies, - On which the green turf lies, - Whereon they blossom blue. - - -II - - I know that Summer wrought - From thy sweet heart that rose, - With such faint fragrance fraught,-- - Its pale, poetic thought - Of peace and deep repose.-- - - -III - - That Autumn, like some god, - From thy delicious hair,-- - Lost sunlight 'neath the sod,-- - Shot up this goldenrod - To toss it everywhere. - - -IV - - That Winter from thy breast - The snowdrop's whiteness stole-- - Much kinder than the rest-- - Thy innocence confessed, - The pureness of thy soul. - - - - -AT REST - - - I heard the dead man, where he lay - Within the open coffin, say:-- - - "Why do they come to weep and cry - Around me now?--Because I lie - So silent, and my heart's at rest? - Because the pistons of my blood - No more in this machinery thud? - And on these eyes, that once were blessed - With magnetism and fire, are pressed - The soldered eyelids, like a sheath? - On which the icy hand of Death - Hath laid invisible coins of lead - Stamped with the image of his head? - - "Why will they weep and not have done? - Why sorrow so? and all for one, - Who, they believe, hath found the best - God gives to us,--and that is rest. - Why grieve?--Yea, rather let them lift - The voice in thanks for such a gift, - That leaves the worn hands, long that wrought, - And weary feet, that sought and sought, - At peace; and makes what came to naught, - In life, more real now than all - The good men strive for here on Earth: - The love they seek; the things they call - Desirable and full of worth; - Yea, wisdom ev'n; and, like the South, - The dreams that dewed the soul's sick drouth, - And heart's sad barrenness.--God's rest, - With every sigh and every tear, - By them who weep above me here, - Despite their Faith and Hope, 's confessed - A doubt; a thing to dread and fear. - - "Before them peacefully I lie. - But, haply, not for me they sigh, - But for themselves,--their loss. The round - Of daily labor still to do - For them, while for myself 'tis through; - And all the unknown, too, is found, - The bourn for which all hopes are bound, - Where dreams are all made manifest: - For this they grieve, perhaps. 'Tis well; - Since 'tis through grief the soul is blessed, - Not joy;--and yet, we can not tell, - We do not know, we can not prove, - We only feel that there is love, - And something we call Heaven and Hell. - - "Howbeit, here, you see, I lie, - As all shall lie--for all must die-- - A cast-off, useless, empty shell, - In which an essence once did dwell; - That once, like fruit, the spirit held, - And with its husk of flesh compelled: - The mask of mind, the world of will, - That laughed and wept and labored till - The thing within, that never slept, - The life essential, from it stept; - The ichor-veined inhabitant - Who made it all it was; in all - Its aims the thing original, - That held its course, like any star, - Among its fellows; or a plant, - Among its brother plants; 'mid whom,-- - The same and yet dissimilar,-- - Distinct and individual, - It grew to microcosmic bloom." - - These were the words the dead man said - To me who stood beside the dead. - - - - -DISTANCE - - -I - - I dreamed last night once more I stood - Knee-deep on purple clover leas; - Her old home glimmered through its wood - Of dark and melancholy trees: - And on my brow I felt the breeze - That blew from out the solitude, - With sounds of waters that pursued, - And sleepy hummings of the bees. - - -II - - And ankle-deep in violet blooms - Methought I saw her standing there, - A lawny light among the glooms, - A crown of sunlight on her hair; - The wood-birds, warbling everywhere, - Above her head flashed happy plumes; - About her clung the wild perfumes, - And woodland gleams of shimmering air. - - -III - - And then she called me: in my ears - Her voice was music; and it led - My sad soul back with all its fears; - Recalled my spirit that had fled.-- - And in my dream it seemed she said, - "Our hearts keep true through all the years;" - And on my face I felt the tears, - The blinding tears of her long dead. - - - - -DEFICIENCY - - - Ah, God! were I away, away - By woodland-belted hills! - There might be more in this bright day - Than my poor spirit thrills. - - The elder coppice, banks of blooms; - The spicewood brush; the field - Of tumbled clover, and perfumes - Hot, weedy pastures yield. - - The old rail-fence, whose angles hold - Bright briar and sassafras; - Sweet, priceless wildflowers, blue and gold, - Starred through the moss and grass. - - The ragged path that winds unto - Lone, bird-melodious nooks, - Through brambles to the shade and dew - Of rocks and woody brooks. - - To see the minnows flash and gleam - Like sparkling prisms; all - Shoot in gray schools adown the stream - Let but a dead leaf fall! - - To feel the buoyance and delight - Of floating, feathered seeds! - Capricious wisps of wandering white - Born of silk-bearing weeds. - - Ah, God! were I away, away - Among wild woods and birds, - There were more soul in this bright day - Than one could bless with words. - - - - -MIDSUMMER - - - The red blood stings through her cheeks and clings - In their tan with a fever that lightens; - And the clearness of heaven-born mountain springs - In her dark eyes dusks and brightens: - Her limbs are the limbs of an Atalanta who swings - With the youths in the sinewy games, - When the hot wind sings through the hair it flings, - And the circus roars hoarse with their names, - As they fly to the goal that flames. - - Her voice is as deep as the waters that sweep - Through the musical reeds of a river; - A voice as of reapers who bind and reap, - With the ring of curved scythes that quiver: - A voice, singing ripe the orchards that heap - With crimson and gold the ground; - That whispers like sleep, till the briars weep - Their berries, all ruby round, - And vineyards are purple-crowned. - - Right sweet is the beat of her glowing feet, - And her smile, as Heaven's, is gracious; - The creating might of her hands of heat - As a god's or a goddess's spacious: - The odorous blood in her heart a-beat - Is rich with a perishless fire; - And her bosom, most sweet, is the ardent seat - Of a mother who never will tire, - While the world has a breath to suspire. - - Wherever she fares her soft voice bears - Fecundity; powers that thicken - The fruits,--as the wind made Thessalian mares - Of old mysteriously quicken:-- - The apricots' honey, the milk of the pears, - The wine, great grape-clusters hold, - These, these are her cares, and her wealth she declares - In the corn's long billows of gold, - And flowers that jewel the wold. - - So, hail to her lips, and her sun-girt hips, - And the glory she wears in her tresses! - All hail to the balsam that dreams and drips - From her breasts that the light caresses! - Midsummer! whose fair arm lovingly slips - Round the Earth's great waist of green, - From whose mouth's aroma his hot mouth sips - The life that is love unseen, - And the beauty that God may mean. - - - - -DIURNAL - - -I - - With molten ruby, clear as wine, - The East's great cup of daybreak brims; - The morning-glories swing and shine; - The night-dews bead their satin rims; - The bees are busy in flower and vine, - And load with gold their limbs. - - Sweet Morn, the South - A loyal lover, - Kisses thy mouth, - Thy rosy mouth, - And over and over - Wooes thee with scents of wild-honey and clover. - - -II - - Beside the wall the roses blow - That Noon's hot breezes scarcely shake; - Beside the wall the poppies glow, - So full of fire their deep hearts ache; - The drowsy butterflies fly slow, - Half sleeping, half awake. - - Sweet Noontide, Rest,-- - A reaper sleeping,-- - His head on thy breast, - Thy redolent breast, - Dreams of the reaping, - While sounds of the scythes all around him are sweeping. - - -III - - Along lone paths the cricket cries, - Where Night distils dim scent and dew; - One mad star 'thwart the heaven flies, - A glittering curve of molten blue; - Now grows the big moon in the skies; - The stars are faint and few. - - Sweet Night, the vows - Of love long taken, - Against thy brows - Lay their pale brows, - Till thy soul is shaken - Of amorous dreams that make it awaken. - - - - -THE FAMILY BURYING GROUND - - - A wall of crumbling stones doth keep - Watch o'er long barrows where they sleep, - Old, chronicled grave-stones of its dead, - On which oblivion's mosses creep - And lichens gray as lead. - - Warm days, the lost cows, as they pass, - Rest here and browse the juicy grass - That springs about its sun-scorched stones; - Afar one hears their bells' deep brass - Waft melancholy tones. - - Here the wild morning-glory goes - A-rambling, and the myrtle grows; - Wild morning-glories, pale as pain, - With holy urns, that hint at woes, - The night hath filled with rain. - - Here are the largest berries seen, - Rich, winey-dark, whereon the lean - Black hornet sucks; noons, sick with heat, - That bend not to the shadowed green - The heavy, bearded wheat. - - At night, for its forgotten dead, - A requiem, of no known wind said, - Through ghostly cedars moans and throbs, - While to the starlight overhead - The shivering screech-owl sobs. - - - - -CLOUDS - - - All through the tepid summer night - The starless sky had poured a cool - Monotony of pleasant rain - In music beautiful. - - And for an hour I sat to watch - Clouds moving on majestic feet; - And heard down avenues of night - Their hearts of thunder beat. - - Prodigious limbs, far-veined with gold, - Pulsed fiery life o'er wood and plain, - While, scattered, fell from giant hands - The largess of the rain. - - Beholding at each lightning flash - Their generous silver on the sod, - In meek devotion bowed, I thanked - These almoners of God. - - - - -THE HERON - - -I - -EVENING - - A vein of flame, the long creek crawls - Beneath dark brows of woodland walls, - Red where the sunset's crimson falls. - One wiry leg drawn to his breast, - Neck-shrunk, at solitary rest, - The heron stands among the bars. - - -II - -NIGHT - - The whimpering creek breaks on the stone, - Where for a while the new moon shone - With one white star and one alone. - Lank haunter of lone marshy lands - The melancholy heron stands, - Then, clamoring, dives into the stars. - - - - -AVATARS - - -I - - When the moon hangs low - Over an afterglow, - Lilac and lily; - When the stars are high, - Wisps in a windless sky, - Silverly stilly:-- - - He, who will lean, his inner ear compelling, - May hear the spirit of the forest stream - Its story to a wildwood flower telling, - That is no flower but some ascended dream. - - -II - - When the dawn's first lines - Show dimly through the pines - Along the mountain; - When the stars are few, - And starry lies the dew - Around the fountain:-- - - Who will, may hear, within her leafy dwelling, - The spirit of the oak-tree, great and strong, - Its romance to the wildwood streamlet telling, - That is no stream but some descended song. - - - - -LILLITA - - - Can I forget how, when you stood - 'Mid orchards whence the bloom had fled, - Stars made the orchards seem a-bud, - And weighed the sighing boughs o'erhead - With shining ghosts of blossoms dead? - - Or when you bowed, a lily tall, - Above your drowsy lilies, slim, - Transparent pale, that by the wall - Like cups of moonlight seemed to swim, - Brimmed with faint fragrance to the brim? - - And in the cloud that lingered low-- - A silent pallor in the west-- - There stirred and beat a golden glow, - Like some great heart that could not rest, - A heart of gold within its breast. - - Your heart, your soul were in the wild: - You loved to hear the whippoorwill - - Lament its love, when, dewy mild, - The harvest scent made musk the hill. - You loved to walk, where oft had trod - The red deer, o'er the fallen hush - Of Fall's torn leaves, when th' ivy-tod - Hung frosty by each berried bush. - - Still do the whippoorwills complain - Above your listless lilies, where - The moonlight their white faces stain; - Still flows the dreaming streamlet there, - Whispering of rest an easeful air.... - - O music of the falling rain, - At night unto her painless rest - Sound sweet not sad! and make her fain - To feel the wildflowers on her breast - Lift moist, pure faces up again - To breathe a prayer in fragrance blessed. - - Thick-pleated beeches long have crossed - Old, gnarly arms above her tomb, - Where oft I sit and dream her ghost - Smiles, like a blossom, through the gloom; - Dim as a mist,--that summer lost,-- - Of tangled starbeam and perfume. - - - - -MIRIAM - - - White clouds and buds and birds and bees, - Low wind-notes, piped down southern seas, - Brought thee, a rose-white offering, - A flower-like baby with the spring. - - She, with her April, gave to thee - A soul of winsome witchery; - Large, heavenly eyes and sparkling whence - Shines the young mind's soft influence; - Where love's eternal innocence, - And smiles and tears of maidenhood, - Gleam with the dreams of hope and good. - - She, with the dower of her May - Gave thee a nature strong to sway - Man's higher feelings; and a pride - Where all pride's smallness is denied. - Limbs wrought of lilies; and a face - Made of a rose-bloom; and the grace - Of water, that thy limbs express - In each chaste billow of thy dress. - - She, with her dreamy June, brought down - Night-deeps of hair that are thy crown; - A voice like low winds musical, - Or streams that in the moonlight fall - O'er bars of pearl; and in thy heart,-- - True gold,--she set Joy's counterpart, - A gem, that in thy fair face gleams, - All radiance, when it speaks or dreams; - And in thy soul the jewel Truth - Whose beauty is perpetual youth. - - - - -TWO DAYS - - -I - - The slanted storm tossed at their feet - The frost-nipped autumn leaves; - The park's high pines were caked with sleet, - And ice-spears armed the eaves. - They strolled adown the pillared pines, - To part where wet and twisted vines - About the gate-posts blew and beat. - She watched him riding through the rain - Along the river's misty shore, - And turned with lips that laughed disdain: - "To meet no more!" - - -II - - 'Mid heavy roses weighed with dew - The chirping crickets hid; - I' the honeysuckle avenue - Sang the green katydid. - Soft southern stars smiled through the pines. - Through stately windows, draped with vines, - The drifting moonlight's silver blew. - She stared upon a face, now dead, - A soldier calm that wore; - Despair sobbed on the lips that said, - "To meet no more." - - - - -MOONRISE AT SEA - - -I - - With lips that had hushed all their fury - Of foam and of winds that were strewn, - Of storm and of turbulent hurry, - The ocean sighed; heralding soon - A ship of miraculous glory, - Of pearl and of fire--the moon. - - -II - - And up from the East, with a slipping - And shudder and clinging of light, - With a loos'ning of clouds and a dipping, - Outbound for the Havens of Night, - With a silence of sails and a dripping, - The vessel came, wonderful white. - - -III - - Then heaven and ocean were sprinkled - With splendor; for every sheet - And spar, and its hollow hull twinkled - With mother-of-pearl. And the feet - Of spirits, that followed it, crinkled - The billows that under it beat. - - - - -IN NOVEMBER - - - No windy white of wind-blown clouds is thine! - No windy white, but low and sodden gray, - That holds the melancholy skies and kills - The wild song and the wild-bird. Yet, ah me! - Thy melancholy skies and mournful woods, - Brown, sighing forests dying that I love! - Thy long, dead leaves, deep, deep about my feet, - Slow, dragging feet that halt or wander on; - Thy deep, sweet, crimson leaves that burn and die - With silent fever of the sickened wood. - - I love to hear in all thy wind-swept coignes, - Rain-wet and choked with bleached and ruined weeds, - The withered whisper of the many leaves, - That, fallen on barren ways--like fallen hopes-- - Once held so high upon the Summer's heart - Of stalwart trees, now seem the desolate voice - Of Earth lamenting in hushed undertones - Her green departed glory vanished so. - - - - -IN LATE FALL - - - O days, that break the wild-bird's heart, - That slay the wild-bird and its songs! - Why should death play so sad a part - With you to whom such sweet belongs? - - Why are your eyes so filled with tears, - As with the rain the frozen flowers? - Why are your hearts so swept with fears, - Like winds among the ruined bowers? - - Farewell! farewell! for she is dead, - The old gray month; I saw her die: - Go, light your torches round her head, - The last red leaves, and let her lie. - - - - -WITH THE SEASONS - - -I - - You will not love me, sweet, - When this brief year is past; - Or love, now at my feet, - At other feet you'll cast, - At fairer feet you'll cast. - You will not love me, sweet, - When this brief year is past. - - -II - - Now 'tis the Springtime, dear, - And crocus-cups hold flame, - Brimmed to the pregnant year, - All bashful as with shame, - Who blushes as with shame. - Now 'tis the Springtime, dear, - And crocus-cups hold flame. - - -III - - Soon Summer will be queen, - At her brown throat one rose, - And poppy-pod, and bean, - Will rustle as she goes, - As down the garth she goes. - Soon Summer will be queen, - At her brown throat one rose. - - -IV - - Then Autumn come, a prince, - A gipsy crowned with gold; - Gold weight the fruited quince, - Gold strew the leafy wold, - The wild and wind-swept wold. - Then Autumn come, a prince, - A gipsy crowned with gold. - - -V - - Then Winter will be king, - Snow-driven from feet to head; - No song-birds then will sing, - The winds will wail instead, - The wild winds weep instead. - Then Winter will be king, - Snow-driven from feet to head. - - -VI - - Then shall I weep, who smiled, - And curse the coming years, - You and myself, and child, - Born unto shame and tears, - A mother's shame and tears. - Then shall I weep, who smiled, - And curse the coming years. - - - - -TYRANNY - - - What is there now more merciless - Than such fast lips that will not speak; - That stir not if one curse or bless - A God who made them weak? - - More maddening to one there is naught - Than such white eyelids sealed on eyes, - Eyes vacant of the thing named thought, - An exile in the skies. - - Ah, silent tongue! ah, dull, closed ear! - What angel utterances low - Have wooed you? so you may not hear - Our mortal words of woe! - - - - -WHAT YOU WILL - - -I - - When the season was dry and the sun was hot, - And the hornet sucked, gaunt on the apricot, - And the ripe peach dropped, to its seed a-rot, - With a lean, red wasp that stung and clung: - When the hollyhocks, ranked in the garden plot, - More seed-pods had than blossoms, I wot, - Then all had been said and been sung, - And meseemed that my heart had forgot. - - -II - - When the black grape bulged with the juice that burst - Through its thick blue skin that was cracked with thirst, - And the round, ripe pippins, that summer had nursed, - In the yellowing leaves o' the orchard hung: - When the farmer, his lips with whistling pursed, - To his sun-tanned brow in the corn was immersed, - Then something was said or was sung, - And I remembered as much as I durst. - - -III - - Now the sky of December gray drips and drips, - And eaves of the barn the icicle tips, - And the cackling hen on the snow-path slips, - And the cattle shiver the fields among: - Now the ears of the milkmaid the north-wind nips, - And the red-chapped cheeks of the farm-boy whips, - What, what shall be said or be sung, - With my lips pressed warm to your lips! - - - - -MIDWINTER - - - The dewdrop from the rose that drips - Hath not the sparkle of her lips, - My lady's lips. - - Than her long braids of yellow hold - The dandelion hath not more gold, - Her braids of gold. - - The blue-bell hints not more of skies - Than do the flowers of her eyes, - My lady's eyes. - - The sweet-pea bloom shows not more grace - Of delicate pink than doth her face, - My lady's face. - - So, heigh-ho! then, though skies be gray, - Spring blossoms in my heart to-day, - This winter day! - - - - -IN THE GARDENS OF FALERINA - - - - -TO GERTRUDE - - - _These are the flowers I bring to thee, - Heart's-ease, euphrasy and rue, - Grown in my Garden of Poetry; - Wear them, sweet, on thy breast for me: - The first for thoughts; and the other two - For spiritual vision, that's always true, - So thou with thy soul mayst ever see - The love in my heart I keep for thee._ - - - - -THE GARDENS OF FALERINA - - - Her hills and vales are dimmer - Than sunset's shadowy shimmer; - Thin mists, that curl, of poppy and pearl, - Above her bowers glimmer; - And, silvered o'er with sails of faery galleys, - Far off the sea gleams, glimpsed through fountained valleys. - - The moon floats never higher - Than one white peak of fire; - And in its beams pale Beauty dreams, - And Music tunes her lyre; - And, Siren-like, beside the moonlit waters, - Fair Fancy sits singing with Memory's daughters. - - A cloud, above and under - The ocean, white with wonder, - Looms, starry steep; and, opening deep, - Grows gold with silent thunder; - Revealing far within, immeasurable, - Lost Avalons of old Romance and Fable. - - Ah! could my spirit shatter - These bonds of flesh and matter, - And, at a word, mount like a bird - To her through mists that scatter; - And, raimented in love and inspiration, - Look down on Earth from that exalted station: - - No mortal might inveigle - My soul, that, like an eagle, - Would soar and soar from shore to shore - Of her, the rare and regal; - And by her love made all a lyric rapture, - A wild desire, wing far beyond all capture. - - - - -ROMANCE - - - Thus have I pictured her:--In Arden old - A white-browed maiden with a falcon eye, - And rose-flushed face, and locks of wind-blown gold, - Teaching her hawks to fly. - - Or, 'mid her boar-hounds, panting with the heat, - In huntsman green, she sounds the hunt's wild prize, - Plumed, dagger-belted, while beneath her feet - The spear-pierced monster dies. - - Or in Brécèliand, on some high tower, - Clad soft in samite, last of her lost race, - I have beheld her, lovelier than a flower, - Turn from the world her face. - - Or, robed in raiment of romantic lore, - Like Oriana, dark of eye and hair, - Riding through Realms of Legend evermore, - And ever young and fair. - - Or now like Bradamant, as brave as just, - In complete steel, her pure face lit with scorn, - At heathen castles, dens of demon lust, - Winding her bugle-horn. - - Another Una; and in chastity - A second Britomart; in beauty far - O'er her who led King Charles's chivalry - And Paynim lands to war.... - - Now she, from Avalon's deep-dingled bowers,-- - 'Mid which white stars and never-waning moons - Make marriage; and dim lips of musk-mouthed flowers - Sigh faint and fragrant tunes,-- - - Implores me follow; and, in shadowy shapes - Of sunset, shows me,--mile on misty mile - Of purple precipice,--all the haunted capes - Of her enchanted isle. - - Where, bowered in bosks and overgrown with vine, - Upon a headland breasting violet seas, - Her castle towers, like a dream divine, - With stairs and galleries. - - And at her casement, Circe-beautiful, - Above the surgeless reaches of the deep, - She sits, while, in her gardens, fountains lull - The perfumed wind to sleep. - - Or, round her brow a diadem of spars, - She leans to hearken, from her raven height, - The nightingales that, choiring to the stars, - Haunt with wild song the night. - - Or, where the moon is mirrored in the waves, - To mark, deep down, the Sea King's city rolled, - Wrought of huge shells and labyrinthine caves, - Ribbed pale with pearl and gold. - - There doth she wait forever; and the kings - Of all the world have wooed her: but she cares - For none but him, the Heart, that dreams and sings, - That sings and dreams and dares. - - - - -THE VALLEY OF MUSIC - - -I - - Oh, cool as the flutter of fountains, - And fresh as the fall of the dew, - Wet as the hues of the rain-arch, - In that vale, is the dawn, when, o'er mountains, - Pearl-peaked and hyaline blue, - Through the Memnonian blue, - Her spirit, like music, comes slowly, - A music of light and of fire, - Leaving her footsteps in roses - There on its summits, while holy, - Fair on her brow is her tire, - Gemmed with the morning-star's fire. - - -II - - And still as the incense of altars, - And dim as the deeps of a cloud, - Mystic as winds of the woodlands, - In that vale, is the night when she falters - In the sorrowful folds of her shroud, - The far-blowing dusk of her shroud, - By the scarlet-strewn bier of her lover, - The day, lying faded and fair - In his chamber of purple and vair.-- - When, above it, you see her uncover - Her star-girdled darkness of hair-- - Gold-hooped with the gold of the even-- - And for the day's burial prepare, - The spirit of night in the heaven, - O'er that vale, is most hauntingly fair; - So fair that you wish it were given - That you in the rays of her hair, - Might die! in her gold-girdled hair. - - -III - - There lies in a valley, where mountains - Have walled it from all that is ours, - A garden entangled with flowers; - Where the whisper of echoing fountains - Makes song in the balm-breathing bowers: - Where torrents, plunged down from wild masses - Of granite, from cavern-pierced steeps, - With thunders sonorous cleave passes, - And madden the world with their leaps, - The clamorous foam of their leaps. - - -IV - - And, oh! when the sunlight comes heaping - With glitter the mist of those chasms, - The foam of those musical chasms, - You may hear a lamenting and weeping, - And see in the vastness far sweeping, - In wild and æolian spasms, - Down, down in those voluble chasms, - The Spirits of Light and of Darkness. - And the wave from the gray-hearted granite - In rivers rolls rippling around; - Meanders through shade-haunted forests, - Where many rock-barriers can span it, - And dash it in froth and in sound; - Where the nights with their great moons can wan it, - Or star its dark stillness profound. - - -V - - And here with her harp doth she wander, - That daughter of music, twice kissed - Of the Spirits of Love and of Sorrow: - Yea, here doth she wander and ponder, - That maiden of moonlight and mist, - With starlight on hair and on wrist; - Yea, here doth she ponder and wander - 'Mid blossoms with loveliness whist, - 'Mid moonlight with fragrances kissed. - And ever her being grows fonder - Of forests where phantoms keep tryst, - The people of moon and of mist: - And often they troop to her singing, - As she sits 'mid the undulant cedars-- - All savage of wildness and scent-- - Whose tops to her beauty are bent, - Like the pennons and plumes of fierce leaders, - In worship and testament: - Like the pennons and plumes of fierce leaders, - All ragged with battle and rent. - - -VI - - And oft when the moon, like a palace - Of witchcraft, shines white overhead, - Making pearl of the foam of the torrent, - She wakes her wild harp in the valleys - Where the blossoms have built her a bed: - She sits where a fountain of flowers - Rains fragrance from branches around, - The blossomed lianas around, - Keeping time with their petal-sweet showers - To her harp; with its strain interwound; - Unfolding, it seems, to the sound: - While her song is as redolence round her, - And their fragrance as music, it seems, - Whose touch and enchantment have bound her - With shadows and whispers of dreams, - And she seems but a part of her dreams, - A creature created of dreams. - - -VII - - One night as she whispered and wandered - In her garden of music and flowers, - She saw, in a ray of the moonlight, - A youth fast asleep 'mid the flowers; - A youth on a mantle of satin, - A poppy-red robe 'mid the flowers. - - -VIII - - Love housed 'neath his eyelids, that, slender - As petals of roses, were pale: - She bent and she kissed them and, tender, - She murmured and bade them unveil, - The blossoms beneath them unveil. - And he woke and beheld her and panted:-- - "At last I behold thee, O Song! - O beautiful, pitiless Song! - Thou, thou, who so wildly enchanted, - And led me, eluded me long! - Evaded and lured me so long!" - - -IX - - Then she knelt on the mantle of satin, - And plunged a long look in his eyes: - She knelt on the mantle of scarlet, - And kissed him on mouth and on eyes, - And mingled her soul with his sighs. - And then in a moment she knew it,-- - He deemed her a part of his dream; - And she smiled and she said, "I am Music! - And thy soul--'twas my spirit that drew it, - Thy soul, with a mystical gleam, - A brightness, a glimmer, a gleam." - - -X - - And he gazed at her strangely; and, sobbing, - Cried out, "Yea; thy harp!--is it strung? - Thy harp of wild gold, is it strung? - With fingers of silver set throbbing - Its chords with that song thou hast sung, - So oft in my dreams thou hast sung." - - -XI - - Then he ceased:--and his eyes--how they glistened! - His eyes, that were haunted with pain, - With longing and beauty and pain: - And again he cried out, "Oh, that music! - That proud and that perilous music! - O God! for that tyrannous strain, - To which in my dreams I have listened, - Ah, God! I have listened in vain!" - And he tossed on the mantle of satin - His deep raven darkness of hair; - And the song at her lips was ungathered, - And she sat there to marvel and stare; - Like marble, to wonder and stare. - - -XII - - Then there welled from her lips all the glory - Of music delirious with words; - Of music that told the heart's story, - And trembled with God-given words, - And rang like the crossing of swords. - And it seemed that the spirit of Beauty - Swept through it with farewells and sighs; - The spirits of Beauty and Duty, - And Love with his beautiful eyes; - And Heaven, and Hell with its cries; - Sad Hell with a tempest of cries. - - -XIII - - The rapture was there of all passion; - The heartache of all we have lost: - The sweetness was there that we fashion - From love we have won or have lost, - Its terror, its torment, and cost. - And over it all was a fury - Of wings that seemed beating above, - Of stars and of winds and the glory - Of God and the splendor of love, - The splendor and triumph of love. - - -XIV - - And then, from her poppy wings, Slumber - Dropped petals of sleep on his eyes; - The Spirit of Slumber with pinions - Of vaporous silver, whose flutter - Had mixed with the music's wild number, - Lured down from the shadowy skies; - Lured down from her drowsy dominions, - To nest in his tired-out eyes. - - -XV - - And in sleep he cried out to her,--stilling - A moment the rush of her song, - The rainbowing torrent of song,-- - "Cease! cease! for the rapture is killing! - The glory of light is too strong!-- - Oh, cease! make an end of thy song!"-- - But she, with the frenzy o'erflowing, - Cried out in an anguish of passion, - "Thy soul shall be one with my song, - With me and the soul of my song. - Take my hand! let us walk in the glowing - Sweet heaven and hell of all song; - Where the torrents of music are flowing, - The rivers of music and song. - Take my hand! Dost thou hear? We are going! - We, too, to God's splendor belong! - Let us walk in the light of His song, - The thunder and flame of His song." - - -XVI - - Then she flung in her song the emotion, - Triumphant, of heart and of soul; - Till the passion and pain were an ocean - That swept her with billowing roll, - As it seemed, to abysses of dole, - Abysses of infinite dole. - - -XVII - - And paler than moonlight and marble - He lay on the red of that robe, - Lay white at her feet on the scarlet, - With silence-sealed lips and the glitter - Of tears in each violet globe - Of his eyes.--And she said: "It is bitter - To see him so still on this robe, - Like marble so still on this robe." - Then she knelt and cried out, "Art thou living? - Or dead?--Have I slain thee with song?-- - I gave thee the best in my giving, - But all that I gave thee seems wrong!-- - No blessing, a curse was my song! - A curse and a sorrow my song!" - - -XVIII - - And she shattered her harp in her madness, - And rent at her breasts and her hair; - Then kissed him on mouth and on temples, - And spoke to him smoothing the sadness, - The calm of his brow that was fair, - Was perfect and hopelessly fair. - Then she wailed to the stars in the heaven, - And railed at her song as a thief, - Calling out, "For a curse wast thou given! - Yea, thou! for a curse and a grief! - A curse and an infinite grief!" - - -XIX - - And the moon, it went down like a broken - Great dagger of gold in the west; - Like a dagger of gold that was broken, - Her dagger of song, that had spoken, - And pierced with its beauty his breast, - Had ravished his soul from his breast. - And she lay with her hair, deep and golden, - Thick showered and shaken on his; - Her arms around him were enfolden; - Her lips clave to his with a kiss, - The love and the grief of a kiss. - - - - -BLODEUWEDD - - - Not to that demon's son, whom Arthur erst, - For necromancy, at Caerleon, first - Graced greatly, Merlin,--not to him alone - Did those lost learnings of white magic, known - As sorcery and witchcraft, then belong. - Taliesin, now, hath told us in a song - Of one at Arvon, Math of Gwynedd; lord - Of some vague cantrevs of the North; whose sword - Beat back and slew a southern king, through wrath - And puissance of Gwydion, whose path - Thence on, with love, he honored. - - Now this Math - Was learned in wondrous witchcraft: as he willed, - He wrought the invisible visible, and filled - The sight with seeming shapes, which it believed - Realities, nor knew it was deceived. - For, at his word, the winds were wan with tents, - And armies rose of airy elements; - And brassy blasts of war from bugles brayed, - And armored hosts in battle clanged and swayed, - And at a word were not. And at his nod, - Steeds, rich-accoutered, whinnying softly, trod - The dædal earth; and hounds, of greater worth, - And wirier, too, than dogs of mortal birth, - Rose up, like forest fungus, from the earth - Around th' astonished stag, or flying doe, - Let Math but wish it or his trumpet blow. - But only things that had their counterpart - On earth could he make real through his art. - - Now, to his castle, Math, through Gwydion,-- - The son of Don,--the daughter dark of Don, - The silver-circled Arianrod, had brought; - A southern rose of beauty, whom Math thought - To wed, in love and friendship, without blame, - And at Caer Dathyl. When the maiden came - Said Math, "Art thou a virgin?"--Like a flame - Mantling, her answer angered, "Verily, - I know not other, lord, than that I be!"-- - So wrought he then through magic that the form - Of her boy baby seemed upon her arm, - White as a rose. - "A Mary!--Yea!" laughed Math; - "Forsooth, another Mary!" then in wrath - Laid harsh hands on the babe and fiercely flung - Far in the salt sea. But the strong winds clung - Fast to the Elfin and the lithe waves swept - Him safely shoreward dry; some fishers kept - Him thus unseaed and christened Dylan, fair - Son of the wave, and fostered him with care. - Nor was this really hers. But Gwydion, - Brother to Arianrod, before the sun - Had time to glimpse it with one golden glaive, - Swiftly,--as hoping the real babe to save,-- - Some dim small body on the castle pave - In raven velvet seized; and, hiding, he - Stole this from court, to subtly raise to be - A comely youth. In time, to Arianrod - Came, swearing by the rood and blood of God - He brought her back her son. - - Quoth she: "More shame - Dost thou disgrace thyself with, and more blame - Dost damn thyself with, thus to mix our name - With this dishonor, brother, than myself!" - Then, waxing wroth, cried Gwydion, "The Elf - Is thine then?--Tell me, wanton! is thy son - Dylan, the fisher, or this fair-haired one, - This youth?--God's curse!"--and daggered her with looks. - And she in turn waxed fiery, saying, "Books - Of magic I have read as well as Math! - And now I tell thee, keep from out my path! - Thou and thy bastard, he as well as thou! - Thou dog! And on thy folly, listen, now - I lay a threefold curse: behold! the first-- - Until I name him, nameless be he! Cursed - Be they who give him arms!--the second:--nor - Shall he bear arms until I arm for war. - And, lastly, know, however high his birth, - He shall not wed a woman of the Earth!-- - Malignity! to shame me with thy sin!" - Then passed into her tower and locked her in. - - But Gwydion, departing with the youth, - Sware he would compass her; if not through truth, - Through wiles and learnéd magic. And he wrought - So that unbending Arianrod was brought - To name the lad. Again he managed that, - Though strange enchantments as of war, he gat - Her to give arms. But then, not for his life, - Howbeit, could he get the youth a wife. - Persisting, desperate, at last the thing - Wrought in him blusterous as a backward spring. - Now Llew the youth was named. And Gwydion - Made his complaint to Math, the mighty son - Of Mathonwy. - - Said Math: "Despair not. We - With charms, illusions, and white sorcery - Will seek to make--for mine are wondrous powers-- - A woman for him out of forest flowers." - - And so they toiled together one wan night, - When the full moon hung low, and watched, a white - Wild wisp-like face behind a mist. They took - Blossoms of briars, blooming by a brook - Shed from the April hills; and phantom blooms - Of yellow broom that filtered faint perfumes; - And primrose blossoms, frail, of rainy smell, - Weak pink, dim-clustered in a glow-worm dell; - Wild-apple sprigs, that tipsied bells of blaze, - And in far, haunted hollows made a haze - Of ghostly, fugitive fragrance; and the blue - Of hollow harebells, hoary with the dew; - The gold of kingcups, golden as low stars; - And white of lilies,--rolled in limpid bars, - Like sleepy foam,--that swayed aslant and spilled - Slim nectar-cups of musk the rain had filled; - And paly, wildwood wind-flowers; and the gloss - And glow of celandine; and bulbs that boss - And dot the oak-roots bulging up the moss; - Last, on the elfin uplands, pulled the buds, - That burn like spurts of moonlight when it suds - The showering clouds, of blossomed meadow-sweet, - And made a woman fair; from head to feet - Complete in beauty. One far lovelier - Than Branwen, daughter of the gray King Llyr; - Or that dark daughter of Leodegrance, - The stately Gwenhwyvar. And young romance - Dreamed in the open Bibles of her eyes: - Music her motion; and her speech, like sighs - Of roses swinging in the wind and rain, - And lilies dancing on the sunlit plain: - And in her eyes and face there bloomed again - The bluebell and the poppy; and fern and bud - Gave grace and glory to her maidenhood: - And all the attributes of all the flowers - Were in her body, that was not like ours - And yet was like: but in her brow and face - Was love alone and beauty, and no trace, - No least suggestion of an earthly pain, - Or hate, or sorrow, or of worldly stain; - But hope, high heart, and happiness of life. - And Blodeuwedd they named her; and, for wife-- - Baptizing her with light and dawn and dew-- - Gave, that next morning, to the happy Llew. - - - - -AMADIS AT MIRAFLORES - - -I - -MORNING - - The quickening Day climbs to one star, - That, cradled, rocks itself in morn; - Whose airy opal, flaming far, - Makes fire of the mountain tarn. - The hosts of morning storm the sky - With streaming splendor, their bright lips - Blow laughter wild that shakes the rye, - And, from the bough, the dew that drips - On Oriana walking by. - - The calling rooks swarm round the towers: - A heron sweeps through deeps of glare: - And Falconry among the bowers - Whistles his falcon down the air: - While in the woods the bugled Hunt, - With bearded cheeks, blows wild a-mort - As dies the boar; or, front to front, - Upon the baying hounds, the hart - Turns, antlering at the battle's brunt. - - The heath-cock, stout amid his dames, - Upon the purple-heathered hill, - With glossy coat the morn enflames, - Sounds to his rivals challenge shrill. - Where, tossing white its plume of foam, - The fountain leaps and twinkles by, - Embodying dawn and all its bloom, - My Oriana draweth nigh, - Sweet as the heath-bell's wild perfume. - - The mountain tarn is like a cloud - Of fallen and reflecting blue; - In azure deeps the larks are loud, - The larks that soar through dawn and dew. - A wild-swan, mirrored in the mere, - Moves with its image breast to breast-- - As our two souls as one appear - When to my heart her heart is pressed, - The heart of Oriana here. - - -II - -EVENING - - O sunset, from the springs of stars, - Draw down thy cataracts of gold; - And belt their streams with burning bars, - Of ruby on which flame is rolled: - Drench dingles with laburnum light; - Drown every copse in violet blaze: - Rain rose-light down; and, poppy-bright, - Die downward o'er the hills of haze, - And bring at last the stars of night! - - The stars and moon! that silver world, - That, like a spirit, faces west, - Her foam-white feet with light empearled, - Bearing white flame within her breast: - Earth's sister sphere of fire and snow, - Who shows to Earth her heart's pale heat, - And bids her see its pulses glow, - And hear their crystal currents beat - With beauty, lighting all below. - - O cricket, with thy elfin pipe, - That tinkles in the grass and grain; - And dove-pale buds, that, dropping, stripe - The glen's blue night, and smell of rain; - O nightingale, that so dost wail - On yonder branch of blossoming snow, - Thrill, fill the wild hart-haunted dale, - Where Oriana, walking slow, - Approaches thro' the moonlight pale. - - She comes to meet me! Earth and air - Grow radiant with another light. - In her dark eyes and her dark hair - Are all the stars and all the night. - She comes! I clasp her! and it is - As if no grief had ever been. - The world takes fire from our kiss.-- - There are no other women or men - But Oriana and Amadis! - - - - -URGANDA - - - It is Sir Elid of the Sword, - Of whom his wife, Helis, hath heard - For three long years no wished-for word. - - His armor dofft, he comes in fur - And velvet, all the warrior, - And takes her hand and kisses her. - - "Thrice have I seen the summer die; - And thrice the autumn, fading, lie: - And heard the weary winter sigh, - - "Since last, my lord, my own true heart, - From me, thy wife, with love, didst part, - And rode to war with Lisuarte:"-- - - So said Helis with many tears:-- - "Still welcome, Elid! though long years - Of silence, what with doubts and fears, - - "Have made me deem that thou wast dead.-- - Why dost thou stare so overhead?-- - What is it that thy soul doth dread?" - - He said to her: "My own, my best, - To thee alone ... _Witch! wilt thou wrest - This hour from me?_ ... shall be confessed - The thing that will not let me rest. - - "It was at Hallowmas I spurred - Through woods wherein no wild thing stirred, - No sound of brook, no song of bird. - - "When softly down a tangled way - A dim fair woman, white as day, - Rode on a palfrey misty gray. - - "Upon her brow a circlet burned - Of jewels, and the fire, inurned - Within them, changed, and turned and turned. - - "I stared like one, who, wild and pale, - Spurs, hag-led, through the night and hail: - When, lo! adown a forest vale - An angel with the Holy Grail. - - "It vanishes; but, once beheld, - The longing heart is never quelled, - Its loveliness hath so enspelled.-- - - "She vanished. And I rode alone, - Save for a voice that did intone, - 'Urganda is she, the Unknown. - - "'And never shalt thou clasp the form - Of her who leads thee by a charm - To follow her through sun and storm.' - - "I can not stay for weal or woe. - E'en now her magic bids me go, - Soft-summoning through wind and snow." - - * * * * * - - Helis with some old song beguiles - His hollow face until it smiles; - And with her lute shapes sweeter wiles: - - Till kingly figures, woven in - The shadowy arras, seem to win - Strange, ghostly life, and slay and sin. - - Until her deep hair's golden glow - Sweeps his dark curls as, praying low, - She kneels, a marble-sculptured woe. - - And then she left him there to rest, - Aweary with his haggard quest, - All in gray fur and velvet dressed.... - - At midnight through the vaulted roof - She heard armed steps of ringing proof: - She heard a charger's iron hoof. - - The leaded lattice glowed, a square - Of moonlight in the moonlit air: - She flung it wide: what saw she there? - - Sir Elid in the moonlight's beam, - Stark, staring as if still a-dream - Rode downward towards the rushing stream. - - His helm and corselet had he on, - And, in one gauntlet, silver-wan, - His bugle-horn was upward drawn. - - Upon his horn he blew his best; - Then sang, it seemed, his merriest, - "I ride upon my love's last quest: - And on her breast at last shall rest." - - Straight onward by some mighty will, - Into the stream below the hill - She saw him ride. Then all was still.... - - Not wider than her eyes are his - That stare, where icy eddies kiss - His lips. "Urganda's work is this!" - - She cries, and where her warrior lies - With horror in his face and eyes, - She bends above his form and sighs. - - And then she seems to hear a moan - Beside her;--but she leans alone:-- - Then laughter; and a cloud seems blown - Before her eyes, that doth intone: - - "Beware, Helis! beware! beware - My curse! my kiss, that is despair! - Kiss not his brow, lest unaware, - Helis, Helis, my curse be there!" - - - - -HAWKING - - -I - - I see them still, when poring o'er - Old volumes of romantic lore, - Ride forth to hawk, in days of yore, - By woods and promontories: - Knights in gold-lace, plumes and gems, - Damsels crowned with anadems,-- - Whose falcons perch on wrists, like milk, - In hoods and jesses of green silk,-- - From bannered Miraflores. - - -II - - The laughing earth is young with dew; - The deeps above are violet blue; - And in the East a cloud or two - Empearled with airy glories; - And with merriment and singing, - Silver bells of falcons ringing, - Beauty, rosy with the dawn, - Lightly rides o'er hill and lawn - From towered Miraflores. - - -III - - The torrent glitters from the crags; - Down forest vistas browse the stags; - And from wet beds of reeds and flags - The frightened lapwing hurries: - And the brawny wild-boar peereth - At the cavalcade that neareth; - Oft his shaggy-throated grunt - Brings the king and court to hunt - At royal Miraflores. - - -IV - - The May itself, in soft sea-green, - Is Oriana, Spring's high queen, - And Amadis beside her seen, - Some prince of Fairy stories: - Where her castle's ivied towers - Drowse above her woods and bowers, - Flaps the heron through the sky, - And the wild-swan gives a cry - By knightly Miraflores. - - - - -ORLANDO - -SUGGESTED BY ARIOSTO'S "ORLANDO FURIOSO" - - -I - - When southern winds sowed woods and skies, - Angelica! - With bloom-storms of the flowering May; - When hill and battle-field were gay - With peace and purity of flowers, - I sat to dream - Beside a stream amid the bowers, - Clear as the deeps of thy blue eyes: - And near the stream - I saw a grotto banked with flowers, - From which the streamlet fell in showers, - Cool-sparkling through the sunlit bowers, - Angelica! - - -II - - My casque I dofft to scoop the fount, - Angelica! - With liquid pureness bubbling cool - It rose--then clashed into the pool ... - Thy name I saw, hewn in the rock! - And under it ... - Ah no! I dreamed! my eyes did mock - My senses!... Then I seemed to count, - All fire-lit, - The letters! deep, carved in the rock! - _Medoro_ carved in every rock!-- - My brain went round like some wild clock, - Angelica! - - -III - - O treachery! O lust of blood! - Angelica! - That one so fair should be so vile! - No more for me again shall smile - The brows of Beauty! As of old, - With clarion call, - No more shall Battle make me bold! - Or Chivalry fire my soul!... The wood,-- - Away from all, - From love and lust,--shall house and hold - My misery!... The dawn breaks cold! - And I lie naked on the wold, - Angelica! - - - - -YOLANDA OF THE TOWERS - - - Old forests belt and bar - Her towering battlements; - And all the west, with crest on crest, - The blue o' the hills indents. - - Her garden's terrace cliffs - That soar above a sea - Dreamier and fuller of shadowy color - Than sunset's mystery. - - And league on league of coast, - Sand-ribbed of wind and wave, - Rolls dim and far with reef and bar - And many an ocean cave. - - The morning,--bright with beams - And sea-winds,--wakes the day; - Its breezy lutes and foamy flutes - Make music on the bay. - - The deer are roused from rest; - The sea-birds breast the brine; - And from the steep wild torrents leap - Foaming 'neath rock and vine. - - But she, in one tall tower, - High built above the tide, - In her heart a thorn, turns from the morn, - Wan-faced and weary-eyed. - - Long, long she looks a-sea, - As one who seeks a sail: - But on her view the empty blue - Beats and her eyelids quail. - - She turns and slowly goes - Down from her sea-gray towers, - To walk and weep, like one asleep, - Among the salt-slain flowers. - - Until the sun is set, - And crocus heavens, grown cold, - Leave all their light to the new moon's white - And one star's point of gold. - - Until a breeze from sea - Sets in, of balm and spice - And streams amid the stars, half-hid, - Thin mists as white as ice. - - And then her eyes grow large - With hate or one last hope, - And again she bends her gaze where blends - The sea with heaven's slope. - - But naught the night reveals, - The night that seems to weep - And shudder down two stars, that drown - Themselves within the deep. - - Then to herself she says, - Softly, "Ah God! to know - No death or shame is his, or blame, - Who brought on me this woe! - - "What though I know that Hell - At last will have its own; - It will not heal my soul, I feel, - Though there he wail and moan. - - "Could I his carrion see, - On yonder crag's wild crest, - Hung up to rot, a traitor's lot, - My soul might find some rest!"... - - And this is she God made - Of sunlight and of flowers - For love and kisses and fond caresses-- - Yolanda of the Towers. - -[Illustration: She raised her oblong lute and smote some chords. Page 230 - - _Accolon of Gaul_ -] - - - - -ERMENGARDE - - - Queen of the Courts of Love, she sleeps; one arm - Pillowing her raven hair, as Dawn might Night, - Or Day kiss Dusk; or Darkness, starry warm, - Be gathered of her sister, rosy Light. - - Pale from the purple of the damask cloth - One hand hangs, as a lily-bloom might, lone - Above a bed of poppies; or a moth - Might softly hover by a rose full-blown. - - Heraldic, rich, the costly coverings - Sweep, fall'n in folds, pushed partly from her breast; - As through storm-broken clouds the full moon springs, - From these one orb of her pure bosom pressed. - - She sleeps: and where the moteless moonbeams sink - Through blazoned panes--an immaterial snow-- - In wide, white jets, the lion-fur seems to drink - With tawny jaws their wasted, winey glow. - - Light-lidded sleep and holy dreams are hers, - Untouched of feverish sorrow or of care, - Soft as the wind whose fragrant breathing stirs - The moonbeam-tangled tresses of her hair. - - - - -HACKELNBERG - - -I - - When down the Hartz the echoes swarm, - He rides beneath the mountain storm - With mad "halloo!" and wild alarm - Of hound and horn and thunder: - With his hunter, black as night, - Ban-dogs, eyed with lambent light; - And a stag, a spectral white, - Rushes on before, in flight - Glimmering through the boughs and under. - - -II - - Long-howling, crouched in bracken black, - The werewolf shuns his ruinous track, - On every side the forests crack, - And mountain torrents tumble: - And the spirits of the air - Whistling whirl with scattered hair, - Teeth that flash and eyes that glare, - Round him as he gallops there, - In the rain and tempest's rumble. - - -III - - Above the storm, the thunder's growl, - The torrent's roar, the forest's howl, - Is heard his hunting-horn--an owl, - That hoots and sweeps before him: - And beneath the blinding leven, - On wild crags, the Castle riven - Of the Dumburg towers to heaven, - Beckoning on the demon-driven, - Beckoning on and looming o'er him. - - - - -AN ANTIQUE - - - Mildewed and gray a marble stair - Leads to a balustrade of urns, - Beyond which two stone satyrs glare - From vines and close-clipped yews and ferns. - - A path, that winds and labyrinths, - 'Twixt parallels of verdant box, - Around a lodge whose mossy plinths - Are based on emerald-colored rocks. - - A lodge, or ancient pleasure-house, - Built in a grove beside a lake, - Around whose edge the dun deer browse, - And swans their snowy pastime take. - - And underneath and overhead,-- - The breathings of a water-nymph - It seems,--the violets' scent is shed - Mixed with the music of the lymph. - - And where,--upon its pedestal,-- - The old sun-dial marks the hours, - Laburnum blossoms lightly fall, - And duchess roses rain their flowers. - - The air is languid with perfume, - As if dead beauties--who of old - Intrigued it here in patch and plume-- - Again the ancient terrace strolled - - With gallants, on whose rapiers gems - Once sneered in haughtiness of hues, - While Touchstone wit and apothegms - Laughed down the long cool avenues: - - And there, where bowers of woodbine pave, - All heavily with sultry musk, - Two fountains of pellucid wave, - In sunlight-tessellated dusk, - - I seem to see the fountains twain - Of Hate and Love in Arden, where, - In times of regal Charlemagne, - Great Roland drank and Oliver. - - Where, wandered from Montalban's towers, - The paladin, Rinaldo, slept, - While, leaning o'er him through the flowers, - Angelica above him wept. - - - - -JAAFER THE BARMECIDE - -_Scene, Baghdad: time of the Khalif Haroun er Reshid. Salih ben Tarif -speaks._ - - - With Imam Hassan I had reached the khan - Outside of Ambar. Jaafer at the door - Of his pavilion watched a caravan - Inbound from Yemen.--Ah, the bales it bore - Of richest stuffs and spices!--'Mid the rout - Of porters, camel-drivers, old and poor, - A singer stood,--a blindman, singing out - With luted preludes. Imam Hassan then: - "'Tis Zekkar; he, t' whom, with the blind about - The Mosque of Moons, I with our holy men - Scattered my silver at the hour of prayer, - When hearts are open unto Allah's ken.-- - Danic or dirhem, though, were wasted there: - Yea, by the Prophet! had one sown dinars - _He_ had not budged one finger or that stare. - And so the beggars and the scavengers - Got all." - Then I: "The very same whom I-- - Guard at the Western Portal--'neath the stars - Some midnights past heard singing. Dim the dry - Hot night; and Baghdad only knew of us - Until, gray shadows shuffling slowly by, - Pilgrims for Mecca passed, all vaporous - In dust and darkness; them we challenged not. - --Slaves, with the tribute of Nicephorus - The Roman, from long shallops, as they shot - Along the moonlit Tigris far away, - Timing their oars, raised languid chanting.-- - What - This blindman sang was sweeter than--let's say-- - The songs of Ibrahim, the dulcet frets - Of Zulzul's lute. I listened till the day - Made gold of all the city's minarets, - And the muezzin summoned us to pray." - - Now while we gossiped, lounging slow along - The packed bazaar, a fisher with his nets - Passed, singing Abou Newas' newest song: - A honey-merchant, then, his tinkling mule - All hanap-hung with sweetness: then a throng - Of scholars and their Sheikh from mosque or school: - A milk-white woman on a cream-white ass, - Black slaves attending.... And--I am no fool!-- - I knew her of the Court, the noblest class, - By her gem-bangled bracelets.... Let Haroun - On the Euphrates with Zubeideh pass - A single day, at royal Rekkeh,--noon - And night his harem here, so it is said, - Is all intrigue.--Then drawling out his tune, - "Ten thousand pieces to be paid, be paid, - For Yehya's head, Er Reshid's late vizier," - A crier passed us. Then the market's shade - Glittered with weapons; and we seemed to hear, - Sword of the Khalif, Mesrour, and commands - Naming the Khalif. One swart officer - Flamed forth the Sultan's signet. And harsh hands - Were laid on--whom?--I saw not! For my sight - Was dazzled by the scimitars,--from bands - Of jeweled belts that burned,--and, keen and bright, - Swift hedged us out. Then broad the red blood dyed - The ground around a body--and, hoar white, - Was raised a severed head.--And, stupefied, - Elbowing the rabble, "By my beard!" I cried, - Marking the face, "Jaafer the Barmecide!" - - - - -A PRE-EXISTENCE. - - - An intimation of some previous life? - Or dark dream--by my waking soul divined-- - Of some uncertain sleep? in which the sin - Of some past life, a life that some one lived-- - Not I, yet I,--long, long ago in Spain, - I live again.... Wherein again I see - From heathen battles to Toledo's gates,-- - Damascened corselet broken, his camail - And armet shattered,--deep within the eve's - Anger of brass, that burned around his helm, - A hurrying flame,--a galloping glitter,--one - Ride arrow-wounded. And the city catch - Wild tumult from his coming, wilder fear-- - A cry before him and a wail behind, - Of walls beleaguered; ravin; conquered kings: - Triumphant Taric; shackled Spain--revenge. - - And I, a Moslem slave, a miser Jew's, - Housed near the Tagus--squalid and alone, - Save for his slave,--a dog he beat and starved,-- - Leaner than my lank shadow when the moon, - A battle beacon, westerns; all my bones - A visible hunger; famished with the fear, - Soul-garb of slaves, I bore him--I, who held - Him, heart and soul, more hated than his God, - Stood silent. Fools had laughed. I saw my way. - - War-times grow weapons, and the blade I found - Was hacked but pointed.--Well I knew his ways: - The nightly nuptials of his jars of gems - And bags of doublas.--Well I knew his ways. - No figure, woven in the hangings, where - He hugged his riches in that secret room, - Was half so still as I, who gauntly stole - Behind him, humped and stooping; and his heart - Clove to the center, stabbing from behind, - Thrice thro' his tattered tunic, murrey-dyed. - Forward he fell, his old face 'mid his gold, - Grayer and thinner than the moon of morn, - While slow the blood dripped, oozing through the cloth, - Black, and thick-clotting round the oblong wounds. - Great pearls of Oman, whiter than the moon; - Rubies of Badakhshân, whose bezels wept - Slim tears of poppy-purpled flame; and rich, - Rose, ember-pregnant carbuncles, wherein - Fevered a captive crimson, blurred with light - The table's raven cloth. Dim bugles wan - Of cat-eyed hyacinths; moon-emeralds - With starry greenness stabbed; in limpid stains - Of liquid lilac, Persian amethysts; - Fire-opals, savage and mesmeric with - Voluptuous flame, long, sweet and sensuous as - Deep eyes of Orient women; sapphires beamed - With talismanic violet, from tombs, - Deev-guarded, of primordial Solimans, - Scattered the velvet: and like gledes amid,-- - Splintering the light from rainbow-arrowed orbs,-- - Length-agonized with fire, diamonds of - Golconda.... (One a dervish once had borne - Seven days, beneath a red Arabian sun, - Seven nights, beneath a round Arabian moon, - Under his tongue; an Emeer's ransom, held - Of some wild tribe.--Bleached in the perishing waste, - A Bedouin Arab found sand-strangled bones, - A skeleton, vulture-torn, fierce in whose skull - One eyeball blazed--the diamond. At Aleppo - Bartered ... a bauble for his desert love.) - Jacinth and Indian pearl, gem heaped on gem, - Flashed, rutilating in the taper's light,-- - Unearthly splinters of a rainbowed flame,-- - A blaze of irised fire; and his face, - Long-haired, white-sunk among them. And I took - All! yea! all! all!--jewel and gold and gem!-- - Although his curse burned in them! 'though, me-seemed, - Each burning jewel glared a separate curse. - - * * * * * - - Can dead men work us evil from the grave? - Can crime infest us so that fear will slay?... - Richer than all Castile and yet--not dare - Drink but from cups of Roman murra,--spar - Bowl-sprayed with fibrile gold,--spar sensitive - To poison! I, no fool! and yet--a fool - To fear a dead Jew's malice!... Yet, how else? - Feasting within the music of my halls, - While perfumed beauty danced in sinuous robes, - Diaphanous, more tenuous than those famed - Of loomed Amorgos or of silken Kos, - Draining the unflawed murrhine, Xeres-brimmed, - Had I reeled poisoned, dying wolf'sbane-slain! - - - - -THE KING - - - Up from the glimmering east the full moon swung, - A golden bubble buoyed zenithward - Above black hills. The white-eyed stars, that thronged,-- - Hot with the drought,--the cloudless slopes of heaven, - Winked thirstily; no wind aroused the leaves, - That o'er the glaring road hung motionless, - Withered and whitened of the weary dust - From many hoofs of many a fellowship - Of knights who rode to'ards quest or tournament: - Among them those who brought the King disguised, - Whose mind was, "in the lists to joust and be - An equal 'mid unequals, man to man:" - Who from the towers of Edric passed, wherein - Some days he'd sojourned, waiting Launcelot: - That morn it was; ... for, with the morn, a horn - Sang at dim portals, musical with dew, - Wild echoes of wild woodlands and the hunt, - Clear herald of the stanchest of his knights. - And they, to the great tilt at Camelot, - Rode armored off, a noise of steel and steeds. - - Thick in the stagnant moat the lilies lay, - Pale 'mid their pads; above them, huge with chains, - The drawbridge hung before the barbéd grate; - And far above, along lone battlements, - His armor moon-drenched, one lone sentinel - Clanked drowsily; and it was late in June. - - She, at her lattice, loosely night-robed, leaned, - Thinking of one she loved: a pensive smile - Haunting her face; a face as fair as night's, - Night's when divinely beautiful with stars, - Two stars, at least, that dreamed beneath her brows. - Long, raven loops and coils of sensuous hair - Rolled turbulence round white-glimpsed neck and throat, - That shamed the moonlight with a rival sheen. - - One stooped above her; and his nostrils breathed - Heavy perfumes that blossomed in her hair; - And round her waist hooped one strong arm and drew - Her mightily to him, soft crushing,--cool - With yielding freshness of her form,--her gown; - Then searched her eyes until his own seemed drunk - And mad with passion: then one hungry kiss - Bruised, hard as anger, on her breathless lips, - Fiercer than fire. Leaning lower, then - A whispered, "Lov'st but one? and he?"--And then, - She, with impatience, "Rough and rude thou art! - Why crush me, thou great bear, with such a hug! - Or kill me with such kisses!"--Then, as soft - As some rich rose syllabling musk and dew, - "And whom I love?--ah, Edric, need I say!"... - - Then he, fierce-smiling, swiftly, without word, - His countenance harsh-writhen into hate's - Gnarled hideousness, haled back her marvelous head, - Back, back by all its braids of gathered hair, - Till her full bosom's clamorous loveliness - Stark on the moon burst bare. Low leaning then, - With mocking laughter, "Yea, by God's own blood! - The King, O thou adulteress!" and a blade - Glanced, thin as ice, plunged hard, hard in her heart. - - - - -MELANCHOLIA - - "_Jamque vale Soli cum diceret Ambrociotes, - In Stygios fertur desiluisse lacus, - Morte nihil dignum passus: sed forte Platonis - Divini eximum de nece legit opus._" - - --Callimachus. - - -I - - Now there was wind that night, wild wind, and rain; - And frantic thorns, that huddled on the wold, - Seemed withered witches met in storm again - To keep their Sabbath and to curse and scold, - With gnarled, fantastic gestures, lame and old. - Deep in a hollow, where some cabin lay, - A lamplit window, like an eye of gold, - Glared, winked and closed--or was't an Elfin ray, - A jack-o'-lanthorn gleam, lost on a wild wood way? - - -II - - Still I held onward through the ugly night; - Breast-deep in thistles, all their ghostly heads - Kinked close with wet; through the bedraggled plight - Of brakes of bramble, tousled into shreds, - And tangled wastes of briars--tumbling beds - For winds to toss on.--Once, across a farm, - Unsteadily, a lamp towards unseen sheds,-- - Like the blurred glow of some ungainly worm,-- - A watery wisp of light crawled trailing through the storm. - - -III - - Then swallowing blackness of the night; and thin - The shrewd rain beat me and the rough limbs whipped - Of dwarfed, uneasy beeches. There within - Their savage circle battered tombstones tipped - Squat lengths to weeds the fighting winds had ripped - And chopped to tatters. And I heard before, - Rounding a headland, where the gaunt trees dripped,-- - A shout borne deathward from night's ghastly shore,-- - Hoarse as a thousand throats the river's sullen roar. - - -IV - - Shuddering I stopped, for, with my feet so caked - With clay, damp-dragging, safer were the graves, - Crowding that vista of the wood,--which raked - My face with burrs,--than, walking towards the waves, - To feel earth slip away; the architraves - Of darkness plunge me downward to some pit - Of wallow and of water.--Madder knaves - Than I have stood thus in a fever-fit - Of heart and brain and shuddered from the brink of it. - - -V - - Wooingly silence whispered to me there - Through boughs of dripping darkness sad with rain; - Darkness, that met my eyeballs everywhere, - Blind-packed and vacant as a madman's brain. - And so I stood and heard the dead leaves drain, - And through the leaves the haunted wind that hissed; - Then suddenly--perhaps it was the strain - Snapped in my temples--laughter seemed to twist, - With evil, night's dead mouth that bent to mine and kissed. - - -VI - - Insanity! two leaves that dabbled down, - Touched me with drizzle; and that laugh--ah, well, - No laugh! an owlet hooting at the frown - Night's hag-face tortures while she works her spell. - Yet I had sworn, before those kisses fell - Like winter on me, black as broken jet, - An occult blackness like the Prince of Hell, - A woman's hand had brushed my face--and yet, - A bat it might have been made mad with wind and wet. - - -VII - - And stark I stood among the sodden stones, - Icy with fever, hearing in each gale - Strange footsteps,--while within my soul were moans - For strength,--as powerless as I was pale. - Then I remembered that within a tale - Once I had read--a chronicle of ills - Cowled monks had written--how one shall not fail - To find, unsought, the Fiend, if so he wills, - Cloak, cap, and cock's crook'd plume among the lonely hills. - - -VIII - - Was _that_ his laugh? and _that_ his vulture hand?-- - No! no! for in the legend it was said, - "Though moonless midnight curse the barren land - Sathanas' shadow follows him as red - As Hell's red cauldron is."--My terror fled, - Remembering this.--How sad a fool was I - To dream Hell's wickedness would bow his head - By mine, and parley with me, lie for lie, - With cunning scrutiny of oblong eye by eye! - - -IX - - Then, then I felt--_her_ presence! all awake - Unto her power that could lift or sink; - And her straight eyes controlling, like an ache, - My brain that had no mastery to think, - Or to perform. And slowly, link on link, - She bound me helpless, like an inquisitor, - In vasty dungeons of the soul; no wink - Of light was there, but darkness, bar on bar, - Self-convoluted chaos strangling will's high star. - - -X - - "I am the mother of uneaseful sleep, - The child of night and sister of dim death; - Who knoweth me, yea, he shall never weep, - Yet bless and ban me in a single breath: - Who knoweth me a coward is unneth: - And saddest hearts have sought me over glad - To find gray comfort where the preacher saith - There is no comfort. Melancholy mad, - Reach me thy hand and know me if thy heart be sad." - - -XI - - Thus did she speak. Her voice was like a flame - - Of burning blackness. Then I felt the throb - Of her still hand in mine. And so I came - Gladly unto her. Yea, I, too, would rob - Time of his triumphs.--Who would groan and sob - Beneath his fardels, hearing sad men sigh - When here is cure?--for Life, that, like a lob, - Rides us to death; for Love, a godless lie; - And Toil and Hunger.--Yea, what fool would fear to die? - - -XII - - Then seemed I wrapped in rolling mists, and, oh, - Her arm was round me and her kisses dear - On eyes and lips, and words that none may know-- - What words of promise said she in mine ear! - Drunk with her beauty still I felt no fear, - When, past the forest, like some bounding brute, - I heard the river roaring. Drawing near, - Again she whispered, and my soul grew mute - Before her voice that lulled like music of a lute: - - -XIII - - "Within the webs of darkness and of day - The spider Hours spin about thy world, - Who now finds time to even laugh or pray, - Cramped in a term of years that are uncurled - Like coils of some huge monster, head uphurled - To fang when the last fold falls! Slope on slope - The night environs thee with space, empearled - With hopeless stars by which men symbol Hope, - Beneath whose light they breed and curse and pray and grope." - - -XIV - - And so she brought me to the river's brink - To plunge me downward. All the night was mine; - And so, exulting, to Death's darker drink - I stooped and drank.--What better drink divine, - O man, hast thou? what wiser way is thine? - Who find'st me carrion on a hungry coast, - Sand in mine eyeballs, in my hair the brine, - And o'er my corpse with bitter lips dost boast-- - "Poor fool! poor ghost! Alas! poor, melancholy ghost!" - - - - -A WOMAN OF THE WORLD - - -I - - As to my soul--'tis pathos and passion. - As to my life--'t hath a flavor of sin. - What would you have when such is the fashion, - Was and will be of the world we are in? - Yes, I have loved. And have you?--Have you reckoned - The cost of all love?--I can tell you: as much - As a soul!--Is it worth it?--You'll know it that second - You know that you love; and God pity all such! - - -II - - My lover dissembled that ardor's pure beauty. - I endured undeceived nor pretended; and gave - All that his passion demanded--my duty, - For I loved. And the world?--why, I was his slave!-- - Should it worry I pleased him?--Propriety sorrowed, - Uprolling her eyes as occasion, and--well, - That lie, overglossed with a modesty borrowed, - Assisted my fall and the end was--I fell. - - -III - - Through love? No; the woman! that visible woman - Men usually know.--None knows how we know - Of an innermore beauty! that part of the human - We designate character.--Look at the bow - Of the moon that is new; that bears in its crescent - A world.--So the flesh gleams the slenderest line - Of soul; that is love; the unevanescent, - Making the mortal immortal, divine. - - -IV - - Yes; I know what I am. Have outlasted my season - Of pleasure and folly.--You think it is strange - That I let you, say--love me? But why not?--my reason - Requires illusions. They give me that change - Which quiets remembrance. You kiss me--I wonder.-- - When you say, "You are beautiful,"--well, am I glad - If I laugh?--You declaim on my form, "How no blunder - Of nature discords,"--If I sigh, am I sad? - - -V - - How you stare at my eyes!--Well! my lips!--must they languish - For kisses to redden?--"My eyes are as bright - As the jewel I drown in my hair, with its anguish - Of tortuous fire that quivers to-night"? - Tears may be.--This showy?--That silly white flower - Were better?--For me its simplicity? no!-- - The gem I prefer to the lily.--The hour - Has struck: I am ready: my fan: let us go. - - - - -A GUINEVERE - - - Sullen gold down all the sky; - Roses and their sultry musk; - Whippoorwills deep in the dusk - Yonder sob and sigh.-- - - You are here; and I could weep, - Weep for joy and suffering.... - "Where is he"?--He'd have me sing-- - There he sits, asleep. - - Think not of him! he is dead - For the moment to us twain-- - Hold me in your arms again, - Rest on mine your head. - - "Am I happy?" ask the fire - When it bursts its bounds and thrills - Some mad hours as it wills - If those hours tire. - - He had gold. As for the rest-- - Well you know how _they_ were set, - Saying that I must forget - And 'twas for the best. - - _I_ forget?--But let it go!-- - Kiss me as you used of old. - There; your kisses are not cold! - Can you love me so? - - Knowing what I am to him, - To that gouty gray one there, - On the wide verandah, where - Fitful fireflies swim. - - Is it tears? or what? that wets - Eyes and cheeks;--on brow and lip - Kisses! soft as bees that sip - Sweets from violets. - - See! the moon has risen; white - As this open lily here, - Rocking on the dusky mere, - Like a silent light. - - Let us walk... So soon to part!-- - All too soon! But he may miss. - Give me but another kiss-- - It will heat my heart - - And the bitter winter there.-- - So; we part, my Launcelot, - My true knight! and am I not - Your true Guinevere? - - Oft they parted thus, they tell, - In that mystical romance... - Were they placed, think you, perchance, - For such love, in Hell? - - No! it can not, can not be! - Love is God, and God is love: - And they live and love above, - Guinevere and he. - - I must go now.--See! there fell, - Molten into purple light, - One wild star. Kiss me good night, - And once more. Farewell. - - - - -PERLE DES JARDINS - - - What am I, and what is he, - Who can take and break a heart, - As one might a rose, for sport, - In its royalty? - - What am I that he has made - All this love a bitter foam - Blown about the wreck-filled gloam - Of a soul betrayed? - - He who of my heart could make - Hollow crystal, where his face, - Like a passion, had its place, - Holy, and then break! - - Shatter with neglect and sneers!-- - But these weary eyes are dry, - Tearless clear; and if I die - They shall know no tears. - - But my soul weeps. Let it weep! - Let it weep, and let the pain - In my heart and in my brain - Cry itself to sleep.-- - - Ah! the afternoon is warm; - And the fields are green and fair; - Many happy creatures there - Through the woodland swarm. - - All the summer land is still, - And the woodland stream is dark - Where the lily rocks its barque - Just below the mill.... - - If they found me icy there - 'Mid the lilies, and pale whorls - Of the cresses in my curls, - Wet, of raven hair!-- - - Poor Ophelia! are you such? - Would you have him thus to know - That you died of utter woe - And despair o'ermuch? - - No!--such acts are obsolete: - Other things we now must learn:-- - Though the broken heart will burn, - Let it show no heat. - - So I'll write him as he wrote, - Coldly, with no word of scorn-- - He shall never know a thorn - Rankles here!... Now note:-- - - "You'll forget," he says; "and I - Feel 'tis better for us twain: - It may give you some small pain, - But, 'twill soon be by. - - "You are dark and Maud is light. - I am dark. And it is said - Opposites are better wed.-- - So I think I'm right." - - "You are dark and Maud is fair"!-- - I could laugh at his excuse - If the bitter, mad abuse - Were not more than hair! - - But I'll write him, as if glad, - Some few happy words--that might - Touch upon some past delight - That last year we had. - - Not one line of broken vows, - Sighs or hurtful tears--unshed! - Faithless hearts--far better dead! - Nor a withered rose. - - But a rose! this rose to wear,-- - Perle des Jardins, all elate - With sweet life and delicate,-- - When he weds her there. - - So; 'tis finished. It is well-- - Go, thou rose. I have no tear, - Word or kiss for thee to bear, - And no woe to tell. - - Only be thus full of life, - Cold and proud, dispassionate, - Filled with neither love nor hate, - When he calls her wife. - - - - -FACE TO FACE - - - Dead! and all the haughty fate - Fair on throat and face of wax, - Calm on hands, crossed still and lax, - Cold, dispassionate. - - Dead! and no word whispered low - At the dull ear now would wake - One responsive chord or make - One wan temple glow. - - Dead! and no hot tear would stir - Aught of woman, sweet and fair, - Woman soul in feet and hair, - Once that smiled in her. - - She is dead, oh God! and I-- - I must live! though life be but - One long, hard, monotonous rut - For me till I die. - - Creeds might help in such a case: - But no sermon could have wrought - More of faith than you have taught - With your pale dead face. - - Now I see, oh, now I see - My mistake!--so very small, - Yet so great it bungled all, - _All_ for you and me. - - Oft I said, "I feel, I'm sure - She could never live that life! - She is still my own true wife, - She is good and pure!" - - You were pure and I bemoiled! - That you loathed me, it was just; - Weak of soul and left of lust - Vulgar, low, and soiled.... - - Closed--the eyes once filled with dreams! - Great, proud eyes!... I see them yet, - Miniature nights of lucid jet - Filled with starry gleams. - - Sealed--the lips; poor, faded lips! - Once as red as life could make-- - Sweet wild roses, half awake, - Dewy to their tips. - - Hair!--imperial still, and warm - As a Grace's; where one stone, - Jeweled, lay ensnared and shone - Like a star in storm. - - Eyes!--at parting big with pain... - God! I see them still! the tear - In them!--big as eyes of deer - Led by lights and slain.... - - Woman true, I falsely blamed; - Whom I killed with scorn and pride; - Woman pure, of whom I lied; - With the nameless named: - - All you said, Sweet, has come true!-- - Ah! this life had woe enough - For the little dole of love - Giv'n to me and you. - - Do you hear me? do you know - What I feel now? how it came? - You, beyond me like a flame, - You, before me like the snow.... - - Dead! and all my heart's a cup - Hollowed for repentant tears, - Bitter in the bitter years, - Slowly brimming up. - - Peace! 'tis well! But might have been - Better.--Yes, God's time makes right!-- - Better for me in His sight - With my soul washed clean. - - Do you hear me? do you know - How my heart was all your own? - How my life is left alone - Now with naught but woe? - - Peace! be still!--I kiss your hair. - Sweet, good-by. Upon your breast - Let this long white lily rest-- - God will find it there: - - There beyond the sad world and - Clouds and stars and silent skies, - Where your eyes shall meet His eyes, - And--He'll understand. - - - - -THE EVE OF ALL-SAINTS - - -I - - This is the tale they tell - Of an Hallowe'en; - This is the thing that befell - Me and the village belle, - Beautiful Amy Dean. - - -II - - Did I love her? God and she, - They know and I! - Ah, she was the life of me-- - Whatever else may be - Would God that I could die! - - -III - - That Hallowe'en was dim; - The frost lay white - Under strange stars and a slim - Moon in the graveyard grim, - Pale with its slender light. - - -IV - - They told her: "Go alone, - With never a word, - To the burial-plot's unknown - Grave with the oldest stone, - When the clock on twelve is heard. - - -V - - "Three times around it pass, - With never a sound; - Each time a wisp of grass - And myrtle pluck; then pass - Out of the ghostly ground. - - -VI - - "And the bridegroom that's to be, - At smiling wait, - With a face like mist to see, - With graceful gallantry - Will bow you to the gate." - - -VII - - She laughed at this and so - Bespoke us how - To the burial-place she'd go.-- - And I was glad to know, - For I'd be there to bow. - - -VIII - - An acre from the farm - The village dead - Lay walled from sun and storm; - Old cedars, of priestly form, - Waved darkly overhead. - - -IX - - I loved; but never could say - The words to her; - And waited, day by day, - Nursing the hope that lay - Under the doubts that were.-- - - -X - - She passed 'neath the iron arch - Of the legended ground;-- - And the moon, like a twisted torch, - Burned over one lonesome larch;-- - She passed with never a sound. - - -XI - - Three times the circle traced; - Three times she bent - To the grave that the myrtle graced; - Three times--then softly faced - Homeward and slowly went. - - -XII - - Had the moonlight changed me so? - Or fear undone - Her stepping soft and slow? - Did she see and did not know? - Or loved she another one? - - -XIII - - Who knows?--She turned to flee - With a face so white - It haunts and will haunt me:-- - The wind blew gustily: - The graveyard gate clanged tight. - - -XIV - - Did she think it I or--what, - Clutching her dress? - Her face so wild that not - A star in a stormy spot - Shows half so much distress. - - -XV - - I spoke; but she answered naught. - "Amy," I said, - "'Tis I!"--as her form I caught... - Then laughed like one distraught, - For the beautiful girl was dead!... - - -XVI - - This is the tale they tell - Of that Hallowe'en; - This is the thing that befell - Me and the village belle, - Beautiful Amy Dean. - - - - -MATER DOLOROSA - - - The nuns sing, "_Ora pro nobis_;" - The casements glitter above; - And the beautiful Virgin, whose robe is - Woven of infinite love, - Infinite love and sorrow, - Prays for them there on high-- - Who has most need of her prayers,--to-morrow - Shall tell them!--they or I? - - Up in the hills together - We loved, where the world was true; - Our world of the whin and heather, - Our skies of a nearer blue; - A blue from which one borrows - A faith that helps one die-- - O Mother, thou Mother of Sorrows, - None needs such more than I! - - We lived, we loved unwedded-- - Love's sin and its shame that slays!-- - No ill of the years we dreaded, - No day of their coming days; - Their coming days, their many - Trials by noon and night-- - And I know no land, not any - Where the sun shines half so bright. - - Was he false to me, my Mother! - Or I to him, my God!-- - Who gave thee right, O brother! - To take God's right and rod! - God's rod of avenging morrows-- - And the life here in my side!-- - O Mother, sweet Mother of Sorrows, - Would that I, too, had died! - - By the wall of the Chantry kneeling - I pray, and the organ rings, - "_Gloria! gloria!_" pealing, - "_Sancta Maria!_" sings. - They will find us dead to-morrow - By the wall of their nunnery-- - O Mother, thou Mother of Sorrow, - His unborn babe and me. - - - - -LOVE AS IT WAS IN THE TIME OF LOUIS XIV - - -I - - Thrice on the lips and twice on the eyes - I kiss you or ever I kiss your bosom.-- - When love is young would you have it wise, - Wise as the world goes?--No! 'tis a blossom - Lovely and wise since it's lovely; content - To live or to die as its folly pleases: - Life is a rose and the rose's scent - Is love, that grows as the rose increases. - - -II - - If I tell you the Marquis will die, will you smile? - And laugh when he's dead?--This powder, my lily, - That seems but an innocent sweet in this phial-- - Do not touch it! breathe distant!--a poison Exili - Used a life to discover. Its formula left - To a pupil (well worthy the master!), the prudent - And pious Sainte Croix. Him, of teacher bereft, - The Devil, I deem, must have taken as student. - - -III - - Quite a dealer in death. And ours was a case - That those difficult drugs of his laboratory - Demanded. I visited; found him; his face, - Bent over a sublimate,--safe from the hoary - Light particles,--masked with a mask of fine glass. - I told him your danger, Marie, and expounded - Our passion, despair, with many an "Alas!" - He smiled while a paste in a mortar he pounded. - - -IV - - Three fistfuls of Louis!--"He'd do it," he said.-- - A delicate dust, gum, liquid and metal - Crushed, crucibled.... "Stay! tie this mask on your head. - You see, but a grain on your rose's pink petal - Has shriveled and blasted it--look, how it dries!-- - A perilous pulver ... could Satan make better?... - To mix with that present of perfumes--she dies, - And who is the wiser? Or, say in a letter - - -V - - "To the husband of her who has smiled on you since - Another grows bald?"--And he poured in a bottle - The subtlety.--"Bah! be he beggar or prince, - If he kiss but the seal the venom will throttle."-- - "Well," I thought, "I will test ere I risk." Slyly drew - My dagger; approached to the bandlet, that tightly - Supported his mask, its keen point.... It was true!-- - When it cracked he fell dead; he but breathed of it lightly. - - -VI - - Your letter is sealed and is sent. You are mine!-- - By now he has broken the wax.... If there flutters - Some dust in his nostrils, who, who will divine - That thus it was poisoned?--Our alchemist utters - No word!--You are happy? and I?--Oh, I feel - That I love and am loved.--The tidings comes heavy - To-night to the King; you are there; you will reel-- - Will faint!--Now away to the royal levee. - - - Note.--In this poem, which originally appeared in a volume of - mine entitled _Lyrics and Idylls_, published in 1890, some - hypercritical critic in the New York _Nation_ accused me of - imitating Browning's _The Laboratory_. The truth of the matter - is that the poem was written ten months before I had ever read - Browning's _Dramatic Lyrics_, and was suggested to me by the - reading of the following passage in one of E. T. W. Hoffman's - (the German Poe's) stories. The passage occurs in _Mademoiselle - De Scuderi_ and is as follows: "The poisons which Sainte Croix - prepared were of so subtle a nature that if the powder (called by - the Parisians _Poudre de Succession_, or Succession Powder) were - prepared with the face exposed, a single inhalation of it might - cause instantaneous death. Sainte Croix therefore, when engaged - in its manufacture, always wore a mask of fine glass. One day, - just as he was pouring a prepared powder into a phial, his mask - fell off, and inhaling the fine particles of the poison, he fell - dead on the spot." - - - - -THE TROUBADOUR - - - He stood where all the rare voluptuous west, - Like some mad Mænad, wine-stained to the breast, - Laughed with delirious lips of ruby must, - Wherein, it seemed, the fierceness of all lust - Burnt like a feverish wine, exultant whirled - High in a golden goblet, gem-impearled. - And all the west, and all the amorous west, - Caressed his beauty, dreamed upon his breast; - And there he bloomed, a thing of rose and snows, - A passion-flower of men of snowy rose, - Beneath the casement of her old red tower, - Whereat the lady sat, as fair a flower - As ever bloomed in Provence; and the lace - Mist-like about her hair, half-hid her face - And the emotions that his singing raised, - So that he knew not if she blamed or praised. - And where the white rose, climbing over and over - Up to her wide-flung lattice, like a lover, - And stalks of lavender and fleurs-de-lis - Held honey-cups up for the violent bee, - Within her garden by the ivied wall, - Where many a fountain, falling musical, - Flamed rubies in the eve against it flung, - Like some wild nightingale the minstrel sung:-- - - "The passion, oh, of gently smoothing through - Long locks of brown, soft hands as lovers do! - Thy dark, deep locks, rich-jeweled as the dusk - Is scintillant with stars! Oh, frenzy rare - Of clasping slender fingers round thy hair!-- - What balm, what breath of winds from summer seas! - What silken softness and what sorceries - Doth it contain!--Ah God! ah God! to lie - Wrapped strand on strand deep in thy hair and die! - Ay me, oh, ay! - - "Oh, happy madness and, oh, rapturous pain, - With white hands smoothing back thy locks, to drain - Into thine eyes my soul!--Oh, perilous eyes! - As agates polished; where the thoughts that rise, - Within thy heart are imaged; thoughts that pass - As magic pictures in a witch's glass.-- - What siren sweetness, wailed to lyres of gold, - What naked beauty that the Greeks of old, - God-bosomed, through the bursting foam did see, - Could sway my soul with half their mastery! - Ay, ay, ay me! - - "Far o'er the sea, of old time, once a witch, - The fair Ææan, Circe, dwelt; so rich - In marvellous magic, she was like a god, - And made or unmade mortals with a nod: - Turned all her lovers into bird or brute.-- - More cruel thou, who mak'st my heart a lute, - That lies before thee, hushed and sadly mute! - Who let'st it lie, yet from its soul might draw - More magic music than Acrasia, - Or Circe knew, that filled them with its bliss, - Didst thou but take me to thine arms and kiss! - Ay, ay, I wis!" - - Knee-deep amid the dews, the flowers there, - Beneath the stars that now were everywhere - Flung through the perfumed heavens of angel hands, - And, linked in tangled labyrinths and bands - Of soft rose-hearted flame and glimmer, rolled - One vast immensity of mazy gold, - He sang; like some hurt creature, desolate, - Heart-aching for the loss of some wild mate - Hounded and speared to death of heartless men - In old romantic Arden waste; and then - Turned to the moon that, like a polished stone - Of precious worth, low in the heaven shone, - A pale poetic face and passed away - From the urned terrace and the fountains' spray. - - And that fair lady in dim drapery, - High in the old red tower--did she sigh - To see him fading through the purple night, - His lute faint-twinkling in th' uncertain light, - Then lost amid the rose-pleached avenues, - Dark walls of ivy, hedged with low-clipped yews? - And left alone with but the whispering rush - Of fountains and the evening's hyacinth hush, - Did she complain unto the stars above, - All the lone night, of that forbidden love? - Or down the rush-strewn stairs, where arras old - Waved with her mantled passage, fold on fold, - Beyond the tower's iron-studded gate, - That snarled with rust, did she steal forth and wait - Deep in the dingled lavender and rose - For him, her troubadour?... Who knows? who knows? - - - - -MY ROMANCE - - - If it so befalls that the midnight hovers - In mist no moonlight breaks, - The leagues of the years my spirit covers, - And my self myself forsakes. - - And I live in a land of stars and flowers, - White cliffs by a silver sea; - And the pearly points of her opal towers - From the mountains beckon me. - - And I think that I know that I hear her calling - From a casement bathed with light-- - Thro' music of waters in waters falling - 'Mid palms from a mountain height. - - And I feel that I think my love's awaited - By the romance of her charms; - That her feet are early and mine belated - In a world that chains my arms. - - But I break my chains and the rest is easy-- - In the shadow of the rose, - Snow-white, that blooms in her garden breezy, - We meet and no one knows. - - We dream sweet dreams and kiss sweet kisses; - The world--it may live or die! - The world that forgets; that never misses - The life that has long gone by. - - We speak old vows that have long been spoken, - And weep a long-gone woe,-- - For you must know our hearts were broken - Hundreds of years ago. - - - - -THE EPIC - - - "To arms!" the battle bugles blew. - The daughter of their Chief was she,-- - Lord of a thousand spears and true;-- - He but a squire of low degree. - - The horns of war blew up to horse: - He kissed her mouth; her face was white: - "God grant they bear thee back no corse!" - "God give I win my spurs to-night!" - - The watch-towers' blazing beacons scarred - With blood-red wounds the face of night: - She heard men gallop battleward; - She saw their armor gleam with light. - - "My God, deliver me and mine! - My child! my love!"--all night she prayed: - She watched the battle beacons shine; - She watched the battle beacons fade.... - - They brought him on a bier of spears.-- - For him, the death-won spurs and name; - For her, the grief of lonely years, - And donjon walls to hide her shame. - - - - -THE MINSTREL AND THE PRINCESS - - -I - - He had no hope to win her hand, - A harper in a loveless land, - And yet he sang of love; - And marked the blue vein of her throat - Swell with mute rage at every note: - And when he ceased she spake him then,-- - "Such whining slaves are less than men!" - And anger in her dark eyes wrote - Contempt thereof. - - -II - - He had no hope to win her hand, - A harper in a hostile land, - And yet he sang of peace; - And marked how mock'ry curled her lip - With scorn as, 'neath each finger-tip, - The chords breathed pastoral content: - Till haughtiness, that beauty lent - To beauty, sneered, "Would'st feel the whip?-- - O fool, surcease!" - - -III - - He had no hope to win her hand, - A harper in a tyrant's land, - And so he sang of war-- - "Oh, fling thy harp away!" she said. - "O war, thy singers are not dead!-- - Seat thee beside me; now I see - Thou art for battle, and must be - Brave as thy song.--Well hast thou pled. - My warrior!" - - - - -THE ALCALDE'S DAUGHTER - - - The times they had kissed and parted - That night were over a score; - Each time that the cavalier started, - Each time she would swear him o'er:-- - - "Thou art going to Barcelona!-- - To make Naxera thy bride! - Seduce the Lady Iona!-- - And thy lips have lied! have lied! - - "I love thee! I love thee, thou knowest! - And thou shalt not give away - The love to my life thou owest; - And my heart commands thee stay! - - "I say thou hast lied and liest!-- - For--where is there war in the State?-- - Thou goest, by Heaven the highest! - To choose thee a fairer mate. - - "Wilt thou go to Barcelona - When thy queen in Toledo is?-- - To wait on the haughty Iona, - When thou hast these lips to kiss?" - - And they stood in the balcony over - The old Toledo square; - And, weeping, she took for her lover - A red rose out of her hair. - - And they kissed farewell; and, higher, - The moon made amber the air;-- - And she drew, for the traitor and liar, - A stiletto out of her hair.... - - When the night-watch lounged through the quiet - With the stir of halberds and swords, - Not a bravo was there to defy it, - Not a gallant to brave with words. - - One man, at the corner's turning, - Quite dead, in a moonlight band-- - In his heart a dagger burning, - And a red rose crushed in his hand. - - - - -ISHMAEL - - - Ishmael, the Sultan, in the Ramadan, - Amid his guards, bristling with yataghan, - And kris,--his amins, viziers wisdom-gray, - Pachas and Marabouts, betook his way - Through Mekinez. For he had read the word - That in the Koran says, "Slay! praying the Lord! - Pray! slaying the victims!" so the Sultan went - Straight to the mosque, his mind on battle bent. - In white burnoose and sea-green caftan clad - He entered ere the last muezzin had - Summoned the faithful unto prayer and let - The "Allah Akbar" from the minaret - Invite to worship. 'Neath the lamps' lit gold - The many knelt and prayed. - - Upon the old - Mosaics of the mosque--whose high vault steamed - With aloes' incense--lean ecstatics dreamed - Of Allah and his Prophet, and how great - Is God, and how unstable man's estate. - Conviction on him in this chanting low - Of Koran texts, the Caliph's passion so - Exalted soared--lamped by religious awe-- - Himseemed he heard God's everlasting law - 'Gainst unbelievers; and himself confessed - The Faith's anointed sword; and, so impressed, - Arose and spoke. The arabesques above-- - The marvellous work of oriental love-- - Seemed, with new splendors of Heaven's blue and gold, - Applauding all. And, ere the gates were rolled, - Ogival, back to let the many forth, - War was declared on all the Christian Earth. - - * * * * * - - Now had his army passed the closed bazaar, - Thro' narrow streets gorged with the streams of war: - Had passed the place of tombs and reached the wall - Of Mekinez, above which,--over all - Its merloned battlements,--in long array, - Seraglios and towers, his palace gray - Could still be seen when, girt with pomp and state, - The Sultan passed the city's scolloped gate. - - Two dozing beggars, each one's face a sore, - Sprawl'd in the sun the city's gate before; - A leprous cripple and a thief, whose eyes-- - Burnt out with burning iron--as supplies - The law for thieves--were wounds, fly-swarmed and raw,-- - Lifted shrill voices as they heard or saw; - Praised God, and bowed into the dust each face, - With words of "victory and Allah's grace - Attend our Caliph, Mouley-Ishmael! - Even at the cost of ours his day be well!" - - And grimly smiling as he grimly passed, - "While Allah's glory is and still shall last-- - Now by Es Sirat!--will a leper's word - And thief's avail to help us?--By my sword!-- - Yea, let us see. Whatever their intent - Even as 'tis offered let their necks be bent! - 'Though words be pious, evil at the soul - The prayer is naught!--So let their prayer be whole. - Better than gold is death, meseems, for these: - So by the hands of you, my Soudanese, - They die," he said; and even as he said - Rolled in the dust each writhing, withered head. - - And frowning westward, as the day grew late, - Two bleeding heads stared from the city gate - 'Neath this inscription for the passer-by, - "There is no virtue but in God most high." - - - - -IN MYTHIC SEAS - - - Beneath great saffron stars and skies, dark-blue, - Among the Cyclades, a happy two, - We sailed; and from the Siren-haunted shore, - All mystic in its mist, the soft wind bore - The Siren's song; where, on the ghostly steeps, - Strange foliage grew, deeps folding upon deeps, - That hung and beamed with blossom and with bud, - Blue-petaled, pallid, or, like urns of blood, - Dripping; or blowing from wide mouths of blooms - On our hot brows cool gales of dim perfumes. - While from the yellow stars, that splashed the skies, - O'er our light shallop brooded mysteries - Of calm and sleep, until the yellower moon - Rose, full of fire, above a dark lagoon; - And, as she rose, the nightingales, on sprays - Of heavy, Persian roses, burst in praise - Of her wild loveliness; their boisterous pain - Heard through the pillars of a ruined fane. - And round our lazy keel, that dipped to swing, - The spirits of the foam came whispering; - And from gray Neptune's coral-columned caves - The wet Oceänids rose through the waves; - With naked limbs we saw them breast the spray, - Their pearl-white bodies tempesting the way; - Their sea-green hair, tossed streaming to the breeze, - Scattering with brightness all the tumbled seas. - 'Mid columned aisles, seen vaguely through the trees, - We watched the Satyrs chase the Dryades; - Heard Pan's shrill trebles and the Triton's horn - Sound from the flying foam when ruddy Morn, - With dewy eyelids, opened azure eyes, - And, blushing, rose, and left her couch of skies. - We saw the Naiad, clothed with veiling mist, - Half hidden in a bay of amethyst, - With shell-like breasts, and at her hollow ear - A shell's pink labyrinth held up to hear - Circean echoes of the Siren's strains - Imprisoned in its chords of vermeil veins: - Then, stealing wily from a grove of pines, - The Oread, in cincture of green vines; - Her cautious feet, fragrant and twinkling wet, - Set in a bed of rainy serpolet; - Her flower-red lips half-parted in surprise, - And expectation in her wondering eyes, - As in the bosk a rustling noise she hears-- - A Faun, sly-eyed, with furred and pointed ears, - Who leaps upon her, as upon a dove - A great hawk pinions from the skies above. - Diana sees, and on her wooded hills - Stays her fair band, the stag-hounds' clamor stills-- - A senseless statue of cold, weeping stone - Fills his embrace; the Oread is gone. - The stag-hounds bay; again they urge the chase, - While the astonished Faun's bewildered face - Paints all his wonderment, and, wondering, - He bends above the sculpture of a spring. - - And so we sailed; and many a morn of balm - Led on the hours of sunny song and calm: - And it was life, to her and me, and love, - With the fair myths below, our God above, - To sail in golden sunsets and emerge - In golden morns upon a fretless surge. - But, ah! alas! the stars, that pierce the blue, - Shine not for ever; clouds must gather, too. - - I knew not how it came, but in a while - I found myself cast on a desert isle, - Alone with sorrow; wan with doubt and dread; - The seas in wrath and thunder overhead; - Deep down in coral caves the one I love-- - No myths below; no God, it seemed, above. - - - - -LOKÉ AND SIGYN - - - A daughter of Winter, Skade, a giantess, - One twisting serpent hung above his head, - So that its blistering venom, roping down, - Beat on his upturned face and tortured him. - - Him had the gods of Asgard, Odin and Thor, - Weary of all his wiles and evil ways, - Followed, and after many stormy moons, - Within the land of giants overcome, - In Jotunheim, and dragged beneath the world, - Into a cave the earthquake's hands had built, - A cavern vast and terrible as that, - They tell of Hel's, whose ceiling is of snakes, - That hang, a torrent torture, yawning slime, - In whose slow stream eternal anguish wades. - And for his crimes they chained him to a rock, - His lips still sneering and his eyes all scorn, - And left him with the serpent over him, - And, gathering round him from their larvæ lairs, - Monsters, huge-warted, eyed with wells of fire. - But Sigyn, Loké's wife, stole in to him, - And sate herself beside his writhen limbs, - And held a cup of gold against the mouth - Of ceaseless poison dripping in the gloom. - Was it her voice lamenting? or the sound - Of far abysmal waters falling, falling - Down tortured labyrinths of hollow rock? - Or was't the Strömkarl? he whose hoary harp - Is heard remote; who, syllabling strange runes, - Sits gray behind the crashing cataract, - Within a grotto dim with mist and foam; - His long thin beard, white as the flying spray, - Slow-swinging in the wind and keeping time - To his wild harp's notes, murmuring, whispering - Beneath the talons of his hands of foam. - - Was it the voice of Sigyn? whose sad sound - Soft from the deathless hush detached itself, - As some pale star from darkness that reveals - The heavens in its fall; or but the deeps - Of silence speaking to the deeps of night? - Sad, sad, and slow, yea slower than sad tears - That fall from blinded eyes, her sad words fell:-- - "O Love! O Loké! turn on me thine eyes! - Thy motionless eyes that woe has changed to stone; - That slumber will not seal nor any dream. - Yea, I will woo her down; woo Slumber down, - From her fair far-off skies, with some old song, - The croonéd syllables of some refrain, - Sung unto childhood by the mothers of men. - Or shall I soothe thine eyes shut with my hair, - The fluttered amber of deep curls, until - They shall forget their stone stolidity, - And sleep creep in between the linéd lids - And summon memory and pain away? - - "Pale, pale thy face, that seems to stain the night - With pallor; hueless as the brows of death. - So pale, that knew we Death, as mortals know, - I'd say that he, mysterious, had laid hands - Of talons on thee and had left thee so. - So still! and all the night is in my heart. - So tired! and sleep is not for thee or me, - Never again for our o'erweary limbs! - Around, the shadows crouch; vague, obscene shapes, - In horrible attitudes; and all the night, - Above, below, seems so much choking fog, - That clogs my tongue, or with devouring maw - Swallows my words and makes them sound far off, - Remote, deep down, emboweled of the Earth. - And then again it hounds them from my tongue - To sound as wildly clamorous as the hills - Sound when Earth shakes with armies; men that meet - With Berserk fury, shouting, and the hurl - And shock of iron spears on iron shields, - And all the world is one wild wave of helms, - And all the air is one wild wind of swords, - On which the wild Valkyries ride and scream. - Dread cliffs, dread chasms of rocks howl back my words - While yet they touch the tongue to grasp the thought; - And all the vermin, huddled in their holes, - Creep forth to glare and hiss them back again. - - "How long! how long ago since we beheld - The rose of morning and the lily of noon, - The great red rhododendron of the eve! - How long! how long ago since we beheld - Those thoughts of God, the stars, that set their flowers - Imperishably in the fields of heaven, - And the still changing yet unchanging moon! - So long, that I unto myself seem grown, - As thou, long since, to rock; in sympathy - With all the rock above us and around. - My countenance hath won, long since, with thee, - The reflex of an alabaster black - That builds vast walls around us, and whose frown - Makes stone thy brow as mine. O woe! O woe! - And now that Idun's apples are denied, - Are not for lips of thee nor lips of me,-- - The apples of gold that still keep young the gods,-- - The years shall cleave this beautiful brow of thine - With myriad wrinkles; and, in time, this hair, - Brown, brown, and softer than the fur of seals, - Shall lose its lustre and instead shall lie, - A drift of winter in a winter cave, - A feeble gray seen in the glimmering gloom. - But I shall age, too, even as thou dost age. - Yet, yet we can not die; the immortal gods - Can never die! what punishment to know! - What pain to know we age yet can not die! - Death will not come except with Ragnarok.-- - That thought be near! take comfort from the word, - The dark word Ragnarok, which is thyself; - Thy vast revenge; thy monster synonym; - Thy banquet of destruction. Thou, whom fate, - The Norns, reserve to war and waste the worlds - Of gods and men, with thy two henchmen huge, - The wolf and snake, the Fenris, that devours, - The Midgard, that engulfs the universe. - O joy! O joy! then shall those stars, that glue - Their blinking scales unto old Ymer's skull,-- - The dome of heaven,--shudder from their spheres, - A streaming fire; and thou, O Loké, thou, - Elected annihilation, shalt arise, - To devastate the Earth and Asaheim. - And as this darkness now, this heavy night, - Clings to and chokes us till we, strangling, strive - With purple lips for light, and feel the dark - Drag freezing down the throat to swell the weight - That houses in our hearts and peoples our veins, - So shall thy hate insufferably spread - In fires of Hel, in fogs of Niflheim, - Storm-like from pole to pole, o'erwhelming all.-- - The Twilight of the Gods, behold, it comes! - The Twilight of the Gods!--The root-red cock - I seem to hear crow in the halls of Hel! - The blood-red cock, whose cry shall bid thee rise! - - "But, oh! thy face! paler it seemeth now - Than icy marble; and the serpent writhes - Its rustling coils and twists its livid length, - Hissing, above thee, pouring eternal pain.-- - Oh, could I kiss the lips o'er which he swings! - The lips that once touched living flame to mine! - At which sweet thought, as some sick flower of drought - At dreams of dew, my lips with longing ache! - --Oh, could I gaze once more into thine eyes - Whose starry depths outstarred the midnight heavens! - Or see them laugh as golden morning laughs, - Leaving her steps in roses on the hills, - The peaks that wall the world and pierce the clouds; - The hills, where once we stood, among the pines, - The melancholy pines that plume the crags, - And rock and sing unto the still fiords - Like gaunt wild-women lullabying their babes! - Then could I die e'en as the mortals die, - And smile in dying!--But the serpent baulks - Each effort to behold, or on loved lips - To ease the torture of my soul's desire. - Thy face alone is comfort to my gaze, - Like some dim moon silvering through night and mist. - --Now from their lairs again the monsters creep; - I feel their ghastly touches, and their eyes - Draw steadily nearer, wandering will-o'-the-wisps; - The serpent strives to fang me as he swings; - And in the cup's caked gold the venom swims, - Seethes upward horribly to the horrible edge." - She ceased. And then, heard through the echoing night, - The chained god spoke, tumultuous violence - And rage in every word. His utterance seemed - Large as the thunder when it, rolling, plants,-- - Heavy with earthquake and impending ruin,-- - Seismic feet on everlasting seas - And mountains silent with eternal ice. - His eyes in hideous labor; and his throat, - Corded and gnarled with veins of boisterous blood, - A crag of fury; and his foaming lips, - A maelstrom of rebellious agony, - Of thwarted rage and wild, arrested wrath. - Fierce vaunter of loud hate, one mighty fist, - Convulsed with clenchment, in its gyve of ore, - Headlong for battle-launching, at the gods - Clutched mad defiance, madder blasphemy; - Yet all unhurled and vain as mists of morn, - Or foam, wind-wasted on the sterile sands - Of rainy seas, when Ran, from whistling caves, - Watching the tempest-driven dragon wreck, - Already in her miser fingers feels - The viking gold that has not yet gone down. - Then all the cave again is dumb with night. - He sees the spotted serpent writhe above; - He sees the poison streaming towards his eyes. - And now her cup is brimmed; but one more drop - Will float the filth gray o'er the venomed edge. - Into the river slowly flowing by - Swiftly she pours the vitriol torture: scarce - A tithe of time it takes, but in that time - The reptile's vomit slimes his helpless face, - Burns to the bone.... All his fierce muscles twist, - Wrenching the knotted steel that locks his limbs, - And shriek on shriek divides the solitudes. - The ocean roars; and, under toppling skies, - The mountains avalanche from pine-pierced sides - Their centuries of snow. Then all the night - Once more is filled with silence and with sighs. - - - - -WAR-SONG OF HARALD THE RED - - _And this is the song of battle, they sang to the thrash - of the oars, - As the prows of their shield-hung dragons were driven along - the shores_:-- - - - On to the battle! Yo ho for the slaughter! - Hark to the grind of the oars that thunder! - Clash of the prows as they crash through the water, - Hurl through the foam of the seas they sunder! - Up with the axe! and drive through the bristling - Beaks of the foe that our iron has broken! - On through the sleet of the shafts that are whistling, - Arrows of ash, in a wedge that is oaken. - By the eye of Odin! whose frown is war, - Think of the vikings' daughters, who wear - Gold on their hips! to hale by the hair, - Gold-bound, red as the beard of Thor! - Virgins, whose bodies, white-bosomed, are - For rape and ransom!--A kingdom's ravish - Yours! for the sweat and the blood you lavish. - - Hark! on the shore how his fierce fangs clamor! - Ocean's, whose rocks are hungry for carrion:-- - Ho! 'tis a sound as of swords that hammer - Helms to the brazen snarl of the clarion.... - On to the revel of war, my bullies, - Blades, that fury like fire to battle! - On to the banquet, through spray that gullies, - Bray of the beaks and the oars' wild rattle! - When prow grinds prow and the arrows hail, - Think! were it better with hollow-eyed Hel - To rot with cowards? or boast and yell - Hoarse toasts over skulls of the boisterous ale - High in Valhalla where heroes dwell? - In vast Valhalla, where life wends well! - The warrior vault of whose shields with curses - Rings to the roar of the Berserk verses! - - - - -YULE - - - Behold! in the night there was storm; and the rushing of snow and - of sleet; - And the boom of the sea and the moaning of pines in its desolate beat. - - And the hall of fierce Erick of Sogn with the clamor of wassail was - filled, - With the clash of great beakers of gold and the reek of the ale that - was spilled. - - For the Yule was upon them, the Yule; and they quaffed as from skulls - of the slain, - And shouted loud oaths in hoarse wit, and long quaffing swore laughing - again. - - Unharnessed from each shaggy throat, that was hot with brute lust and - with drink, - Each burly wild skin and barbaric tossed, rent from the gold of its - link. - - For the Yule was upon them, the Yule, and the _waesheils_ were shouted - and roared - By the Berserks, the eaters of fire, and the Jarls round the ponderous - board. - - And huge on the hearth, that writhed, hissing, and bellied, an ingot - of gold, - The Yule-log, the half of an oak from the mountains, was royally - rolled. - - And its warmth and its glory, that glared, smote red through the width - of the hall, - And burnished the boar-skins and bucklers and war-axes hung on the - wall. - - And the maidens, who hurried big goblets, that bubbled, excessive with - barm, - Blushed rose to the gold of thick curls as the shining steel mirrored - each charm. - - And Erick's one hundred gray skalds, at the nod and the beck of the - king, - With the stormy-rolled music of an hundred wild harps made the castle - reëchoing ring. - - For the Yule, for the Yule was upon them, and battle and rapine were - o'er; - And Harald, the viking, the red, and his brother lay dead on the shore. - - For the harrier, Harald the red, and his merciless brother, black Ulf, - With their men on the shore of the wintery sea were carrion cold for - the wolf. - - Behold! for the battle was ended; the battle that clamored all day, - With the rumble of shields that were shocked and of spears that were - splintered like spray: - - With the hewing of swords that fierce-lightened like flames and that - smoked with hot blood, - And the crush of the mace that was hammered through helm and through - brain that withstood: - - And the cursing and howling of men at their gods,--at their gods whom - they cursed, - Till the caves of the ocean re-bellowed and storm on their battling - burst. - - And they fought; in the flying and drifting and silence of covering - snow, - Till the wounded that lay with the dead, with the dead were stiff - frozen in woe. - - And they fought; and the mystical flakes that were clutched by the - maniac wind - Drave sharp on the eyes of the kings, made the sight of their warriors - blind. - - Still they fought; and with leonine wrath were they met, till the - battle-god, Thor, - In his thunder-wheeled chariot rolled, making end of destruction and - war. - - And they fell--like twin rocks of the mountains, or pines, that rush, - hurricane-hurled, - From their world-rooted crags to the ocean below with the wreck of the - world. - - But, lo! not in vain their loud vows! on the black iron altars of War - Not in vain as victims, the warriors, their blood as libation to - Thor!... - - Lo! a glitter and splendor of arms through the snow and the foam of - the seas - And the terrible ghosts of the vikings and the gauntleted Valkyries!... - - Yea, the halls of fierce Erick of Sogn with the turmoil of wassail - are filled, - With the steam of the flesh of the boar, and the reek of the ale that - is spilled. - - For the Yule and the victory are theirs, and the _waesheils_ are - shouted and roared - By the Berserks, the eaters of fire, and the Jarls round the ponderous - board. - - - - -OLD WORLD IDYLLS - - - - -TO R. E. LEE GIBSON - - - _And one, perchance, will read and sigh: - "What aimless songs! Why will he sing - Of nature that drags out her woe - Through wind and rain, and sun and snow, - From miserable spring to spring?" - Then put me by._ - - _And one, perhaps, will read and say: - "Why write of things across the sea; - Of men and women, far and near, - When we of things at home would hear-- - Well! who would call this poetry?" - Then toss away._ - - _A hopeless task have we, meseems, - At this late day; whom fate hath made - Sad, bankrupt heirs of song; who, filled - With kindred yearnings, try to build - A tower like theirs, that will not fade, - Out of our dreams._ - - - - -ACCOLON OF GAUL - - -_Prelude_ - - O wondrous legends from the storied wells - Of lost Baranton! where old Merlin dwells, - Nodding a white poll and a grave, gray beard, - As if some Lake Ladyé he, listening, heard, - Who spake like water, danced like careful showers - With blown gold curls through drifts of wild-thorn flowers; - Loose, lazy arms upon her bosom crossed, - An instant seen, and in an instant lost, - With one peculiar note, like that you hear - Dropped by a reed-bird when the night is near, - A vocal gold blown through the atmosphere. - - Lo! dreams from dreams in dreams remembered. Naught - That matters much, save that it seemed I thought - I wandered dim with some one, but I knew - Not whom; most beautiful, and young, and true, - And pale through suffering: with curl-crowned brow - Soft eyes and voice, so strange, they haunt me now-- - A dream, perhaps, in dreamland. - - Seemed that she - Led me along a flower-showered lea - Trammeled with puckered pansy and the pea; - Where poppies spread great blood-red stain on stain, - So gorged with sunlight and the honeyed rain - Their hearts were weary; roses lavished beams; - Roses, wherein were huddled little dreams - That laughed coy, sidewise merriment, like dew, - Or from fair fingers fragrant kisses blew. - And suddenly a river cleft the sward; - And o'er it lay a mist: and it was hard - To see whence came it; whitherward it led; - Like some wild, frightened thing, it foamed and fled, - Sighing and murmuring, from its fountain-head. - And following it, at last I came upon - The Region of Romance,--from whence were drawn - Its wandering waters,--and the storied wells - Of lost Baranton, where old Merlin dwells, - Nodding a white poll and a great, gray beard. - And then, far off, a woman's voice I heard, - Wilder than water, laughing in the bowers, - Like some strange bird: and then, through wild-thorn flowers, - I saw her limbs glance, twinkling as spring showers; - And then, with blown gold curls, tempestuous tossed, - White as a wood-nymph, she a vista crossed, - Laughing that laugh wherein there was no cheer, - But soulless scorn. And so to me drew near - Her sweet lascivious brow's white wonderment, - And gray, great eyes, and hair which had the scent - Of all the wild Brécèliande's perfumes - Drowned in it; and, a flame in gold, one bloom's - Blood-point thrust deep. And, "Viviane! Viviane!" - The wild seemed crying, as if swept with rain; - And all the young leaves laughed; and surge on surge - Swept the witch-haunted forest to its verge, - That shook and sighed and stammered, as, in sleep, - A giant half-aroused: and, with a leap, - That samite-hazy creature, blossom-white, - Showered mocking kisses down; then, like a light - Beat into gusty flutterings by the dawn, - Then quenched, she glimmered and, behold, was gone; - And in Brécèliande I stood alone - Gazing at Merlin, sitting on a stone; - Old Merlin, charmed there, dreaming drowsy dreams; - A wondrous company; as many as gleams - That stab the moted mazes of a beech. - And each grave dream, behold, had power to reach - My mind through magic; each one following each - In dim procession; and their beauty drew - Tears down my cheeks, and Merlin's gray cheeks, too,-- - One in his beard hung tangled, bright as dew.-- - Long pageants seemed to pass me, brave and fair, - Of courts and tournaments, with silvery blare - Of immaterial trumpets high in air; - And blazoned banners, shields, and many a spear - Of Uther, waved an incorporeal fear: - And forms of Arthur rose and Guenevere, - Of Tristram and of Isoud and of Mark, - And many others; glimmering in the dark - Of Merlin's mind, they rose and glared and then,-- - The instant's fostered phantoms,--passed again. - Then all around me seemed a rippling stir - Of silken something,--wilier, lovelier - Than that witch-mothered beauty, Viviane,-- - Approaching with dead knights amid her train, - Pale through the vast Brécèliande. And then - A knight, steel-helmeted, a man of men, - Passed with a fool, King Arthur's Dagonet, - Who on his head a tinsel crown had set - In mockery. And as he went his way, - Behind the knight the leaves began to sway, - Then slightly parted--and Morgane le Fay, - With haughty, wicked eyes and lovely face, - Studied him steadily a little space. - - -I - - "Again I hold thee to my heart, Morgane; - Here where the restless forest hears the main - Toss as in troubled sleep. Now hear me, sweet, - While I that dream of yesternight repeat." - - "First let us find some rock or mossed retreat - Where we may sit at ease.--Why dost thou look - So serious? Nay! learn lightness from this brook, - And gladness from these flowers, my Accolon. - See the wild vista there! where purpling run - Long woodland shadows from the sinking sun; - Deeper the wood seems there, secluded as - The tame wild-deer that, in the moss and grass, - Gaze with their human eyes. Where grow those lines - Of pale-starred green; and where yon fountain shines, - Urned deep in tremulous ferns, let's rest upon - Yon oak-trunk by the tempest overthrown - Years, years ago. See, how 'tis rotted brown! - But here the red bark's firm and overgrown - Of trailing ivy darkly berried. Share - My throne with me. Come, cast away thy care! - Sit here and breathe with me this wildwood air, - Musk with the wood's decay that fills each way; - As if some shrub, while dreaming of the May, - In longing languor weakly tried to wake - Its perished blossoms and could only make - Ghosts of such dead aromas as it knew, - And shape a spectre of invisible dew - To haunt these sounding miles of solitude." - - "Still, thou art troubled, Morgane! and the mood, - Deep in thy fathomless eyes, glows.--Canst not keep - Mine eyes from seeing!--Dark thy thought and deep - As that of some wild woman,--found asleep - By some lost knight upon a precipice,-- - Whom he hath wakened with a sudden kiss: - As that of some frail elfin lady,--light - As are the foggy moonbeams,--filmy white, - Who waves diaphanous beauty on a cliff, - That, drowsing, purrs with moon-drenched pines; but if - The lone knight follow, foul fiends rise and drag - Him crashing down, while she, tall on the crag, - Triumphant, mocks him with glad sorcery - Till all the wildwood echoes shout with glee." - - "Follow thy figure further, Accolon. - Right fair it is. Too soon, alas! art done," - Said she; and tossing back her heavy hair, - Said smilingly, yet with a certain air - Of hurt impatience, "Why dost not compare - This dark expression of my eyes, ah me! - To something darker? say, it is to thee - As some bewildering mystery of a tarn, - A mountain water, that the mornings scorn - To anadem with fire and leave gray; - To which a champion cometh when the day - Hath tired of breding for the twilight's head - Flame-petaled blooms, and, golden-chapleted, - Sits waiting, rosy with deep love, for night, - Who cometh sandaled with the moon; the light - Of the auroras round her; her vast hair - Tortuous with stars,--that burn, as in a lair - The eyes of hunted wild things glare with rage,-- - And on her bosom doth his love assuage." - - "Yea, even so," said Accolon, his eyes - Searching her face: "the knight, as I surmise, - Who cometh heated to that haunted place, - Stoops down to lave his forehead, and his face - Meets fairy faces; elfins in a ring - That shadow upward, smiling, beckoning - Down, down to wonders, magic built of old - For some dim witch.--A city walled with gold, - With beryl battlements and paved with pearls; - Its lambent towers wrought of foamy swirls - Of alabaster; and that witch to love - More beautiful than any queen above.-- - He pauses, troubled: but a wizard power, - In all his bronzen harness, that mad hour - Plunges him--whither? What if he should miss - Those cloudy beauties and that creature's kiss?-- - Ah, Morgane, that same power Accolon - Found potent in thine eyes, and it hath drawn - And plunged him--whither? yea, to what far fate? - To what dim end? what veiled and future state?" - - With shadowy eyes long, long she gazed in his, - Then whispered dreamily the one word, "Bliss." - And like an echo on his sad mouth sate - The answer:--"Bliss?--deep have we drunk of late! - But death, I feel, some stealthy-footed death - Draws near! whose claws will clutch away--whose breath?... - I dreamed last night thou gather'dst flowers with me, - Fairer than those of earth. And I did see - How woolly gold they were, how woven through - With fluffy flame, and webby with spun dew: - And 'Asphodels' I murmured: then, 'These sure - Are Eden amaranths, so angel pure - That love alone may touch them.'--Thou didst lay - The flowers in my hands; alas! then gray - The world grew; and, meseemed, I passed away. - In some strange manner on a misty brook, - Between us flowing, striving still to look - Beyond it, while, around, the wild air shook - With torn farewells of pensive melody, - Aching with tears and hopeless utterly; - So merciless near, meseemed that I did hear - That music in those flowers, and yearned to tear - Their ingot-cored and gold-crowned hearts, and hush - Their voices into silence and to crush: - Yet o'er me was a something that restrained: - The melancholy presence of two pained - And awful, burning eyes that cowed and held - My spirit while that music died or swelled - Far out on shoreless waters, borne away-- - Like some wild-bird, that, blinded with the ray - Of dawn it wings tow'rds, lifting high its crest, - The glory round it, sings its heavenliest, - When suddenly all's changed; with drooping head, - Daggered of thorns it plunged on, fluttering, dead, - Still, still it seems to sing, though wrapped in night, - The slow blood beading on its breast of white.-- - And then I knew the flowers which thou hadst given - Were strays of parting grief and waifs of heaven - For tears and memories. Importunate - They spoke to me of loves that separate!-- - But, God! ah God! my God! thus was I left! - And these were with me who was so bereft. - The haunting torment of that dream of grief - Weighs on my soul and gives me no relief." - - He bowed and wept into his hands; and she, - Sorrowing beheld. Then, resting at her knee, - Raised slow her oblong lute and smote some chords. - But ere the impulse saddened into words, - Said: "And didst love me as thy lips would prove, - No visions wrought of sleep might move thy love. - Firm is all love in firmness of his power; - With flame, reverberant, moated stands his tower; - So built as not to admit from fact a beam - Of doubt, and much less of a doubt from dream: - All such th' alchemic fire of love's desires,-- - That moats its tower with flame,--turns to gold wires - To chord the old lyre new whereon he lyres." - She ceased; and then, sad softness in her eye, - Sang to his dream a questioning reply:-- - - "Will love be less, when dead the roguish Spring, - Who, with white hands, sowed violets, whispering? - When petals of her cheeks, wan-wasted through - Of withering grief, are laid beneath the dew, - Will love be less? - - "Will love be less, when comes the Summer tall? - Her throat a lily, long and spiritual: - When like a poppied swath,--hushed haunt of bees,-- - Her form is laid in slumber on the leas, - Will love be less? - - "Will love be less, when Autumn, sighing there, - Droops with long frost streaks in her dark, dark hair? - When her grave eyes are closed to heaven above, - Deep, lost in memory's melancholy, love, - Will love be less? - - "Will love be less, when Winter at the door - Shakes from gray locks th' icicles, long and hoar? - When Death's eyes, hollow o'er his shoulder, dart - Dark looks that wring with tears, then freeze the heart, - Will love be less?" - - And in her hair wept softly, and her breast - Rose and was wet with tears--as when, distressed, - Night steals on day, rain sobbing through her curls.-- - - "Though tears become thee even as priceless pearls, - Weep not, Morgane.--Mine no gloom of doubt, - But grief for sweet love's death I dreamed about," - He said. "May love, the flame-anointed, be - Lord of our hearts, and king eternally! - Love, ruler of our lives, whose power shall cease - No majesty when we are laid at peace; - But still shall reign, when souls have loved thus well, - Our god in Heaven or our god in Hell." - - So they communed. Afar her castle stood, - Its slender towers glimmering through the wood: - A forest lodge rose, ivy-buried, near - A woodland vista where faint herds of deer - Stalked like soft shadows: where, with many a run, - Mavis and throstle caroled in the sun: - And where through trees was seen a surf-white shore. - For this was Morgane's realm, embowered Gore; - And that her castle, sea-built Chariot, - That rooky pile, where, she a while forgot - Urience, her husband, now at Camelot. - Hurt in that battle where King Arthur strove - With the Five Heathen Kings, and, slaying, drove - The Five before him, Accolon was borne - To a gray castle on his shield one morn;-- - A castle like a dream, set high in scorn - Above the world and all its hungry herds, - Belted with woods melodious with birds, - Far from the rush of spears and roar of swords, - And the loud shields of battle-bloody lords, - And fields of silent slain where Havoc sprawled - Gorged to her eyes with carnage.--Dim, high-halled, - And hushed it rose; and through the granite-walled - Huge gate, and court, up stairs of marble sheen, - Six damsels bore him, tiremaids of a queen, - Stately and dark, who moved as if a flame - Of starlight shone around her; and who came - With healing herbs and searched his wounds. A dame, - So radiant in raiment silvery, - So white, that she attendant seemed to be - On that high Holy Grail, which evermore - The Table Round hath sought by wood and shore; - The angel-guarded cup of mystery, - That but the pure in body and soul may see;-- - Thus not for him, a worldly one, to love, - Who loved her even to wonder; skied above - His worship as the moon above the main, - That strives and strives to reach her, pale with pain, - She with her peaceful, pitiless, virgin cheer - Watching his suffering year on weary year.-- - To Accolon such seemed she: Then, too late, - His heart's ideal, merciless as fate! - For whom his soul must yearn till death; and wait - And dream of; evermore with sighs and tears, - Through the long waste of unavailing years, - Seeing her ever luminously stand - In luminous heavens, beckoning with her hand: - Before which vision heart and soul were weak, - And dumb with love, that would, yet could not speak.-- - Her beauty filled him with divine despair. - Around his heart she seemed to wrap her hair, - Her raven hair, and drag him to his doom; - Her looks were splendid daggers in the gloom - Of his sick soul, his heart's invaded tower, - Stabbing, yet never slaying, every hour. - Thus worshiping that queen, Morgane le Fay, - For many a day within his room he lay, - Longing to live now, then again to die, - As now her face, or now her glancing eye, - Bade his heart hope, with smiled approval of - His passion; now despair, with scorn of love; - His love, that dragged itself before her feet, - Dog-like, to whom even a blow were sweet. - Ah, never dreamed he of what was to be,-- - Nay, nay! how could he? while the agony - Of his unworth possessed his soul so much, - He never thought such loveliness and such - Perfection ever could stoop from its heaven, - Far as his world, and to his arms be given. - - One night a tempest tore and tossed and lashed - The writhing forest, and deep thunders dashed - Sonorous shields together; and anon, - Vast in the thunder's pause, the sea would groan - Like some enormous curse a knight hath lured - From where it soared to maim it with his sword. - And Accolon, from where he lay, could see - The stormy, wide-wrenched night's immensity - Yawn hells of golden ghastliness, and sweep - Distending foam, tempestuous, up each steep - Of raucous iron. In a fever-fit, - He seemed to see, on crags the lightning lit, - With tangled hair wild-blown, nude mermaids sit, - Singing, and beckoning with foam-white arms - Some far ship struggling with the strangling storm's - Resistless exultation. And there came - One breaker, mountained heavenward, all aflame - With glow-worm green, that boomed against the cliff - Its bulkéd thunder--and there, pale and stiff, - Tumbled in eddies of the howling rocks, - His dead, drawn face, with lidless eyes, and locks - Oozed close with brine; hurled upward streamingly - To streaming mermaids. Then he seemed to see - The vampire echoes of the hoarse wood, who, - With hooting, sought him: down the casement drew - Wet, shuddering, hag-like fingers; and, at last, - Thronged up the turrets with an elfin blast - Of baffled mockery, and whirled wildly off, - Back to the forest with a maniac scoff.-- - Then, far away, hoofs of a hundred gales, - As wave rams wave up windy bluffs of Wales, - Loosed from the battlemented hills, the loud - Herders of tempest drove their herds of cloud, - That down the rocking night rolled, with the glare - Of swimming eyeballs, and the hurl of hair, - Blown, black as rain, from misty-manéd brows, - And mouths of bellowing storm; in mad carouse, - With whips of wind, rolling and ruining by, - Headlong, along the wild and headlong sky. - - Once when the lightning made the casement glare, - Squares touched to gold, athwart it swept her hair, - As if a raven's wing had cut the storm - Death-driven seaward. And the vague alarm - Of her swift coming filled his soul with hope - And wild surmise, that winged beyond the scope - Of all his dreams had dreamed of, when he saw - 'Twas she, the all-adored. He felt no awe - When low she kneeled beside him, beautiful - As some lone star and white, and said, "To lull - Thy soul to sleep, lo, I have come to thee.-- - Didst thou not call me?"-- - - "Yea;" he said. "Maybe - Thou heard'st my heart, that calls continually: - But with my lips I called thee not. But, stay! - The night is wild. Thou wilt not go away! - The night is wild, and it is long till day! - To see thee like a benediction near, - To hear thy voice, to have thy cool hand here - Smoothing my feverish brow and matted curls; - To see thy white throat, whiter than its pearls, - Lean o'er me breathing; feel the influence - Of thy large eyes, like stars, whose sole defence - Against all storm is beauty,--is to see - And feel a portion of divinity, - My heart's high dream come true, my dream of dreams!--" - Then paused and said, "See, how the tempest streams! - How sweeps the tumult! and the thunder gleams - As, when King Arthur charged on battle-fields - Of Humber, glared the fiery spears and shields - Of all his knights!--when the Five Kings went down! - In the wild hurl of onset overthrown.... - But thy white presence, like the moon, has sown - This room with calm; and all the storm in me, - The tempest of my soul, dies utterly. - So let me feel thy hand upon my cheek. - And speak! I love thy voice: belovéd, speak." - - "Thou lov'st a thing of air, fond Accolon! - Is thy love then so spiritual? Nay! anon - 'Twill change, methinks. Whatever may befall, - Earth-love, thou'lt find, is better, after all."-- - She smiled; and, sudden, through the moon-rent wall - Of storm, baptizing moonlight, foot and face, - Bathed and possessed her, as his soul the grace - And sweetness of her smile, whose life was brief, - But long enough to heal him of his grief. - - "Now rest," she said; "I love thee with much love!-- - Thou didst not know I loved: but God above, - He knew and had divinement.--Winds may blow!-- - To lie by thee to-night my mind is. So,"-- - She laughed,--"sleep well!--For me ... give me thy word - Of knighthood!--look thou!... and this naked sword - Laid here betwixt us!... Let it be a wall - Strong between love and lust an lov'st me all in all." - - Then she unbound the gold that clasped her waist: - Undid her hair: and, like a flower faced, - Stood sweet an unswayed stem that ran to bud - In bloom and beauty of young womanhood. - And fragrance was to her as natural - As odor to the rose. And white and tall, - All ardor and all fervor, through the room - She moved, a presence as of pale perfume. - And all his eyes and lips and limbs were fire: - His tongue, delirious, babbled of desire; - Cried, "Thine is devil's kindness, which is even - Worse than fiend's fury, since the soul sees Heaven - Among eternal torments unforgiven. - Temptation neighbored, like a bloody rust - On a bright blade, leaves ugly stains; and lust - Is love's undoing when love's limbs are cast - Naked before desire. What love so chaste - But that such nearness of what should be hid - Makes it a lawless love?--But thou hast bid. - Rest thou. I love thee; love thee as dost know, - And all my love shall battle with love's foe." - - "Thy word," she said. And pure as peaks that keep - Snow-drifted crowns, upon him seemed to sweep - An avalanche of virtue in one look. - And he, whose very soul within him shook, - Exclaimed, "'Tis thine!"--And hopes, that in his brain - Had risen with rainbow gleams, set sad as rain - At that high look she gave of chastest pain. - Then turned, his face deep in his hands: and she - Laid the broad blade between them instantly. - And so they lay its iron between them twain: - Unsleeping he, for all the brute disdain - Of passion in him struggled up and stood - A rebel wrangling with the brain and blood. - An hour stole by: she slept, or seemed to sleep. - The winds of night blew vigorous from the deep - With rain-scents of storm-watered wood and wold, - And breathed of ocean breakers moonlight-rolled. - He drowsed; and time passed stealing as for one - Whose life is but a dream in Avalon. - Vast bulks of black, wind-shattered rack went by - The casement's square of heaven,--a crystal dye, - A crown of moonlight, round each cloudy head,-- - That seemed the ghosts of giant kings long-dead. - And then he thought she lightly laughed and sighed, - So soft a taper had not bent aside, - And leaned her warm face, seen through loosened hair, - Above him, whispering, soft as is a prayer, - "Behold! the sword! I take the sword away!" - - It curved and clashed where the strewn rushes lay; - Shone glassy, glittering like a watery beam - Of moonlight, in the moonlight. He did deem - She moved in sleep and dreamed perverse nor wist - The thing she did, until two hot lips kissed - His wondering eyes to knowledge of her thought. - Then said he, "Love, my word! is it then naught?" - But now he felt fierce kisses over and over, - And laughter of "Thy word?--Art thou my lover?-- - Kisses are more than words!--Come, give them me!-- - As for thy word--I give it back to thee!" - - Sleep is a spirit, who beside us sits, - Or through our frames like some dim glamour flits; - From out her form a pearly light is shed, - As, from a lily in a lily-bed, - A firefly's gleam. Her face is pale as stone, - Uncertain as a cloud that lies alone - In empty heaven; her diaphanous feet - Are easy as the dew or opaline heat - Of summer meads. With ears--aurora-pink - As dawn's--she leans and listens on the brink - Of being, dark with dreadfulness and doubt, - Wherein vague lights and shadows move about, - And palpitations beat--like some huge heart - Of Earth--the surging pulse of which we're part. - One hand, that hollows her divining eyes, - Glows like the curved moon over twilight skies; - And with her gaze she fathoms life and death-- - Gulfs, where man's conscience, like a restless breath - Of wind, goes wandering; whispering low of things, - The irremediable, where sorrow clings. - Around her limbs a veil of woven mist - Wavers, and turns from fibered amethyst - To textured crystal; through which symboled bars - Of silver burn, and cabalistic stars - Of nebulous gold. Shrouding her feet and hair, - Within this woof, fantastic, everywhere, - Dreams come and go: the instant images - Of things she sees and thinks; realities, - Shadows, with which her heart and fancy swarm, - That in the veil take momentary form: - Now picturing heaven in celestial fire, - And now the hell of every soul's desire; - Hinting at worlds, God wraps in mystery, - Beyond the world we touch and know and see. - - * * * * * - - No, never,--no!--would they forget that night.-- - Too soon the sleepy birds awoke the light! - Too soon, for them, trailing gray skirts of breeze, - The drowsy dawn came wandering through the trees. - "Too soon," she sighed; and he, "Alas! too soon!" - But at their scutcheoned casement, overstrewn - Of dew and dreams, the dim wind knocked and cried, - "Arise! come forth, O bridegroom, and O bride!" - - -II - - Morn; and the Autumn, dreaming, sat among - His ancient hills; Autumn, who now was wrung - By crafty ministers, sun, rain, and frost, - To don imperial pomp at any cost. - On each wild hill he reared his tents of war, - Flaunting barbaric standards wide and far, - Around which camp-fires of the red leaves raged: - His tottering state by flattering zephyrs paged, - Who, in a little fretful while, would soon - Work red rebellion under some wan moon: - Pluck his old beard, deriding; shriek and tear - His royalty; and scatter through the air - His tattered majesty: then from his head - Dash down its golden crown; and in its stead - Set up a death's-head mockery of snow, - And leave him stripped, a beggar bowed with woe. - Blow, wood wind, blow! the day is fair and fine - As autumn skies can make it; brisk as brine - The air is, rustling in the underbrush, - 'Mid which the stag-hounds leap, the huntsmen rush. - Hark to the horns! the music of the bows! - À mort! à mort!--The hunt is up and goes, - Beneath the acorn-dropping oaks, in green,-- - Dark woodland green,--a boar-spear held between - His selle and hunter's head; and at his thigh - A good broad hanger; and one hand on high - To wind his horn, that startles many a wing, - And makes the forest echoes reel and ring. - Away, away they flash, a belted band - From Camelot, through the haze-haunted land: - With many a leamer leashed, and many a hound, - With mouths of bell-like music, now that bound, - Uncoupled, forward; for, behold! the hart, - A ten-tined buck, doth from the covert dart. - And the big stag-hounds swing into the chase, - The wild horns sing. The pryce seems but a pace - On ere 'tis wound. But, see! where interlace - The dense-briared thickets, now the hounds have lost - The slot, there where their woodland way is crossed - By intercepting waters full of leaves. - - Beyond, the hart a tangled labyrinth weaves - Through deeper boscage; and it seems the sun - Makes many shadowy stags of this wild one, - That lead in different trails the foresters: - And in the trees the ceaseless wind, that stirs, - Seems some strange witchcraft, that, with baffling mirth, - Mocks them the unbayed hart, and fills the earth - With rustling sounds of running.--Hastening thence, - Galloped King Arthur and King Urience, - With one small brachet-hound. Now far away - They heard their fellowship's faint horns; and day - Wore on to noon; yet, there before them, they - Still saw the hart plunge bravely through the brake, - Leaving the bracken shaking in his wake: - And on they followed; on, through many a copse, - Above whose brush, close on before, the tops - Of the great antlers swelled anon, then, lo, - Were gone where beat the heather to and fro. - But still they drave him hard; and ever near - Seemed that great hart unwearied, and 'twas clear - The chase would yet be long, when Arthur's horse - Gasped mightily and, lunging in his course, - Lay dead, a lordly bay; and Urience - Reined his gray hunter, laboring. And thence - King Arthur went afoot. When suddenly - He was aware of a wide waste of sea, - And, near the wood, the hart upon the sward, - Bayed, panting unto death and winded hard. - So with his sword he slew him; then the pryce - Wound loudly on his hunting-bugle thrice. - -[Illustration: In her ecstasy a lovely devil Page 303 - - _Accolon of Gaul_ -] - - As if each echo, which that wild horn's blast - Roused from its sleep,--the solitude had cast - For ages on it,--had, a silvery band - Of moving sounds of gladness, hand in hand - Arisen,--each a visible delight,-- - Came three fair damsels, sunny in snowy white, - From the red woodland gliding. They the knight,-- - For so they deemed the King, who came alone,-- - Graced with obeisance. And, "Our lord," said one, - "Tenders you courtesy until the dawn, - The Earl, Sir Damas. For the day is gone, - And you are weary. Safe in his strong keep, - Led thither with due worship, you shall sleep." - And so he came, o'erwearied, to a hall, - An owlet-haunted pile, whose weedy wall - Towered, rock on rock; its turrets, crowding high, - Loomed, ancient as the crags, against a sky - Wherein the moon hung, owl-eyed, round and full: - An old, gaunt giant-castle, like a gull - Hung on the weedy cliffs, where broke the dull - Vast monotone of ocean, that uprolled - Its windy waters; and where all was old, - And sad, and swept of winds, and slain of salt, - And haunted grim of ruin: where the vault - Of heav'n bent ever, clamorous as the rout - Of the defiant headlands, stretching out - Into the night, with their voluminous shout - Of wreck and wrath forever. Arthur then, - Among the gaunt Earl's followers, swarthy men, - Ate in the wild hall. Then a damsel led, - With flaring torch, the tired King to bed, - Down lonely labyrinths of that corridored keep. - And soon he rested, sunk in heavy sleep. - - Then suddenly he woke; it seemed, 'mid groans - And dolorous sighs: and round him lay the bones - Of many men, and bodies mouldering. - And he could hear the wind-swept ocean swing - Its sighing surge above. And so he thought, - "It is some nightmare weighing me, distraught - By that long hunt." And then he sought to shake - The horror off and to himself awake. - But still he heard sad groans and whispering sighs: - And gaunt, from iron-ribbéd cells, the eyes - Of pale, cadaverous knights regarded him, - Unhappy: and he felt his senses swim - With foulness of that dungeon.--"What are ye? - Ghosts? or chained champions? or a company - Of fiends?" he cried. Then, "Speak! if speak ye can! - Speak, in God's name! for I am here--a man!" - Then groaned the shaggy throat of one who lay, - A wasted nightmare, dying day by day, - Yet once a knight of comeliness, and strong - And great and young, but now, through hunger long, - A skeleton with hollow hands and cheeks:-- - "Sir knight," said he, "know that the wretch who speaks - Is only one of twenty knights entombed - By Damas here; the Earl who so hath doomed - Us in this dungeon, where starvation lairs; - Around you lie the bones, whence famine stares, - Of many knights. And would to God that soon - My liberated ghost might see the moon - Freed from the horror of this prisonment!" - With that he sighed, and round the dungeon went - A rustling sigh, as of the damned; and so - Another dim, thin voice complained their woe: - "Know, he doth starve us to obtain this end: - Because not one of us his strength will lend - To battle for what still he calls his rights, - This castle and its lands. For, of all knights, - He is most base; lacks most in hardihood. - A younger brother, Ontzlake, hath he; good - And courteous; withal most noble; whom - This Damas hates--yea, even seeks his doom; - Denying him to his estate all right - Save that he holds by main of arms and might. - Through puissance hath Ontzlake some few fields - And one right sumptuous manor, where he deals - With knights as knights should, with an open hand, - Though ill he can afford it. Through the land - He is far-famed for hospitality. - Ontzlake is brave, but Damas cowardly. - For Ontzlake would decide with sword and lance, - Body to body, this inheritance: - But Damas, vile as he is courageless, - Doth on all knights, his guests, lay this duress, - To fight for him or starve. For you must know - That in this country he is hated so - There is no champion who will take the fight. - Thus fortunes it our plight is such a plight." - Quoth he and ceased. And, wondering at the tale, - The King lay silent, while each wasted, pale, - Poor countenance perused him; then he spake: - "And what reward if one this cause should take?"-- - "Deliverance for all if of us one - Consent to be his party's champion. - But treachery and he are so close kin - We loathe the part as some misshapen sin; - And here would rather with the rats find death - Than, serving him, serve wrong, and save our breath, - And on our heads, perhaps, bring down God's curse." - - "May God deliver you in mercy, sirs, - And help us all!" said Arthur. At which word - Straightway a groaning sound of iron was heard, - Of chains rushed loose and bolts jarred rusty back, - And hoarse the gate croaked open; and the black - Of that rank cell astonished was with light, - That danced fantastic with the frantic night. - One high torch, sidewise worried by the gust, - Sunned that dark den of hunger, death and dust; - And one tall damsel, vaguely vestured, fair, - With shadowy hair, poised on the rocky stair: - And laughing on the King, "What cheer?" said she. - "God's life! the keep stinks vilely! And to see - Such noble knights endungeoned, starving here, - Doth pain me sore with pity. But, what cheer?" - "Thou mockest us. For me, the sorriest - Since I was suckled; and of any quest - This is the most imperiling and strange.-- - But what wouldst thou?" said Arthur. She, "A change - I offer thee; through thee to these with thee, - If thou wilt promise, in love's courtesy, - To fight for Damas and his brotherhood. - And if thou wilt not--look! behold this brood - Of lean and dwindled bellies, spectre-eyed,-- - Keen knights once,--who refused me. So decide." - Then thought the King of the sweet sky, the breeze - That blew delirious over waves and trees; - Thick fields of grasses and the sunny Earth, - Whose beating heat filled the high heart with mirth, - And made the world one sovereign pleasure-house - Where king and serf might revel and carouse: - Then of the hunt on autumn-plaintive hills; - Lone forest lodges by their radiant rills; - His palace at Caerleon upon Usk, - And Camelot's loud halls that through the dusk - Blazed far and bloomed, a rose of revelry; - Or, in the misty morning, shadowy - Loomed, grave with audience. And then he thought - Of his Round Table, and the Grael wide sought - In haunted holds by many a haunted shore. - Then marveled of what wars would rise and roar - With dragon heads unconquered and devour - This realm of Britain and crush out that flower - Of chivalry whence ripened his renown: - And then the reign of some besotted crown, - Some bandit king of lust, idolatry-- - And with that thought for tears he could not see.-- - Then of his best-loved champions, King Ban's son, - And Galahad and Tristram, Accolon: - And then, ah God! of his loved Guenevere: - And with that thought--to starve 'mid horrors here!-- - For, being unfriend to Arthur and his Court, - Well knew he this grim Earl would bless that sport - Of fortune which had fortuned him so well - As t' have his King to starve within a cell, - In the entombing rock beside the deep.-- - And all the life, large in his limbs, did leap - Through eager veins and sinews, fierce and red, - Stung on to action; and he rose and said: - "That which thou askest is right hard, but, lo! - To rot here, harder. I will fight his foe. - But, mark, I have no weapons and no mail; - No steed against that other to avail." - - She laughed again; "If we must beg or hire, - Fear not for that: these thou shalt lack not, sire." - And so she led the way; her torch's fire - Sprawling with spidery shadows at each stride - The cob-webbed coignes of scowling arches wide. - At length they reached an iron-studded door, - Which she unlocked with one harsh key she bore - 'Mid many keys bunched at her girdle; thence - They issued on a terraced eminence. - Below, the sea broke sounding; and the King - Breathed open air again that had the sting - And scent of brine, the far, blue-billowed foam: - And in the east the second dawning's gloam, - Since that unlucky chase, was freaked with streaks - Red as the ripe stripes of an apple's cheeks. - And so, within that larger light of dawn - It seemed to Arthur now that he had known - This maiden at his Court, and so he asked. - But she, well tutored, her real person masked, - And answered falsely, "Nay, deceive thee not. - Thou saw'st me ne'er at Arthur's Court, I wot. - For here it likes me best to sing and spin, - And needle hangings, listening to the din - Of ocean, sitting some high tower within. - No courts or tournaments or hunts I crave, - No knights to flatter me! For me--the wave, - The cliffs, the sea and sky, in calm or storm; - My garth, wherein I walk at morn; the charm - Of ocean, redolent at bounteous noon, - And sprayed with sunlight; night's free stars and moon: - White ships that pass, some several every year; - These ancient towers; and those wild mews to hear." - "An owlet maid," the King laughed.--But untrue - Was she, and of false Morgane's treasonous crew, - Deep in intrigues, even for the slaying of - The King, her brother, whom she did not love.-- - And presently she brought him where, in state, - This swarthy Damas, 'mid his wildmen sate. - - * * * * * - - And Accolon, at Castle Chariot still, - Had lost long weeks in love. Her husband ill, - Morgane, perforce, must leave her lover here - Among the hills of Gore. A lodge stood near - A cascade in the forest, where their wont - Was to sit listening the falling fount, - That, through sweet talks of many idle hours - On moss-banks, varied with the violet flowers, - Had learned the lovers' language,--sighed above,-- - And seemed, in every fall, to whisper, "love"; - That echoed through the lodge, her hands had draped - With curious hangings; where were worked and shaped - Remembered hours of pleasure, body and soul; - Imperishable passions, which made whole - The past again in pictures; and could mate - The heart with loves long dead; and re-create - The very kisses of those perished knights - With woven records of long-dead delights. - Below the lodge within an urnéd shell - The water pooled, and made a tinkling well, - Then, slipping thence, through dripping shadows fell - From rippling rock to rock. Here Accolon, - With Morgane's hollow lute, as eve drew on - Came all alone: not ev'n her brindled hound - To bound before him o'er the gleaming ground; - No handmaid lovely of his loveliest fair, - Or paging dwarf in purple with him there; - Only her lute, about which her perfume - Clung, odorous of memories, that made bloom - Her absent features, making them arise, - Like some rich flower, before his memory's eyes, - That seemed to see her lips and to surmise - The words they fashioned; then the smile that drank - Her soul's deep fire from eyes wherein it sank - And slowly waned away to deeper dreams, - Fathomless with thought, down in their dove-gray streams. - And so for her imagined eyes and lips, - Heart-fashioned features, all the music slips - Of all his soul, himseems, into his voice, - To sing her praises. And, with nervous poise, - His fleet, trained fingers waken in her lute - Such mellow riot as must make envy-mute - The nightingale that listens quivering. - And well he hopes that, winging thence, 'twill sing - A similar song;--whose passions burn and pain - Its anguished soul, now silent,--not in vain - Beneath her casement, in that garden old - Dingled with heavy roses; in the gold - Of Camelot's stars and pearl-encrusted moon: - And still he hopes the heartache of the tune - Will clamor secret memories in her ear, - Of life, less dear than death with her not near; - Of love, who longs for her, to have her here: - Till melt her eyes with tears; and sighs and sobs - O'erwhelm her soul, and separation throbs - Hard at her heart, that, longing, lifts to death - A prayerful pleading, crying, "But a breath, - One moment of real heaven, there! in his arms! - Close, close! And, for that moment, then these charms, - This body, hell, canst have forevermore!" - And sweet to know, perhaps its song will pour - Into the dull ear of her drowsy lord - A vague suspicion of some secret word, - Borne by the bird,--love's wingéd messenger,-- - To her who lies beside him; even her, - His wife, whom still he loves; whom Accolon - Thus sings of where the woods of Gore grow wan:-- - - "The thought of thy white coming, like a song - Breathed soft of lovely lips and lute-like tongue, - Sways all my bosom with a sweet unrest; - Makes wild my heart that oft thy heart hath pressed.-- - Come! press it once again, for it is strong - To bear that weight which never yet distressed. - - "O come! and straight the woodland is stormed through - With wilder wings, and brighter with bright dew: - And every flow'r, where thy fair feet have passed, - Puts forth a fairer blossom than the last, - Thrilled of thine eyes, those arsenals of blue, - Wherein the arrows of all love are cast. - - "O Love, she comes! O Love, I feel her breath, - Like the soft South, that idly wandereth - Through musical leaves of laughing laziness, - Page on before her, how sweet,--none can guess: - Sighing, 'She comes! thy heart's dear life and death; - In whom is all thy bliss and thy distress.' - - "She comes! she comes! and all my mind doth rave - For words to tell her how she doth enslave - My soul with beauty: then o'erwhelm with love - That loveliness, no words can tell whereof; - Words, words, like roses, every path to pave, - Each path to strew, and no word sweet enough! - - "She comes!--Thro' me a passion--as the moon - Works wonder in the sea--through me doth swoon - Ungovernable glory; and her soul - Seems blent with mine; and now, to some bright goal, - Compels me, throbbing like a tender tune, - Exhausting all my efforts of control. - - "She comes! ah, God! ye little stars that grace - The fragmentary skies, and scatter space, - Brighter her steps that golden all my gloom! - Ah, wood-indulging, violet-vague perfume, - Sweeter the presence of her wild-flower face, - That fragrance-fills my life, and stars with bloom! - - "Oh, boundless exultation of the blood! - That now compels me to some higher mood, - Diviner sense of something that outsoars - The Earth--her kiss! that all love's splendor pours - Into me; all delicious womanhood, - So all the heart that hesitates--adores. - - "Sweet, my soul's victor! heart's triumphant Sweet! - Within thy bosom Love hath raised his seat; - There he sits crowned; and, from thy eyes and hair, - Shoots his soft arrows,--as the moonbeams fair,-- - That long have laid me supine at thy feet, - And changed my clay to ardent fire and air. - - "My love! my witch! whose kiss, like some wild wine, - Has subtly filled me with a flame divine, - An aspiration, whose fierce pulses urge - In all my veins, with rosy surge on surge, - To hurl me in that heaven, all which is mine, - Thine arms! from which I never would emerge." - - His ecstasy the very foliage shook; - The wood seemed hushed to hear, and hushed the brook; - And even the heavens, wherein one star shone clear, - Seemed leaning nearer, his glad song to hear, - To which its wild star throbbed, all golden-pale: - And after which, deep in the purple vale, - Awoke the passion of the nightingale. - - -III - - As one hath seen a green-gowned huntress fair, - Morn in her cheeks and midnight in her hair; - Keen eyes as gray as rain, young limbs as lithe - As the wild fawn's; and silvery voice as blithe - As is the wind that breathes of flowers and dews, - Breast through the bramble-tangled avenues; - Through brier and thorn, that pluck her gown of green, - And snag it here and there,--through which the sheen - Of her white skin gleams rosy;--eyes and face, - Ardent and flushed, fixed on the lordly chase: - So came the Evening to that shadowy wood, - Or so it seemed to Accolon, who stood - Watching the sunset through the solitude. - So Evening came; and shadows cowled the way - Like ghostly pilgrims who kneel down to pray - Before a wayside shrine: and, radiant-rolled, - Along the west, the battlemented gold - Of sunset walled the opal-tinted skies, - That seemed to open gates of Paradise - On soundless hinges of the winds, and blaze - A glory, far within, of chrysoprase, - Towering in topaz through the purple haze. - And from the sunset, down the roseate ways, - To Accolon, who, with his idle lute, - Reclined in revery against the root - Of a great oak, a fragment of the west, - A dwarf, in crimson satin tightly dressed, - Skipped like a leaf the early frosts have burned, - A red oak-leaf; and like a leaf he turned, - And danced and rustled. And it seemed he came - From Camelot; from his belovéd dame, - Morgane le Fay. He on his shoulder bore - A mighty blade, wrought strangely o'er and o'er - With mystic runes, drawn from a scabbard which - Glared venomous, with angry jewels rich. - He, louting to the knight, "Sir knight," said he, - "Your Lady, with all tenderest courtesy, - Assures you--ah, unworthy bearer I - Of her good message!--of her constancy." - Then, doffing the great baldric, with the sword, - To him he gave them, saying, "From my lord, - King Arthur: even his Excalibur, - The magic blade which Merlin gat of her, - The Ladyé of the Lake, who, as you wot, - Fostered in infanthood Sir Launcelot, - Upon some isle in Briogne's tangled lands - Of meres and mists; where filmy fairy bands, - By lazy moons of summer, dancing, fill - With rings of morrice every grassy hill. - Through her fair favor is this weapon sent, - Who begged it of the King with this intent: - That, for her honor, soon would be begun - A desperate battle with a champion, - Of wondrous prowess, by Sir Accolon: - And with the sword, Excalibur, more sure - Were she that he against him would endure. - Magic the blade, and magic, too, the sheath, - Which, while 'tis worn, wards from the wearer death." - He ceased: and Accolon held up the sword - Excalibur and said, "It shall go hard - With him through thee, unconquerable blade, - Whoe'er he be, who on my Queen hath laid - Insult or injury! And hours as slow - As palsied hours in Purgatory go - For those unmassed, till I have slain this foe!-- - Here, page, my purse.--And now, to her who gave, - Despatch! and say: To all commands, her slave, - To death obedient, I!--In love or war - Her love to make me all the warrior.-- - Bid her have mercy, nor too long delay - From him, who dies an hourly death each day - Till, her white hands kissed, he shall kiss her face, - Through which his life lives on, and still finds grace." - Thus he commanded. And, incontinent, - The dwarf departed, like a red shaft sent - Into the sunset's sea of scarlet light - Burning through wildwood glooms. And as the night - With votaress cypress veiled the dying strife - Sadly of day, and closed his book of life - And clasped with golden stars, in dreamy thought - Of what this fight was that must soon be fought, - Belting the blade about him, Accolon, - Through the dark woods tow'rds Chariot passed on. - - * * * * * - - And it befell him thus, the following dawn, - As he was wandering on a dew-drenched lawn, - Glad with the freshness and elastic health - Of sky and earth, that lavished all their wealth - Of heady winds and racy scents,--a knight - And gentle lady met him, gay bedight, - With following of six esquires; and they - Held on gloved wrists the hooded falcon gray, - And rode a-hawking o'er the leas of Gore - From Ontzlake's manor, where he languished; sore - Hurt in the lists, a spear wound in his thigh: - Who had besought--for much he feared to die-- - This knight and his fair lady, as they rode - To hawk near Chariot, Morgane's abode, - That they would beg her in all charity - To come to him (for in chirurgery - Of all that land she was the greatest leach), - And her for his recovery beseech. - So, Accolon saluted, they drew rein, - And spake their message, for, right over fain - Were they toward their sport,--that he would bear - Petition to that lady. But, not there - Was Arthur's sister, as they well must wot; - But now a sennight lay at Camelot, - The guest of Guenevere; and with her there - Four other queens of Farther Britain were: - Isoud of Ireland, she of Cornwall Queen, - King Mark's wife,--who right rarely then was seen - At Court for jealousy of Mark, who knew - Her to that lance of Lyonesse how true - Since mutual quaffing of a philter; while - How guilty Guenevere on such could smile:-- - She of Northgales and she of Eastland; and - She of the Out Isles Queen. A fairer band, - For sovereignty and love and loveliness, - Was not in any realm to grace and bless. - So Accolon informed them. In distress - Then quoth that knight: "Ay? see how fortune turns - And varies like an April day, that burns - Now welkins blue with calm; now scowls them down, - Revengeful, with a black storm's wrinkled frown. - For, look! this Damas, who so long hath lain - A hiding vermin, fearful of all pain, - Dark in his bandit towers by the deep, - Wakes from a five years' torpor and a sleep, - And sends despatch a courier to my lord, - Sir Ontzlake, with, 'To-morrow, with the sword, - Earl Damas and his knight, at point of lance, - Decides the issue of inheritance, - Body to body, or by champion.'-- - Right hard to find such ere to-morrow dawn. - Though sore bestead lies Ontzlake, if he could, - He would arise and save his livelihood." - - Then thought Sir Accolon: "One might suppose, - So soon this follows on her message, those - Same things befall through Morgane's arts--who knows?-- - Howe'er it be, as 'twere for her own sake, - This battle I myself will undertake." - Then said to those, "I know the good Ontzlake. - If he be so conditioned, harried of - Estate and life,--in knighthood and for love - Of justice I his quarrel will assume. - My limbs are keen for armor. Let the groom - Prepare my steed. Right good 'twill be again - To feel him under me."--Then, of that train, - Asked that one gentleman with him remain, - And men to squire his horse and arms. And then, - When this was granted, mounted with his men - And thence departed. And, ere noontide, they - Came to a lone, dismantled priory - Hard by a castle 'gainst whose square, grey towers, - Machicolated, mossed, in forest bowers, - Full many a siege had beat and onset rushed: - A forest fortress, old and deep-imbushed - In wild and woody hills. And then one wound - A hoarse slug-horn, and at the savage sound - The drawbridge rumbled moatward, clanking, and - Into a paved court rode that little band. - - * * * * * - - When all the world was morning, gleam and glare - Of autumn glory; and the frost-touched air - Rang with the rooks as rings a silver lyre - Swept swift of minstrel fingers, wire on wire; - Ere that fixed hour of prime, came Arthur, armed - For battle royally. A black steed warmed - A keen impatience 'neath him, cased in mail - Of foreign make; accoutered head and tail - In costly sendal; rearward, wine-dark red, - Amber as sunlight to his fretful head. - Blue armor of linked steel had Arthur on, - Beneath a robe of honor made of drawn, - Ribbed satin, diapered and purfled deep - With lordly gold and purple; whence did sweep - Two acorn-tufted bangles of fine gold: - And at his thigh a falchion, battle-old - And triple-edged; its rune-stamped scabbard, of - Cordovan leather, baldric'd rich above - With new-cut deer-skin, that, laborious wrought, - And curiously, with slides of gold was fraught, - And buckled with a buckle white, that shone, - Tongued red with gold, and carved of walrus' bone. - And, sapphire-set, a burgonet of gold,-- - Whereon a wyvern sprawled, whose jaws unrolled - A tongue of garnet agate, of great prize; - Its orbs of glaring ruby, great in size,-- - Incased his head and visor-barred his eyes. - And in his hand a wiry lance of ash, - Lattened with sapphire silver, like a flash, - A splinter of sunlight, in the morning's zeal - Glittered, its point, as 'twere, a star of steel.-- - A squire attended him; a youth, whose head - Waved many a jaunty curl; whereon a red - Cock-feathered cap shone brave: 'neath which, as keen - As some wild hawk's, his green-gray eyes were seen: - And parti-colored leather shoes he had - Upon his feet; his legs were silken clad - In hose of rarest Totness: and a spear, - Bannered and bronzen, dappled as a deer, - One hand upheld, like some bright beam of morn; - And round his neck was hung a bugle-horn. - So with his following, while, bar on bar, - The blue mist lay on woodside and on scar, - Through mist and dew, through shadow and through ray, - Joustward Earl Damas led the forest way. - Then to King Arthur, when arrived were these - Where bright the lists shone, bannered, through the trees, - A wimpled damsel with a falchion came, - Mounted upon a palfrey, all aflame - With sweat and heat of hurry; and, "From her, - Your sister, Morgane, your Excalibur! - With tender greeting. For you well may need - Its aid in this adventure. So, God speed!" - Said and departed suddenly: nor knew - The King that this was not his weapon true: - A brittle forgery, in likeness of - That blade, of baser metal;--in unlove - And treason made by her, of all his kin - The nearest, Morgane; who, her end to win, - Stopped at no thing; thinking, with Arthur dead, - The crown would grace her own and Accolon's head. - Then, heralded, into the lists he rode. - Opposed flashed Accolon, whose strength bestrode, - Exultant, strong in talisman of that sword, - A dun horse lofty as a haughty lord, - White-pasterned, and of small, impatient hoof: - Both knight and steed shone armed in mail of proof, - Of yellow-dappled, variegated plate - Of Spanish laton. And of sovereign state - His surcoat robe of honor,--white and black, - Of satin, crimson-orphreyed,--at his back - The wind made billow: and, from forth this robe, - Excalibur,--a throbbing golden globe - Of vicious jewels,--thrust its splendid hilt; - Its broad belt, tawny and with goldwork gilt, - An eyelid clasped, black, of the black sea-horse, - Tongued red with rosy gold. And pride and force - Sat on his wingéd helmet, plumed, of rich - Bronze-hammered laton; blazing upon which - A hundred brilliants glittered, thick as on - A silver web bright-studding dews of dawn: - Its crest, a taloned griffin, high that ramped; - In whose horned brow one blood-red gem was stamped. - A spear of ash, long-shafted, overlaid - With azure silver, whereon colors played, - Firm in his iron gauntlet lithely swayed. - - Intense on either side the champions stood, - Shining as serpents that, with spring renewed, - In gleaming scales, meet on a wild-wood way, - Their angry tongues flickering at poisonous play. - Then clanged a herald's trumpet: and harsh heels, - Sharp-thrust, each courser felt; the roweled steels - Spurred forward; and the couched and fiery spears, - Flashed, as two bolts of storm the tempest steers - With adverse thunder; and, in middle course, - Crashed full the unpierced shields, and horse from horse - Lashed, madly pawing.--And a hoarse roar rang - From the loud lists, till far the echoes sang - Of hill and rock-hung forest and wild cliff. - Rigid the champions rode where, standing stiff, - Their esquires tendered them the spears they held. - Again the trumpet blew, and, firmly selled, - Forward they galloped, shield to savage shield, - And crest to angry crest: the wyvern reeled, - Towering, against the griffin: scorn and scath - Upon their fiery fronts and in the wrath - Of their gem-blazing eyes: each figure stood - A symbol of the heart beneath the hood.-- - The lance of Accolon, as on a rock - The storm-launched foam breaks baffled, with the shock, - On Arthur's sounding shield burst splintered force; - But him resistless Arthur's,--high from horse - Uplifted,--headlong bore, and crashed him down; - A long sword's length unsaddled. Accolon - For one stunned moment lay. Then, rising, drew - The great sword at his hip that shone like dew - Smitten with morn. "Descend!" he grimly said, - "To proof of better weapons, head to head! - Enough of spears! to swords!"--And from his height - The King clanged down. And quick, like some swift light, - His moon-bright brand unsheathed. And, hollowed high, - Each covering shield gleamed, slantwise, to'ards the sky, - A blazoned eye of bronze: and underneath, - As 'neath two clouds, the lightning and the death - Of the fierce swords played. Now a shield descends-- - A long blade leaps;--and now, a fang that rends, - Another blade, loud as a battle word, - Beats downward, trenchant; and, resounding heard, - A shield's fierce face replies: again a sword - Swings for a giant blow, and, balked again, - Burns crashing from a sword. Thus, o'er the plain, - Over and over, blade on baleful blade; - Teeth clenched; and eyes, behind their visors' shade, - Like wild beasts' eyes in caverns; shield to shield, - The champions strove, each scorning still to yield. - - Then Arthur drew aside to rest upon - His falchion for a space. But Accolon, - As yet,--through virtue of that magic sheath,-- - Fresh and almighty, and no nearer death - Now than when first the fight to death begun, - Chafed at delay. But Arthur, with the sun, - His heavy mail, his wounds, and loss of blood, - Made weary, ceased and for a moment stood - Leaning upon his sword. Then, "Dost thou tire?" - Sneered Accolon. And then, with fiercer fire, - "Defend thee! yield thee! or die recreant!" - And at the King aimed a wild blow, aslant, - That beat a flying fire from the steel. - Stunned by that blow, the King, with brain a-reel, - Sank on one knee; then rose, infuriate, - Nerved with new vigor; and with heat and hate - Gnarled all his strength into one blow of might, - And in both fists his huge blade knotted tight, - And swung, terrific, for a final stroke,-- - And,--as the lightning flames upon an oak,-- - Boomed on the burgonet his foeman wore; - Hacked through and through its crest, and cleanly shore, - With hollow clamor, from his head and ears, - The brag and boasting of that griffin fierce: - Then, in an instant, as if made of glass, - That brittle blade burst, shattered; and the grass - Shone, strewn with shards; as 'twere a broken ray, - It fell and bright in feverish fragments lay. - Then groaned the King, disarmed. And straight he knew - This sword was not Excalibur: too true - And perfect tempered, runed and mystical, - That weapon of old wars! and then withal, - Looking upon his foe, who still with stress - Fought on, untiring, and with no distress - Of wounds or heat, he thought, "I am betrayed!" - Then as the sunlight struck along that blade, - He knew it, by the hilt, for his own brand, - The true Excalibur, that high in hand - Now rose avenging. For Sir Accolon - In madness urged th' unequal battle on - His King defenseless; who, the hilted cross - Of that false weapon grasped, beneath the boss - Of his deep-dented shield crouched; and around, - Like some great beetle, labored o'er the ground, - Whereon the shards of shattered spears and bits - Of shivered steel and gold made sombre fits - Of flame, 'mid which, hard-pressed and cowering - Beneath his shield's defense, the dauntless King - Crawled still defiant. And, devising still - How to secure his sword and by what skill, - Him thus it fortuned when most desperate: - In that close chase they came where, shattered late, - Lay, tossed, the truncheon of a bursten lance, - Which, deftly seized, to Accolon's advance - He wielded with effect. Against the fist - Smote, where the gauntlet clasped the nervous wrist, - That heaved Excalibur for one last blow; - Sudden the palsied sinews of his foe - Relaxed in effort, and, the great sword seized, - Was wrenched away: and straight the wroth King eased - Himself of his huge shield, and hurled it far; - And clasping in both arms of wiry war - His foe, Sir Accolon,--as one hath seen - A strong wind take an ash tree, rocking green, - And swing its sappy bulk, then, trunk and boughs, - Crash down its thundering height in wild carouse - And wrath of tempest,--so King Arthur shook - And headlong flung Sir Accolon. Then took, - Tearing away, that scabbard from his side - And hurled it through the lists, that far and wide - Gulped in the battle breathless. Then, still wroth, - He seized Excalibur; and grasped of both - Wild hands, swung trenchant, and brought glittering down - On rising Accolon. Steel, bone and brawn - That blow hewed through. Unsettled every sense. - Bathed in a world of blood, his limbs lay tense - A moment, then grew limp, relaxed in death. - And bending o'er him, from the brow beneath, - The King unlaced the helm. When dark, uncasqued, - The knight's slow eyelids opened, Arthur asked: - "Say, ere thou diest, whence and who thou art! - What king, what court is thine? And from what part - Of Britain dost thou come? Speak!--for, methinks, - I have beheld thee--where? Some memory links - Me strangely with thy face, thy eyes ... thou art-- - Who art thou?--speak!"-- - - He answered, slow, then short, - With labored breathing: "I?--one, Accolon,-- - Of Gaul--a knight of Arthur's court--anon-- - But to what end--yea, tell me--am I slain?"-- - Then bent King Arthur nearer and again - Drew back: then, anguish in his utterance, sighed: - "One of my Table!"--Then asked softly, "Say, - Whence hadst thou this, my sword? say, in what way - Thou cam'st by it?"--But, wandering, that knight - Heard with dull ears, divining but by sight - The question asked; and answered, "Woe!--the sword!-- - Woe worth the sword!--Lean down!--Canst hear my word?-- - From Morgane! Arthur's sister, who had made - Me king of all this kingdom, so she said-- - Hadst thou not 'risen, accurséd, like a fate, - To make our schemes miscarry!--Wait! nay, wait!-- - A king! dost hear?--a gold and blood-crowned king, - I!--Arthur's sister, queen!--No bird can wing - Higher than her ambition! that resolved - Her brother's death was needed, and evolved - Plots that should ripen with the ripening year, - And here be reaped, perhaps--nay, nay! not here!-- - Farewell, my Morgane!--Yea, 'twas she who schemed - While there at Chariot we loved and dreamed - Gone some six months.--There nothing gave us care. - Each morning was a liberal almoner - Prodigal of silver to the earth and air: - Each eve, a fiery dragon, cloud-enrolled, - Convulsive, dying overwhelmed with gold; - On such an eve it was, that, redolent, - She sat by me and said,--'My message sent, - Some night--within the forest--thou, my knight! - Thou and the king!--my men--the forest fight!-- - Murder perhaps.--But, well?--who is to blame?'... - So with her blood-red thoughts to me she came. - To me! that woman, brighter than a flame, - And wooed my soul to hell, with love accurs'd; - With harlot lips, from which my being first - Drank hell and heaven. She, who was in sooth - My heaven and hell.--But now, behind her youth - She shrivels to a hag!--I see the truth!-- - Harlot!--nay, spouse of Urience, King of Gore!-- - Wanton!--nay, witch! sweet witch!--what wouldst thou more?-- - Hast thou not had thy dream? and wilt thou grieve - That death so ruins it?--Thou dost perceive - How I still love thee! witness bear this field, - This field and he to whom I would not yield!-- - Would thou wert here to kiss me ere I die!"-- - - Then anger in the good King's gloomy eye - Glowed, instant-embered, as one oft may see - A star blaze up in heaven, then cease to be. - Slow from his visage he his visor raised, - And on the dying knight a moment gazed; - Then grimly said, "Look on me, Accolon! - I am thy King!" He, with an awful groan, - Blade-battered as he was, beheld and knew; - Strained to his tottering knees; and, gasping, drew - Up full his armored height and hoarsely cried, - "The King!" and at his mailed feet crashed and died. - - Then came a world of anxious faces, pressed - About King Arthur; who, though sore distressed, - Bespake that multitude: "While breath and power - Remain, judge we these brothers: This hard hour - Hath given to Damas all this rich estate: - So it is his; allotted his by fate - And force of arms. So let it be to him. - For, stood our oath on knighthood not so slim - But that it hath this strong conclusiön. - This much by us as errant knight is done.-- - Now our decree, as King of Britain, hear: - We do command Earl Damas to appear - No more upon our shores, or any isles - Of farthest Britain in its many miles. - One week be his, no more! then will we come, - Even with an iron host, to seal his doom: - If he be not departed overseas, - With all his men and all his outlawries, - From his own towers, around which sea-birds clang, - Alive and naked shall he starve and hang - And rot! vile food for kites and carrion crows. - Thus much for him!... But all our favor goes - Toward Sir Ontzlake, whom it likes the King - To take into his knightly following - Of the Round Table. Bear to him our word. - But I am over weary. Take my sword.-- - Unharness me, for more and more I tire; - And all my wounds are so much aching fire. - Yea; help me hence. To-morrow I would fain - To Glastonbury and with me the slain." - So bore they then the wounded King away, - The dead behind, as closed the autumn day. - - * * * * * - - But when, within that abbey, he waxed strong, - The King, remembering the marauder wrong - Which Damas had inflicted on that land, - Commanded Lionell, with a stanch band, - To stamp this weed out if still rooted there. - He, riding thither to that robber lair, - Led Arthur's hopefulest helms, when, thorn on thorn, - Reddened an hundred spears one winter morn: - And found--a ruin of fire-blackened rock, - Of tottering towers, that shook to every shock - Of the wild waves; and loomed above the bents - Turrets and cloudy-clustered battlements, - Wailing with wind that swept those clamorous lands: - Above the foam, that climbed with haling hands, - Desolate and gaunt; reflected in the flats; - Hollow and huge, the haunt of owls and bats. - - -IV - - Hate, born of Wrath and mother red of Crime, - In Hell was whelped ere the hot hands of Time, - Artificer of God, had coined our world - Within the formless void, and round it furled - Its lordly raiment of the day and night, - And germed its womb with beauty and delight: - And Hell sent Hate to Earth, that it might use - And serve Hell's ends, filling with flame its cruse.... - - For her half-brother Morgane had conceived - Unnatural hatred; so much so, she grieved, - Envious and jealous, for the high renown - And might the King had gathered round his crown - Through truth and honor. And who was it said, - "Those nearest to the crown are those to dread"?-- - Warm in your breast a serpent, it will sting - The breast that warms it: and albeit the King - Knew of his sister's hate, he passed it by, - Thinking that love and kindness gradually - Would win her heart to him. He little knew - The witch he dealt with, beautiful to view, - And all the poison she could stoop to brew. - She, who, well knowing how much mightier - The King than Accolon, rejoiced that her - Wits had secured from him Excalibur, - Without which, she was certain, in the joust - The King were as a foe unarmed. Her trust - Smiled, confident of conclusion: eloquent, - Within her, whispered of success, that lent - Her heart a lofty hope; and at large eyes - Piled up imperial dreams of power and prize. - And in her carven chamber, oaken-dark, - Traceried and arrased,--when the barren park - Dripped, drenched with autumn,--for November lay - Swathed frostily in fog on every spray,-- - She at her tri-arched casement sate one night, - Ere yet came courier from that test of might. - Her lord in slumber and the castle full - Of drowsy silence and the rain's dull lull: - "The King removed?--my soul!--he _is_ removed! - Ere now dog-dead he lies. His sword hath proved - Too much for him. Yet! let him lie in state, - The great king, Arthur!--But, regenerate, - Now crown our other monarch, Accolon! - And, with him, Love, the ermined! balmy son - Of gods, not men; and nobler hence to rule. - Love, Love almighty; beautiful to school - The hearts and souls of mortals!--Then this realm's - Iron-huskéd flower of war,--that overwhelms - The world with havoc,--will explode and bloom - The amaranth, peace, with love for its perfume. - And then, O Launcelots and Tristrams, vowed - To Gueneveres and Isouds,--now allowed - No pleasure but what hour by stolen hour, - In secret places, brings to flaming flower,-- - You shall have feasts of passion evermore! - And out-thrust Love, now shivering at the door, - No more shalt stand neglected and cast off, - Insulted and derided; and the scoff - Of War, the bully, whose hands of insult fling - Off, for the iron of arms, thy hands that cling - About his brutal feet, that crush thy face, - Bleeding, into the dust.--Here, in War's place, - We will erect a shrine of sacrifice; - Love's sacrifice; a shrine of purest price; - Where each shall lay his heart and each his soul - For Love, for earthly Love! who shall control - The world, and make it as the Heaven whole; - Being to it its stars and moon and sun, - Its firmament and all its lights in one. - And if by such Love Heaven should be debarred, - Its God, its spheres, with spiritual love in-starred, - Hell will be Heaven, our Heaven, while Love shall thus - Remain earth Love, that God encouraged in us. - - "And now for Urience, my gaunt old lord!-- - There lies my worry.--Yet, hath he no sword - No dangerous dagger I, hid softly here, - Sharp as an adder's fang? or for his ear - No instant poison to insinuate - Ice in his pulses, and with death abate?" - So did she then determine; on that night - Of lonely autumn, when no haggard, white, - Wan, watery moon dreamed on the streaming pane; - But, on the leads, beat the incessant rain, - And the lamenting wind wailed wild among - The trees and turrets, like a phantom throng. - So grew her face severe as skies that take - Suggestions of far storm whose thunders shake - The distant hills with wrath, and cleave with fire - A pine the moaning forest mourns as sire-- - So touched her countenance that dark intent: - And in still eyes her thoughts were evident, - As in dark waters, luminous and deep, - The heavens glass themselves when o'er them sweep - The clouds of storm and austere stars they keep,-- - Ghostly and gray,--locked in their steadfast gloom. - Then, as if some great wind had swept the room, - Silent, intense, she rose up from her seat. - As if dim arms had made her a retreat, - Secret as thought to move in, like a ghost, - Noiseless as sleep and subtle as the frost, - Poised like a light and borne as carefully, - She trod the gusty hall where shadowy - The hangings rolled a dim Pendragon war. - And there the mail of Urience shone. A star, - Glimmering above, a dying cresset dropped - From the stone vault and flared. And here she stopped, - And took the sword, fresh-burnished by his page, - Long as a flame of pale, arrested rage.-- - For she had thought that, when they found him dead, - His sword laid by him on the bloody bed - Would be convictive that his own hand had - Done him this violence when fever-mad. - The sword she took; and to the chamber, where - King Urience slept, she glided; like an air, - Smooth in seductive sendal; or a fit - Of faery song, a wicked charm in it, - That slays; an incantation full of guile. - She paused upon his threshold; for a while - Listened; and, sure he slept, stole in and stood - Crouched o'er his couch. About her heart the blood - Caught, strangling; then rose throbbing, thud on thud, - Up to her wide-stretched eyes, and up and up, - As wine might, whirling wildly in a cup. - Then came rare Recollection, with a mouth - Sweet as the honeyed sunbeams of the South - Trickling through perplexed ripples of the leaves; - To whose faint form a veil of starshine cleaves - Intricate gauze from memoried eyes to feet-- - Feet softer than the sifted snows and fleet - To come and go and airy anxiously. - She, trembling to her, like a flower a bee - Nests in and makes an audible mouth of musk, - Lisping a downy message to the dusk, - Laid lips to ears and languaged memories of - Now hateful Urience:--How her maiden love - Had left Caerleon secretly for Gore, - With him, one day of autumn. How a boar, - Wild as the wildness of the solitude, - Raged at her from a cavern of the wood, - That, crimson-creepered, yawned the bristling curse - Murderous upon her. As her steed grew worse - And, terrified, fled snorting down the dell, - How she had flung herself from out the selle, - In fear, upon a bank of springy moss, - Where she lay swooning: in an utter loss - Of mind and limbs; wherein she seemed to see, - Or saw in horror, half unconsciously,-- - As one who pants beneath an incubus - And strives to shriek or move, delirious,-- - The monster-thing thrust tow'rds her, tusked and fanged, - And hideous snouted: how the whole wood clanged - And buzzed and boomed a hundred sounds and lights - Lawless about her brain,--like leaves wild nights - Of hurricane harvest, shouting.--Then it seemed - A fury thundered 'twixt them--and she screamed - As round her flew th' uprooted loam that held - Leaves, twigs and matted moss; and, clanging, swelled - Continual echoes with the thud of strife, - And groan of man and brute that warred for life: - How all the air, gone mad with foam and forms, - Spun froth and, 'twixt her, wrestled hair and arms, - And hoofs and feet that crushed the leaves and shred, - Whirling them wildly, brown, and yellow, and red. - And how she rose and leaned her throbbing head, - With all its uncoifed braids of raven hair - Disheveled, on one arm,--as white and fair - And smooth as milk,--and saw, as through a haze, - The brute thing throttled and the frowning face - Of Urience bent above it, browed with might; - One red swol'n arm, that pinned the hairy fright, - Strong as a god's, iron at the gullet's brawn: - Dug in its midriff, the close knees, updrawn, - Wedged, as with steel, the glutton sides that strove,-- - A shaggy bulk,--with hoofs that drove and drove. - And then she saw how Urience swiftly slipped - One arm, the monster's tearing tusks had ripped - And ribboned redly, to the dagger's hilt,-- - Which at his hip hung long, its haft gold-gilt;-- - Flame-like it flashed; and then, as bright as ice, - Plunged, and replunged; again, now twice, now thrice; - And the huge boar, stretched out in sullen death, - Lay, bubbling blood, with harsh, laborious breath. - Then how he brought her water from a well, - That rustled freshly near them as it fell - From its full-mantled urn, in his deep casque, - And begged her drink; then bathed her brow, a task - That had accompanying tears of joy and vows - Of love, and intercourse of eyes and brows, - And many kisses: then, beneath the boughs, - His wound dressed, and her steed still violent - From fear, she mounted and behind him bent - And clasped him on the same steed; and they went - On through the gold wood tow'rds the golden west, - Till, on one low hill's forest-covered crest, - Gray from the gold, his castle's battlements pressed. - And then she felt she'd loved him till had come - Fame of the love of Isoud, whom, from home, - Tristram had brought across the Irish foam; - And Guenevere's for Launcelot of the Lake: - Then how her thought from these did seem to take - Reflex of longing; and within her wake - Desire for some great lover who should slake; - And such found Accolon. - - And then she thought - How far she'd fallen, and how darkly fraught - With consequence was this. Then what distress - Were hers and his--her lover's--and success - How doubly difficult if, Arthur slain, - King Urience lived to assert his right to reign. - So she stood pondering with the sword; her lips - Breathless, and tight as were her finger-tips - About the weapon's hilt. And so she sighed, - "Nay, nay! too long hast lived who shouldst have died - Even in the womb, my sorrow! who for years - Hast leashed my life to thine, a bond of tears, - A weight of care, a knot that thus I part! - Thus harshly sever! Ugly that thou art - Into the elements naked!" - - O'er his heart - The long blade paused and--then descended hard. - Unfleshed, she flung it by her murdered lord, - And watched the blood spread darkly through the sheet, - And drip, a horror, at impassive feet - Pooling the polished oak. Regretless she - Stood, and relentless; in her ecstasy - A lovely devil: demon crowned, that cried - For Accolon, with passion that defied - Control in all her senses; clamorous as - A torrent in a cavernous mountain pass - That sweeps to wreck and ruin; at that hour - So swept her longing tow'rds her paramour. - Him whom, King Arthur had commanded when - Borne from the lists, she should receive again; - Her lover, her dear Accolon, as was just, - As was but due her for her love--and lust. - And while she stood revolving if her deed's - Secret were safe, behold! a noise of steeds, - Arms, jingling stirrups, voices loud that cursed - Fierce in the northern court. To her, athirst - For him her lover, war and power it spoke, - Him victor and so king. And then awoke - Desire to see and greet him: and she fled, - Like some wild spectre, down the stairs; and, red, - Burst on a glare of links and glittering mail, - That shrunk her eyes and made her senses quail. - To her a bulk of iron, bearded fierce, - Down from a steaming steed into her ears, - "This from the King, O Queen!" laughed harsh and hoarse: - Two henchmen beckoned, who pitched sheer, with force, - Loud clanging at her feet, hacked, hewn, and red, - Crusted with blood, a knight in armor--dead: - Her Accolon, flung in his battered arms - By what to her seemed fiends and demon forms, - Wild-torched, who mocked; then, with the parting scoff, - "This from the King!" phantoms in fog, rode off. - - * * * * * - - And what remains?--From Camelot to Gore - That night she, wailing, fled; thence, to the shore,-- - As old romances tell,--of Avalon; - Where she hath majesty gold-crowned and wan: - Clothed dark in cypress, still her lovely face - Is young and queenly; sweeter though in grace, - And softer for the sorrow there; the trace - Of immemorial tears as for some crime, - Attempted or committed at some time, - Some old, unhappy time of long ago, - That haunts her eyes and fills them with its woe: - Sad eyes, dark, future-fixed, expectant of - That far-off hour awaited of her love, - When the forgiving Arthur cometh and - Shall rule, dim King, o'er all that golden land, - That Isle of Avalon, where none grows old, - Where spring is ever, and never a wind blows cold; - That lifts its mountains from forgotten seas - Of surgeless turquoise deep with mysteries.-- - And so was seen Morgana nevermore, - Save once, when from the Cornwall coast she bore - The wounded Arthur from that last fought fight - Of Camlan in a black barge into night. - But some may see her, with a palfried band - Of serge-stoled maidens, through the drowsy land - Of autumn glimmer,--when are sadly strewn - The red leaves, and, broad in the east, the moon - Hangs, full of frost, a lustrous globe of gleams,-- - Faint on the mooning hills as shapes in dreams. - - - - -PEREDUR, THE SON OF EVRAWC - - - Beyond the walls, past wood and twilight field, - The Usk slipped onward under wharf and wall - Of old Caerleon, rolling down, it seemed,-- - Incarnadined with splendor of the west,-- - The heathen blood of all of Arthur's wars. - So she had left him; and he stood alone - Within the carven casement, where a ray - Of sunset laid a bleeding spear athwart - The dark oak hall, and, on the arras gaunt - A crimson blade of battle red that dripped.-- - And now life's bitterness took Peredur - By all his heart's strings, smiting. He would go, - Equipped for quest, through all the savagery - Of mountain and of forest. And this girl?-- - Forget her! and her game of shuttlecock, - Of battledore and shuttlecock with his heart, - This Angharad! this child the Court had spoiled! - Now he remembered how he once had ridd'n, - Spurring his piebald stallion down the square, - Upon the King's quest, and a girl had laughed - From some be-dragoned balcony of walls - That faced the gateway; and in passing he - Had glimpsed her beauty. It was she. And then - He thought how she had haunted him for days, - For weeks; and how, returning to Caerleon, - His long quest ended, how it thus befell: - Deep snow had fallen and the winter wood - Lay carpeted with silence. And he rode - Into a vista where a raven lay - Slain of a hawk; some blood-drops dyed the snow. - He lost himself in quaint comparisons - Of how the sifted drift was as her skin; - The raven's feathers as her heavy hair; - And in her cheeks the health of maidenhood - Red as the blood-drops. So he sat and dreamed: - When one rode up in angry steel and spoke - Thrice to no answer, and in anger dashed - A gauntlet in his face and made at him: - And how he slew him and rode over him, - Fiercer than fire; then how he returned - To find her fairer than their Gwenddolen,-- - Who, ere the coming of this loveliness, - Divided all men's hearts with Gwenhwyvar:-- - Crowned beauty of the beautiful at Court, - With Gwenhwyvar, and fair among the fair. - - Thus while he mused he thought he heard her voice: - Or was it fancy? teasing him with sounds - Of music and of words: or did he hear - Her lute below the creepered walls? whose leaves, - Crimson with autumn, reddened all the court, - Burning continual sunset, where she sat - Beside the ceaseless whisper of the foam - Of one faint fountain. Sweeter mockery - Had never held him: and he heard her sing:-- - - "Ask me not now to sing to thee - Songs I have loved to sing before. - I love thee not; it can not be: - The dream is done; the song is o'er. - - "Come, hold my hands: look deep into - The heartbreak of my eyes that bore - Glad welcome erst and now adieu; - Adieu, adieu forevermore! - - "Once more shalt kiss my mouth and brow; - Once more my hair,--as oft of yore - When it was love and I and thou,-- - Then nevermore! ah, nevermore! - - "Thou must not weep; I can not weep: - I love thee not; should I regret?-- - Nay! go; forget my face and sleep, - Sleep and forget! sleep and forget!" - - "Aye! that I will! thy face, thy form, thy voice, - O bird of spring! whose beak is in my heart. - Take out thy beak, and sing me back my soul! - O bird of spring," he said, "when flowers are dead - Thy wing will winter underneath the pine, - And hunger, for the summer that is gone, - Will slay thy music with the memory. - God give thou find no winter in thy heart - Whenas dost find the frost invades thy voice! - Ah, lovelier than thy song, there's that in me - That harps and sings of thee; that troubadours - Thy beauty! ballades, sonnets it! and makes - A lyric of each heart-beat--all in vain: - Thou dost not heed, thou wilt not hear it sing. - Or, if thou dost, 'tis but in wantonness, - Indifference pretending interest: then praise, - A moiety, in mockery. And this - To one who'd love thee over all belief, - Above all women and beyond all men." - - She strummed her lute. He listened, and then laughed, - "God's life! our Dagonet might teach me sense, - The folly that I am!--What? have I slept - A sennight in the taking of the moon, - Or danced, sleep-footed, with the forest fays?-- - One would imagine.... No!... O silken Lust, - O Wantonness! whose soft, voluptuous skirts - Trail sweet contamination through these halls! - O lawless Love, whose evil influence - Haunts and parades Caerleon corridors! - O Vanity and Falsehood, throned within - The faithless Court, here is another soul, - Fresh, fragrant, like a wild-flower of the woods, - Ready and willing to be plucked and worn, - And placed among those soiled and hothouse flowers, - You long have worn, Isolt and Gwenhwyvar! - The forest flower, innocent as yet,-- - The fairest, hence the more to be desired, - The quickest, too, to wither,--whose sweet name - Is Angharad!... Ho! page! my horse! my mail!-- - God's wounds! my horse! my arms!--I will away!" - - And many knights he passed, nor saw; who asked - What quest he rode. Inscrutable deeds behind - His visor, and along his sullen spear - Adventure bitter as a burning ray, - Into the night he galloped with the stars. - - * * * * * - - And one lone night, two years thereafter,--lost - Within a forest wilder than wild Dean; - Where neither wind nor water shook the leaves, - That hung as turned to stone above the moss - And grass, that wrapped the scaly rocks, death-dry, - And barren torrents; where he had not found - Or man or hut, or slot of boar or deer, - Through miles and miles of lamentable trees - And twisted thorns; beneath the autumn moon,-- - (Pale as a nun's face seen in cloistered walks)-- - Above dead tree-tops, like the rugged rock - Of melancholy cliffs, he saw wild walls - Of some vague castle thrust gray battlements - And hoary towers, like a wizard's dream. - Great greedy weeds and burrs and briers packed - Its moat and roadway: at the very gate - Weeds higher than a man; their ancient stalks - Devoured with the dust and spider-webs, - Or smothered with the slime where croaked the toad. - And Peredur against the portal rode, - And with his spear-point beat upon its bolts - A sounding minute. But no wolf-hound bayed; - Only dull echoes of interior walls - And hollow rock that arched the empty halls. - And once again his truncheon shook the gate - And roused a round-eyed owl that screamed and blinked, - Like some fierce gargoyle, on the bartizan; - And from a crevice, like an omen, hurled - A frantic bat. And then he heard a grate, - Concealed within the gloomy battlements, - Slide slowly; and a lean, gaunt, red-haired youth, - Lit with a link, addressed him. And he saw - That famine had sunk hollows in his cheeks, - And fixed gaunt misery in mouth and eyes. - "What knight art thou?" he asked. "And whence dost come?"-- - And Peredur replied, "First let me in. - I am of Arthur's Court. Long have I ridd'n - Through miles and miles of melancholy woods. - The night begins to storm. And I would rest." - Then said the youth, sad mirth about his mouth, - "Rest shalt thou; yea: and since thou, haply, hast - Fasted all day, thou shalt break bread with us."-- - Then he retired from the grated slide: - Undid harsh chains and shot back stubborn bolts; - And, stiff with rust, the snarling hinges swung. - And Peredur rode armed into a court, - Neglected, and pathetic with strewn leaves - And offal, where the weed and wire-grass - Creviced with wisps the loose and broken stones: - And overhead, around the mournful walls, - Huge oaks thrust ancient boughs of mistletoe - And withered leaves, whose twisted wildness seemed - The beckoning arms of hunger, and the hands, - Hooked and distorted, darkly threatening, - Of murder; enemies that, pitiless, - Had laid long siege to that old forest hold. - - And he dismounted. And in clanking mail - Strode down the hall. And in the hall beheld - Youths, lean and auburn-haired, around the hearth; - Some eighteen of an equal height, and clad - Alike in dingy garments that looked worn - And old. And these were like to him who first - Had bid him welcome. And they greeted him - And took his arms; and bade him to a seat. - And then an inner door flung wide; and, lo, - Five maidens, like five forest flowers, came; - Dark-eyed, dark-haired. Behold, the queen of these - Was Angharad. Clad in a ragged robe - Of faded satin that had once been rich. - She looked at Peredur, and he at her: - And with glad eyes once more his soul beheld - The hair far blacker than the bird that wings - Athwart the milk-white moon: the matchless skin, - Inviolably white as wind-flowers blown - Among the mighty gospels of the trees: - And in her cheeks, the rose of maidenhood - Red as round berries winter bushes dot - The dimpled drift with under loaded boughs. - She knew him not, or seemed to; or forgot - To speak his name whenas she looked at him - And, blushing, welcomed. - - And they sat and talked - Until the night waxed late. And as they talked - He marked that hunger had made hollow haunts - Of all their eyes; and so he longed to ask, - But courtesy forbade him. Late it grew, - And late and later; and at last there came - A knocking, and, as shadowy as two ghosts, - Two nuns came gliding; sandalled silence in - Frail footsteps, and pale caution on pale lips. - One brought a jar of wine, and one brought bread, - Six loaves of wheaten flour. And these said, - "God bear us witness, Lady, this is all! - Now is our Convent barren as thy board;" - And so departed. And they sat and ate. - - * * * * * - - The wind upon the forest and the rain - Upon the turrets. Had he heard a sigh - Or was it but the echo of his own, - Born of great weariness, that broke his rest?-- - A dream! a dream!--The autumn storm is on, - And sows the wood with witchcraft, and the leaves - Are chased by imps of darkness through the hail - And hurling rain. The wind is wild with leaves. - Again he slept. - - The rain among the trees, - The wind upon the turrets. Had he moaned, - Now that he lay awake and heard the wind - Hoot on the towers like a green-eyed owl? - The rain and wind. The night is black with rain. - Within the forest like a voice the wind; - And on the turrets, like swift feet, the rain. - Now was he sure 'twas weeping; and arose, - And found her at his door; and took her hand, - That like a soft persuasion lay in his. - He felt long sobbings shake it. And he said, - "Tell me, my sister, wherefore dost thou weep?" - And Angharad, "Yea; I will tell it thee.-- - My name is Angharad. My father held - An Earldom under Arthur, yea, the first - In all his Kingdom: and this Castle, too, - Was his with cantrevs to the west and east. - When I was but a girl Earl Addanc met - And loved me. Once, when hunting, he came here - And sought my father and demanded me. - He said he loved me, and would have but me - To grace his bed and board, this Earl! But I-- - I did not love him, being but a child, - My father's only child; I could not love. - And so my father said this should not be. - The Earl was wroth. I heard his furious stride - Beneath my casement; double demons pinched - His evil eyes and twenty gnarled his face. - He cursed us ere he rode beyond our walls - Then to Caerleon was I sent; and there - Became a woman of young Gwenhwyvar, - Until my father's death two years agone, - When I returned, a Countess, to find war - And Addanc here around beleaguered walls. - So hath he stripped me of my appanage; - Save this one keep, whose strength hath held out long, - Manned by my foster brothers, brave and young, - Strong to endure, but lacking still in arms; - No match for knights like Addanc. Thou hast met - The eighteen youths whose valor will not yield. - But what avail their valor and their will - Against hard hunger, now our larder lacks, - And lacks the Convent, too, whereon we leaned? - And Addanc comes to-morrow morn; the truce - For our one day's deliberation done. - If he prevail--the thought is like hot hands - Here on my brain!--his oath is 'that the night - Shall see me given over to his grooms.'" - She wept with tremblings. Then said Peredur: - "Go, dry thy tears, my sister. And this Earl-- - If he be early, call me not too late. - Fear not. I will not go until my sword - Hath crossed the sword of so much wickedness, - And proved this base ambition. Go and sleep." - - * * * * * - - A morning gray with mist that gathered drops - Of drizzle on the ever dripping leaves. - And then the mist divided: ghostly mail, - Spears and limp pennons, and the shadowy steeds - Of shadowy knights and chieftains. And it seemed - A host of phantoms come to lay dim siege - To phantom walls whose warriors were ghosts. - Afar a bugle flourished in the fog, - Disconsolate; no echo of the wood - To bear its music burden. To the moat - Advanced a herald. And within the wall - The grate was opened; and the gaunt-eyed youth - Held parley with him: "How the Earl would make - End of the long dispute to-day, and leave, - 'Twixt three a single combat to decide." - So Peredur bade arm him, and prepare - His horse for battle; and bade give the Earl - His answer for the Castle: "That one knight - Would try the hauberks of the banded three." - And he rode forth: and one rode up and scoffed,-- - A knight in russet armor with loud words,-- - "Small means to large results, forsooth! Thou boast! - A vicious palate hath thy appetite - That feasted long with hunger and must now - Conclude the banquet with three deaths!--Sir Death, - Here is thy death!" and hacked at Peredur - A heavy stroke that gashed his chain camail. - But, rising in stiff stirrups, ere he passed, - Two-handed swung the sword of Peredur, - And helm and head of him who fell were twain, - Halved like an apple. And the walls were glad. - - Then came another, clad in silver mail, - As he were Galahad; and in the mist - Glimmered like moonlight. And with levelled spear - Demanded: "Whence and what art thou? this stroke - Was never fathered by long fasting."--Then - Quoth Peredur, "I am of Arthur's Court."-- - Then sneered the other with a mocking laugh, - "A goodly service truly that of his, - Since all his knights, whom I have met, have died!"-- - Quoth Peredur: "Thy falsehood choke thee dead! - Within thy throat thus do I nail thy lie!" - And at his gorget hurled his ponderous spear, - Ere that one met him, spurring at full speed, - Disdainful. And the desperate stroke of him - Who had wrought havoc with the Table Round, - Glanced shattering from the sloping shield, while he, - Bent backwards o'er his saddle, rolled--his tongue - Cleft at the root. And all the walls were glad. - - Now came a third: a black knight and a black - Enormous steed. No words he wasted. But, - The fierce spears splintered, from the baldrics burned - Swift blades: and Battle held his breath a while - To see the great shields rock beneath great blows, - Oppose, deploy, as hilt to hilt they hewed - At heaume and gorget. While the conflict dripped - Between the splintered greaves from many wounds. - Then Peredur, his whole strength wrenching at - Unyielding shelter of his foeman's shield, - Beat down his guard and smote.--And Addanc lay - Beneath the son of Evrawc, whose swift hands - Razed off his casque and laid a blind blade bare - Across hot eyes, and set a heel of steel - Upon his throat and said: "Thou coward curse! - What woman wilt thou war with now?--'Tis well - Thy features are thus evil and might breed - Nightmares among the kestrels, kites, and crows, - Else hadst thou been, ere this,--so says my sword,-- - A head the shorter! and that head hung high - Upon the highest battlement. What now! - What wilt thou do for thy vile life? what now! - Speak! or I smite! O thou base villainy, - Out on thy ugly mouth!--Speak!" Cursing, he, - A stricken bulk, growled, "Let me live! And I, - Upon my knighthood, swear that I will make - Unto this woman, Angharad, returns - For all her losses. Let me live."--And so - The sword slid from his eyes and from his neck - The heel. And he arose--to make in full - Due restitution of her lands to her - He had so robbed and harassed. And in time - This was fulfilled. - - But Peredur remained,-- - For, to be near her and to do for her - Was all his happiness,--until the land - Acknowledged her with all obedience. - Her rights established, what more now remained - To lend excuse unto his long delay?-- - And so he went to her, and led her from - Amid her maidens, and bespoke her how - "He would ride hence and would but say farewell." - - A while she gazed at him. And when she spoke - The springs of tears seemed starting in her throat, - Crystal and quivering. But with steady gaze, - "Dost thou, my knight, desire then to go? - Methought that thou wouldst tarry yet a while.-- - A little while.--Well hast thou fought for me." - - A moment was he silent; turning then, - Ground iron strides along the lofty hall, - And so returned with iron strides and said: - "Ay, by my God! Who knows I have not fought - _For_ thee but still _against_ thee. 'Tis my curse, - To love thee, love thee, love thee all these years!-- - I came not here to woo. Thou wouldst but laugh.-- - Haply thou hast forgotten me--thou hast!-- - Yea, hast forgotten, aye long, long ago, - That son of Evrawc, Evrawc of the North, - Who wooed thee once!... Hast memory of him yet?... - Look in his eyes once more and say farewell." - - "My soul, my soul!" she said; "O my true soul! - This shall not be, my soul!"--He heard her low - Voice pleading softly, and, deep in his heart, - New life leapt up, and sang in every pulse, - "She loves me! yea, she loves me!"--And it seemed - He heard her as men hear the voice of hope - Upon despair's black brink; and see one star - Bloom, like a lily with a heart of fire - Throbbing within it, slowly out of night. - Each syllable the petal of a flower, - A rose of music, welcome as the star, - The first the eve gives silvery utterance to; - Or as the firstling bud, the wildwood rose, - Dropped from the rosy lips of laughing Spring:-- - "I have remembered. Think'st thou I have not?-- - O son of Evrawc, thou who couldst not see, - 'Neath bells of folly and a merry mask, - A girl's dear secret through her tinsel acts.-- - Or was _thy_ love but fancy?--Ah, too soon, - I heard the vapid ending of a tale - Coquetry had begun for other end.-- - But, if thou wilt, we can resume the tale; - The beautiful story of true love.--Tell on! - Tell on, my heart! Or have we reached the end? - And is it wedlock?--Both were wrong. The one: - Because his love was blind, impetuous, - Nor saw the love that would have proved 'twas love, - Not lust, before surrender. The other: that - She sought for wisdom in the frivolous, - And so made falsehood of her dearest truth, - Deceived more than deceiving.--Wilt thou go?" - - He had no rhetoric to make reply: - Only his arms about her, and his eyes - Upon her eyes, and kisses on her mouth. - Long time they stood.--Outside, the sunset flung - Barbaric glory on the autumn wood.-- - And lifting up her face he said to her: - "Hast thou thy lute still? Then come sing to me; - That song again, that pleased me once so ill-- - Two years ago at parting. If it please - No better now, straightway I will depart, - And--thou with me. Yea, on one steed, if needs, - We will ride forth together to the Queen, - To old Caerleon, and King Arthur's Court; - And Gwenhwyvar shall kiss thee and confess - Thou art her loveliest flower, my own wild rose, - And give thee to me who will wear thee here." - - - - -ISOLT - -"_But when the queen, La beale Isoude heard these tidings shee made such -sorrow that shee was full nigh out of her minde, and so upon a day she -thought to slay herselfe, and never for to live after Sir Tristram's -death._"--Le Morte d'Arthure. - - -I - - The wild dawn flares o'er wood and vale, - O'er all the world she used to love: - Low on her couch it finds her pale, - The dawn that breaks with flame above. - Her lute, that once was all her care, - To which her love had often sung, - Upon a damask-covered chair - Now lies neglected and unstrung. - Back from her face her hair she throws, - Her heavy hair that falls and slips, - Then, rising, to the casement goes - With languid eyes and pallid lips. - - -II - - With feverish face from morn till noon, - And noon to middle-night she stoops - From her high lattice; late and soon - In search for him among the troops - That come and go or loiter by. - For there had come a dame, in garb - Of pearls and samite, green of dye, - A stately woman on a barb, - From Camelot, who, looking round, - Had sneered, "'Mid herdsmen and such craft - This Tristram lives like any hound." - Then as she shook her curls and laughed, - And flashed on Isolt looks of scorn, - Trailing her glimmering jewels past, - "I met a madman yestermorn - Within the forest. Wild, aghast - He stood, all naked in the rain, - 'Twas Tristram, he of Lyonesse, - A good knight once, but now--" Again - She laughed, then sneered.--And one might guess - The thing she hinted in disdain. - - -III - - So Isolt watched now: long she leant - From her high tower that hapless dawn: - Above her bloomed the firmament, - Below, the world was dewy wan. - She saw a long lake where the stags - Came down to drink: and woods of pines - Beyond which mountains loomed, whose crags,-- - Gaunt guardians of Mark's boundary lines,-- - Gray watch-towers, hawk-like, overhung; - And 'mid the pines, wild, ivy-clung, - She saw a castle lift its old - Green walls of ruin, now a cave - For bandits, and a robber-hold - Of lust, beside a torrent's wave. - Then o'er a bridge, whose granite arched - The torrent's foam, she saw a knight,-- - Behind whom spear-armed followers marched,-- - Like Galahad, in glittering white, - Ride from the forest-covered height. - - -IV - - High on a barb whose trappings shone - Inlaid with laton, gold of hue, - Star-bright amid the dawn and dew; - Proud on his lordly-stepping roan - He rode, and seemed of chivalry - The star, until he stood alone - Before the Court and spoke his lie, - And said,--(for him, too, heart and tongue, - Mark's gold had bought)--"I saw him die. - Alas! for one so brave and young! - But better so than still to be - A madman and a mockery!"-- - Then smiled around the questioning Court - As one who brought no ill report.... - And she believed. And front to front - With all her misery that eve,-- - Which, sombre-visaged, o'er the mount, - Above Day's burning bier did grieve - And bow her melancholy star,-- - With tearful eyes she watched the light - Streak all the heaven with blood afar; - And lingered far into the night, - Lamenting at her casement-bar. - - -V - - "Oh, I'm like one who o'er her light, - Her lamp of love, bends down, when, lo! - All on a sudden, out of night, - Dashing it down, there comes a blow - That leaves all darkness; and she hears - A demon whispering in the gloom, - That shuts her in with all her fears," - So thought she, lonely in her room. - Then took her lute and touched such airs - As Tristram loved, sad songs of Breön, - She once had heard, all unawares, - Sir Launcelot sing in old Caerleön, - To Guinevere upon the stairs, - The terrace stairs, beside the Usk, - Deep in the nightingale-haunted dusk. - Then ceased, and wept until the stars, - Seen through her tears, made heaven all tears, - On fire with tears, that left their scars - Upon its face; and all the years - Of grief and love seemed in their spheres: - And reaching out her arms she cried, - "O God! O God! that I had died! - O Tristram! Tristram! art thou near? - O love, be near me in this hour! - This hour of anguish and of fear! - Which,--(like yon fountain's ceaseless foam, - Unseen, beneath this starlit tower, - Deep in the shadow of its dome),-- - Throbs on and on within my life, - The utter darkness of its woe.-- - O hour of grief! O hour of strife! - Why must my young heart suffer so? - Why must my sick soul sigh and sigh, - And God not hear nor let me die?" - - -VI - - When rose the moon, and far away - A nightingale beneath the tower, - Heard through the fountain's falling spray, - Made lonelier yet that lonely hour; - And 'twixt the nodding grove and lake - A glimmering fawn stalked through the night, - And snuffed the wind, then bent to slake - Its thirst; she veiled her face,--as white - As death's,--and said: "The way is clear! - There is no use in waiting here! - Come! let me cure this heart that bursts! - This pain is more than I can bear!-- - Come! let me still this soul that thirsts!... - Upon the lake, as thick as stars - In heav'n, the lilies lie asleep.-- - There lies a way beyond these bars, - These walls of flesh that hold and keep! - The nightingale shall find its mate, - The fawn its fellow, and must I, - The spouse of grief, the wife of hate, - Live on alone until I die?-- - How long, how long, O God, to wait!"... - Far through the darkness went her cry. - - - - -THE DREAM OF SIR GALAHAD - -_With the knights Peredur and Gawain he sits, in a chapel in Lyonesse, -speaking while the dawn slowly reddens on the sea, gray-seen through the -open door._ - - -I - - Cast on sleep there came to me - Three great angels, o'er the sea - Moaning near the priory: - Cloudy clad in awful white, - Each one's face, a lucid light, - Rayed and blossomed out of night. - - -II - - In my sleep I saw them rest, - Each, a long hand on her breast, - Like the new-moon in the west: - And their hair like sunset rolled - Down their shoulders, burning cold, - An insufferable gold. - - -III - - Flaming round each high brow bent - Fourfold starry gold, that sent - Light before them as they went: - 'Neath their burning crowns their eyes - Shone like awful stars the skies - Rock in shattered storm that flies. - - -IV - - Dark their eyes were, lurid dark; - And within their eyes a spark - Like the opal's burned: my sark - Seemed to shrivel 'neath their gaze; - As, with marvel and amaze, - All my soul it seemed to raise. - - -V - - And I saw their mouths were fire, - Ruby-red as the desire - Of the Sanc Graal: fair and dire - Were their lips, whereon the kiss - Of all Heaven lay; the bliss - Of all happiness that is. - - -VI - - Calm as Beauty lying dead, - Tapers lit at feet and head, - Were they, round whom prayers seemed said: - Fragrant as that woman who, - Born of blossoms and of dew - And of magic, wedded Llew. - - -VII - - And the first one said to me:-- - "Thou hast slept thus holily - While seven sands ran shadowy; - Earth hath served thee like a slave, - Serving us who found thee brave, - Pure of life and great to save: - - -VIII - - "Know!"--She touched my brow: a pain - As of arrows pierced my brain: - Ceased: and earth, both sea and plain, - Vanished: and I stood where thought - Stands, and worship, spirit-fraught, - Watching how the heavens are wrought. - - -IX - - Then the second said to me: - "Thou hast come all sinlessly - Thro' life's sin-enveloped sea: - Know the things thou hast not seen: - Filling all the soul with sheen; - Meaning more than earth may mean: - - -X - - "See!"--Her voice sang like a lyre, - Comprehending all desire - In its gamut's throbbing fire:-- - And my inner eyelids,--which - Dimmed clairvoyance,--raised: and rich, - As one chord's vibrating pitch, - - -XI - - Grew my soul with light: that saw - The embodiment of awe, - Love, divinity, and law, - Orbed and eöned: and the power, - Circumstance, like some vast flower; - From which time fell, hour on hour. - - -XII - - 'Neath the third one's mighty will - All my soul lay very still, - Feeling all its being thrill - As she, smiling, said to me: - "Thou dost know, and thou canst see: - What thou art arise and be!" - - -XIII - - To my lips her lips she pressed; - And my new-born soul, thrice-blessed, - Clasped her radiance and caressed: - Mounted and, in glory clad, - Soared with them who chorused glad: - "Christ awaits thee, Galahad!" - - - - -AFTER THE TOURNAMENT - -_The good Knight_, SIR LIONELL DE GANIS, _wounded unto death, addresses -his Lady_, EVALOTT, _in the Forest of Dean, whither he has been borne on -his shield_. - - -I - - And shall it be, when white thorns flake - With blossoms all the Maytime brake, - The rustle of a flower or leaf - Will let thee know - That I am near thee, as thy grief, - As long ago? - - -II - - Or shall it be, when blows and dies - The wood-anemone, two eyes - Will gaze in thine, as faint as frost? - And thou, in dreams, - Wilt hear the sigh of one long lost, - Who near thee seems. - - -III - - Or shall it be, where waters soothe - The stillness, thou wilt hear the smooth - Dim notes of a familiar lute, - And in thine ears - Old Provence melodies, long mute, - Like falling tears?... - - -IV - - Now doff my helm.--Loop thy white arm - Beneath my hair. So. Let thy warm - Blue eyes gaze in mine for a space, - A little while... - Love, it will rest me... And thy face-- - Ah, let it smile. - - -V - - Now art thou thou. Yet--let thy hair, - A golden wonder, fall; thy fair - Full throat bend low; thy kiss be hot - With love, not dry - With anguish.--Sweet, my Evalott! - Now let me die. - - - - -THE DARK TOWER - -"_Childe Rowland to the dark tower came._" - - --King Lear. - - - The hills around were iron, - The sky, a boundless black, - Where wells of the lightning opened - And boiled with blazing rack, - When he came to the giant castle, - The wild rain on his back. - - Huge in the night and tempest, - Over the cataract's bed, - Its windows, ulcers of fire, - Its gate, a hell-lit red, - The Dark Tower loomed; and wildly - A voice sang overhead. - - Thrice, under its warlock turrets, - Where the causeway of rock was laid; - Thrice, there at its owlet portal, - His scornful bugle brayed; - And the drawbridge clanged at his summons, - And he rode in unafraid. - - The heavens were riven asunder, - One glare of blinding storm; - And the blackness, chasmed with thunder, - Blazed form on demon form, - As he rode in the court of the castle, - The shield upon his arm. - - His sword unsheathed and open - The vizor of his casque, - Childe Rowland entered the donjon - His gauntlet should unmask: - But naught, save night and silence, - He found, and none to ask. - - His heel on the stair crashed iron, - His hand on the door clashed steel-- - In the hall, the roar of the torrent, - In the turret, the thunder's peal-- - And there in the highest turret - She sat at a spinning-wheel. - - She spun the flax of a spindle, - All in a magic space; - She spun with her head bent downward, - His Lady, fair of face; - She spun, all wildly singing, - All spellbound in that place. - - Again, when he gazed on her beauty, - The heart in his breast was wax; - Again, when he heard her singing, - The thews of his limbs grew lax-- - She spun, nor saw him, spinning - A spindle of blood-red flax. - - And now the flax was fire, - That wrapped her, skein on skein; - And now a flaming serpent, - And now a blazing chain; - But he seized the enchanted spindle, - And all its spells were vain. - - She looked upon Childe Rowland, - And never a word she said, - But kissed his mouth and forehead, - And leaned on his breast her head... - She smiled upon Childe Rowland, - And into the night they fled. - - - - -THE BLIND HARPER - - - And so it came that I was led - To wizard walls that haggard hung - Old as their rock, black-mossed and dead, - Wild-swarmed with towers; and, flaming flung - Around them,--far, a moat of red,-- - A million poppies sprung. - - And here I harped.--All seemed asleep; - Till, hoarse beneath, harsh hinges gnarred - And iron clanged within the Keep: - And then from one gaunt casement, barred - With night, a woman, dim and deep, - Gazed at me long and hard. - - To her I sang. And as she leaned - In beauty to me, dark and tall, - And loud I sang of Love, I gleaned - An inkling of her Court withal: - For, lo, above her, watched a Fiend, - Wolf-eyeballed, on the wall. - - Still, still I sang. And then she laughed, - Laughed loud and long and evilly; - And in her face I saw was craft - And hate and all the sins that be: - And overhead, with pointed shaft, - The Fiend glared down on me. - - Still, still I harped. Then up she leapt, - When loud I sang of Ermengard, - The Queen of Love, whose Court is kept - At Anjou, I, who am her bard! - And from her side a raven swept, - While loud she laughed and hard. - - Its iron beak had pierced my eyes - Before my mind had half divined - That those wild walls that touched the skies - With Hell-built towers, terror-lined, - Were Lilith's,--mother of lusts and lies,-- - Love's foe, who left me blind. - - - - -CHILDE RONALD - - - Childe Ronald rode adown the wood, - His spear upon his knee; - When, lo, he saw a girl who stood - Beneath an old oak tree. - - And when Childe Ronald saw her there, - So fair and fresh of hue-- - "Ten tire-maids wait to comb thy hair, - And ten to latch thy shoe; - - "A gown of sendal, gold and pearl, - And pearls for neck and ear--" - "But I am but a low-born girl - Who wait my lover here!" - - Childe Ronald took her by the hand - And drew her to his side-- - "Thou shalt be a Lady of the land.-- - Now mount by me and ride." - - She needs must mount; and through the wood - They rode unto the sea: - When in his towers at last she stood - A pale-faced girl was she. - - "Unbusk, unbusk her, tire-girls! - Take off these rags," quoth he; - "And clothe her body in silk and pearls, - And red gold, neck and knee." - - They busked her in a shift of silk, - And in a samite gown: - They looped her throat with pearls like milk, - And crowned her with a crown. - - They brought her in unto the priest-- - She saw nor priest nor groom:-- - They married her and made a feast, - Then led her to her room.... - - "Unbusk, unbusk me, tire-maids, - Now it hath come to lie. - Comb down my locks in simple braids, - A simple maid am I. - - "Unbusk, unbusk me, handmaidens; - Long will I lie a-bed: - And when Childe Ronald lies by me, - 'Twill be when I am dead. - - "When I am cold and dead, sweethearts, - And song be turned to sigh-- - No love of mine hath he, sweethearts, - And a wretched bride am I. - - "A harper harped in the banquet hall; - An ancient man was he; - The song he sang was sweet to all, - But it was sad to me. - - "He sang and harped of a maiden fair, - Whose face was like the morn, - Who gave her lover a token there - Beneath the trysting thorn. - - "He harped and sang of a damosel - Who swore she would be true: - And then of a heart as false as Hell, - He cursed with curses two. - - "And at the first curse, note for note, - My roses turned to rue: - Or ever the second curse he smote - No more of earth I knew. - - "And, 'See!' they cried, 'her eyes, how wide! - And, lo, her face--how wan!'-- - And they shall see me paler-eyed - Or ever the night be gone! - - "Unbusk, unbusk me, tire-maids, - For now 'tis time to lie. - Let down my locks in simple braids, - A simple maid am I."... - - And there is wonder and there is wail, - And pale is every guest; - Childe Ronald, too, is pale, is pale, - Far paler than the rest. - - The guests are gone: all wild and wan - He saw the guests depart: - But she is wanest of the wan, - A dagger in her heart. - - Within the room Childe Ronald stands, - Then sinks upon his knees-- - He stares with horror on his hands, - Then rises up and flees. - - He rises from his knees with dread, - He flies that room unblest-- - Oh, can it be he sees the dead, - The blood upon her breast? - - "Now saddle me my horse, my horse! - For I must ride, must ride!"-- - But by his side--is it Remorse - That follows, stride for stride? - - Within the wood, the dark pine-wood, - He rides with closéd ears-- - But evermore the ceaseless thud - Of following hoofs he hears. - - With close-shut eyes and down-bowed head - He rides among the trees-- - But evermore the restless dead - There at his side he sees. - - And evermore the autumn blast - Above him sobs and sighs, - "Who rides so far, who rides so fast, - With closéd ears and eyes?" - - He hears it not: he gallops on: - The rain cries in the trees-- - "Who is this rides so wild and wan? - And what is that he flees? - - "Oh, who are they? and whither away? - Oh, whither do they ride?"-- - "Across the world till Judgment Day, - Childe Ronald and his bride!" - - - - -MORGAN LE FAY - - - In dim samite was she bedight, - And on her hair a hoop of gold, - Like foxfire, in the tawn moonlight, - Was glimmering cold. - - With soft gray eyes she gloomed and glowered; - With soft red lips she sang a song: - What knight might gaze upon her face, - Nor fare along? - - For all her looks were full of spells, - And all her words, of sorcery; - And in some way they seemed to say, - "Oh, come with me! - - "Oh, come with me! oh, come with me! - Oh, come with me, my love, Sir Kay!"-- - How should he know the witch, I trow, - Morgan le Fay? - - How should he know the wily witch, - With sweet white face and raven hair? - Who, through her art, bewitched his heart - And held him there. - - Eftsoons his soul had waxed amort - To wold and weald, to slade and stream; - And all he heard was her soft word - As one adream. - - And all he saw was her bright eyes, - And her fair face that held him still: - And wild and wan she led him on - O'er vale and hill. - - Until at last a castle lay - Beneath the moon, among the trees: - Its gothic towers old and gray - With mysteries. - - Tall in its hall an hundred knights - In armor stood with glaive in hand: - The following of some great king, - Lord of that land. - - Sir Bors, Sir Balin, and Gawain, - All Arthur's knights, and many mo; - But these in battle had been slain - Long years ago. - - But when Morgan with lifted hand - Moved down the hall, they louted low: - For she was Queen of Shadowland, - That woman of snow. - - Then from Sir Kay she drew away, - And cried on high all mockingly:-- - "Behold, sir knights, the knave I bring, - Who lay with me. - - "Behold! I met him 'mid the furze: - Beside him there he made me lie: - Upon him, yea, there rests my curse: - Now let him die!" - - Then as one man those shadows raised - Their brands, whereon the moon glanced gray: - And clashing all strode from the wall - Against Sir Kay. - - And on his body, bent and bowed, - The hundred blades as one blade fell: - While over all rang long and loud - The mirth of Hell. - - - - -THE LADY OF THE HILLS - - - Though red my blood hath left its trail - For five far miles, I will not fail, - As God in Heaven wills! - The way was long through that black land.-- - With sword on hip and horn in hand, - At last before thy walls I stand, - O Lady of the Hills! - - No seneschal shall put to scorn - The summons of my bugle-horn! - No warder stern shall stay! - Yea! God hath helped my strength too far, - By bandit-caverned wood and scar, - To give it pause now, or to bar - My all-avenging way! - - This hope still gives my body strength-- - To kiss thy mouth and eyes at length - Where all thy kin can see: - Then, 'mid thy towers of crime and gloom, - Sin-haunted as the Halls of Doom, - To strike thee dead in that wild room - Red-lit with revelry. - - Madly I rode; nor once looked back, - Before my face the world reeled, black - With nightmare wind and rain. - Witch-lights flared by me on the fen; - And through the forest--was it then - The eyes of wolves? or ghosts of men, - That flamed and fled again? - - Still on I rode. My way was clear - From that wild time when, spear to spear, - Deep in the wind-torn wood, - I met him!... Dead he lies beneath - Your trysting oak. I clenched my teeth - And rode. My wound scarce let me breathe, - That filled my eyes with blood. - - And here I am. The blood may blind - My eyesight still!... but I will find - Thee through some inner eye! - For God--He hath this thing in care!-- - Yea! I will kiss again thy hair, - Then tell thee of thy leman there, - And smite thee dead--and die. - - - - -THE DEMON LOVER - - - The moon looks cold - On the withered wold; - The wind blows fierce and free: - The thin snow sifts - And stings and drifts, - Blown by the haunted tree. - - The gnarled tree groans; - And sighs and moans, - And shudders to its roots: - Is it the fear - Of a footstep near? - Or the owl in its top that hoots? - - Is it a gust - Of thin snow-dust, - The wind sweeps from the plain?-- - Is it a breeze - That wails and drees?-- - Christ sain thee, Floramane! - - The moon hangs white - In the winter night: - The wind blows fierce and free: - And Floramane - Her place hath ta'en - Beneath the haunted tree. - - What is it whines? - What is it shines - With owlet-eldritch light?-- - With raven plume - Forth from the gloom - A man stalks, still and white. - - His face is dim; - His sword swings grim; - His long cloak flutters wide: - His kiss falls bleak - On her mouth and cheek, - As he folds her to his side. - - What is it gleams? - What is it streams - So wan on Floramane?-- - The moonlit breeze? - Or his heart, she sees - Through the stab, like a burning stain? - - - - -A PRINCESS OF THULE - - - In a kingdom of mist and moonlight, - Or ever the world was known, - Past leagues of unsailed water - There reigned a king whose daughter - Was fair as a starry stone. - - The Northern Lights were daylight, - And day was twilight there: - The king was wise and hoary, - And his daughter, like the glory - Of seven kingdoms, fair. - - The day was dim as moonlight; - The night was misty gray, - With slips of dull stars, bluer - Where the princess met her wooer, - A page like the month of May. - - His face was white as moonlight, - His hair, a crumpled gold: - Oh, she was wise as youth is, - And he was young as truth is, - And the king was old, was old. - - When day grew out of the moonlight, - Across the misty wold, - A-hunting or a-hawking - They rode, forever mocking - The good gray king and old. - - At night, in mist and moonlight, - Where hung the horns and whips, - In courts to the kennels leading, - Or where the hounds were feeding, - He kissed her eyes and lips. - - They whispered in the moonlight, - And kissed in moon and mist:-- - "Enough! we're done with hiding!"-- - There came the old king riding, - The hawk upon his wrist. - - Oh, fain was she and eager, - And he was over fain;-- - "His cup and couch are ready."-- - "Then let thy hand be steady-- - And he'll not wake again." - - Is it the mist or moonlight? - Or a dead face staring up?-- - The old king's couch was ready, - And his daughter's hand was steady - Giving the poisoned cup. - - - - -THE DAUGHTER OF MERLIN - - - For the mountains' hoarse greetings came hollow - From stormy wind-chasms and caves; - And I heard their wild cataracts wallow; - Like monsters, the white of their waves: - And that shadow said, "Lo! you must follow! - And our path is o'er myriads of graves." - - Then I felt that the black earth was porous - And rotten with dust and with bones; - And I knew that the ground that now bore us - Was cadaverous with death as with stones; - And I saw burning eyes, heard sonorous - And dolorous sighings and groans. - - But the night of the tempest and thunder, - The might of the terrible skies, - And the fire of Hell, that,--coiled under - The hollow Earth,--smoulders and sighs, - And the laughter of stars and their wonder, - Mingled and mixed in her eyes. - - And we clomb--and the moon, old and sterile, - Clomb with us o'er torrent and scar: - And I yearned for her oceans of beryl, - Wan mountains and cities of spar: - "'Tis not well," then she said; "you're in peril - Of falling and failing your star." - - And we clomb--through a murmur of pinions, - And rattle of talons and plumes; - And a sense as of darkest dominions, - Deep, lost, of the dead and their tombs, - Swam round us, with all of their minions - Of dreads and of dreams and of dooms. - - And we clomb--till we stood at the portal - Of the uttermost point of the peak; - And she led, with a step more than mortal, - On, upward, where glimmered a streak, - A star, a presence immortal, - A planet, whose light was still weak. - - And we clomb--till the limbo of spirits - Of lusts and of sorrows below - Swung nebular; and we were near its - Starred summit, its glory of glow. - And we entered its light and could hear its - White music of silence and snow. - - - - -TRISTRAM TO ISOLT - - - Yea, there are some who always seek - The love that lasts an hour; - And some who in love's language speak, - Yet never know his power. - - Of such was I, who knew not what - Sweet mysteries can rise - Within the heart when 'tis its lot - To love and realize. - - Of such was I, Isolt! till, lo, - Your face on mine did gleam, - And changed that world, I used to know, - Into an evil dream. - - That world wherein, on hill and plain, - Great blood-red poppies bloomed; - Their hot hearts thirsty for the rain, - And sleepily perfumed. - - Above, below, on every part, - A crimson shadow lay; - As if the red sun streamed athwart, - And sunset was alway. - - I know not how; I know not when; - I only know that there - She met me in the haunted glen, - A poppy in her hair. - - Her face seemed fair as Mary's is, - That knows nor sin nor wrong; - Her presence filled the silences - As music fills a song. - - And she was clad like the Mother of God, - As 'twere for Christ's sweet sake; - But when she moved and where she trod - A hiss went of a snake. - - Though seeming sinless, till I die - I shall not know for sure - Why to my soul she seemed a lie - And otherwise than pure. - - Nor why I kissed her soon and late, - And for her felt desire, - While loathing of her passion ate - Into my heart like fire. - - Was it because my soul could tell - That, like the poppy-flower, - She had no soul? a thing of Hell, - That o'er mine had no power. - - Or was it that your love at last, - My soul so long had craved, - From that sweet sin which held me fast - At that last moment, saved? - - - - -THE KNIGHT-ERRANT - - - The witch-elm shivers in the gale; - The thorn-tree's top is bowed: - The night is black with rain and hail, - And mist and cloud. - - The winds, upon the woods and fields, - Are swords two fiends unsheathe, - Two fiends, that snarl behind their shields - And grind their teeth. - - The foxfire, in the marshy place, - As he rides on and on, - Gleams, ghastly as a deadman's face, - And then is gone. - - The owl shrieks from the splintered pine - Demonic ridicule: - He hears the werewolf howl and whine - And lap the pool. - - Black bats beat blindly by his eyes, - Like Death's own horrible hands: - His quest leads under haunted skies - To haunted lands. - - He rides with fire upon his casque, - And fire upon his spear, - The roadway of his soul's set task, - Without a fear. - - Right steels the sinews of his steed, - And tempers his straight sword: - He rides the causeway of his creed - Without a word. - - No man shall make the iron pause - In gauntlet and in thew: - He rides the highway of his cause - To die or do. - - His purpose leads him, like a flame, - Through forest and through fen, - To castle walls of wrong and shame - And blood-stained men. - - Hope's are the lips that wind the horn - Before the gates of lust: - Though fifty dragons hiss him scorn, - Still will he trust. - - Strength's is the hand that thunders at - The entrances of night: - Though ten-score demons crush him flat - Still will he fight. - - Love's is the heart that finds a way - To dungeons vast of sin: - A thousand deaths may rise to slay, - Still will he win. - - - - -THE FORESTER - - - I met him here at Ammendorf one spring. - It was the end of April and the Harz, - Treed to their ruin-crested summits, seemed - One pulse of tender green and delicate gold, - Beneath a heaven that was like the face - Of girlhood waking into motherhood. - Along the furrowed meadow, freshly ploughed, - The patient oxen, loamy to the knees, - Plodded or lowed or snuffed the fragrant soil; - And in each thorn-tree hedge the wild bird sang - A song to spring, full of its own wild self - And soul, that heard the blossom-laden May's - Heart beating like a star at break of day, - As, kissing red the roses, she drew near, - Her mouth's ripe rose all dewdrops and perfume. - Here at this inn and underneath this tree - We took our wine, the morning prismed in its - Flame-crystalled gold.--A goodly vintage that! - Tang with the ripeness of full twenty years. - Rare! I remember! wine that spurred the blood, - That brought the heart glad to the songful lip, - And made the eyes unlatticed casements whence - A man's true soul smiled, breezy as the blue. - As royal a Rhenish, I will vouch to say, - As that, old legends tell, which Necromance - And Magic keep, gnome-guarded, in huge casks - Of antique make deep in the Kyffhäuser, - Webbed, frosty gray, with salt-petre and mold, - The Cellar of the Knights near Sittendorf.-- - - So solaced by that wine we sat an hour - He told me his intent in coming here. - His name was Rudolf; and his native place, - Franconia; but no word of parentage: - Only his mind to don the buff and green - And live a forester with us and be - Enfellowed in the Duke of Brunswick's train, - And for the Duke's estate even now was bound. - - Tall was he for his age and strong and brown, - And lithe of limb; and with a face that seemed - Hope's counterpart--but with the eyes of doubt: - Deep stealthy disks, instinct with starless night, - That seemed to say, "We're sure of Earth--at least - For some short while, my friend; but afterward-- - Nay! ransack not to-morrow till to-day - Lest it engulf thy joy before it is!"-- - And when he spoke, the fire in his eyes - Worked restless as a hunted animal's; - Or like the Count von Hackelnburg's,--the eyes - Of the Wild Huntsman,--his that turn and turn - Feeling the unseen presence of a fiend. - - And then his smile! a thrust-like thing that curled - His lips with heresy and incredible lore - When Christ's or th' Virgin's holy name was said, - Exclaimed in reverence or admonishment: - And once he sneered,--"What is this God you mouth, - Employ whose name to bless yourselves or damn? - A curse or blessing?--It hath passed my skill - T' interpret what He is. And then your faith-- - What is this faith that helps you unto Him? - Distinguishment unseen, design unlawed. - Why, earth, air, fire, and water, heat and cold, - Hint not at Him: and man alone it is - Who needs must worship something. And for me-- - No God like that whom man hath kinged and crowned! - Rather your Satan cramped in Hell--the Fiend! - God-countenanced as he is, and tricked with horns. - No God for me, bearded as Charlemagne, - Throned on a tinsel throne of gold and jade, - Earth's pygmy monarchs imitate in mien - And mind and tyranny and majesty, - Aping a God in a sonorous Heaven. - Give me the Devil in all mercy then, - Bad as he is! for I will none of such!" - And laughed an oily laugh of easy jest - To bow out God and let the Devil in. - -[Illustration: And grasped of both wild hands, swung trenchant. Page 285 - - _Accolon of Gaul_ -] - - Then, as it chanced, old Kurt had come that morn - With some six of his jerkined foresters - From the Thuringian forest; wet with dew, - And fresh as morn with early travel; bound - For Brunswick, Dummburg and the Hakel passed. - Chief huntsman he then to our lord the Duke, - And father of the loveliest maiden here - In Ammendorf, the sunny Ilsabe: - Her mother dead, the gray-haired father prized - His daughter more than all that men hold dear; - His only happiness, who was beloved - Of all as Lora of Thuringia was, - For gentle ways that spoke a noble soul, - Winning all hearts to love her and to praise, - As might a great and beautiful thought that holds - Us by the simplest words.--Blue were her eyes - As the high glory of a summer day. - Her hair,--serene and braided over brows - White as a Harz dove's wing,--an auburn brown, - And deep as mists the sun has drenched with gold: - And her young presence, like embodied song, - Filled every heart she smiled on with sweet calm, - Like some Tyrolean melody of love, - Heard on an Alpine path at close of day - When homing shepherds pipe to tinkling flocks: - Being with you a while, so, when she left,-- - How shall I say it?--'twas as when one hath - Beheld an Undine on the moonlit Rhine, - Who, ere the mind adjusts a thought, is gone, - And to the soul it seems it was a dream. - - Some thirty years ago it was;--and I, - Commissioner of the Duke--(no sinecure - I can assure you)--had scarce reached the age - Of thirty,--that we sat here at our wine; - And 'twas through me that Rudolf,--whom at first, - From some rash words dropped then in argument, - The foresterhood was like to be denied,-- - Was then enfellowed. "Yes," said I, "he's young. - Kurt, he _is_ young: but look you! what a man! - What arms! what muscles! what a face--for deeds! - An eye--that likes me not; too quick to turn!-- - But that may be the restless soul within: - A soul perhaps with virtues that have been - Severely tried and could not stand the test; - These be thy care, Kurt: and if not too deep - In vices of the flesh, discover them, - As divers bring lost riches up from ooze.-- - Thou hast a daughter; let him be thy son." - - A year thereafter was it that I heard - Of Rudolf's passion for Kurt's Ilsabe; - Then their betrothal. And it was from this,-- - (How her fair memory haunts my old heart still!-- - Sweet Ilsabe! whose higher womanhood, - True as the touchstone which philosophers feign - Transmutes to gold base metals it may touch, - Had turned to good all evil in this man,)-- - Surmised I of the excellency which - Refinement of her purer company, - And contact with her innocence, had resolved - His fiery nature to, conditioning slave. - And so I came from Brunswick--as, you know, - Is custom of the Duke or, by his seal - Commissioned proxy, his commissioner-- - To test the marksmanship of Rudolf, who - Succeeded Kurt with marriage of his child, - An heir of Kuno.--He?--Great-grandfather - To Kurt; and of this forest-keepership - The first possessor; thus established here-- - Or this the tale they tell on winter nights:-- - - Kuno, once in the Knight of Wippach's train, - Rode on a grand hunt with the Duke, who came,-- - Grandfather of the father of our Duke,-- - With much magnificence of knights and squires, - Great velvet-vestured nobles, cloaked and plumed, - To hunt Thuringian deer. Then morn,--so rathe - To bid good-morrow to the husbandman - Heavy with slumber,--was too slow for these, - And on the wind-trod hills recumbent yawned - Aroused an hour too soon: ashamed, disrobed, - Rubbed the stiff sleep from eyes that still would close; - Like some young milkmaid whom the cock hath waked, - Who sits within her loft and, half asleep, - Stretches and hears the house below her stir, - Yet sits and yawns, reluctant still to rise.-- - Horns sang and deer-hounds tugged a whimpering leash, - Or, loosened, bounded through the baying glens: - And ere the mountain mists, compact of white, - Broke wild before the azure spears of day, - The far-off hunt, that woke the woods to life, - Seemed but the heart-beat of the ancient hills. - - And then, near noon, within a forest brake, - The ban-dogs roused a red gigantic stag, - Lashed to whose back with gnarly-knotted cords, - And borne along like some pale parasite, - A man shrieked: tangle-bearded, and his hair - A mane of forest-burrs. The man himself, - Emaciated and half-naked from - The stag's mad flight through headlong rocks and trees, - One bleeding bruise, his eyes two holes of fire. - For such the law then: when the peasant chased - Or slew the dun deer of his tyrant lords, - If caught, as punishment the withes and spine - Of some strong stag, a gift to him of game - Enough till death--death in the antlered herd, - Or slow starvation in the haggard hills. - Then was the great Duke glad, and forthwith cried - To all his hunting-train a rich reward - For him who slew the stag and saved the man, - But death for him who slew both man and beast. - So plunged the hunt after the hurrying slot, - A shout and glimmer through the sounding woods,-- - Like some wild torrent that the hills have loosed, - Death for its goal.--'Twas late; and none had yet - Risked that hard shot,--too desperate the risk - Beside the poor life and a little gold,-- - When this young Kuno, with hot eyes, wherein - Hunt and impatience kindled reckless flame, - Cried, "Has the dew made wet each powder-pan? - Or have we left our marksmanship at home? - Here's for its heart! the Fiend direct my ball!"-- - And fired into a covert packed with briers, - An intertangled wall of matted night, - Wherein the eye might vainly strive and strive - To pierce one fathom, gaze one foot beyond: - But, ha! the huge stag staggered from the brake, - Heart-hit, and fell: and that wan wretch, unbound, - Rescued, was cared for. Then his grace, the Duke, - Charmed with the eagle aim, called Kuno up, - And there to him and his forever gave - The forest-keepership. - - But envious tongues - Were soon at wag; and whispered went the tale - Of how the shot was "free"; and how the balls - Used by young Kuno were "free" bullets--which - To say is: Lead by magic molded, in - The presence and directed of the Fiend. - Of some effect these tales, and of some force - Even with the Duke, who lent an ear so far - As to ordain Kuno's descendants all - To proof of skill ere their succession to - The father's office. Kurt himself hath shot - The silver ring out o' the popinjay's beak-- - A good shot he, you see, who would succeed. - - The Devil guards his secrets close as God. - For who can say what elementaries, - Demonic, lurk in desolate dells and hills - And shadowy woods? malignant forces who, - Malicious vassals of satanic power, - Are agents to that Evil none may name, - Who signs himself, through these, a slave to those, - Those mortals who call in the aid of Hell, - And for some earthly, transitory gift, - Barter their souls and all their hopes of Heaven. - - Of these enchanted bullets let me speak: - There may be such: our earth hath things as strange, - Perhaps, and stranger, that we doubt not of, - While we behold,--not only 'neath the thatch - Of Ignorance's hovel,--but within - The stately halls of Wisdom's palaces, - How Superstition sits an honored guest. - - A cross-way, so they say, among the hills; - A cross-way in a solitude of pines; - And on the lonely cross-way you must draw - A bloody circle with a bloody sword; - And round the circle, runic characters, - Weird and symbolic: here a skull, and there - A scythe, and cross-bones, and an hour-glass here: - And in the centre, fed with coffin-wood, - Stolen from the grave of--say a murderer, - A fitful fire. Eleven of the clock - The first ball leaves the mold--the sullen lead - Mixed with three bullets that have hit their mark, - And blood the wounded Sacramental Host, - Stolen, and hence unhallowed, oozed when shot - Fixed to a riven pine. Ere midnight strike, - With never a word until that hour sound, - Must all the balls be cast; and these must be - In number three and sixty; three of which - The Fiend's dark agent, demon Sammael, - Claims for his master and stamps for his own - To hit aside their mark, askew for harm. - The other sixty shall not miss their mark. - - No cry, no word, no whisper, even though - Vague, gesturing shapes, that loom like moonlit mists, - Their faces human but of animal form, - Whinnying and whining lusts, faun-faced, goat-formed, - Rise thick around and threaten to destroy. - No cry, no word, no whisper should there come, - Weeping, a wandering shadow like the girl - You love, or loved, now lost to you, her eyes - Hollow with tears; sad, palely beckoning - With beautiful arms, or censuring; her face - Wild with despondent love: who, if you speak - Or waver from that circle--hideous change!-- - Shrinks to a wrinkled hag, whose harpy hands - Shall tear you limb from limb with horrible mirth. - Nor be deceived if some far midnight bell - Strike that anticipated hour; nor leave - By one short inch the circle, for, unseen - Though now they be, Hell's minions still are there, - Watching with flaming eyes to seize your soul. - But when the hour of midnight sounds, will come - A noise of galloping hoofs and outriders, - Shouting: six midnight steeds,--their nostrils, pits - Of burning blood,--postilioned, roll a stage, - Black and with groaning wheels of spinning fire: - "Room there!--What, ho!--Who bars the mountain way?-- - On over him!"--But fear not, nor fare forth; - 'Tis but the last trick of your bounden slave. - And ere the red moon rushes from the clouds - And dives again, high the huge leaders leap, - Their fore-hoofs flashing and their eyeballs flame, - And, spun a spiral spark into the night, - Hissing the phantasm flies and fades away. - Some say there comes no stage; that Hackelnburg, - Wild-Huntsman of the Harz, comes dark as storm, - With rain and wind and demon dogs of Hell; - The terror of his hunting-horn, an owl, - And the dim deer he hunts, rush on before: - The forests crash, and whirlwinds are the leaves, - And all the skies a-thunder, as he hurls, - Straight on the circle, horse and hounds and stag. - And at the last, plutonian-cloaked, there comes,-- - Infernal fire streaming from his eyes,-- - Upon a stallion gaunt and lurid black, - The minister of Satan, Sammael, - Who greets you, and informs you, and assures. - - Enough! these wives' tales told, to what I've seen: - To Ammendorf I came; and Rudolf here - With Kurt and his assembled men in buff - And woodland green were gathered at this inn. - The abundant Year--like some sweet wife,--a-smile - At her brown baby, Autumn, in her arms, - Stood 'mid the garnered harvests of her fields - Dreaming of days that pass like almoners - Scattering their alms in minted gold of flowers; - Of nights, that forest all the skies with stars, - Wherethrough the moon--bare-bosomed huntress--rides, - One cloud before her like a flying fawn. - Then I proposed the season's hunt; till eve - The test of Rudolf's skill postponed; at which - He seemed embarrassed. And 'twas then I heard - How he an execrable marksman was; - And tales that told of close, incredible shots, - That missed their mark; or how the flint-lock oft - Flamed harmless powder, while the curious deer - Stood staring, as in pity of such aim, - Or as inviting him to try once more. - Howbeit, he that day acquitted him - Of all this gossip; in that day's long hunt - Missing no shot, however rashly made - Or distant through the intercepting trees. - And the piled, various game brought down of all - Good marksmen of Kurt's train had not sufficed, - Doubled, nay, trebled, there to match his heap. - And marvelling the hunters saw, nor knew - How to excuse them. My indulgence giv'n, - Some told me that but yesterday old Kurt - Had made his daughter weep and Rudolf frown, - By vowing end to their betrothéd love, - Unless that love developed better skill - Against the morrow's test; his ancestors' - High fame should not be tarnished. So he railed; - Then bowed his gray head and sat moodily: - But, looking up, forgave all when he saw - Tears in his daughter's eyes and Rudolf gone - Out in the night, black with approaching storm. - - Before this inn, crowding the green, they stood, - The holiday village come to view the trial: - Fair maidens and their comely mothers with - Their sweethearts and their husbands. And I marked - Kurt and his daughter here; his florid face - All creased with smiles at Rudolf's great success; - Hers, radiant with happiness; for this - Her marriage eve--so had her father said-- - Should Rudolf come successful from the hunt. - - So pleased was I with what I'd seen him do, - The trial of skill superfluous seemed; and so - Was on the bare brink of announcing, when - Out of the western heaven's deepening red,-- - Like a white message dropped of scarlet lips,-- - A wild dove clove the luminous winds and there, - Upon that limb, a peaceful moment sat. - Then I, "Thy rifle, Rudolf! pierce its head!" - Cried pointing, "and chief-forester art thou!" - Why did he falter with a face as strange - And strained as terror's? did his soul divine - What was to be, with tragic prescience?-- - What a bad dream it all seems now!--Again - I see him aim. Again I hear her cry, - "My dove! O Rudolf, do not kill my dove!" - And from the crowd, like some sweet dove herself, - A fluttering whiteness, rushed our Ilsabe-- - Too late! the rifle cracked.... The unhurt dove - Rose, beating frightened wings--but Ilsabe!... - My God! the sight!... fell smitten; sudden red, - Sullying the whiteness of her bridal bodice, - Showed where the ball had pierced her innocent heart. - - And Rudolf?--Ah, of him you still would know? - --When he beheld this thing which he had done, - Why, he went mad--I say--but others not. - An hour he raved of how her life had paid - For the unholy missiles he had used, - And how his soul was three times lost and damned. - I say that he went mad and fled forthwith - Into the haunted Harz.--Some say, to die - The prey of demons of the Dummburg ruin. - I,--one of those less superstitious,--say, - He in the Bodé--from that blackened rock,-- - Whereon were found his hunting-cap and horn,-- - The Devil's Dancing Place, did leap and die. - - - - -THE MOATED MANSE - - -I - - And now once more we stood within the walls - Of that old manor near the riverside; - Dead leaves lay rotting in its empty halls, - And here and there the ivy could not hide - The year-old scars, made by the Royalists' balls, - Around the doorway, where so many died - In that last effort to defend the stair, - When Rupert, like a demon, entered there. - - -II - - The basest Cavalier who e'er wore spurs - Or drew a sword, I count him; with his grave - Eyes 'neath his plumed hat like a wolf's whom curs - Rouse, to their harm, within a forest cave; - And hair like harvest; and a voice like verse - For smoothness. Ay, a handsome man and--brave!-- - Brave?--who would question it! yea! tho' 'tis true - He warred with one weak woman and her few. - - -III - - Lady Isolda of the Moated Manse, - Whom here, that very noon, it happened me - To meet near her old home. A single glance - Showed me 'twas she. I marveled much to see - How lovely still she was! as fair, perchance, - As when Red Rupert thrust her brutally,-- - Her long hair loosened,--down the shattered stair, - And cast her, shrieking, 'mid his followers there. - - -IV - - "She is for you! Take her! I promised it! - Take her, my bullies!"--shouting so, he flung - Her in their midst. Then, on her poor hands (split, - And beaten by his dagger when she clung - Resisting him) and knees, she crept a bit - Nearer his feet and begged for death. No tongue - Can tell the way he turned from her and cursed, - Then bade his men draw lots for which were first. - - -V - - I saw it all from that low parapet, - Where, bullet-wounded in the hip and head, - I lay face-upward in the whispering wet, - Exhausted 'mid the dead and left for dead. - We had held out two days without a let - Against these bandits. You could trace with red - From room to room how we resisted hard - Since the great door crashed in to their petard. - - -VI - - The rain revived me, and I leaned with pain - And saw her lying there, pale, soiled and splashed - And miserable; on her cheek a stain, - A dull red bruise, made when his mad hand dashed - And struck her to the stones; the wretched rain - Dripped from her dark hair; and her hands were gashed.-- - Oh, for a musket or a petronel - With which to send his devil's soul to hell! - - -VII - - But helpless there I lay, no weapon near, - Only the useless sword I could not reach - His traitor's heart with, while I chafed to hear - The laugh, the insult and the villain speech - Of him to her.--Oh, God! could I but clear - The height between and, hanging like a leech, - My fingers at his throat, tear out his base - Vile tongue! yea, tear, and lash it in his face! - - -VIII - - But, badly wounded, what could I but weep - With rage and pity of my helplessness - And her misfortune! Could I only creep - A little nearer so that she might guess - I was not dead; that I my life would keep, - Dedicate to revenge!--Oh, the distress - Of that last moment when, half-dead, I saw - Them mount and bear her swooning through the shaw. - - -IX - - Long time I lay unconscious. It befell - Some woodsmen found me, having heard the sound - Of fighting cease that, for two days, made hell - Of that wild region; ventured on the ground - For plunder: and it had not then gone well - With me, I fear, had not their leader found - That in some way I would repay his care; - So bore me to his hut and nursed me there. - - -X - - How roughly kind he was! For weeks I hung - 'Twixt life and death; health, like a varying, sick - And fluttering pendulum, now this way swung, - Now that, until at last its querulous tick - Beat out life's usual time, and slowly rung - The long, loud hours, that exclaimed, "Be quick!-- - Arise!--Go forth!--Hear how her black wrongs call!-- - Make them the salve to cure thy wounds withal!"-- - - -XI - - They were my balsam: for, ere autumn came, - Weak still, but over eager to be gone, - I took my leave of him. A little lame - From that hip wound, and somewhat thin and wan, - I sought the village. Here I heard her name - And shame's made one. How Rupert passed one dawn; - How she among his troopers rode--astride - Like any man--pale-faced and feverish-eyed. - - -XII - - Which way these took they pointed, and I went - Like fire after. Oh, the thought was good - That they were on before! And much it meant - To know she lived still; she, whose image stood - Like flame before me, making turbulent - Each heart-beat with her wrongs, that were fierce food - Unto my hate that, "Courage!" cried, "Rest not! - Think of her there, and let thy haste be hot!" - - -XIII - - But months went by and still I had not found: - Yet, here and there, as wearily I sought, - I caught some news: how he had held his ground - Against the Roundhead troops; or how he'd fought - Then fled--returned and conquered. Like a hound - Questing a boar, I followed; but was brought - No nearer to my quarry. Day by day - It seemed that Satan kept him from my way. - - -XIV - - A woman rode beside him, so they said, - A fair-faced wanton, mounted like a man-- - Isolda!--my Isolda!--Better dead, - Yea, dead and damned! than thus--the courtezan - Bold, unreluctant, to such men! A dread, - That such should be, unmanned me. Doubt began - To whisper at my heart.--But I was mad, - To insult her with such thoughts, whose love I had. - - -XV - - At last one day I rested in a glade - Near that same woodland which I lay in when - Sore wounded: and, while sitting in the shade - Of an old beech--what! did I dream? or men - Like Rupert's own ride near me? and a maid-- - Isolda or her double!--Wildly then - I rose and, shouting, leapt upon my horse; - Unsheathed my sword and rode across their course. - - -XVI - - Mainly I looked for Rupert, and by name - Challenged him forth:--"Dog! dost thou hide behind?-- - Insulter of women! Coward! save where shame - And rapine call thee! God at last is kind, - And my sword waits!"--Like an upbeating flame, - My voice rose to a windy shout; and blind - I seemed to sit, till, with an outstretched hand, - Isolda rode before me from that band. - - -XVII - - "Gerald!" she cried; not as a soul surprised - With gladness that the loved, deemed dead, still lives; - But like the soul that long hath realized - Only misfortune and to fortune gives - No confidence, though it be recognized - As good. She spoke: "Lo, we are fugitives. - Rupert is slain. And I am going home." - Then like a child asked simply, "Wilt thou come?... - - -XVIII - - "Oh, I have suffered, Gerald! Oh, my God! - What shame! What torture! Once my soul was clean-- - Stained and defiled behold it!--I have trod - Sad ways of hell and horror. I have seen - And lived all depths of lust. Yet, oh, my God! - Blameless I hold myself of what hath been, - Though through it all, yea,--this thou too must know,-- - I loved him, my betrayer and thy foe!" - - -XIX - - Sobbing she spoke as if but half awake, - Her eyes far-fixed beyond me, far beyond - All hope of mine.--So! it was for _his_ sake, - _His_ love, that she had suffered!... Blind and fond, - For what return!... And I--to nurse a snake, - And never dream its nature would respond - With some such fang of venom! 'Twas for this - That I had ventured all--to find her his! - - -XX - - At first half-stunned I stood; then blood and brain, - Like two stern judges, who had slept, awoke, - Rose up and thundered, "Slay her!" Every vein - And nerve responded, "Slay her at a stroke!"-- - And I had done it, but my heart again, - Like a strong captain in a tumult, spoke, - And the fierce discord fell. And quietly - I sheathed my sword and said, "I'll go with thee." - - -XXI - - But this was my reward for all I'd borne, - My loyalty and love! To see her eyes - Hollow from tears for him; her thin cheeks worn - With grief for him; to know them all for lies, - Her vows of faith to me; to come forlorn, - Where I had hoped to come on Paradise, - On Hell's black gulf; and, as if not enough, - Soiled as she was and outcast, still to love! - - -XXII - - Then rode one ruffian from the rest, clay-flecked - From spur to plume with hurry; seized my rein, - And--"What art _thou_," demanded, "who hast checked - Our way and challenged?"--Then, with some disdain, - Isolda, "Sir, my kinsman did expect - Your captain here. What honor may remain - To me I pledge for him. Hold off thy hands! - He but attends me to the Moated Manse." - - -XXIII - - We rode in silence. And at evening came - Unto the Moated Manse.--Great clouds had grown - Up in the west, on which the sunset's flame - Lay like the hand of slaughter.--Very lone - Its rooms and halls: a splintered door that, lame, - Swung on one hinge; a cabinet o'erthrown; - Or arras torn; or blood-stain turning wan, - Showed us the way the battle once had gone. - - -XXIV - - We reached the tower-chamber towards the west, - In which on that dark day she thought to hide - From Rupert when, at last, 'twas manifest - We could not hold the Manse. There was no pride - In her deep eyes now; nor did scorn invest - Her with such dignity as once defied - Him bursting in to find her standing here - Prepared to die like some dog-hunted deer. - - -XXV - - She took my hand, and, as if naught of love - Had ever been between us, said,--"All know - The madness of that hour when with his glove - He struck, then slew my brother, and brought woe - On all our house: and thou, incensed above - The rest, came here, and made my foe thy foe. - But he had left. 'Twas then I promised thee - My hand, but, ah! my heart was gone from me. - - -XXVI - - "Yea, he had won me, this same Rupert, when - He was our guest.--Thou know'st how gallantry - And recklessness make heroes of most men - To us weak women!--And so secretly - I vowed to be his wife. It happened then - My brother found him in some villainy; - The insult followed: Guy was killed ... and thou - Dost still remember how I made a vow.-- - - -XXVII - - "But still this man pursued me, and I held - Firm to my vow, albeit I loved him still, - Unknown to all, with all the love unquelled - Of first impressions, and against my will. - At last despair of winning me compelled - Him to the oath he swore: He would not kill, - But take me living and would make my life - A living death. No man should make me wife. - - -XXVIII - - "The war, that now consumes us, did, indeed, - Give him occasion.--I had not been warned, - When down he came against me in the lead - Of his marauders. With thy help I scorned - His mad attacks two days. I would not plead - Nor parley with him, who came hoofed and horned, - Like Satan's self in soul, and, with Hell's aid, - Took this strong house and kept the oath he made. - - -XXIX - - "Months passed. Alas! it needs not here to tell - What often thou hast heard: Of how he led - His ruffians here now there; or what befell - Me of dishonor. Oft I wished me dead, - Loathing my life,--than which the nether Hell - Hath less of horror!--So we fought or fled - From place to place until a year had passed, - And Parliament forces hemmed us in at last. - - -XXX - - "Yea, I had only lived for this--to right - With death my wrongs sometime. And love and hate - Contended in my bosom when, that night - Before the fight that should decide our fate, - I entered where he slept. There was no light - Save of the stars to see by. Long and late - I leaned above him there, yet could not kill-- - Hate raised the dagger but love held it still. - - -XXXI - - "The woman in me conquered. What a slave - To our emotions are we! To relent - At this long-waited moment!--Wave on wave - Of pitying weakness swept me, and I bent-- - And kissed his face. Then prayed to God; and gave - My trust to God; and left to God th' event.-- - I never looked on Rupert's face again, - For in the morning's combat--he was slain. - - -XXXII - - "Out of defeat escaped some scant three score - Of all his followers. And night and day - We fled; and while the Roundheads pressed us sore, - And in our road, good as a fortress, lay - The Moated Manse,--where our three-score or more - Might well hold out,--I pointed them the way. - And we are come, amid its wrecks to end - The crime begun here.--Thou must go, my friend! - - -XXXIII - - "Go quickly! For the time approaches when - Destruction must arrive.--Oh, well I know - All thou wouldst say to me.--What boots it then?-- - I tell thee thou must go! that thou must go!-- - Yea, dost thou think I'd have thee die 'mid men - Like these, for such an one as I?--No! no!-- - Thy life is clean. Thou shalt not cast away - Thy clean life for my soiled one!" ... "I will stay!" - - -XXXIV - - I said.--Then spoke ... I know not what it was. - And seized her hand and kissed it and then said,-- - "Thou art my promised wife. Thou hast no cause - That is not mine. I love thee. We will wed. - Isolda, come!"--A moment did she pause, - Then shook her head and sighed, "My heart is dead. - This can not be. Behold, that way is thine. - I will not let thee share the way that's mine." - - -XXXV - - Then turning from me ere I could prevent - Passed like a shadow from the shadowy room, - Leaving my soul in shadow.... Naught was meant - By my sweet flower of love then! bloom by bloom - I'd watched it wither; then its fragrance went, - And dust it was now.... It was dark as doom, - And bells seemed ringing far off in the rain, - When from that house I turned my face again. - - -XXXVI - - Then in the night a trumpet; and the dull - Close thud of horse and clash of spurs and arms; - And glimmering helms swept by me.--Sorrowful - I stood and waited till against the storm's - Black breast, the Manse,--a burning carbuncle,-- - Blazed like a battle-beacon, and alarms - Of onslaught clanged around it.--Then, like one, - Who bears with him God's curse, I galloped on. - - - - -AN OLD TALE RETOLD - - - From the terrace here, where the hills indent, - You can see the uttermost battlement - Of the castle there: the Clifford's home - Where the seasons go and the seasons come - And never a footstep else doth fall - Save the prowling fox's; the ancient hall - Echoes no voice save the owlet's call: - Its turret chambers are homes for the bat; - And its courts are tangled and wild to see; - And where in the cellar was once the rat, - The viper and toad move stealthily. - Long years have passed since the place was burned, - And he sailed to the wars in France and earned - The name that he bears of the bold and true - On his tomb.--Long years, since my lord, Sir Hugh, - Lived, and I was his favorite page, - And the thing then happened; and he of an age - When a man will love and be loved again, - Or off to the wars or a monastery; - Or toil till he deaden his heart's hard pain; - Or drink and forget it and finally bury. - - I was his page. And often we fared - Through the Clare demesne, in autumn, hawking-- - If the Baron had known, how they would have glared, - 'Neath their bushy brows, those eyes of mocking!-- - That last of the Strongbows, Richard, I mean-- - And growling some six of his henchmen lean - To mount and after this Clifford and hang - With his crop-eared page to the nearest oak, - How he would have cursed us while he spoke! - For Clare and Clifford had ever a fang - In the other's side.... And I hear the clang - Of his rage in the hall when the hawker told-- - If he told!--how we met on the autumn wold - His daughter, sweet Clara of Clare, the day - Her hooded tiercel its brails did burst, - And trailing its jesses, came flying our way-- - An untrained haggard the falconer cursed - While he tried to secure:--as the eyas flew - Slant, low and heavily over us, Hugh,-- - Who saw it coming, and had just then cast - His peregrine hawk at a heron quarry,-- - In his saddle rising thus, as it passed - By the jesses caught, and to her did carry, - Where she stood near the wood. Her face flushed rose - With the glad of the meeting.--No two foes - Her eyes and my lord's, I swear, who saw - 'Twas love from the start.--And I heard him speak; - Dismount, then kneel--and the sombre shaw, - With the sad of the autumn waste and bleak, - Grew spring with her smile, as the hawk she took - On her slender wrist, where it pruned and shook - Its callowness. Then I saw him seize - The hand that she reached to him, long and white, - As she smilingly bade him rise from his knees-- - When he kissed her fingers her eyes grew bright. - But her cheeks were pallid when, lashing through - The thicket there, his face a-flare - With the sting of the wind, and his gipsy hair - Flying, the falconer came, and two - Or three of the people of Castle Clare. - And the leaves of the autumn made a frame - For the picture there in the morning's flame. - - What was said in that moment I do not know, - That moment of meeting between those lovers: - Whatever it was, 'twas whispered low, - Soft as a leaf that swings and hovers, - A twinkling gold, when the woods are yellow. - And her face with the joy was still aglow - When out of the wood that burly fellow - Came with his frown, and made a pause - In the pulse of their words.--My lord, Sir Hugh, - Stood with the soil on his knee. No cause - Had he, but his hanger he partly drew, - Then clapped it sharp in its sheath again, - And bowed to my lady, and strode away; - And vaulting his horse, with a loosened rein - Rode with a song in his heart all day. - - He loved and was loved, I knew; for, look! - All other sports for the chase he forsook. - And strange that he never went to hawk, - Or hunt, but Clara would meet him there - In the Strongbow forest!--I know the rock, - With its ferns and its moss, by the bramble lair, - Where oft and often he met--by chance, - Shall I say?--the daughter of Clare; as fair - Of face as a queen in an old romance, - Who waits expectant and pale; her hair - Night-deep; and eyes dove-gray with dreams;-- - By the fountain-side where the statue gleams - And the moonbeam lolls in the lily white,-- - For her knightly lover who comes at night. - - Heigh-ho! they ceased, those meetings. I wot, - Betrayed to the Baron by some of his crew - Of menials who followed and saw and knew. - For she loved too well to have once forgot - The time and the place of their trysting true. - "Why and when?" would ask Sir Hugh - In the labored letters he used to lock - --The lovers' post--in a coigne of that rock. - She used to answer, but now did not. - But, nearing Yule, love gat them again - A twilight tryst--through frowardness sure!-- - They met. And the day was gray with rain, - And snow: and the wind did ever endure - A long bleak moaning through the wood, - That chapped i' the cheek and smarted the blood; - And a burne in the forest went throb and throb, - And over it all was the wild-beast sob - Of the rushing boughs like a thing pursued. - And then it was that he learned how she, - (God's blood! how it makes my old limbs quiver - To think what a miserable tyrant he-- - The Baron Richard--aye and ever - To his daughter was!) forsooth! _must_ wed - With an eastern earl--a Lovell: to whom - (Would God o' His mercy had struck him dead!) - Clara of Clare when merely a child,-- - With a face like a flower, that blows in the wild - Of the hills, and a soul like its soft perfume,-- - Was given--say, sealed--to strengthen some ties - Of power and wealth--say bartered, then, - Like the veriest chattel. With tearful eyes - And lips a-tremble she spoke. And when - My lord, her lover, had learned and heard,-- - He'd have had her flee with him then, 'sdeath! - In spite of them all! Let her say the word, - They would fly together: the baron's men - Might follow; and if ... and he touched his sword-- - _It_ should answer! But she, while she seemed to stay, - With a hand on her bosom, her heart's quick breath, - Replied to his heat: "They would take and slay - Thee who art life of my life!--Not thus - Will we fly!--There's another way for us; - A way that is sure; an only way; - I have thought on it this many a day."-- - The words that she spake how well I remember! - As well as the mood o' that day of December, - That bullied and blustered and seemed in league, - Like a spiteful shrew, with the wind and the snow, - To drown the words of their sweet intrigue, - With the boom of the boughs tossed to and fro, - That the storm swept through with its wild-beast low. - Her last words these, "By curfew sure, - On Christmas eve, at the postern door." - - * * * * * - - And we were there; with a led horse too; - Armed for a journey--I hardly knew - Whither, but why, you well may guess. - For often he whispered a certain name, - The talisman dear of his happiness, - That warmed his blood like a Yule-log's flame. - While we waited there, till its owner came, - We saw how the castle's baronial girth, - Like a giant's, loosed for revelling more, - Shone; and we heard the wassail and mirth - Where the mistletoe hung in the hearth's red roar, - And the holly brightened the weaponed wall - Of carven oak in the banqueting hall. - And the spits, I trow, by the scullions turned - O'er the snoring logs, rich steamed and burned, - Where the whole wild-boar and the deer were roasted, - And the half of an ox and the roe-buck's haunches; - While tuns of ale, that the cellars boasted, - And casks of sack, were broached for paunches - Of vassals who revelled in stable and hall. - The song of the minstrel; the yeomen's quarrel - O'er the dice and the drink; and the huntsman's bawl - In the baying kennels, its hounds a-snarl - O'er the bones of the feast; now loud, now low, - We could hear where we crouched in the drifting snow. - - Was she long? did she come?... By the postern we - Like shadows waited. My lord, Sir Hugh, - Spoke, pointing a tower: "That casement, see? - When a stealthy light in its slit burns blue - And signals thrice slowly, thus--'tis she." - And close to his breast his gaberdine drew, - For the wind it whipped and the snow beat through. - Did she come?--We had waited an hour or twain, - When the taper flashed in the central pane, - And flourished three times and vanished so. - And under the arch of the postern's portal, - Crouched down by the horses we stood in the snow, - Stiff with the cold.--Ah, me! immortal - Minutes we waited, breath-bated, and listened - Shivering there in the hurl of the gale: - The parapets whistled, the angles glistened, - And the night around seemed one black wail - Of death, whose ominous presence over - The snow-swept battlements seemed to hover. - Said my lord, Sir Hugh,--to himself he spoke,-- - "She feels for the spring in the sliding panel - 'Neath the arras, hid in the carven oak. - It opens. The stair, like a well's dark channel, - Yawns, and the draught makes her taper slope. - Wrapped deep in her mantle of fur, she puts - One foot on the stair: now a listening pause - As nearer and nearer the mad search draws - Of the thwarted castle. No smallest hope - That they find her now that the panel shuts! - If the wind, that howls like a tortured thing, - Would throttle itself with its cries, then I - Might hear how her hurrying footsteps ring - Down the secret ... there! 'tis her fingers try - The postern's bolts that the rust makes cling."-- - But 'twas only some whim of the wind that shook - A clanging ring on a creaking hook - In the buttress or wall. And we waited, numb - With the cold, till dawn--but she did not come. - - I must tell you why and have done: 'Tis said, - On the eve of the marriage she fled the side - Of the guests and the bridegroom there: she fled - With a mischievous laugh,--"I'll hide! I'll hide! - A kiss for the one who shall find!"--and led - A long search after her; but defied - All search for--a score and ten long years. - Well, the laughter of Yule was turned to tears - For them as for us. We saw the glare - Of torches that hurried from chamber to stair; - And we heard the castle reëcho her name, - But she laughed no answer and never came, - And that was the last of Clara of Clare. - - That winter it was, a month thereafter, - That the home of the Cliffords, roof and rafter, - Burned.--I could swear 'twas the Strongbow's doing, - Were I sure that he knew of the Clifford's wooing - His daughter; and so, by the Rood and Cross! - Made a torch of Hugh's home to avenge his loss.-- - So over the Channel to France with his King, - The Black Prince, sailed to the wars--to deaden - The ache of the mystery--Hugh that spring - And fell at Poitiers; for his loss lay leaden - O' his heart; and his life was a weary sadness, - So he flung it away in a moment's madness. - And the baron died. And the bridegroom?--well, - Unlucky was he in truth!--to tell - Of him there is nothing.--The baron died, - The last of the Strongbows he--gramercy! - And the Clare estate with its wealth and pride - Devolved to the Bloets, Walter and Percy. - - And years went by. And it happened that they - Ransacked the old castle; and so, one day, - In a lonesome tower uprummaged a chest, - From Flanders; of ebon, and wildly carved - All over with masks: a sinister crest - 'Mid gargoyle faces distorted and starved: - Fast-fixed with a spring, which they forced and, lo! - When they opened it--Death, like a lady dressed, - Grinned up at their terror!--but no, not so! - Fantastic a skeleton, jeweled and wreathed - With flowers of dust; and a miniver - Around it clasped, that the ruin sheathed - Of a once rich raiment of silk and of fur. - - I'd have given my life to hear him tell, - The courtly Clifford, how this befell! - He'd have known how it was: For, you see, in groping - For the secret spring of that panel, hoping - And fearing as nearer and nearer drew - The search of retainers, why, out she blew - The tell-tale taper; and seeing this chest, - Would hide her a minute in it, mayhap, - Till the hurry had passed; but the death-lock, pressed - By the lid's great weight, shut down with a snap, - And her life went out in the hellish trap. - - - - -MY LADY OF VERNE - - - It all comes back as the end draws near; - All comes back like a tale of old! - Shall I tell you what? Will you lend an ear? - You, with your face so stern and cold; - You, who have found me dying here.... - - Lady Valora's villa at Verne-- - You have walked its terraces, where the fount - And statue gleam and the fluted urn; - Its world-old elms, that are avenues gaunt - Of shadow and flame when the west is a-burn. - - 'Tis a lonely region of tarns and trees, - And hollow hills that circle the west; - Haunted of rooks and the far-off sea's - Immemorial vague unrest; - A land of sorrowful memories. - - A gray sad land, where the wind has its will, - And the sun its way with the fruits and flowers; - Where ever the one all night is shrill, - And ever the other all day brings hours - Of glimmering hush that dead dreams fill. - - A gray sad land, where her girlhood grew - To womanhood proud, that the hill-winds seemed - To give their moods, like melody, to; - And the stars, their thoughts, like dreams love dreamed-- - The only glad thing that the sad land knew. - - My Lady, you know, how nobly born! - Greatly born, with a head that rose - Like a dream of empire; love and scorn - Made haunts of her eyes; and her lips--twin bows - Of bloom, where wit was a pleasant thorn. - - And I--oh, I was nobody: one - Her worshiper merely; who chose to be - Silent, seeing that love alone - Was his only badge of nobility, - Set in his heart's escutcheon. - - How long ago does the springtime look, - When we wandered away to the hills! the hills,-- - Like the land in the tale in the Fairy-book,-- - Gold with the gold of the daffodils, - And gemmed with the crocus by bank and brook! - - When I gathered a branch from a hawthorn tree, - For her hair or bosom, from boughs that hung - Odorous of Heaven and purity; - She thanked me smiling; then merrily sung - This song while she laughingly looked at me:-- - - "_There dwelt a princess over the sea-- - Oh fair was she, right fair was she-- - Who loved a squire of low degree, - Of low degree, - But wedded a king of Brittany-- - Ah, woe is me! is me!_ - - "_And it came to pass on the wedding day-- - So people say, I have heard say-- - That they found her dead in her bridal array, - Her bridal array, - And dead her lover beside her lay-- - Ah, well-away! away!_ - - "A sour stave for your sweets," she said, - Pressing the blossoms against her lips: - Then petal by petal the branch she shred, - Snowing the blooms from her finger-tips, - Tossing them down for her feet to tread. - - What to her was the look I gave - Of love despised!--Though she seemed to start, - Seeing; and said, with a quick hand-wave, - "Why, one would think that _that_ was your heart," - While her face with a sudden thought grew grave. - - But I answered nothing. And so to her home - We came in the eve; slow-falling, clear - With a few first stars and a crescent of foam, - The twilight dusked; and we heard from the mere - The distant boom of a bittern come. - - Would you think that she loved me?--Who could say?-- - What a riddle unread was she to me!-- - When I kissed her fingers and turned away - I wanted to speak, but--what cared she, - Though her eyes looked soft and she bade me stay! - - Though she lingered to watch me--That might be - A slim moonbeam or a shred of haze,-- - But never my Lady's drapery - Or wistful face!--in the woodbine maze. - Valora of Verne--why, what cared she! - - * * * * * - - So the days went by, and the Summer wore - Its hot heart out; and, a mighty slayer, - The Autumn harried the land and shore, - And the world grew red with its wrecks; then grayer - Than ghosts of the dreams of the nevermore. - - The sheaves of the Summer had long been bound; - The harvests of Autumn had long been past; - And the snows of the Winter lay deep around, - When the hard news came and I knew at last; - And the reigning woe of my heart was crowned. - - So I sought her here: the old Earl's bride: - In the ancient room, at the oriel dreaming, - Pale as the blooms in her hair; and, wide, - The dented satin, flung stormily, gleaming - Like beaten silver, twilight-dyed. - - I marked as I stole to her side that tears - Were vaguely large in her beautiful eyes; - That the loops of pearls on her throat, and years-- - Old lace on her bosom were heaved with sighs: - And I said to her softly:--"It appears"-- - - Then stopped with, it seemed, my soul in my eyes-- - "That you are not happy, Valora of Verne! - There is that at your heart which--well, denies - These mocking mummeries.--Live and learn!-- - And is it the truth or only lies?-- - - "You must hear me now! whom I oft with my heart,-- - In words of the soul, that are silent in speech,-- - Whispered my love; too sacred for art; - But yours never heard--for I could not reach - Yours in that world of which you are part. - - "That world, where I saw you as one afar - Sees palms and waters, and knows that sands, - Pitiless sands, before him are; - Yet follows ever with reaching hands - Till he sinks at last.--You were my star, - - "My hope, my heaven!--I loved you!... Life - Is less than nothing to me!"... She turned, - With a wild look, saying--"Now I am his wife - You come and tell me!--Indeed you are learned - In the unheard language of hearts!"... A knife, - - As she ceased and leaned on a cabinet,-- - A curve of scintillant steel keen, cold,-- - Fell, icily clashing: a curio met - Among Asian antiques, bronze and gold, - Mystical; curiously graven and set. - - A Bactrian dagger, whose slightest prick, - Through its ancient poison, was death, I knew.-- - If true that she loved me--then!--And quick - To the unspoken thought she replied, "'Tis true! - I have loved you long, and my soul was sick, - - "Sick for the love that has made me weak, - Weak to your will even now!"--And more - She said, in my arms, that I will not speak-- - And the dagger there on the polished floor - Ever her eyes, while she spoke, would seek. - - "'And it came to pass on the wedding-day'"-- - Then my lips for a moment were crushed to hers-- - "'That they found her dead in her bridal array,'" - She sang; then said, "_You_ finish the verse! - Finish the song, for you know the way." - - And I whispered "yes," for my heart had thought - Her own thought through--that life were a hell - To us so asunder.--And the blade I caught - With a sudden hand; and she leaned; and--well, - What a little wound, and the blood it brought - - To crimson her bosom!--I set her there - In that carven chair; then turned the blade,-- - With its white-gold handle thick with the glare, - Barbaric, of jewels, wildly inlaid,-- - To my breast, for the poisonous point rent bare. - - A stain of blood on her breast, and one - Black red o'er my heart, you see.--'Tis good - To die with her here!... Does the sinking sun, - Through the dull deep west burst, banked with blood?-- - Or is it that life will at last have done?... - - So _you_ are her husband? and--well, you see, - You see she is dead ... and her face--how white! - Fate bungled the cards!--did this _have_ to be?-- - What matters it now!--For at last the night - Falls and the darkness covers me. - - - - -GERALDINE - - - Ah, Geraldine, my Geraldine, - That night of love when last we met, - You have forgotten, Geraldine-- - I never dreamed you would forget. - - Ah, Geraldine, my Geraldine, - More lovely than that Asian queen, - Scheherazade, the beautiful, - Who in her orient palace cool - Of India, for a thousand nights - And one, beside her monarch lay, - Telling--while sandal-scented lights - And music stole the soul away-- - Love tales of old Arabia, - Full of enchantments and emprise-- - But no enchantments like your eyes. - - Ah, Geraldine, loved Geraldine, - Less lovely were those maids, I ween, - Pampinea and Lauretta, who, - In gardens old of dusk and dew, - Sat with their lovers, maid and man, - In stately days Italian, - And in quaint stories, that we know - Through grace of good Boccaccio, - Told of fond loves,--some false, some true,-- - But, Geraldine, none false as you. - - Ah, Geraldine, lost Geraldine, - That night of love, when last we met, - You have forgotten, Geraldine-- - I never dreamed you would forget. - 'Twas summer; and the moon swam high, - A great pale pearl within the sky: - And down that purple night of love - The stars, concurrent spark on spark, - Seemed moths of flame that swarmed above: - And through the roses, o'er the park, - Star-like the fireflies sowed the dark: - A mocking-bird in some deep tree, - Drowsy with dreams and melody,-- - Like a magnolia bud, that, dim, - Opens and pours its soul in musk,-- - Gave to the moonlight and the dusk - Its heart's pure song, its evening hymn. - Oh, night of love! when in the dance - Your heart thrilled rapture into mine, - As, in a state of necromance, - A mortal hears a voice divine. - Oh, night of love! when from your glance - I drank sweet death as men drink wine. - - You wearied of the waltz at last. - I led you out into the night. - Warm in my hand I held yours fast. - Your face was flushed; your eyes were bright. - The moon hung like a shell of light - Above the lake, the tangled trees; - And borne to us with fragrances - Of roses that were ripe to fall, - The soul of music from the hall - Beat in the moonlight and the breeze, - As youth's wild heart grown weary of - Desire and its dream of love. - - I held your arm and, for a while, - We walked along the balmy aisle - Of blossoms that, like velvet, dips - Unto the lake which lilies tile - With stars; and hyacinths, with strips - Of heaven. And beside a fall, - That down a ferned and mossy wall - Fell in a lake,--deep, woodbine-wound,-- - A latticed summer-house we found; - A green kiosk; through which the sound - Of waters and of zephyrs swayed, - And honeysuckle bugles played - Soft serenades of perfume sweet,-- - Around which ran a rustic seat. - And seated in that haunted nook,-- - I know not how it was,--a word, - A touch, perhaps, a sigh, a look, - Was father to the kiss I took; - Great things grow out of small I've heard. - And then it was I took between - My hands your face, loved Geraldine, - And gazed into your eyes, and told - The story ever new though old. - You did not look away, but met - My eyes with eyes whose lids were wet - With tears of truth; and you did lean - Your cheek to mine, my Geraldine.-- - I never dreamed you would forget. - - The night-wind and the water sighed: - And through the leaves, that stirred above, - The moonbeams swooned with music of - The dance--soft things in league with love: - I never dreamed that you had lied. - How all comes back now, Geraldine! - The melody; the glimmering scene; - Your angel face; and ev'n,--between - Your lawny breasts,--the heart-shaped jewel,-- - To which your breath gave fluctuant fuel,-- - A rosy star of stormy fire; - The snowy drift of your attire, - Lace-deep and fragrant: and your hair, - Disordered in the dance, held back - By one gemmed pin,--a moonbeam there, - Half-drowned within its night-like black.-- - And I who sat beside you then - Seemed blessed above all mortal men. - - I loved you for the way you sighed; - The way you said, "I love but you;" - The smile with which your lips replied; - Your lips, that from my bosom drew - The soul; your looks, like undenied - Caresses, that seemed naught but true: - I loved you for the violet scent - That clung about you as a flower; - Your moods, where grief and gladness blent, - An April-tide of sun and shower; - You were my creed, my testament, - Wherein I met with God's high power. - Was it because the loving see - Only what they desire shall be - There in the well-belovéd's soul, - Passion and heart's affinity, - That I beheld in you the whole - Of my love's image? and believed - You loved as I loved? nor perceived - Yours was a mask, a mockery! - - Ah, Geraldine, lost Geraldine, - That night of love, when last we met, - You have forgotten, Geraldine-- - I never dreamed you would forget. - - - - -AT THE CORREGIDOR'S - - -_The young advocate Don Sebastian Lopez, between three pinches of snuff, -lays the facts of the case before his friend, Don Emanuel de Cordova, -chief magistrate of the City of Valladolid._ - - To Don Odora said Donna De Vine, - "I yield to thy long endeavor!-- - At my balcony be on the stroke of nine, - And, Señor, I'm thine forever!"... - - This beauty at first had the Don descried - As she quit the confessional: followed: - "What a face! what a form! what a foot!" he sighed, - And more that he, smiling, swallowed. - - And with vows as soft as his oaths were sweet - Her heart he barricaded; - And pressed this point with a present meet, - And that point serenaded. - - What else could the enemy do but yield - To such handsome importuning? - A gallant blade with a lute for shield - All night at her lattice mooning! - - "_Que es estrella!_ thou star of all girls! - Here's that for thy fierce duenna: - A purse of pistoles and a rosary o' pearls, - And gold as yellow as henna. - - "She will drop from thy balcony's rail, my sweet, - My seraph! this silken ladder: - And then--sweet then!--my soul at thy feet, - What angel in Heaven gladder!" - - And the end of it was--But I will not say - How he won to the room of the lady.-- - Ah! to love is to live! and with youth--why, hey! - For the rest,--a maravedi! - - Now comes her betrothed from the wars; and he, - A Count of the Court Castilian, - A Don Diabolus! sword at knee, - And face and hair--vermilion. - - And his is a jealous love; and--for - The story grows sadder and sadder-- - He watches, and sees--a robber? to her, - Or gallant? ascend a ladder. - - So he pushes inquiry into her room; - With his naked sword demanding: - An alguazil, with a face like doom, - Sure of a stout withstanding. - - And weapon to weapon they foined and fought: - The Count's first thrusts were vicious: - Three thrusts to the floor Odora had brought: - And one through the white, capricious. - - The naked bosom of Donna De Vine-- - And this is the Count's condition.... - Was he right? was he wrong?--the question is mine;-- - To judge--for the Inquisition. - - - - -AN EPISODE - - -_A woman speaks. Year 1218; war of the Albigenses._ - - -I - - Saint Dominick, Pope Innocent, - Thou holy host Lyons once bent - On Languedoc, may God the Father - Plunge you in everlasting Hell! - And may the blood of those who fell - At Béziers together gather - In torrents of eternal pain, - And on your souls beat boiling rain! - - -II - - And Mountfort!--it was given me, - (For I had prayed incessantly), - To be the David to this giant.-- - An Albigensian warrior - My husband was. He, in the war, - The Pope had thundered on defiant - Thoulouse and outlawed Languedoc, - Stood with Earl Raymond like a rock. - - -III - - The walls of Béziers cried loud, - And Carcassonne's, red in their cloud - Of blood, disease, and conflagration, - For vengeance!--When he left me here, - With my two babes, I felt no fear. - The crusade's excommunication - Poured down its holy Catholics - To crush and burn us heretics. - - -IV - - At Carcassonne he fell. And there - My babes died famished. And despair - And hell were mine within their prison, - Till Mother of our God portrayed - This Mountfort's death. On me were laid - Blessed hands of power in a vision. - A call, my soul could not refuse, - Compelled me to besieged Thoulouse. - - -V - - No arrow mine, no arbalist; - A sling, a stone, a woman's wrist - God and His virgin Mother aided.-- - Their engines rocked our walls. I felt - The time had come and, praying, knelt; - Then, from the sling my hair had braided, - Launched at De Mountfort's bassinet - The rock where eyebrow eyebrow met. - - -VI - - Thus Mountfort died. Of Carcassonne - Our Lady 'twas who aimed the stone, - That slew this monster that was master:-- - For I--I was the instrument, - Saint Dominick and Innocent, - That hurled on you and yours disaster! - Two armies saw me whirl the sling - While Heaven stood by me--white of wing. - - - - -THE SLAVE - - - He waited till within her tower - Her taper signalled him the hour. - - He was a prince both fair and brave. - What hope that he would love _her_ slave! - - He of the Persian dynasty; - And she a Queen of Araby!-- - - No Peri singing to a star - Upon the sea were lovelier. - - I helped her drop the silken rope. - He clomb, aflame with love and hope. - - I drew the dagger from my gown - And cut the ladder, leaning down. - - Oh, wild his face, and wild the fall: - Her face was wilder than them all. - - I heard her cry, I heard him groan, - And stood as merciless as stone. - - The eunuchs came: fierce scimitars - Stirred in the torch-lit corridors. - - She spoke like one who prays in sleep, - And bade me strike or she would leap. - - I bade her leap; the time was short; - And kept the dagger for my heart. - - She leapt. I put their blades aside - And smiling in their faces--died. - - - - -THE ROSICRUCIAN - - -I - - The tripod flared with a purple spark, - And the mist hung emerald in the dark: - Now he stooped to the lilac flame - Over the glare of the amber embers, - Thrice to utter no earthly name; - Thrice, like a mind that half remembers; - Bathing his face in the magic mist - Where the brilliance burned like an amethyst. - - -II - - "Sylph, whose soul was born of mine, - Born of the love that made me thine, - Once more flash on the flesh! Again - Be the loved caresses taken! - Lip to lip let our mouths remain!-- - Here in the circle of sense, awaken! - Ere spirit meets spirit, the flesh laid by, - Let me know thee, and let me die!" - - -III - - Sunset heavens may burn, but never - Know such splendor! There bloomed an ever - Opaline orb, where the sylphid rose - A shape of luminous white; diviner - White than the essence of light that sows - The moons and suns through space; and finer - Than radiance born of a shooting-star, - Or the wild Aurora that streams afar. - - -IV - - "Look on the face of the soul to whom - Thou givest thy soul like added perfume! - Thou, who heard'st me, who long had prayed, - Waiting alone at evening's portal!-- - Thus on thy lips let my lips be laid, - Love, who hast made me all immortal! - Give me thine arms now! Come and rest - Happiness out on my beaming breast!" - - -V - - Was it her soul? or the sapphire fire - That sang like the note of a Seraph's lyre? - Out of her mouth there came no word-- - She spake with her soul, as a flower speaketh - Fragrant messages none hath heard, - Which the sense divines when the spirit seeketh.... - And he seemed alone in a place so dim - That the spirit's face, who was gazing at him, - For its burning eyes he could not see: - Then he knew he had died; that she and he - Were one; and he saw that this was she. - - - - -THE NORMAN KNIGHT - - - Within the castle chamber - The Norman knight lay dead; - The quarterings of the casement - Shone holy round his head. - - And first there came a maiden; - Her face was wet and white: - She kissed his mouth and murmured, - "Thou wast my own true knight." - - Within the arrased chamber - The Norman knight lay dead; - And tapers four and twenty - Burnt at his feet and head. - - And next there came a friar - And prayed beside the bier: - "Thou art a blesséd angel, - Who wast so noble here." - - Within the lofty chamber - The Norman knight lay dead; - Dim through the carven casement - The moonbeams lit his head. - - And then there came a varlet-- - Loud laughed he in his face: - "Thus do I spit upon thee, - Thee and thy curséd race!" - - Within the silent chamber - The Norman knight lay dead-- - Nor Norman knight nor Saxon serf - Heard aught the dead man said. - - - - -THE KHALIF AND THE ARAB - - - Among the tales, wherein it hath been told, - In golden letters in a book of gold, - Of Hatim Tai's hospitality, - Who, substanceless and dead and shadowy, - Made men his guests upon a mountain top - Whereon his tomb grayed from a thistle crop;-- - A tomb of rock where women, hewn of stone, - Rude figures, spread dishevelled hair, whose moan - From dark to daybreak made the silence sigh, - At which the camel-drivers, tented nigh, - "Ghouls or hyenas" shuddering would say, - But only granite women find at day:-- - Among such tales--who questions of their truth?-- - One tale still haunts me from my earliest youth; - Of that lost city, Sheddad son of Aad - Built 'mid the Sebaa sands,--a king who had - Dominion over many lands and kings,-- - That city, built in pride and pow'r, of things - Unstable of the earth. For he had read - Of Paradise and to himself had said, - "Now in this life the like of Paradise - I'll build me and the Prophet's may despise, - Having no need of that he promises." - So for this city taxed the lands and seas, - And columned Irem, on a blinding height, - Blazed in the desert like a chrysolite; - The manner of its building, it is told, - Alternate bricks of silver and of gold. - But Sheddad with his women and his slaves, - His thousand viziers, armored troops, as waves - Of ocean countless, God with awful flame-- - Shot sheer in thunder on him--overcame, - Confounded, and abolished; (ere his eyes - Had glimpsed bright follies of that paradise) - And blotted to a wilderness the land - Wherein accursed it lies and lost in sand.-- - Sad tales and glad; and 'mid them one, in sooth, - That is recorded of an Arab youth. - - The Khalif Hisham ben Abdulmelik, - Hunting one day, through some unusual freak - Rode, parted from his retinue, and gave - Chase to an antelope. Without a slave, - Vizier or amir to a pasture place - Of sheep he came, where dark, in tattered grace, - Watched one, an Arab youth. And as it came - The antelope drew off, with words of flame, - On fire with rage, unto the youth he turned, - Shouting, "Thou slave! ho, hast thou not discerned - The antelope escapes me? Up, dog, run! - Head him back this way!" - - Rising in the sun, - The Arab flamed, "O ignorant of worth! - Unworthy of respect!--though high thy birth,-- - In that thou look'st upon me,--vile of heart!-- - As one fit for contempt, thou lack'st no part - Of my disdain!--Allah! I would not own - A dog of thine for friend, no other known! - Poor though I be, thou tyrant mixed with ass!" - And flung him, rags and rage, into the grass. - - Incensed, astonished, frowning furiously, - Said Hisham, "Slave! thou know'st me not, I see!" - Calmly the youth, "Aye, verily I know!-- - O mannerless! _who_ would command me so, - _Except thyself_, ere he said 'Peace to thee'? - Well art thou known, aye! all too well of me!" - - "O dog! I am thy Khalif! by a hair - Thy life hangs raveling." - - "Though it dangle there - And rot to nothing, still upon thy head - Would curses shower!--Of thy dwelling place - Would Allah be forgetful!--Go thy ways, - Hisham ben Merwan, king of many words, - Few generosities!"... - - A flash of swords - In drifts of dust and, lo! the Khalif's troops - Around them rode.--As when a merlin stoops - Some stranger quarry, prey that swims the wind, - Heron or eagle; kenning not its kind - There, whence 'tis cast, until it, towering, feels - An eagle's tearing talons, and still deals - Blow upon blow, though hopeless;--so the youth,-- - An Arab, fearless as the face of Truth, - Of all that made him certain of his death,-- - Waited with eyes indifferent, equal breath. - - The palace reached, "Bring me the prisoner," - Commanded Hisham. And he came as were - He in no wise concerned; with eyes intent - On some far thing; and on the floor a bent - Dark gaze of scornful freedom unafraid, - Till at the Khalif's throne his steps were stayed: - And, unsaluting, standing head held down, - An armed attendant blazed him with a frown, - "Dog of a Bedouin! may thy eyes rot out! - Insulter! art thou blind? and must I shout - 'Thou stand'st before the Sultan! bend thy knee'?" - To him the Arab, sneering, "Verily, - Packsaddle of an ass! it well may be! - I kneel to none but God." - - The Khalif's rage - Exceeded now, and, "By my realm and age! - Arab, thy hour is come, thy very last!" - Then said, "Call in the headsman.--Fool, thou hast - Cast thy young life away. Its thread is past." - - The shepherd answered, "Aye?--by Allah, then, - If through thy means it might be stretched again, - Unscissored of what Destiny ordain, - Back in thy face I'd fling it as in vain." - - Then the chief Chamberlain: "O vilest one - Of all the Arabs! wilt thou not be done - Bandying thy baseness with the Ruler of - The Faithful? thou, with wordy filth enough - Within thy madman mouth to fill a jakes! - Viler than dirt that one from out it rakes, - Here's more for thee!" and spat into his face. - - And the dark Arab, with that last disgrace - All fire, answered: "Thou, perhaps, hast heard - The Koran text that says--'tis God's own word!-- - 'The day will come when each soul shall be prompt - To bow before Me and to give accompt.'" - - Then wroth indeed was Hisham: fiercely said, - "He braves us!--Headsman, ho! his peevish head! - See: canst thou medicine its speech anew; - Doctor its multiplying words to few: - Divorce them well." - - So, where the Arab stood, - Bound him; made kneel upon the cloth of blood. - With curving sword the headsman leaned, at pause, - And,--as 'tis custom, made of Moslem laws,-- - To the descendant of the Prophet quoth, - "O Khalif, shall I strike?" - - "By Iblis' oath! - Strike!" answered Hisham. But again the slave - Questioned; and yet again the Khalif gave - His nodded "yea"; and for the third time then - He asked: and knowing neither men nor Jinn - Might save him if the Khalif spake assent, - Signalled the sword, the youth with body bent - Laughed--till the wang-teeth of each jaw appeared; - Laughed--as with scorn the King of kings he'd beard, - Deriding Death. So, with redoubled spleen, - Roared Hisham, rising, "It is truly seen - This one is mad who mocks at Azrael!" - Then said the Arab: "Listen!--Once befell, - Commander of the Faithful, that a hawk, - A hungry hawk, pounced on a sparrow-cock; - And winging nestward with his meal in claw, - To him the sparrow,--for the creature saw - The hawk's conceit,--addressed this slyly, 'Oh, - Most great, most royal, there is not, I know, - Aught in me that will stay thy stomach's stress: - I am too paltry for thy mightiness!' - With which the hawk was pleased, and flattered so - That, in a while, he let the sparrow go." - - Then smiled the Khalif Hisham: and a sign - Staying the scimitar, that hung malign, - A threatening crescent, said: "God bless, preserve - The Prophet whom all true believers serve!-- - Now, by my kinship to the Prophet! and - Had he at first but spake us thus this hand - Had ne'er been wrathful; and, instead of hate, - He had had all--except the Khalifate." - Bade stuff his mouth with jewels and entreat - Him courteously, then from the palace beat. - - - - -ARABAH - -"_The third of these heroes, the blind Arabah._"--Gibbon. - - - And one brought pearls and one brought passion-flowers - To blind Arabah as he lay in dreams, - And one brought visions of the after hours. - And he beheld the rainbow-rolling streams - Of Eden on harmonious sands of gold, - And battlements, builded of prismatic beams. - He was not sightless now, nor weak, nor old; - For lo! the dark-eyed girls of Paradise - Rained on him gifts and kisses. - - And 'tis told - How blind Arabah rose with unsealed eyes, - With seeing eyes; he who to Allah gave - All that he had; which happened in this wise:-- - "Who's this that lies upon the mosque's cold pave?"-- - "A blind man, whom an angel's hand shall lead."-- - "A beggar, richer than the rich who have."-- - "Behold the lesson, such as Sufis feed - The soul upon!--O faith, blind-praying, see, - Out of thyself how God repays indeed, - Ten-thousandfold, one generosity!"... - - All Baghdad knew how, at the hour of prayer, - A slave beneath each shoulder, it was he, - Old, blind Arabah, whom a suppliant there, - Footsore and hungry, met and asked for bread. - "Alas! my son, God's poor are everywhere,"-- - Hoar as a Koreish priest, Arabah said;-- - "Richer than thou am I though poor indeed! - Take thou my slaves and sell, and buy thee bread."-- - Thrust him his slaves and said, "Great is thy need. - Refuse, and I renounce them!"--And the wall - Struck with his staff, saying, "This now shall lead." - --While from the mosque rang the muezzin's call, - "God is most mighty! Allah seeth all!" - - - - -THE SEVEN DEVILS - - - There is a legend, lost in some old dusty - Tome of the East,--and who will question it?-- - Concluding ancient wisdom, rather musty, - Wherein much war and wickedness and wit, - Insult and wrath and love and shame are writ: - Wherein is written that, when Mahomet - Fled out of Mecca from the people's wrath, - He met a shadow standing in his path, - A naked horror, blacker than hewn jet. - - It in one hand held out a flaming jewel, - Wherein fierce colors burnt and blent like eyes - Of seven fires, merciless as cruel: - The horror said, "God cursed them for their lies. - These are the seven devils of the wise, - And I am Satan!" And the prophet saw - How he might punish Mecca for its pride; - And, gazing on the Fiend, "Allah," he cried, - "Let them be free!" His word, like God's, was law. - - Since then these seven devils have descended - From nation unto nation, past the ken - Of Mahomet, who left earth undefended - Of any amulet of tongue or pen - 'Gainst demons boring at the brains of men: - Demons, whose names I dare not breathe or write, - For fear of fear, despair and madness, born - Of horror, and of frenzy all forlorn, - And shadowy evils of the day and night. - - - - -THAMUS - - - And it is said that Thamus sailed - Off islands of Ægean seas - No seaman yet had ever hailed; - No vessel touched, no ship of Greece, - Phœnician or the Chersonese. - - And, lying all becalmed, 'tis told - How wonderful with peace that night - Rolled out of dusk and dreamy gold - One star, whose splendor seemed to light - The world with majesty and might. - - Like shadows on a shadow-ship - The dark-haired, dark-eyed sailors lay; - When from the island seemed to slip, - Borne overhead and far away, - A voice that "Thamus!" seemed to say. - - Then silence: and the languid Greek, - The lounging Cretan, watched the sky, - Or, in carousal, ceased to speak - And sing. Again came rolling by - The voice, and "Thamus!" in its cry. - - All were awake: tall, swarthy men - With bated breath stood listening, - Or gravely scanned the shore. And then, - Although they saw no living thing, - Again they heard the summons ring. - - And "Thamus!" sounded shore and sea: - And at the third call leaned the Greek, - Full facing toward the isle; and he - Cried to the voice and bade it speak - The mission, message it would seek. - - "Thou shalt sail on to such a place - Among the pagan seas," it said; - "To such a land: and thou shalt face - Against it when the east is red, - And cry aloud, 'Great Pan is dead!'"... - - As fearful of unholy word - Their souls stood stricken with strange fear. - Then Thamus said, "Yea, I have heard. - Yet 'tis my purpose still to steer - Straight on. That land shall never hear!" - - And so they sailed that night; and came - Into an unknown sea; and there - The east burnt like a sword of flame - A Cyclops forges: straight the air - Fell sick with calm: the morn was fair. - - Then double dread was theirs; and dread - Was Thamus'; and he raised his hand - And shouted, "Pan! great Pan is dead!" - And all the twilight-haunted land - Cried, "Pan is dead!" from peak to strand. - - They saw pale shrines and temples nod - Among the shaken trees: and pale - Wild forms of goddess and of god - Crawl forth with crumbling limbs and trail - Woe, till the dim land grew one wail.-- - - What tripods groaned?--Serapis first - Within Canopus' temples heard - The word, and his brute granite burst - Its monster bulk. Dodona stirred - And bowed its oaks before the word - - That left them thunder-riv'n; then passed - To Aphaca where, marble-hewn, - Venus possessed a well that glassed - Her form, white-burning, like the moon-- - And lo! her loveliness lay strewn. - - Then o'er Cilicia swept, and bent - Sarpedon's oracle with scorn, - Apollo.--Yea! the gods lay rent - And Delphos dumb. And, lo! the morn - Flamed o'er the world where Christ lay born. - - - - -THE MAMELUKE - - -I - - She was a queen. 'Midst mutes and slaves, - A mameluke, he loved her.--Waves - Dashed not more hopelessly the paves - Of her high marble palace-stair - Than lashed his love his heart's despair.-- - As souls in Hell dream Paradise, - He suffered yet forgot it there - Beneath Rommaneh's houri eyes. - - -II - - With passion eating at his heart - He served her beauty, but dared dart - No look at her or word impart.-- - Taïfi leather's perfumed tan - Beneath her, on a low divan - She lay 'mid cushions stuffed with down; - A slave-girl with an ostrich fan - Sat by her in a golden gown. - - -III - - She bade him sing; fair lutanist - She loved his voice: with one white wrist, - Hooped with a blaze of amethyst, - She raised her ruby-crusted lute: - Gold-welted stuff, like some rich fruit, - Her raiment, diamond-showered, rolled - Folds pigeon-purple, whence one foot - Drooped in an anklet-twist of gold. - - -IV - - He stood and sang with all the fire - That boiled within his blood's desire, - That made him all her slave yet higher: - And, at the end, his passion durst - Quench with one burning kiss its thirst.-- - O eunuchs! did her face show scorn - When through his heart your daggers burst? - And dare you say he died forlorn? - - - - -ROMAUNT OF THE ROSES - - -_A jongleur tells to the Viscountess of Ventadour,--wife of the Seigneur -of the Château de Ventadour, in Limousin,--how the troubadour Bernard, -her former lover, met his death. Time, the middle of the 12th century._ - - All the night was drowned in dreaming; - And, above the terraced height, - Hung the moon, a sinking crescent, - In the ocean mirrored white; - And a breath of distant music - And of fragrance filled the night. - - Dripped the musk of myriad roses - From a million heavy sprays; - And the nightingales were sobbing - 'Mid the roses, where the haze - And the purple mists of midnight - Caught the moonlight's rippled rays. - - And the towers of the palace, - 'Mid its belt of ancient trees, - On the mountain rose, romantic, - White as foam of summer seas; - And the murmur of the ocean - Made a harp of every breeze. - - Where the moon shone on the terrace - And its fountains' falling foam; - Where the marble urns of flowers - Spilled their perfume in the gloam; - By the alabaster Venus - Stood her troubadour come home. - - Bernard, he who was my master - And your lover, Ventadour; - There to meet her by commandment, - She the lovely Eleanor; - She of Normandy the Duchess, - He a simple troubadour. - - And she met him by the statue, - By the marble Venus there,-- - Like a moonbeam 'mid the roses, - Who their crimson hearts laid bare, - Breathing out their lives in fragrance, - At her naked feet and fair.-- - - Then she told him she was Queen now, - That her husband now was King, - King of England; and to-morrow - She would sail. And then a ring - From her hand she took and gave him; - For the last time bade him sing. - - And he sang. Below, the dingles, - Where the lazy vapors lolled, - Where the torrent flashed its cascade, - Touched with amethyst and gold, - Echoed; where the wild deer glimmered - By the ruin gray and old. - - From the Venus then, or roses, - Struck a dagger; snake that stung, - Laid him dead who'd tuned her heart's strings - Till for him alone they sung: - Stilled the heart of him who only - From her heart one note had wrung. - - And the nightingales kept singing - 'Mid the roses, while, like stone, - Eleanor sank pale beside him, - And unto the palace lone - Stole a shadow with a dagger, - Who shall sit upon a throne. - - - - -THE PORTRAIT - - - In some quaint Nürnberg _maler-atelier_ - Uprummaged. When and where was never clear - Nor yet how he obtained it. When, by whom - 'Twas painted--who shall say? itself a gloom - Resisting inquisition. I opine - It is a Dürer. Mark that touch, this line, - Are they deniable?--Distinguished grace - And the pure oval of the noble face - Tarnished in color badly. Half in light - Extend it so. Incline. The exquisite - Expression leaps abruptly: piercing scorn; - Imperial beauty; each, an icy thorn - Of light, disdainful eyes and ... well! no use! - Effaced and but beheld! a sad abuse - Of patience.--Often, vaguely visible, - The portrait fills each feature, making swell - The heart with hope: avoiding face and hair - Start out in living hues; astonished, "There! - The woman lives," your soul exults, when, lo! - You hold a blur; an undetermined glow - Dislimns a daub.--Restore?--Ah, I have tried - Our best restorers, but it has defied. - - Storied, mysterious, say, perhaps, a ghost - Lives in the canvas; hers, some artist lost; - A duchess', haply. Her he worshiped; dared - Not tell he worshiped. From his window stared, - Of Nuremberg, one sunny morn when she - Passed paged to Court. Her cold nobility - Loved, lived for like a purpose. Seized and plied - A feverish brush--her face!--Despaired and died. - - The narrow Judengasse: gables frown - Around a humpbacked usurer's, where brown - And dirty in a corner long it lay, - Heaped in a pile of riff-raff, such as--say, - Retables done in tempora and old - Panels by Wohlgemuth; stiff paintings cold - Of martyrs and apostles,--names forgot,-- - Holbeins and Dürers, say; a haloed lot - Of praying saints, madonnas: these, perchance, - 'Mid wine-stained purples, mothed; an old romance; - A crucifix and rosary; inlaid - Arms, Saracen-elaborate; a strayed - Nïello of Byzantium; rich work, - In bronze, of Florence; here a delicate dirk, - There holy patens. - - So. My ancestor, - The first De Herancour, esteemed by far - This piece most precious, most desirable; - Purchased and brought to Paris. It looked well - In the dark paneling above the old - Hearth of his room. The head's religious gold, - The soft severity of the nun face, - Made of the room an apostolic place - Revered and feared.-- - - Like some lived scene I see - That gothic room; its Flemish tapestry: - Embossed within the marble hearth a shield, - Wreathed round with thistles; in its argent field - Three sable mallets--arms of Herancour-- - Carved with the crest, a helm and hands that bore, - Outstretched, two mallets. On a lectern laid,-- - Between two casements, lozenge-paned, embayed,-- - A vellum volume of black-lettered text. - Near by a taper, blinking as if vexed - With silken gusts a nervous curtain sends, - Behind which, haply, daggered Murder bends. - - And then I seem to see again the hall, - The stairway leading to that room.--Then all - The terror of that night of blood and crime - Passes before me.--It is Catherine's time: - The house, De Herancour's: on floors, splashed red, - Torchlight of Medicean wrath is shed: - Down carven corridors and rooms,--where couch - And chairs lie shattered and the shadows crouch, - Torch-pierced, with fear,--a sound of swords draws near, - The stir of searching steel. - - What find they here - On St. Bartholomew's?--A Huguenot - Dead in his chair! Eyes violently shot - With horror, fastened on a portrait there; - Coiling his neck one blood line, like a hair - Of finest fire. The portrait, like a fiend,-- - Looking exalted visitation,--leaned - From its black panel; in its eyes a hate - Demonic; hair--a glowing auburn, late - A dull, enduring golden. - - "Just one thread - Of the fierce hair around his throat," they said, - "Twisting a burning ray, he--staring dead." - - - - -BEHRAM AND EDDETMA - - - Against each prince now she had held her own, - An easy victor for the seven years - O'er kings and sons of kings--Eddetma, she, - Who, when much sought in marriage, hating men, - Espoused their ways to win beyond their strength - Through martial exercise and hero deeds: - She, who, accomplished in all warlike arts, - Had heralds cry through every kingdom known-- - _"Eddetma weds with none but him who proves - Himself her master in the test of arms; - Her suitors' foeman she. And he who fails, - So overcome of woman, woman-scorned, - Disarmed, dishonored, yet shall he depart, - Brow-bearing, forehead-stigmatized with fire, - The branded words, 'Eddetma's freedman this!'"_ - And many princes came to woo with arms, - Whom her high maiden prowess put to shame; - Pretentious courtiers small in thew and thigh, - Proud-palanquined from principalities - Of Irak and of Hind and farther Sind. - Though she was womanly as that Empress of - The proud Amalekites, Tedmureh, and - More beautiful, yet she had held her own. - - To Behram of the Territories, one - Son of a Persian monarch swaying kings, - Came bruit of her and her great victories, - Her maiden beauty and her warrior strength. - Eastward he journeyed from his father's Court, - With men and steeds and store of wealth and arms, - To the rich city where her father reigned, - Its seven citadels set above the sea, - Like seven Afrits, threatening all the world; - And messengered the monarch with a gift - Of savage vessels wroughten out of gold, - Of foreign fabrics stiff with gems and gold. - Vizier-ambassadored the old king gave - His answer to the suitor:-- - - "I, my son,-- - What grace have I beyond the grace of God? - What power is mine but a material? - What rule have I but a mere temporal? - Me, than the shadow of the Prophet's shade - Less, God invests with power but of man; - Yea! and man's right is but the right of God; - _His_ the dominion of the secret soul-- - And His her soul! Now hath my daughter sworn, - By all her vestal soul, that none shall know - Her but her better in the listed field, - Determining spear and sword. Grant Fate thy trust. - She hangs her hand upon to-morrow's joust.-- - Allah is great!--My greeting and farewell." - - And so the lists of war and love arose, - Wherein Eddetma with her suitor strove. - Mailed in Chorasmian armor, helm and spur, - On a great steed she came; Davidean crest - And hauberk one fierce blaze of gems. The prince, - Harnessed in scaly gold Arabian, rode - To meet her; on his arm a mighty shield - Of Syrian silver high embossed with gold. - So clanged the prologue of the battle. As - Closer it waxed, Prince Behram, who a while - Withheld his valor,--in that she he loved - Opposed him and beset him, woman whom - He had not scathed for the Chosroës' wealth,-- - Beheld his folly: how he were undone - With shining shame unless he strove withal, - Whirled fiery sword and smote the bassinet - That helmed the haughty face that long had scorned - The wide world's vanquished royalty, and so - Rushed on his own defeat. For, like unto - A cloud, that caverned the bright moon all eve, - That thunder splits and, virgin triumph, there - She sails a silver aspect, so the helm, - Hurled from her head, unhusked her golden hair, - And glorious, glowing face. By his own blow - Was Behram vanquished. All his wavering strength - Swerved from its purpose. With no final stroke - Stunned stood he and surrendered: stared and stared, - All his strong life absorbed into her face, - All the wild warrior arrowed by her eyes, - Tamed and obedient to her word and look. - Then she on him, as eagle on a kite, - Plunged pitiless and beautiful and fierce, - One trophy more to added victories: - Haled off his mail, amazement dazing him; - Seized steed and arms, confusion filling him; - And scoffed him forth brow-branded with his shame. - - Dazzled, six days he sat, a staring trance; - But on the seventh, casting stupor off, - Rose, and the straitness of the case, that held - Him as with manacles of knitted fire, - Considered--and decided on a way.... - - Once when Eddetma with an houri band - Of high-born damsels, under eunuch guard, - In the walled palace pleasaunce took her ease, - Under a myrrh-bush by a fountain side,-- - Where marble Peris poured a diamond rain - In scooped cornelian,--one, a dim, hoar head,-- - A patriarch 'mid gardener underlings,-- - Bent spreading gems and priceless ornaments - Of jewelled amulets of hollow gold - Sweet with imprisoned ambergris and musk; - Symbolic stones in sorcerous carcanets; - Gem talismans in cabalistic gold. - Whereon the princess marvelled and bade ask-- - What did the ancient with his riches there? - Who, questioned, mumbled in his bushy beard, - "To buy a wife withal;" whereat they laughed - As oafs when wisdom stumbles. Quoth a maid, - With orient midnight in her starry eyes, - And tropic music on her languid tongue, - "And what if _I_ should wed with thee, O beard - Grayer than my great-grandfather, what then?"-- - "One kiss, no more; and, child, thou were divorced," - He; and the humor took them till, like birds - That sing among the spice-trees and the palms, - The garden pealed with maiden merriment. - - Then quoth the princess, "Thou wilt wed with him, - Ansada?" mirth in her gazelle-like eyes, - And gravity sage-solemn in her speech; - And took Ansada's hand and laid it in - The old man's staggering hand, and he unbent - His crookéd back and on his staff arose - Wrinkled and weighed with many heavy years, - And kissed her, leaning on his shaking staff, - And heaped her bosom with an Amir's wealth, - And left them laughing at his foolish beard. - Now on the next day, as she took her ease - With her glad troop of girlhood,--maidens who - So many royal tulips seemed,--behold, - Bowed with white years, upon a flowery sward - The ancient with new jewelry and gems - Wherefrom the sun coaxed wizard fires and lit - Glimmers in glowing green and pendent pearl, - Ultramarine and beaded, vivid rose. - And so they stood and wondered; and one asked, - As yesternoon, wherefore the father there - Displayed his Sheikh locks and the genie gems.-- - "Another marriage and another kiss?-- - What! doth the tomb-ripe court his youth again? - O aged one, libertine in hope not deed! - O prodigal of wives as well as wealth! - Here stands thy damsel," trilled the Peri-tall - Diarra with the midnight in her hair, - Two lemon-blossoms blowing in her cheeks; - And took the dotard's jewels with the kiss - In merry mockery. - - Ere the morrow's dawn - Bethought Eddetma: "Shall my handmaidens, - Humoring a gray-beard's whim, for wrinkled smiles - And withered kisses still divide his wealth? - While I stand idle, lose the caravan - Whose least is notable?--I too will wed, - Betide me what betides." - - And with the morn - Before the man,--for privily she came,-- - Stood habited, as were her tire-maids, - In humbler raiment. Now the ancient saw - And knew her for the princess that she was, - And kindling gladness of the knowledge made - Two sparkling forges of his deep-set eyes - Beneath the ashes of his priestly brows. - Not timidly she came; but coy approach - Became a maiden of Eddetma's suite. - She, gazing on the jewels he had spread - Beneath the rose-bower by the fountain, said:-- - "The princess gave me leave, O grandfather. - Here is my hand in marriage, here my lips. - Adorn thy bride; then grant me my divorce." - And humbly answered he, "With all my heart!"-- - Responsive to her quavering request,-- - "The daughter of the king did give thee leave? - And thou wouldst wed?--Then let us not delay.-- - Thy hand! thy lips!" So he arose and heaped - Her with barbaric jewelry and gems, - And took her hand and from her lips the kiss. - Then from his age, behold, the dotage fell, - And from the man all palsied hoariness. - Victorious-eyed and amorous, a youth, - A god in ardent capabilities, - Resistless held her; and she, swooning, saw, - Transfigured and triumphant bending o'er, - Gloating, the branded brow of Prince Behram. - - - - -TORQUEMADA - -_To the Chapter of the Archbishop of Toledo._ - - - What doth the Archbishop, his chapter of - Toledo?--Yea! doze they above some Bull-- - Some dull dry Bull Pope Sextus sent to rot? - Come, come! awake! O prelates militant! - Hear me! this is a truth I whisper now: - Spain's King is less than king as I am less - Than Paul the Apostle.--Look you! look around; - Observe and dare!--I write above my seal, - A grave Dominican, to postulate - Pacheco, Marquis de Villena, croaks - No nonsense in your excellencies' ears: - King Henry's heir _is_ illegitimate! - Blanche of Navarre cast off, his Impotence - Gave us a wanton out of Portugal - For Queen; Joanna, who bore him this heir - The cuckold King parades, a bastard, now. - Look! all the Court laughs--secretly: but masks - Are but for slaves; the people's smile is free - From all concealment; and the word still wags - About this son,--who is his favorite's, - Bertrand la Cueva's, handsome exquisite,-- - Whom, people say,--and what they say is true,-- - The King himself, needing a lusty heir, - Made warm familiar with Joanna's bed. - What shall we do? endorse the infamy? - Absolve them?--Yea! absolve them--at the stake! - Or, if not that, then with the axe that hews - The neck of State asunder!--Is it well, - Prelates and ministers? - - Be merciful?-- - Lest the disease of this delicious fruit, - This Kingdom of Castile, corrode the core, - Why not pare off all rottenness and leave - The healthy pulp! The throne, the populace, - The Church, and God demand the overthrow, - Deponement or the abnegation of - This Henry, named the Fourth, the impotent!-- - Alphonso lives.... (It is my guarded hope - That brothers of such kings have no long life.)-- - Am I impatient? 'Tis the tonsure then; - Ambition ever was and aye will be - Cousined to fierce impatience. 'Tis the cowl, - The tonsure and the cowl, _they_ must advance! - My native town, Valladolid, did sow - The priestly germ, ambition, first in me; - Rather 'twas planted there in me; and had, - Despite the richness of the soil, poor growth - And less encouragement; the nipping wind - Of Court disfavor was too much for it; - And so I bore it thence to Cordova, - And sunned its torpor in a woman's smile, - 'Neath which it sprouted but--who trusts the sex?-- - Grew to a tenderness too insecure - For love's black frosts. Required hardiness, - And found it there at Zaragossa; (where - Fat father Lopés, bluff Dominican, - My youth confuted with wise nonsense, and - Astonished Spain in disputation in - The public controversies of the monks). - Transplanted to the Court, oh, splendid speed! - Sure hath its growth been. Now a Cardinal's red - Is promised by the bud that tops its stem. - How have I, through the saintly medium - Of the confessional, impressed the ear - Of Isabella, daughter and dear child! - The incarnation of my dear ideal, - Pure crucifix of my religious love, - Sweet cross which my ambition guards and holds: - Ploughed up the early meadows of her soul - For fruitful increase! in her maiden heart - Insinuated subtleties of seed - Shall ripen to a queen crowned with a crown - From welded gold of Arragon and Castile! - How I this son of John, the Second named, - Prince Ferdinand of swarthy Arragon,-- - (Grant absolution, holy mother mine! - Thus thy advancement and thy mastery - Would I obtain!)--have on her fancy limned - In morning colors of proud chivalry! - Till he a sceptered paladin of love - And beaming manhood stands! She dreams, she dreams - What--Heaven knows! 'Tis, haply, of a star - She saw when but a babe and in the arms - Of some old nurse. A star, that laughed above - A space of Moorish balcony that hung - Above a water full of upset stars; - Reflected glimmers of old palace fêtes: - A star she reached for, cried for, claimed her own, - But never got; that blew young promises, - Court promises, centupled, from the tips - Of golden fingers at her infant eyes.-- - Well! when this girl is grown to be a queen, - What if one, Torquemada, clothe her star - In palpable approach and give it her!-- - - When she is Queen, three steadfast purposes - Have grown their causes to divine results.-- - No young imagination did I train - With such endeavor and for no reward.-- - How often have I told her of the things - She could perform when Queen, while silently - And pensively she sat and, leaning, heard, - Absorbed upon my face! her missal,--crushed - By one propped elbow, its bent, careless leaves - Rich with illuminated capitals - Of gold and purple,--open on her lap. - Long, long we sat thus, brothers, speaking of - Felicity; discoursing earnestly - Of Earth and Heaven; and of who adhere - To God's true Vicar and our Holy Church: - Beatitude and all the ceaseless bliss, - Celestial, of eternal Paradise, - As everlasting as the souls that have - Built a strong tower for the only Faith. - And I recall now how, in exhortation, - Filled with the fervor of my cause I cried:-- - "Walk not on ways that lead but to despair, - The easy ways of Satan! Rather thorns - For naked feet that will not falter if - Retentive of the arm of our true Church, - Who comforts weariness with promises - Still urging onward; and refreshes hearts - With whisperings in the tuneless ear of Care."-- - And oft, big-eyed with innocence, she asked, - "Do some digress?"--And I, "Yea, many! yea! - And there's necessity! we should annul, - Pluck forth the canker that contaminates, - Corrodes the milk-white beauty of our Rose.-- - God's persecution! they confront our Faith - With brows of stigmatizing error writ - In Hell's red handwriting. Shall such persist? - No!--Heaven demands an end to all this shame!"-- - Her pledge she gave me then: "When Queen, for Spain - The Inquisition! Let the Saints record! - I promise thee, my father, thou shalt be - A mattock of deracination to - Extirpate heresy." - - Well, well; time goes: - The world moves onward, and I still am--oh, - Frere Torquemada, a Dominican!... - - Blind Spain hastes blindly forward, eager for - Her Hellward plunge. Our need is absolute. - Conclusion to these monster heresies - Or their most imminent consequence!--The throne, - Which is derived directly from high God, - Meseems should champion God in any cause; - And if it will not, we will make it to.-- - O Spain, Spain, Spain! awake! arise! and crush - These multiplying madnesses that mouth - Their paradoxes at the Cross and shriek - Their blasphemies e'en in the face of Christ!-- - O miserable Religion, is thy pride - So fallen here! thy tenement of strength - So powerless! Then where's security, - When steadfast principle is insecure, - And God's own pillars rock and none resists?-- - But I have tempered, at a certain heat, - A heart of womanhood; and so have wrought - The metal of a mind within the forge - Of holy discourse, that Toledo's steel - Springs not more true than my reforming blade, - Which shall carve worship to a perfect whole.-- - Imperial Isabella! patroness! - Protectress of pure faith! sweet Catholic! - Our Church's dear concern! its bell, its book, - Tribunal, and its godly Act of Faith! - Hear how my soul cries out and speaks for thee!-- - - My lord and brothers, hear me and perpend: - This need is first: to make her sceptered Queen - Of wide Castile. To make (the second need), - Him, whom Ximenes, my friend Cordelier - Shall serve as minister, King Ferdinand, - Her wedded consort. And the third great need, - The last,--which yet is first,--to scour from Spain - These Moors, who make a brimstone-odious lair - Of that rich region of Granada, which, - Like some vile sore of scaly leprosy, - Scabs Spain's fair face. - - Delay not. Let the Church - Divide attention then 'twixt heretics - And unclean Jews. So; wash her garments clean!-- - King Henry falls. God and Saint Dominick - Aid our endeavor! and the Holy See - Build firm foundations!--Let the corner-stone - Of our most Holy Inquisition here - Be mortared with the blood of heretics - That its strong structure may endure!--And he, - This Torquemada, the Dominican, - Made Grand Inquisitor and Cardinal, - This monk who writes you now, whose spirit feels - That God inspires him with His own desires, - Shall blaze God's name in blood upon the world. - - * * * * * - - +----------------------------------------------------------------+ - | Transcriber Notes: | - | | - | P. 31. "fragant firmament", changed 'fragant' to 'fragrant'. | - | Original text can be found here: | - | https://archive.org/details/poemscawein01cawerich | - +----------------------------------------------------------------+ - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poems of Madison Cawein, Volume 1 -(of 5), by Madison Cawein - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF MADISON CAWEIN, VOL 1 *** - -***** This file should be named 55049-0.txt or 55049-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/0/4/55049/ - -Produced by Larry B. 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