JD «SZ ad . _ ” - =. enaerenn orem OIE Pent lei print a eam er sr *y meee, S 23 ow bee € 4 . vt LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE Pos 2 The Works of - Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate, With Photographic Illustrations By PAYNE JENNINGS. LONDON: SuTTABY & Co., AMEN CORNER. MDCCCLXXXVIII. fee VV OR KS (OF Pelee 1) memo teENNYSON Pete ee UREAT E London MACMILLAN AND CoO. AND NEW YORK 1889 * e > i x me ae r. 1 e , 7 ¥ } > SONS BaN TS. To THE QUEEN . JUVENILIA Claribel Nothing will ie All Things will Die . Leonine Elegiacs Supposed Confessions of a Second rate Sensitive Mind The Kraken Song. Lilian Isabel Mariana To : Madeline . Song—The Owl Second Song—To the A : Recollections of the Arabian Nights Ode to Memory : : Song. A Character The Poet . 3 The Poet’s Mind The Sea-Fairies The Deserted House The Dying Swan A Dirge A Love and Death ; The Ballad of Oriana Circumstance The Merman The Mermaid Adeline Margaret . Rosalind Eleanore Y ‘My life is full a weary eis Early Sonnets . : i. Sonnet to —— . . Sonnet to J. M. K. : . ‘Mine be the strength of spirit’ . Alexander. A 5 . Buonaparte mn —& WN OWN ND N OOO WON AAA AWW Juvenit1a—Early Sonnets continued— 6. Poland : 7. ‘Caress’d or chide 8. ‘The form, the form alone is elbahen? g. ‘Wan sculptor, weepest thou’ . ‘If I were loved, as I desire to be’ 11, The Bridesmaid The Lady of Shalott. Mariana in the South The Two Voices The Miller’s Daughter Fatima - ; é - (Enone 2 3 ; : : The Sisters To — The eee of re Lady Clara Vere de Vere. The May Queen New-Year’s Eve . A z ; - Conclusion The Lotos-Eaters Choric Song . : ; A Dream of Fair Women . The Blackbird . 4 The Death of the Old Vesk on} eno: Ona Mourner . ‘You ask me, why, tho’ ill at ease’ ‘Of old sat Freedom on the heights’ ‘ Love thou thy land’ England and America in 1782 . The Goose ENGLISH IDYLLS AND OTHER POEMS: The Epic . é Morte d’Arthur. : The Gardener’s Daughter; or, ete Pict Dora . A ; Audley Court : Walking to the Mail. Edwin Morris ; or, the Lake St. Simeon Stylites PAGE 26 26 26 26 27 27 Tue LAapy oF SHALOTT, AND OTHER POEMS: 27 29 30 36 39 iv CONTENTS. PAGE ENGLISH IDYLLS AND OTHER PoEMs contd.— The Talking Oak . s : 5 Sy tse) Love and Duty. : . : : Oe The Golden Year. ; 5 3 = 194, Ulysses. ‘ : : ; Amel Tithonus : ; : ‘i : : OO Locksley Hall . : 5 5 . AUT Sts ls Godiva . < A : 2 : : « / 03 The Day-Dream . : : - we etOd Prologue . : 4 : 5 a, ate The Sleeping Palace! 5 : é . 104 The Sleeping Beauty 5 - a neLos The Arrival . : 7 : : « . B06 The Revival . A - 2 ‘ . 106 The Departure . , . A : o ELO7 Moral F - A ; 5 5 «107 {convo ) i ;: ‘ ; e = 107 Epilogue . : ‘ , : 5 , OS Amphion . : ‘ ‘ : 5 2 108 St. Agnes’ Eve. , : : : © 3TOO Sir Galahad . A : : 3 : . RIO Edward Gray ‘ eee 3 Will Waterproof’s Pecital Monologue oetar Lady Clare . . : . . ase! The Captain. 5 2 ; ¢ Sects, The Lord of Burleigh | 3 : ; Ae 646) The Voyage . z : 2 BELT Sir Launcelot and Gaeen Giinevers : . 518 A Farewell . : : 5 ; NEES The Beggar Maid : 4 F : su LO The Eagle . A RETO ‘ Move eastward, aren earch ate leat ee LO ‘Come not, whenITamdead’ . ‘ aE EEO The Letters . : : 5 : : . 120 The Vision of Sin . ‘ 5 » 20 To , after reading a Life and per Pen: 7” 128 To E. L., on his Travels in Greece . . 124 ‘ Break, eal break’ . . , : 3 E24 The Poet’s Song . 4 : - : - 124 Enocu ARDEN, AND OTHER PoEMS: Enoch Arden . : ; : a eros The Brook 3 : i ; ; eLsO Aylmer’s Field . $ 3 % e142 Sea Dreams . : : ; - oF Te6 Lucretius . ; : : é ‘ Figen aire THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY ; Fares (ois Ode on the Death of the Duke of Walingios 218 The Third of February, 1852 - eh The Charge of the Light Brigade 4 222 Ode sung at the Opening of the Internation) Exhibition. 5 223 A Welcome to Riewandce 223 PAGE A Welcome to Her Royal Highness Marie Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh . 224 The Grandmother : 5 : 4 2 ES Northern Farmer. Old Style . . . 228 Northern Farmer. New ea 3 - ge The Daisy . 5 . 1233 To the Rev. F. D. Mainient : A eae Will or: 5 : : ‘ . x 235% In the Valley of Cautetete 4 , : > 235 In the Garden at Swainston “ 3 7 235 The Flower . “ F , : A 4 Wes Requiescat . : : : - : - 236 ‘The SailorsBoyee . : = : = 230 ‘The Islet =~ : ‘ Fi 5 . 236 Child-Songs . : : : f f 237, 1. The City Child . 7 . ; E237 2. Minnie and Winnie. C ¢ ea The Spiteful Letter . 5 4 : 7 237 Literary Squabbles . -. : é 207 The Victim . 2 5 é ° : . 238 Wages . = 2 ‘ é e230 The Higher Pautheie ‘ 3 z pene) The Voice and the Peak . : : + 240 ‘ Flower in the crannied wall’. ; - 240 A Dedication é ; : 4 . 240 EXPERIMENTS: Boddicea . : : é e mee: In Quantity . 243 Specimen of a Teen of the Tied 3 in Blank Verse . : ; : : PEL S THE WINDOW ; OR, THE SONG OF THE WRENS: The Window . 5 4 é . 244 On the Hill : : : ‘i : 2 a2Ad At the Window . c . j : = 244 Gone. j : b p , : + 4245 Winter . 3 c é 2 a « 2245 Spring : . : . 5 A e245 The Letter : : ; F 7 245 No Answer : - C » - + 245 The Answer . : : : ; . 246 Ay . ° . ° . ° ° . 246 When A ‘ “ » 246 Marriage Marine F . = 3 ~ 246 In Memoriam A, H, H. . . : + 247 Maup: A MonopRAMA ., : . » 286 IDYLLS OF THE KING: Dedication ‘ 5 : . >. 308 The Coming of Achar ‘ ; = + 309 The Round Table . ‘ 6 . * 317 Gareth and Lynette . : ° + 317 The Marriage of Geraint . Be eyes CONTENTS. v PAGE PAGE ; IDYLLs OF THE K1nG—Round Table contd. TRANSLATIONS, ETC. continued— : Geraintand Enid. . . ae ae TF | Sieh pobn Wtanklit 5.0.6) = es 35, 8 S37 Balin and Balan . : : : = 369 To Dante . ‘i : : ; nme 537 Beene Madea ; . ‘ eh fee TIRESIAS, AND OTHER POEMS: Lancelot and Elaine . P 2 sO : ; SeetioipGails . . wt C gg | «TOR. Fitzgerald © - 2 s+ 537 Pelleas and Ettarre . : : e433 Tiresias . : E ; : 5 7.2538 The Last Tournament . : : 43 The Wr eck ; ; : : ; eget Guinevere . : : 4 - 456 Despair ey ; ‘ : : : PRs: The Passing of erthae aga - 467 The Ancient Sage . : : ; aot To the Queen . “ ; ‘ ‘ ATA The Flight ; : ; ; ; nee Tomorrow. : . : eae DS THE Lover’s TALE. . : : ; . 476 The Spinster’s Sweck Arts 5 4 3 Gy, i, Y Locksley Hall Sixty Years after . 2 26S To ALFRED TENNYSON, MY GRANDSON . 499 Prologue to General Hamley . 568 ha Seenen crake Porms : The Charge of the Heavy Bapade at } Balaclava : = 5 : Ees0G The First Quarrel . : ; : . 499 Epilogue . ] . : ‘ ; . 569 Rizpah . ceptetng s).. 14 FOO8 PROuwingll poms Ce elt al ue een, BIO The Northern Gr biter F : mE SOA The Dead Prophet 571 h é : : : : re oe A Ballad of the Fleet 2 507 Early Spring. 573 ; : wee Prefatory Poem to my y Brother s Sonne. 573 The Village Wife ; or, in Entail AS hats Saupe Frater Ave atque Vale. ; ; . 574 In the Children’s Hex piial : ‘ SeGE7. Helen'cTowers , é a Ri peemgot Poem to the Princess Alice . 518 Epitaph on Lord Stratford de Redelifie STs om efence of Lucknow : “ Dope t ee) Epitaph on General Gordon . : eS TA. Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham . 22 Epitaph on Caxton . , : . 575 Columbus. ag ate Fe wothe Dake of Arcyll <2.) ... “= $876 The Voyage of ectinne : 5 7 529 Tandeall Round. s , : 5 . 575 De Profundis : eset The Two Greetings ighoate : sage 5 53? OULn arn Prikeess Bearce® ‘ a GHE The Human Cry . 533 The Fleet. : 577 oaree-< Opening of the indict A Chlonl Ex- ae hibition by the Queen . : i Prefatory Sonnet to the ‘ Nineteenth Poets and their Bibliographies . ‘ . 578 Century’ fA : - 533 To the Rev. W. H. Brookfield ‘ . 533 | QuEEN Mary “ : : «579 Montenegro. : . : i 533 To Victor Hugo Zas HAROLD c ; c é : : £ (Sst TRANSLATIONS, ETC. BEEBE eS : ; : t “anees Battle of Brunanburh A F - 5 iy ihe: Cur. . * : ° : =) 750 Achilles over the Trench . : 4 536 To the Princess Frederica of Hanover on EAs EE Se iy get ang her Marriage. , ; ‘ - - 537 | THE PrRomisE or May . 3 2778 INDEX TO THE First LINES a - 805 — TO THE QUEEN. Revered, beloved—O you that hold A nobler office upon earth Than arms, or power of brain, or birth Could give the warrior kings of old, Victortia,—since your Royal grace To one of less desert allows This laurel greener from the brows Of him that utter’d nothing base ; And should your greatness, and the care That yokes with empire, yield you time To make demand of modern rhyme Lf aught of ancient worth be there ; Then—while a sweeter music wakes, And thro wild March the throstle calls, Where all about your palace-walls The sun-lit almond-blossom shakes— Take, Madam, this poor book of song ; for tho the faults were thick as dust Ln vacant chambers, I could trust Your kindness. May you rule us long, And leave us rulers of your blood As noble t2ll the latest day! May children of our children say, ‘ She wrought her people lasting good ; ‘ Her court was pure ; her life serene ; God gave her peace; her land reposed ; A thousand claims to reverence closed In her as Mother, Wife, and Queen ; ‘And statesmen at her council met Who knew the seasons when to take Occasion by the hand, and make The bounits of freedom wider yet ‘ By shaping some august decree, Which kept her throne unshaken still, Broad-based upon her people’s wilt, And compass’d by the inviolate sea.’ March 1851. JUVENILIA., CLARIBEL. A MELODY. I WHERE Claribel low-lieth The breezes pause and die, Letting the rose-leaves fall : But the solemn oak-tree sigheth, Thick-leaved, ambrosial, With an ancient melody Of an inward agony, Where Claribel low-lieth. II. At eve the beetle boometh Athwart the thicket lone : At noon the wild bee hummeth About the moss’d headstone : At midnight the moon cometh, And looketh down alone. Her song the lintwhite swelleth, The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth, The callow throstle lispeth, The slumbrous wave outwelleth, The babbling runnel crispeth, The hollow grot replieth Where Claribel low-lieth. NOTHING @WILUeDIE: WHEN will the stream be aweary of flowing Under my eye? When will the wind be aweary of blowing Over the sky ? When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting ? When will the heart be aweary of beating ? And nature die? Never, oh! never, nothing will die ; The stream flows, The wind blows, The cloud fleets, The heart beats, Nothing will die. Nothing will die ; All things will change Thro’ eternity. Tis the world’s winter ; Autumn and summer Are gone long ago ; Earth is dry to the centre, But spring, a new comer, A spring rich and strange, Shall make the winds blow Round and round, Thro’ and thro’, Here and there, Till the air And the ground Shall be fill’d with life anew. The world was never made ; It will change, but it will not fade. So let the wind range ; For even and morn Ever will be Thro’ eternity. Nothing was born ; Nothing will die ; All things will change. ALL THINGS WILL DIE—LEONINE ELEGIACS. 3 ALL THINGS WILL DIE. CLEARLY the blue river chimes in its flowing Under my eye ; Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing Over the sky. One after another the white clouds are fleeting ; Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating Full merrily ; Yet all things must die. The stream will cease to flow ; The wind will cease to blow ; The clouds will cease to fleet ; The heart will cease to beat ; For all things must die. All things must die. Spring will come never more. Oh! vanity ! Death waits at the door. See ! our friends are all forsaking The wine and the merrymaking. We are call’d—we must go. Laid low, very low, In the dark we must lie. The merry glees are still ; The voice of the bird Shall no more be heard, Nor the wind on the hill. Oh! misery ! Hark ! death is calling While I speak to ye, The jaw is falling, The red cheek paling, The strong limbs failing ; Ice with the warm blood mixing ; The eyeballs fixing. Nine times goes the passing bell : Ye merry souls, farewell. The old earth Had a birth, As all men know, Long ago. And the old earth must die. So let the warm winds range, And the blue wave beat the shore ; For even and morn Ye will never see Thro’ eternity. All things were born. Ye will come never more, For all things must die. LEONINE ELEGIACS. LOW-FLOWING breezes are roaming the broad valley dimm/’d in the gloaming : Thoro’ the black-stemm’d pines only the far river shines. Creeping thro’ blossomy rushes and bowers of rose-blowing bushes, Down by the poplar tall rivulets babble and fall. Barketh the shepherd-dog cheerly ; the grasshopper carolleth clearly ; Deeply the wood-dove coos ; shrilly the owlet halloos ; Winds creep; dews fall chilly: in her first sleep earth breathes stiily : Over the pools in the burn water- gnats murmur and mourn. Sadly the far kine loweth: the glimmer- ing water outfloweth : Twin peaks shadow’d with pine slope to the dark hyaline. Low-throned Hesper is stayed between the two peaks ; but the Naiad Throbbing in mild unrest holds him beneath in her breast. The ancient poetess singeth, that Hes- perus all things bringeth, Smoothing the wearied mind: bring me my love, Rosalind. Thou comest morning or even ; cometh not morning or even. False-eyed Hesper, unkind, where is my sweet Rosalind ? she SUPPOSED CONFESSIONS OF A SECOND-RATE SENSITIVE MIND. O Gop! my God! have mercy now. I faint, I fall. Men say that Thou 4 CONFESSIONS OF A SENSITIVE MIND. errr rrr Didst die for me, for such as me, Patient of ill, and death, and scorn, And that my sin was as a thorn Among the thorns that girt Thy brow, Wounding Thy soul.—That even now, In this extremest misery Of ignorance, I should require A sign ! and if a bolt of fire Would rive the slumbrous summer noon While I do pray to Thee alone, Think my belief would stronger grow ! Is not my human pride brought low ? The boastings of my spirit still ? The joy I had in my freewill All cold, and dead, and corpse-like grown? And what is left to me, but Thou, And faith in Thee? Men pass me by ; Christians with happy countenances— And children all seem full of Thee ! And women smile with saint-like glances Like Thine own mother’s when she bow’d Above Thee, on that happy morn When angels spake to men aloud, And Thou and peace to earth were born. Goodwill to me as well as all— I one of them: my brothers they: Brothers in Christ—a world of peace And confidence, day after day ; And trust and hopetill things should cease, And then one Heaven receive us all. How sweet to have a common faith ! To hold a common scorn of death ! And at a burial to hear The creaking cords which wound and eat Into my human heart, whene’er Earth goes to earth, with grief, not fear, With hopeful grief, were passing sweet ! Thrice happy state again to be The trustful infant on the knee ! Who lets his rosy fingers play About his mother’s neck, and knows Nothing beyond his mother’s eyes. They comfort him by night and day ; They light his little life alway ; He hath no thought of coming woes ; He hath no care of life or death ; Scarce outward signs of joy arise, Because the Spirit of happiness And perfect rest so inward is ; And loveth so his innocent heart, Her temple and her place of birth, Where she would ever wish to dwell, Life of the fountain there, beneath Its salient springs, and far apart, Hating to wander out on earth, Or breathe into the hollow air, Whose chillness would make visible Her subtil, warm, and golden breath, Which mixing with the infant’s blood, Fulfils him with beatitude. Oh! sure it is a special care Of God, to fortify from doubt, To arm in proof, and guard about With triple-mailed trust, and clear Delight, the infant’s dawning year. Would that my gloomed fancy were As thine, my mother, when with brows Propt on thy knees, my hands upheld In thine, I listen’d to thy vows, For me outpour’d in holiest prayer— For me unworthy !—and beheld Thy mild deep eyes upraised, that knew The beauty and repose of faith, And the clear spirit shining thro’. Oh! wherefore do we grow awry From roots which strike so deep? why dare Paths in the desert? Could not I Bow myself down, where thou hast knelt, To the earth—until the ice would melt Here, and I feel as thou hast felt ? What Devil had the heart to scathe Flowers thou hadst rear’d—to brush the dew From thine own lily, when thy grave Was deep, my mother, in the clay ? Myself? Is it thus? Myself? Had I So little love for thee? But why Prevail’d not thy pure prayers? as To one who heeds not, who can save But will not? Great in faith, and strong Against the grief of circumstance Wert thou, and yet unheard. What if Thou pleadest still, and seest me drive Thro’ utter dark a full-sail’d skiff, Unpiloted i’ the echoing dance Why CONFESSIONS OF A SENSITIVE MIND. 5 Of reboant whirlwinds, stooping low Unto the death, not sunk! I know At matins and at evensong, That thou, if thou wert yet alive, In deep and daily prayers would’st strive To reconcile me with thy God. Albeit, my hope is gray, and cold At heart, thou wouldest murmur still— ‘ Bring this lamb back into Thy fold, My Lord, if so it be Thy will.’ Would’st tell me I must brook the rod And chastisement of human pride ; That pride, the sin of devils, stood Betwixt me and the light of God ! That hitherto I had defied And had rejected God—that grace Would drop from his o’er-brimming love, As manna on my wilderness, If I would pray—that God would move And strike the hard, hard rock, and thence, Sweet in their utmost bitterness, Would issue tears of penitence Which would keep green hope’s life. Alas ! I think that pride hath now no place Nor sojourn in me. I am void, Dark, formless, utterly destroyed. Why not believe then? Why not yet Anchor thy frailty there, where man Hath moor’d and rested? Ask the sea At midnight, when the crisp slope waves After a tempest, rib and fret The broad-imbased beach, why he Slumbers not like a mountain tarn ? Wherefore his ridges are not curls And ripples of an inland mere ? Wherefore he moaneth thus, nor can Draw down into his vexed pools All that blue heaven which hues and paves The other? I am too forlorn, Too shaken: my own weakness fools My judgment, and my spirit whirls, Moved from beneath with doubt and fear. ‘Yet,’ said I, in my morn of youth, The unsunn’d freshness of my strength, When I went forth in quest of truth, ‘It is man’s privilege to doubt, If so be that from doubt at length, Truth may stand forth unmoved of change An image with profulgent brows, And perfect limbs, as from the storm Of running fires and fluid range Of lawless airs, at last stood out This excellence and solid form Of constant beauty. For the Ox Feeds in the herb, and sleeps, or fills The horned valleys all about, And hollows of the fringed hills In summer heats, with placid lows Unfearing, till his own blood flows About his hoof. And in the flocks The lamb rejoiceth in the year, And raceth freely with his fere, And answers to his mother’s calls From the flower’d furrow. In a time, Of which he wots not, run short pains Thro’ his warm heart; and then, from whence He knows not, on his light there falls A shadow ; and his native slope, Where he was wont to leap and climb, Floats from his sick and filmed eyes, And something in the darkness draws His forehead earthward, and he dies. Shall man live thus, in joy and hope As a young lamb, who cannot dream, Living, but that he shall live on? Shall we not look into the laws Of life and death, and things that seem, And things that be, and analyse Our double nature, and compare All creeds till we have found the one, If one there be?? Ay me! I fear All may not doubt, but everywhere Some must clasp Idols. Yet, my God, Whom call I Idol? Let Thy dove Shadow me over, and my sins Be unremember’d, and Thy love Enlighten me. Oh teach me yet Somewhat before the heavy clod Weighs on me, and the busy fret Of that sharp-headed worm begins In the gross blackness underneath. d O weary life! O weary death ! O spirit and heart made desolate ! O damned vacillating state ! 6 THE KRAKEN—SONG—LILIAN—_ISABEL. THE KRAKEN. BELOW the thunders of the upper deep ; Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea, His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep _ The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee About his shadowy sides: above him swell Huge sponges of millennial growth and height ; And far away into the sickly light, From many a wondrous grot and secret cell Unnumber’d and enormous polypi Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green. There hath he lain for ages and will lie Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep, Until the latter fire shall heat the deep ; Then once by man and angels to be seen, In roaring he shall rise and on the sur- face die. SONG. THE winds, as at their hour of birth, Leaning upon the ridged sea, Breathed low around the rolling earth With mellow preludes, ‘ We are free.’ The streams through many a lilied row Down-carolling to the crisped sea, Low-tinkled with a bell-like flow Atween the blossoms, ‘ We are free.’ LILIAN. Te AIRY, fairy Lilian, Flitting, fairy Lilian, When I ask her if she love me, Claps her tiny hands above me, Laughing all she can ; She’ll not tell me if she love me Cruel little Lilian. > Jf When my passion seeks Pleasance in love-sighs, She, looking thro’ and thro’ me Thoroughly to undo me, Smiling, never speaks : So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple, From beneath her gathered wimple Glancing with black-beaded eyes, Till the lightning laughters dimple The baby-roses in her cheeks ; Then away she flies. ITI. Prythee weep, May Lilian ! Gaiety without eclipse Wearieth me, May Lilian : Thro’ my very heart it thrilleth When from crimson-threaded lips Silver-treble laughter trilleth : Prythee weep, May Lilian. IV. Praying all I can, If prayers will not hush thee, Airy Lilian, Like a rose-leaf I will crush thee, Fairy Lilian. ISABEL. I. EYEs not down-dropt nor over - bright, but fed With the clear-pointed flame of chastity, Clear, without heat, undying, tended by Pure vestal thoughts in the trans- lucent fane Of her still spirit ; locks not wide-dispread, Madonna-wise on either side her head ; Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign The summer calm of golden charity, Were fixed shadows of thy fixed mood, Revered Isabel, the crown and head, The stately flower of female fortitude, Of perfect wifehood and pure lowli- head. ISABEL—MARIANA. ; eels The intuitive decision of a bright And thorough-edged intellect to part Error from crime; a prudence to withhold ; The laws of marriage character’d in gold Upon the blanched tablets of her heart ; A love still burning upward, giving light To read those laws ; an accent very low In blandishment, but a most silver flow Of subtle-paced counsel in distress, Right to the heart and brain, tho’ unde- scried, Winning its way with extreme gentle- ness Thro’ all the outworks of suspicious pride ; A courage to endure and to obey ; A hate of gossip parlance, and of sway, Crown’d Isabel, thro’ all her placid life, The queen of marriage, a most perfect wife. Ill. The mellow’d reflex of a winter moon ; A clear stream flowing with a muddy one, Till in its onward current it absorbs With swifter movement and in purer light The vexed eddies of its wayward brother : A leaning and upbearing parasite, Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite With clusterd flower-bells and am- brosial orbs Of rich fruit-bunches leaning on each other— Shadow forth thee :—the world hath not another (Tho’ all her fairest forms are types of thee, And thou of God in thy great charity) Of such a finish’d chasten’d purity. MARIANA. ‘Mariana in the moated grange.’ Measure for Measure. WITH blackest moss the flower-plots Were thickly crusted, one and all: The rusted nails fell from the knots That held the pear to the gable-wall. The broken sheds look’d sad and strange: Unlifted was the clinking latch ; Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange. She only said, ‘ My life is dreary, He cometh not,’ she said ; She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead !’ Her tears fell with the dews at even ; Her tears fell ere the dews were dried ; She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide. After the flitting of the bats, When thickest dark did trance the sky, She drew her casement-curtain by, And glanced athwart the glooming flats. She only said, ‘ The night is dreary, He cometh not,’ she said ; She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead !’ Upon the middle of the night, Waking she heard the night-fowl crow : The cock sung out an hour ere light : From the dark fen the oxen’s low Came to her: without hope of change, In sleep she seem’d to walk forlorn, Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed mom 6 About the lonely moated grange. She only said, ‘ The day is dreary, He cometh not,’ she said ; She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead !’ About a stone-cast from the wall A sluice with blacken’d waters slept, And o’er it many, round and small, The cluster’d marish-mosses crept. 8 MARIANA—MADELINE. ee Hard by a poplar shook alway, All silver-green with gnarled bark : For leagues no other tree did mark The level waste, the rounding gray. She only said, ‘ My life is dreary, He cometh not,’ she said ; She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead !’ And ever when the moon was low, And the shrill winds were up and away, In the white curtain, to and fro, She saw the gusty shadow sway. But when the moon was very low, And wild winds bound within their cell, _The shadow of the poplar fell Upon her bed, across her brow. She only said, ‘The night is dreary, He cometh not,’ she said ; She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead !’ All day within the dreamy house, The doors upon their hinges creak’d ; The blue fly sung in the pane ; the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek’d, Or from the crevice peer’d about. Old faces glimmer’d thro’ the doors, Old footsteps trod the upper floors, Old voices called her from without. She only said, ‘ My life is dreary, He cometh not,’ she said ; She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead !’ The sparrow’s chirrup on the roof, The slow clock ticking, and the sound Which to the wooing wind aloof The poplar made, did all confound Her sense ; but most she loathed the hour When the thick-moted sunbeam lay Athwart the chambers, and the day Was sloping toward his western bower. Then, said she, ‘I am very dreary, He will not come,’ she said ; She wept, ‘I am aweary, aweary, Oh God, that I were dead !? TO —_. I, CLEAR-HEADED friend, whose joyful scorn, Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain The knots that tangle human creeds, The wounding cords that bind and strain The heart until it bleeds, Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn . Roof not a glance so keen as thine: If aught of prophecy be mine, Thou wilt not live in vain. II. Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit ; Falsehood shall bare her plaited brow: Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now With shrilling shafts of subtle wit. Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords Can do away that ancient lie ; A gentler death shall Falsehood die, Shot thro’ and thro’ with cunning words. Il. Weak Truth a-leaning on her crutch, Wan, wasted Truth in her utmost need, Thy kingly intellect shall feed, Until she be an athlete bold, And weary with a finger’s touch Those writhed limbs of lightning speed ; Like that strange angel which of old, Until the breaking of the light, Wrestled with wandering Israel, Past Yabbok brook the livelong night, And heaven’s mazed signs stood still In the dim tract of Penuel. MADELINE., I, THOU art not steep’d in golden languors, No tranced summer calm is thine, Ever varying Madeline. Thro’ light and shadow thou dost range, Sudden glances, sweet and strange, Delicious spites and darling angers, And airy forms of flitting change, SONG: II. Smiling, frowning, evermore, Thou art perfect in love-lore. Revealings deep and clear are thine Of wealthy smiles: but who may know Whether smile or frown be fleeter ? Whether smile or frown be sweeter, Who may know? Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow Light-glooming over eyes divine, Like little clouds sun-fringed, are thine, Ever varying Madeline. Thy smile and frown are not aloof From one another, Each to each is dearest brother ; Hues of the silken sheeny woof Momently shot into each other. All the mystery is thine ; Smiling, frowning, evermore, Thou art perfect in love-lore, Ever varying Madeline. III. A subtle, sudden flame, By veering passion fann’d, About thee breaks and dances : When I would kiss thy hand, The flush of anger’d shame O’erflows thy calmer glances, And o’er black brows drops down A sudden-curved frown : But when I turn away, Thou, willing me to stay, Wooest not, nor vainly wranglest ; But, looking fixedly the while, All my bounding heart entanglest In a golden-netted smile ; Then in madness and in bliss, If my lips should dare to kiss Thy taper fingers amorously, Again thou blushest angerly ; And o’er black brows drops down A sudden-curved frown. SONG—THE OWL. I, WHEN cats run home and light is come, And dew is cold upon the ground, THE OWL, 9 And the far-off stream is dumb, And the whirring sail goes round, And the whirring sail goes round ; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the belfry sits. HH. When merry milkmaids click the latch, And rarely smells the new-mown hay, And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch Twice or thrice his roundelay, Twice or thrice his roundelay ; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the belfry sits, SECOND SONG. TO THE SAME. I, THY tuwhits are lull’d, I wot, Thy tuwhoos of yesternight, Which upon the dark afloat, So took echo with delight, So took echo with delight, That her voice untuneful grown, Wears all day a fainter tone. ie I would mock thy chaunt anew ; But I cannot mimick it ; Not a whit of thy tuwhoo, Thee to woo to thy tuwhit, Thee to woo to thy tuwhit, With a lengthen’d loud halloo, Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, tuwhoo-o-o, RECOLLECTIONS OF ‘THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. WHEN the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free In the silken sail of infancy, The tide of time flow’d back with me, The forward-flowing tide of time ; And many a sheeny summer-morn, Adown the Tigris I was borne, 10 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. By Bagdat’s shrines of fretted gold, High-walled gardens green and old ; True Mussulman was I and sworn, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Anight my shallop, rustling thro’ The low and bloomed foliage, drove The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove The citron-shadows in the blue : By garden porches on the brim, The costly doors flung open wide, Gold glittering thro’ lamplight dim, And broider’d sofas on each side : In sooth it was a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Often, where clear-stemm’d platans guard The outlet, did I turn away The boat-head down a broad canal From the main river sluiced, where all The sloping of the moon-lit sward Was damask-work, and deep inlay Of braided blooms unmown, which crept Adown to where the water slept. A goodly place, a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. A motion from the river won Ridged the smooth level, bearing on My shallop thro’ the star-strown calm, Until another night in night I enter’d, from the clearer light, Imbower’d vaults of pillar’d palm, Imprisoning sweets, which, as they clomb Heavenward, were stay’d beneath the dome Of hollow boughs.—A goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Still onward ; and the clear canal Is rounded to as clear a lake. From the green rivage many a fall Of diamond rillets musical, Thro’ little crystal arches low Down from the central fountain’s flow Fall’n silver-chiming, seemed to shake The sparkling flints beneath the prow. A goodly place, a goodly time, — For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Above thro’ many a bowery turn A walk with vary-colour’d shells Wander’d engrain’d. On either side All round about the fragrant marge From fluted vase, and brazen urn In order, eastern flowers large, Some dropping low their crimson bells Half-closed, and others studded wide With disks and tiars, fed the time With odour in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Far off, and where the lemon grove In closest coverture upsprung, The living airs of middle night Died round the bulbul as he sung ; Not he: but something which possess’d The darkness of the world, delight, Life, anguish, death, immortal love, Ceasing not, mingled, unrepress’d, Apart from place, withholding time, But flattering the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Black the garden-bowers and grots Slumber’d : the solemn palms were ranged Above, unwoo’d of summer wind : A sudden splendour from behind Flush’d all the leaves with rich gold-green, And, flowing rapidly between Their interspaces, counterchanged The level lake with diamond-plots Of dark and bright. A lovely time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead, Distinct with vivid stars inlaid, Grew darker from that under-flame : So, leaping lightly from the boat, With silver anchor left afloat, In marvel whence that glory came Upon me, as in sleep I sank In cool soft turf upon the bank, Entranced with that place and time, So worthy of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. ODE TO MEMORY. II Thence thro’ the garden I was drawn— A realm of pleasance, many a mound, And many a shadow-chequer’d lawn Full of the city’s stilly sound, And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round The stately cedar, tamarisks, Thick rosaries of scented thorn, Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks Graven with emblems of the time, In honour of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. With dazed vision unawares From the long alley’s latticed shade Emerged, I came upon the great Pavilion of the Caliphat. Right to the carven cedarn doors, Flung inward over spangled floors, Broad-based flights of marble stairs Ran up with golden balustrade, After the fashion of the time, And humour of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid, The fourscore windows all alight As with the quintessence of flame, A million tapers flaring bright From twisted silvers look’d to shame The hollow-vaulted dark, and stream’d Upon the mooned domes aloof In inmost Bagdat, till there seem’d Hundreds of crescents on the roof Of night new-risen, that marvellous time To celebrate the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Then stole I up, and trancedly Gazed on the Persian girl alone, Serene with argent-lidded eyes Amorous, and lashes like to rays Of darkness, and a brow of pearl Tressed with redolent ebony, In many a dark delicious curl, Flowing beneath her rose-hued zone ; The sweetest lady of the time, Well worthy of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Six columns, three on either side, Pure silver, underpropt a rich Throne of the massive ore, from which Down-droop’d, in many a floating fold, Engarlanded and diaper’d With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold. Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirr’d With merriment of kingly pride, Sole star of all that place and time, I saw him—in his golden prime, THE GOOD HAROUN ALRASCHID. ODE TO MEMORY, ADDRESSED TO ——. I. THOU who stealest fire, From the fountains of the past, To glorify the present; oh, haste, Visit my low desire ! Strengthen me, enlighten me! I faint in this obscurity, Thou dewy dawn of memory. II. Come not as thou camest of late, Flinging the gloom of yesternight On the white day ; but robed in soften’d light Of orient state. Whilome thou camest with the morning mist, Even as a maid, whose stately brow The dew-impearled winds of dawn have kiss’d, When, she, as thou, Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight Of overflowing blooms, and earliest shoots Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits, Which in wintertide shall star The black earth with brilliance rare. ITI. Whilome thou camest. with the morning mist, And with the evening cloud, Showering thy gleaned wealth into my open breast (Those peerless flowers which in the rudest wind Never grow sere, 12 ODE TO MEMORY. nv When rooted in the garden of the mind, Because theyare the earliest of the year). Nor was the night thy shroud. In sweet dreams softer than unbroken rest Thou leddest by the hand thine infant Hope. The eddying of her garments caught from thee The light of thy great presence ; and the cope Of the half-attain’d futurity, Tho’ deep not fathomless, Was cloven with the million stars which tremble O’er the deep mind of dauntless infancy. Smal] thought was there of life’s distress ; For sure she deem’d no mist of earth could dull Those spirit-thrilling eyes so keen and beautiful : Sure she was nigher to heaven’s spheres, Listening the lordly music flowing from The illimitable years. O strengthen me, enlighten me! I faint in this obscurity, Thou dewy dawn of memory. IV. Come forth, I charge thee, arise, Thou of the many tongues, the myriad eyes ! Thou comest not with shows of flaunting vines Unto mine inner eye, Divinest Memory ! Thou wert not nursed by the waterfall Which ever sounds and shines A pillar of white light upon the wall Of purple cliffs, aloof descried : Come from the woods that belt the gray hill-side, The seven elms, the poplars four That stand beside my father’s door, And chiefly from the brook that loves To purl o’er matted cress and ribbed sand, Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves, Drawing into his narrow earthen urn, In every elbow and turn, The filter’d tribute of the rough woodland, O! hither lead thy feet ! Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds, Upon the ridged wolds, When the first matin-song hath waken’d loud Over the dark dewy earth forlorn, What time the amber morn Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud. Vv Large dowries doth the raptured eye To the young spirit present When first she is wed ; And like a bride of old In triumph led, With music and sweet showers Of festal flowers, Unto the dwelling she must sway. Well hast thou done, great artist Memory, In setting round thy first experiment With royal frame-work of wrought gold ; Needs must thou dearly love thy first essay, And foremost in thy various gallery Place it, where sweetest sunlight falls Upon the storied walls ; For the discovery And newness of thine art so pleased thee, That all which thou hast drawn of fairest Or boldest since, but lightly weighs With thee unto the love thou bearest The first-born of thy genius. Arrtist-like, Ever retiring thou dost gaze On the prime labour of thine early days : No matter what the sketch might be ; Whether the high field on the bushless Pike, Or even a sand-built ridge Of heaped hills that mound the sea, Overblown with murmurs harsh, Or even a lowly cottage whence we see Stretch’d wide and wild the waste enor- mous marsh, Where from the frequent bridge, Like emblems of infinity, The trenched waters run from sky to sky ; Or a garden bower’d close BONG A CHARACTER THE POET. 13 With plaited alleys of the trailing rose, Long alleys falling down to twilight grots, Or opening upon level plots Of crowned lilies, standing near Purple-spiked lavender : Whither in after life retired From brawling storms, From weary wind, With youthful fancy re-inspired, We may hold converse with all forms Of the many-sided mind, And those whom passion hath not blinded, Subtle-thoughted, myriad-minded. My friend, with you to live alone, Were how much better than to own A crown, a sceptre, and a throne ! O strengthen me, enlighten me ! I faint in this obscurity, Thou dewy dawn of memory. SONG. I. A SPIRIT haunts the year’s last hours Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers : To himself he talks ; For at eventide, listening earnestly, At his work you may hear him sob and sigh In the walks ; Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks - Of the mouldering flowers : Heavily hangs the broad sunflower Over its gravei’ theearth so chilly ; Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. Il. The air is damp, and hush’d, and close, As a sick man’s room when he taketh repose An hour before death ; My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves, And the breath Of the fading edges of box beneath, And the year’s last rose. Heavily hangs the broad sunflower Over its grave i’ theearth so chilly ; Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. A CHARACTER. WITH a half-glance upon the sky At night he said, ‘ The wanderings Of this most intricate Universe Teach me the nothingness of things.’ Yet could not all creation pierce Beyond the bottom of his eye. He spake of beauty: that the dull Saw no divinity in grass, Life in dead stones, or spirit in air ; Then looking as ’twere in a glass, He smooth’d his chin and sleek’d his hair, And said the earth was beautiful. He spake of virtue: not the gods More purely, when they wish to charm Pallas and Juno sitting by : And with a sweeping of the arm, And a lack-lustre dead-blue eye, Devolved his rounded periods. Most delicately hour by hour He canvass’d human mysteries, And trod on silk, as if the winds Blew his own praises in his eyes, And stood aloof from other minds In impotence of fancied power. With lips depress’d as he were meek, Himself unto himself he sold : Upon himself himself did feed : Quiet, dispassionate, and cold, And other than his form of creed, With chisell’d features clear and sleek. cP ritee LC: THE poet in a golden clime was born, With golden stars above ; Dower’d with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, The love of love. 14 THE POET’S MIND. He saw thro’ life and death, thro’ good and ill, He saw thro’ his own soul. The marvel of the everlasting will, An open scroll, Before him lay: with echoing feet he threaded The secretest walks of fame : The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed And wing’d with flame, Like Indian reeds blown from his silver tongue, And of so fierce a flight, From Calpe unto Caucasus they sung, Filling with light And vagrant melodies the winds which bore Them earthward till they lit ; Then, like the arrow-seeds of the field flower, The fruitful wit Cleaving, took root, and springing forth anew Where’er they fell, behold, Like to the mother plant in semblance, grew A flower all gold, And bravely furnish’d all abroad to fling The winged shafts of truth, To throng with stately blooms the breath- ing spring Of Hope and Youth. So many minds did gird their orbs with beams, Tho’ one did fling the fire. Heaven flow’d upon the soul in many dreams Of high desire. Thus truth was multiplied on truth, the world Like one great garden show’d, And thro’ the wreaths of floating dark upcurl’d, Rare sunrise flow’d. And Freedom rear’d in that august sunrise Her beautiful bold brow, When rites and forms before his burning eyes Melted like snow. There was no blood upon her maiden robes Sunn’d by those orient skies ; But round about the circles of the globes Of her keen eyes And in her raiment’s hem was traced in flame WISDoM, a name to shake All evil dreams of power—a sacred name. And when she spake, Her words did gather thunder as they ran, And as the lightning to the thunder Which follows it, riving the spirit of man, Making earth wonder, So was their meaning to her words. No sword Of wrath her right arm whirl’d, But one poor poet’s scroll, and with zs word She shook the world. THE, PORTS MIND. I, VEX not thou the poet’s mind With thy shallow wit : Vex not thou the poet’s mind ; For thou canst not fathom it. Clear and bright it should be ever, Flowing like a crystal river ; Bright as light, and clear as wind. II. Dark-brow’d sophist, come not anear ; All the place is holy ground ; Hollow smile and frozen sneer Come not here. Holy water will I pour Into every spicy flower Of the laurel-shrubs that hedge it around. The flowers would faint at your cruel cheer. Pie SHAFATRIES—-THE DESERTED HOUSE. 15 In your eye there is death, There is frost in your breath Which would blight the plants. Where you stand you cannot hear From the groves within The wild-bird’s din. . Tn the heart of the garden the merry bird chants. It would fall to the ground if you came in. In the middle leaps a fountain Like sheet lightning, Ever brightening With a low melodious thunder ; All day and all night it is ever drawn From the brain of the purple mountain Which stands in the distance yonder : It springs on a level of bowery lawn, And the mountain draws it from Heaven above, And it sings a song of undying love ; And yet, tho’ its voice be so clear and full, You never would hear it; your ears are so dull ; So keep where you are : you are foul with sin ; It would shrink to the earth if you came in. THE SEA-FAIRIES. SLow sail’d the weary mariners and saw, Betwixt the green brink and the running foam, Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms rest To little harps of gold; and while they mused Whispering to each other half in fear, Shrill music reach’d them on the middle sea. Whither away, whither away, whither away ? fly no more. Whither away from the high green field, and the happy blossoming shore ? Day and night to the billow the fountain calls : Down shower the gambolling waterfalls From wandering over the lea : Out of the live-green heart of the dells They freshen the silvery-crimson shells, And thick with white bells the clover-hill swells High over the full-toned sea: O hither, come hither and furl your sails, Come hither to me and to me: Hither, come hither and frolic and play ; Here it is only the mew that wails ; We will sing to you all the day : Mariner, mariner, furl your sails, For here are the blissful downs and dales, And merrily, merrily carol the gales, And the spangle dances in bight and bay, And the rainbow forms and flies on the land Over the islands free ; And the rainbow lives in the curve of the sand ; Hither, come hither and see ; And the rainbow hangs on the poising wave, And sweet is the colour of cove and cave, And sweet shall your welcome be : O hither, come hither, and be our lords, For merry brides are we : We will kiss sweet kisses, and speak sweet words : O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten With pleasure and love and jubilee : O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten When the sharp clear twang of the golden chords Runs up the ridged sea. Who can light on as happy a shore All the world o’er, all the world o’er? Whither away ? listen and stay : mariner, mariner, fly no more. THE DESEKLED HOUSE: Ee LIFE and Thought have gone away Side by side, Leaving door and windows wide : Careless tenants they ! 16 THE DYING SWAN—A DIRGE. II. All within is dark as night : In the windows is no light ; And no murmur at the door, So frequent on its hinge before. Ill. Close the door, the shutters close, Or thro’ the windows we shall see The nakedness and vacancy Of the dark deserted house. IV. Come away: no more of mirth Is here or merry-making sound. The house was builded of the earth, And shall fall again to ground. Vv. Come away: for Life and.Thought Here no longer dwell ; But in a city glorious— A great and distant city—have bought A mansion incorruptible. Would they could have stayed with us ! THE DYING SWAN. I, THE plain was grassy, wild and bare, Wide, wild, and open to the air, Which had built up everywhere An under-roof of doleful gray. With an inner voice the river ran, Adown it floated a dying swan, And loudly did lament. It was the middle of the day. Ever the weary wind went on, And took the reed-tops as it went. Ik. Some blue peaks in the distance rose, And white against the cold-white sky, Shone out their crowning snows. One willow over the river wept, And shook the wave as the wind did sigh ; Above in the wind was the swallow, Chasing itself at its own wild will, And far thro’ the marish green and still The tangled water-courses slept, Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow. Til, The wild swan’s death-hymn took the soul Of that waste place with joy Hidden in sorrow : at first to the ear The warble was low, and full and clear ; And floating about the under-sky, Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear ; But anon her awful jubilant voice, With a music strange and manifold, Flow’d forth on a carol free and bold ; As when a mighty people rejoice With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold, And the tumult of their acclaim is roll’d Thro’ the open gates of the city afar, To the shepherd who watcheth the even- ing star. And the creeping mosses and clambering weeds, And the willow-branches hoar and dank, And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds, And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank, And the silvery marish -flowers that throng The desolate creeks and pools among, Were flooded over with eddying song. A DIRGE. I Now is done thy long day’s work ; Fold thy palms across thy breast, Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest. Let them rave. Shadows of the silver birk Sweep the green that folds thy grave. Let them rave. LOVE AND DEATH—THE BALLAD OF ORIANA 17 DG Thee nor carketh care nor slander ; Nothing but the small cold worm Fretteth thine enshrouded form. Let them rave. Light and shadow ever wander O’er the green that folds thy grave. Let them rave. Ill. Thou wilt not turn upon thy bed ; Chaunteth not the brooding bee Sweeter tones than calumny ? Let them rave. Thou wilt never raise thine head From the green that folds thy grave. Let them rave. IV. Crocodiles wept tears for thee ; The woodbine and eglatere Drip sweeter dews than traitor’s tear. Let them rave. Rain makes music in the tree O’er the green that folds thy grave. Let them rave. Ve Round thee blow, self-pleached deep, Bramble roses, faint and pale, And long purples of the dale. Let them rave. These in every shower creep Thro’ the green that folds thy grave. Let them rave. VI. The gold-eyed kingcups fine ; The frail bluebell peereth over Rare broidry of the purple clover. Let them rave. Kings have no such couch as thine, As the green that folds thy grave. Let them rave. VII. Wild words wander here and there : God’s great gift of speech abused Makes thy memory confused : But let them rave. The balm-cricket carols clear In the green that folds thy grave. Let them rave. LOVE AND DEATH. WHAT time the mighty moon was gather- ing light Love paced the thymy plots of Paradise, And all about him roll’d his lustrous eyes ; When, turning round a cassia, full in view, Death, walking all alone beneath a yew, And talking to himself, first met his sight : ‘You must begone,’ said Death, ‘these walks are mine.’ Love wept and spread his sheeny vans for flight ; Yet ere he parted said, ‘This hour is thine : Thou art the shadow of life, and as the tree Stands in the sun and shadows all be- neath, So in the light of great eternity Life eminent creates the shade of death ; The shadow passeth when the tree shall fall, But I shall reign for ever over all.’ THE BALLAD OF ORIANA. My heart is wasted with my woe, Oriana. There is no rest for me below, Oriana. When the long dun wolds are ribb’d with snow, And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow, Oriana, Alone I wander to and fro, Oriana. — Fre the light on dark was growing, Oriana, At midnight the cock was crowing, Oriana : Cc 18 THE BALLAD OF ORIANA. Winds were blowing, waters flowing, We heard the steeds to battle going, Oriana ; Aloud the hollow bugle blowing, Oriana. In the yew-wood black as night, Oriana, Ere I rode into the fight, Oriana, While blissful tears blinded my sight By star-shine and by moonlight, Oriana, I to thee my troth did plight, Oriana. She stood upon the castle wall, Oriana : She watch’d my crest among them all, Oriana : She saw me fight, she heard me call, When forth there stept a foeman tall, Oriana, Atween me and the castle wall, Oriana. The bitter arrow went aside, Oriana : The false, false arrow went aside, Oriana : The damned arrow glanced aside, And pierced thy heart, my love, my bride, Oriana ! Thy heart, my life, my love, my bride, Oriana ! Oh! narrow, narrow was the space, Oriana. Loud, loud rung out the bugle’s brays, Oriana. Oh! deathful stabs were dealt apace, The battle deepen’d in its place, Oriana ; But I was down upon my face, Oriana. They should have stabb’d me where I lay, Oriana ! How could I rise and come away, Oriana ? How could I look upon the day? They should have stabb’d me where I lay, Oriana— They should have trod me into clay, Oriana. O breaking heart that will not break, Oriana ! O pale, pale face so sweet and meek, Oriana ! Thou smilest, but thou dost not speak, And then the tears run down my cheek, Oriana: What wantest thou? whom dost thou seek, Oriana ? I cry aloud: none hear my cries, Oriana. Thou comest atween me and the skies, Oriana. I feel the tears of blood arise Up from my heart unto my eyes, Oriana. Within thy heart my arrow lies, Oriana. O cursed hand ! O cursed blow ! Oriana ! O happy thou that liest low, Oriana ! All night the silence seems to flow Beside me in my utter woe, Oriana. A weary, weary way I go, Oriana. When Norland winds pipe down the sea, Oriana, I walk, I dare not think of thee, Oriana. Thou liest beneath the greenwood tree, I dare not die and come to thee, Oriana. I hear the roaring of the sea, Oriana. CIRCUMSTANCE. Two children in two neighbour villages Playing mad pranks along the heathy leas ; THE MERMAN—THE MERMAID. 19 Two strangers meeting at a festival ; Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall ; Two lives bound fast in one with golden ease ; Two graves grass-green beside a gray church-tower, Wash’d with still rains and daisy blos- somed ; Two children in one hamlet born and bred ; So runs the round of life from hour to hour. THE MERMAN. I WHO would be A merman bold, Sitting alone, Singing alone Under the sea, With a crown of gold, On a throne ? II. I would be a merman bold, I would sit and sing the whole of the day ; I would fill the sea-halls with a voice of power ; But at night I would roam abroad and play With the mermaids inand out of therocks, Dressing their hair with the white sea- flower ; And holding them back by their flowing locks I would kiss them often under the sea, And kiss them again till they kiss’d me Laughingly, laughingly ; And then we would wander away, away To the pale-green sea-groves straight and high, Chasing each other merrily. Le There would be neither moon nor star ; But the wave would make music above us afar — Low thunder and light in the magic night— Neither moon nor star, We would call aloud in the dreamy dells, Call to each other and whoop and cry All night, merrily, merrily ; They would pelt me with starry spangles ~ and shells, Laughing and clapping their hands be- tween, All night, merrily, merrily : But I would throw to them back in mine Turkis and agate and almondine : Then leaping out upon them unseen I would kiss them often under the sea, And kiss them again till they kiss’d me Laughingly, laughingly. Oh! what a happy life were mine Under the hollow-hung ocean green ! Soft are the moss-beds under the sea ; We would live merrily, merrily. THE MERMAID. I WHO would be A mermaid fair, Singing alone, Combing her hair Under the sea, In a golden curl With a comb of pearl, On a throne ? II. I would be a mermaid fair ; IT would sing to myself the whole of the day:: With a comb of pearl I would comb my hairs And still as I comb’d I would sing and Say ‘Who is it loves me? who loves not me?’ I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall Low adown, low adown, From under my starry sea-bud crown Low adown and around, And I should look like a fountain of gold 20 ADELINE. Springing alone With a shrill inner sound, Over the throne In the midst of the hall ; Till that great sea-snake under the sea From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps Would slowly trail himself sevenfold Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate With his large calm eyes for the love of me. And all the mermen under the sea Would feel their immortality Die in their hearts for the love of me. Tit. But at night I would wander away, away, I would fling on each side my low- | flowing locks, And lightly vault from the throne and play With the mermen in and out of the rocks ; We would run to and fro, and hide and seek, On the broad sea-wolds in the crimson shells, Whose silvery spikes are nighest thesea. But if any came near I would call, and shriek, And adown the steep like a wave I would lea From the diamond-ledges that jut from the dells ; For I would not be kiss’d by all who would list, Of the bold merry mermen under the sea 5 They would sue me, and woo me, and flatter me, In the purple twilights under the sea ; But the king of them all would carry me, Woo me, and win me, and marry me, In the branching jaspers under the sea ; Then all the dry pied things that be In the hueless mosses under the sea Would curl round my silver feet silently, All looking up for the love of me. And if I should carol aloud, from aloft All things that are forked, and horned, and soft Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea, All looking down for the love of me. ADELINE, I; MYSTERY of mysteries, Faintly smiling Adeline, Scarce of earth nor all divine, Nor unhappy, nor at rest, But beyond expression fair With thy floating flaxen hair ; Thy rose-lips and full blue eyes Take the heart from out my breast. Wherefore those dim looks of thine, Shadowy, dreaming Adeline ? Il. Whence that aery bloom of thine, Like a lily which the sun Looks thro’ in his sad decline, And a rose-bush leans upon, Thou that faintly smilest still, As a Naiad in a well, Looking at the set of day, Or a phantom two hours old Of a maiden past away, Ere the placid lips be cold ? Wherefore those faint smiles of thine, Spiritual Adeline ? Ill. What hope or fear or joy is thine ? Who talketh with thee, Adeline ? For sure thou art not all alone. Do beating hearts of salient springs Keep measure with thine own ? Hast thou heard the butterflies What they say betwixt their wings ? Or in stillest evenings With what voice the violet woos | To his heart the silver dews ? Or when little airs arise, How the merry bluebell rings To the mosses underneath ? Hast thou look’d upon the breath Of the lilies at sunrise ? a . MARGARET. 21 Wherefore that faint smile of thine, Shadowy, dreaming Adeline ? IVs Some honey-converse feeds thy mind, Some spirit of a crimson rose In love with thee forgets to close His curtains, wasting odorous sighs All night long on darkness blind. What aileth thee ? whom waitest thou With thy soften’d, shadow’d brow, And those dew-lit eyes of thine, Thou faint smiler, Adeline ? V. Lovest thou the doleful wind When thou gazest at the skies ? Doth the low-tongued Orient Wander from the side of the morn, Dripping with Sabzean spice On thy pillow, lowly bent With melodious airs lovelorn, Breathing Light against thy face, While his locks a-drooping twined Round thy neck in subtle ring Make a carcanet of rays, And ye talk together still, In the language wherewith Spring Letters cowslips on the hill ? Hence that look and smile of thine, Spiritual Adeline. MARGARET. lies O SWEET pale Margaret, O rare pale Margaret, What lit your eyes with tearful power, _ Like moonlight on a falling shower ? Who lent you, love, your mortal dower Of pensive thought and aspect pale, Your melancholy sweet and frail As perfume of the cuckoo-flower ? _ From the westward-winding flood, _ From the evening-lighted wood, From all things outward you have won A tearful grace, as tho’ you stood Between the rainbow and the sun. The very smile before you speak, That dimples your transparent cheek, Encircles all the heart, and feedeth The senses with a still delight Of dainty sorrow without sound, Like the tender amber round, Which the moon about her spreadeth, Moving thro’ a fleecy night. II. You love, remaining peacefully, To hear the murmur of the strife, But enter not the toil of life. Your spirit is the calmed sea, Laid by the tumult of the fight. You are the evening star, alway Remaining betwixt dark and bright : Lull’d echoes of laborious day Come to you, gleams of mellow light Float by you on the verge of night. III. What can it matter, Margaret, What songs below the waning stars The lion-heart, Plantagenet, Sang looking thro’ his prison bars ? Exquisite Margaret, who can tell The last wild thought of Chatelet, Just ere the falling axe did part The burning brain from the true heart, Even in her sight he loved so well ? IV. A fairy shield your Genius made And gave you on your natal day. Your sorrow, only sorrow’s shade, Keeps real sorrow far away. You move not in such solitudes, You are not less divine, But more human in your moods, Than your twin-sister, Adeline. Your hair is darker, and your eyes Touch’d with asomewhat darker hue, And less aérially blue, But ever trembling thro’ the dew Of dainty-woeful sympathies. Vie O sweet pale Margaret, O rare pale Margaret, 22 ROSALIND—ELEANORE. Come down, come down, and hear me speak : - Tie up the ringlets on your cheek : The sun is just about to set, The arching limes are tall and shady, And faint, rainy lights are seen, Moving in the leavy beech. Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady, Where all day long you sit between Joy and woe, and whisper each. Or only look across the lawn, Look out below your bower-eaves, Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn Upon me thro’ the jasmine-leaves. ROSALIND. I. My Rosalind, my Rosalind, My frolic falcon, with bright eyes, Whose free delight, from any height of rapid flight, Stoops at all game that wing the skies, My Rosalind, my Rosalind, My bright-eyed, wild-eyed falcon, whither, Careless both of wind and weather, Whither fly ye, what game spy ye, Up or down the streaming wind? II, The quick lark’s closest-caroll’d strains, The shadow rushing up the sea, The lightning flash atween the rains, The sunlight driving down the lea, The leaping stream, the very wind, That will not stay, upon his way, To stoop the cowslip to the plains, Is not so clear and bold and free As you, my falcon Rosalind. You care not for another’s pains, Because you are the soul of joy, Bright metal all without alloy. Life shoots and glances thro’ your veins, And flashes off a thousand ways, Thro’ lips and eyes in subtle rays. Your hawk-eyes are keen and bright, Keen with triumph, watching still To pierce me thro’ with pointed light ; But oftentimes they flash and glitter Like sunshine on a dancing rill, And your words are seeming-bitter, Sharp and few, but seeming-bitter From excess of swift delight. III. Come down, come home, my Rosalind, My gay young hawk, my Rosalind : Too long you keep the upper skies ; Too long you roam and wheel at will ; But we must hood your random eyes, That care not whom they kill, And your cheek, whose brilliant hue Is so sparkling-fresh to view, Some red heath-flower in the dew, Touch’d with sunrise. We must bind And keep you fast, my Rosalind, Fast, fast, my wild-eyed Rosalind, And clip your wings, and make you love : When we have lured you from above, And that delight of frolic flight, by day or night, From North to South, We’ll bind you fast in silken cords, And kiss away the bitter words From off your rosy mouth. ELEANORE. Te Tuy dark eyes open’d not, Nor first reveal’d themselves to English air, For there is nothing here, Which, from the outward to the inward brought, Moulded thy baby thought. Far off from human neighbourhood, Thou wert born, on a summer morn, A mile beneath the cedar-wood. Thy bounteous forehead was not fann’d With breezes from our oaken glades, But thou wert nursed in some delicious land Of lavish lights, and floating shades : And flattering thy childish thought The oriental fairy brought, At the moment of thy birth, ELEANORE. 23 From old well-heads of haunted rills, And the hearts of purple hills, And shadow’d coves on a sunny shore, The choicest wealth of all the earth, Jewel or shell, or starry ore, To deck thy cradle, Eleanore. 10 Or the yellow-banded bees, Thro’ half-open lattices Coming in the scented breeze, Fed thee, a child, lying alone, With whitest honey in fairy gar- dens cull’d— A glorious child, dreaming alone, Insilk-soft folds, upon yielding down, With the hum of swarming bees Into dreamful slumber lull’d. Til. Who may minister to thee ? Summer herself should minister To thee, with fruitage golden-rinded On golden salvers, or it may be, Youngest Autumn, in a bower Grape-thicken’d from the light, and blinded With many a deep-hued bell-like flower Of fragrant trailers, when the air Sleepeth over all the heaven, And the crag that fronts the Even, All along the shadowing shore, Crimsons over an inland mere, Eleanore ! IV. How may full-sail’d verse express, How may measured words adore The full-flowing harmony Of thy swan-like stateliness, Eleanore ? The luxuriant symmetry Of thy floating gracefulness, Eleanore ? Every turn and glance of thine, Every lineament divine, Eleanore, And the steady sunset glow, That stays upon thee? For in thee Is nothing sudden, nothing single ; Like two streams of incense free From one censer in one shrine, Thought and motion mingle, Mingle ever. Motions flow To one another, even as tho’ They were modulated so To an unheard melody, Which lives about thee, and a sweep Of richest pauses, evermore Drawn from each other mellow-deep ; Who may express thee, Eleanore ? Vie I stand before thee, Eleanore ; I see thy beauty gradually unfold, Daily and hourly, more and more. I muse, as in a trance, the while Slowly, as from a cloud of gold, Comes out thy deep ambrosial smile. I muse, as in a trance, whene’er The languors of thy love-deep eyes Float on tome. I would I were So tranced, so rapt in ecstasies, To stand apart, and to adore, Gazing on thee for evermore, Serene, imperial Eleanore ! Vales Sometimes, with most intensity Gazing, I seem to see Thought folded over thought, smiling asleep, Slowly awaken’d, grow so full and deep In thy large eyes, that, overpower’d quite, I cannot veil, or droop my sight, But am as nothing in its light : As tho’ a star, in inmost heaven set, Ev’n while we gaze on it, Should slowly round his orb, and slowly grow To a full face, there like a sun remain Fix’d—then as slowly fade again, And draw itself to what it was before ; So full, so deep, so slow, Thought seems to come and go In thy large eyes, imperial Eleanore. 24 EARLY SONNETS. Vil. As thunder-clouds that, hung on high, Roof’d the world with doubt and fear, Floating thro’ an evening atmosphere, Grow golden all about the sky ; In thee all passion becomes passionless, Touch’d by thy spirit’s mellowness, Losing his fire and active might In a silent meditation, Falling into a still delight, And luxury of contemplation : As waves that up a quiet cove Rolling slide, and lying still Shadow forth the banks at will : Or sometimes they swell and move, Pressing up against the land, With motions of the outer sea : And the self-same influence Controlleth all the soul and sense Of Passion gazing upon thee. His bow-string slacken’d, languid Love, Leaning his cheek upon his hand, Droops both his wings, regarding thee, And so would languish evermore, Serene, imperial Eleanore. VIII. But when I see thee roam, with tresses unconfined, While the amorous, odorous wind Breathes low between the sunset and the moon ; Or, in a shadowy saloon, On silken cushions half reclined ; I watch thy grace ; and in its place My heart a charmed slumber keeps, While I muse upon thy face ; And a languid fire creeps Thro’ my veins to all my frame, Dissolvingly and slowly : soon From thy rose-red lips MY name Floweth ; and then, as in a swoon, With dinning sound my ears are rife, My tremulous tongue faltereth, I lose my colour, I lose my breath, I drink the cup of a costly death, Brimm’d with delirious draughts of warm- est lite, I die with my delight, before I hear what I would hear from thee ; Yet tell my name again to me, I would be dying evermore, So dying ever, Eleanore. r I My life is full of weary days, ‘ But good things have not kept aloof, Nor wander’d into other ways : I have not lack’d thy mild reproof, Nor golden largess of thy praise. And now shake hands across the brink Of that deep grave to which I go: Shake hands once more: I cannot sink So far—far down, but I shall know Thy voice, and answer from below. II. When in the darkness over me The four-handed mole shall scrape, Plant thou no dusky cypress-tree, Nor wreathe thy cap with doleful crape, But pledge me in the flowing grape. And when the sappy field and wood Grow green beneath the showery gray, And rugged barks begin to bud, And thro’ damp holts new-flush’d with may, Ring sudden scritches of the jay, Then let wise Nature work her will, And on my clay her darnel grow ; Come only, when the days are still, And at my headstone whisper low, And tell me if the woodbines blow. EARLY SONNETS. vi TO ——. As when with downcast eyes we muse and brood, And ebb into a former life, or seem To lapse far back in some confused dream EARLY SONNETS. 25 To states of mystical similitude ; If one but speaks or hems or stirs his chair, Ever the wonder waxeth more and more, So that we say, ‘All this hath been before, All this hath been, I know not when or where.’ So, friend, when first I look’d upon your face, Our thought gave answer each to each, so true— Opposed mirrors each reflecting each— That tho’ I knewnot in what time or place, Methought that I had often met with you, And either lived in either’s heart and speech. PT. my JM. K, My hope and heart is with thee—thou wilt be A latter Luther, and a soldier-priest To scare church-harpies from the master’s feast ; Our dusted velvets have much need of thee: Thou art no sabbath-drawler of old saws, Distil’d from some worm - canker’d homily ; But spurr’d at heart with fieriest energy To embattail and to wall about thy cause With iron-worded proof, hating to hark The humming of the drowsy pulpit-drone Half God’s good sabbath, while the worn- out clerk Brow-beats his desk below. Thou from a throne Mounted in heaven wilt shoot into the dark Arrows of lightnings. I will stand and mark. III. MINE be the strength of spirit, full and free, Like some broad river rushing down alone, With the selfsame impulse wherewith he was thrown From his loud fount upon the echoing lea :— Which with increasing might doth forward flee By town, and tower, and hill, and cape, and isle, And in the middle of the green salt sea Keeps his blue waters fresh for many a mile. Mine be the power which ever to its sway Will win the wise at once, and by degrees May into uncongenial spirits flow ; Ev’n as the warm gulf-stream of Florida Floats far away into the Northern seas The lavish growths of southern Mexico. IV. ALEXANDER. WARRIOR of God, whose strong right arm debased The throne of Persia, when her Satrap bled At Issus by the Syrian gates, or fled Beyond the Memmian naphtha-pits, dis- graced For ever—thee (thy pathway sand-erased) Gliding with equal crowns two serpents led Joyful to that palm-planted fountain-fed Ammonian Oasis in the waste. There in a silent shade of laurel brown Apart the Chamian Oracle divine Shelter’d his unapproached mysteries : High things were spoken there, unhanded down ; Only they saw thee from the secret shrine Returning with hot cheek and kindled eyes. v. BUONAPARTE. HE thought to quell the stubborn hearts of oak, Madman !—to chain with chains, and bind with bands That island queen who sways the floods and lands From Ind to Ind, but in fair daylight woke, When from her wooden walls, —lit by sure hands,— With thunders, and with lightnings, and with smoke,— 26 EARLY SONNETS. Peal after peal, the British battle broke, Lulling the brine against the Coptic sands. We taught him lowlier moods, when E]l- sinore Heard the war moan along the distant sea, Rocking with shatter’d spars, with sudden fires Flamed over: at Trafalgar yet once more We taught him: late he learned humility Perforce, like those whom Gideon school’d with briers. VI. POLAND. How long, O God, shall men be ridden down, And trampled under by the last and least Of men? The heart of Poland hath not ceased To quiver, tho’ her sacred blood doth drown The fields, and out of every smouldering town Cries to’ Thee, lest brute Power be in- creased, Till that o’ergrown Barbarian in the East Transgress his ample bound to some new crown :— Cries to Thee, ‘Lord, how long shall these things be ? How long this icy-hearted Muscovite Oppress the region?’ Us, O Just and Good, Forgive, who smiled when she was torn in three ; Us, who stand now, when we should aid the right— A matter to be wept with tears of blood! Mit. CARESS’D or chidden by the slender hand, And singing airy trifles this or that, Light Hope at Beauty’s call would perch and stand, And run thro’ every change of sharp and flat ; And Fancy came and at her pillow sat, When Sleep had bound her in his rosy band, And chased away the still-recurring gnat, And woke her with a lay from fairy land. But now they live with Beauty less and less, For Hope is other Hope and wanders far, Nor cares to lisp in love’s delicious creeds ; And Fancy watches in the wilderness, Poor Fancy sadder than a single star, That sets at twilight in a land of reeds. VIII. THE form, the form alone is eloquent ! A nobler yearning never broke her rest Than but to dance and sing, be gaily drest, And win all eyes with all accomplish- ment : Yet in the whirling dances as we went, My fancy made me for a moment blest To find my heart so near the beauteous breast That once had power to rob it of content. A moment came the tenderness of tears, The phantom of a wish that once could move, A ghost of passion that no smiles re- store— For ah! the slight coquette, she cannot love, And if you kiss’d her feet a thousand years, She still would take the praise, and care no more. IX. WAN Sculptor, weepest thou to take the cast Of those dead lineaments that near thee lie? O sorrowest thou, pale Painter, for the past, In painting some dead friend from memory ? Weep on: beyond his object Love can last : His object lives: more cause to weep have I: My tears, no tears of love, are flowing fast, No tears of love, but tears that Love can die. I pledge her not in any cheerful cup, THES LADY OR SHALOTT. 27 Nor care to sit beside her where she sits— Ah pity—hint it not in human tones, But breathe it into earth and close it up With secret death for ever, in the pits Which some green Christmas crams with weary bones. Ke Ir I were loved, as I desire to be, What is there in the great sphere of the earth, And range of evil between death and birth, That I should fear,—if I were loved by thee ? All the inner, all the outer world of pain Clear Love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert mine, As I have heard that, somewhere in the main, Fresh-water springs come up through bitter brine. . ’T were joy, not fear, claspt hand-in-hand with thee, To wait for death—mute—careless of all ills, Apart upon a mountain, tho’ the surge Of some new deluge from a thousand hills Flung leagues of roaring foam into the gorge Below us, as far on as eye could see. . XI. THE BRIDESMAID. O BRIDESMAID, ere the happy knot was tied, Thine eyes so wept that they could hardly see ; Thy sister smiled and said, ‘ No tears for me ! A happy bridesmaid makes ahappy bride.’ And then, the couple standing side by side, Love lighted down between them full of glee, And over his left shoulder laugh’d at thee, ‘O happy bridesmaid, make a happy bride.’ And all at once a pleasant truth I learn’d, For while the tender service made thee weep, I loved thee for the tear thou couldst not hide, And prest thy hand, and knew the press return’d, And thought, ‘ My life is sick of single sleep : O happy bridesmaid, make a_ happy bride !’ Pepe oO OF SHALOLT AND OTHER POEMS. Tae EADY OF SHALOTT, PART I. ON either side the river lie Long fields of barley and of rye, That clothe the wold and meet the sky ; And thro’ the field the road runs by To many-tower’d Camelot ; And up and down the people go, Gazing where the lilies blow Round an island there below, The island of Shalott. Willows whiten, aspens quiver, Little breezes dusk and shiver Thro’ the wave that runs for ever By the island in the river Flowing down to Camelot. Four gray walls, and four gray towers, Overlook a space of flowers, And the silent isle imbowers The Lady of Shalott. By the margin, willow-veil’d, Slide the heavy barges trail’d 28 THE LADV*OPWHALOAT. By slow horses ; and unhail’d The shallop flitteth silken-sail’d Skimming down to Camelot : But who hath seen her wave her hand ? Or at the casement seen her stand ? Or is she known in all the land, The Lady of Shalott ? Only reapers, reaping early In among the bearded barley, Hear a song that echoes cheerly From the river winding clearly, Down to tower’d Camelot : And by the moon the reaper weary, Piling sheaves in uplands airy, Listening, whispers ‘Tis the fairy Lady of Shalott.’ PART II. THERE she weaves by night and day A magic web with colours gay. She has heard a whisper say, A curse is on her if she stay To look down to Camelot. She knows not what the curse may be, And so she weaveth steadily, And little other care hath she, The Lady of Shalott. And moving thro’ a mirror clear That hangs before her all the year, Shadows of the world appear. There she sees the highway near Winding down to Camelot : There the river eddy whirls, And there the surly village-churls, And the red cloaks of market girls, Pass onward from Shalott. Sometimes a troop of damsels glad, An abbot on an ambling pad, Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad, Or long-hair’d page in crimson clad, Goes by to tower’d Camelot ; And sometimes thro’ the mirror blue The knights come riding two and two: She hath no loyal knight and true, The Lady of Shalott. But in her web she still delights To weave the mirror’s magic sights, For often thro’ the silent nights A funeral, with plumes and lights And music, went to Camelot : Or when the moon was overhead, Came two young lovers lately wed ; ‘I am half sick of shadows,’ said The Lady of Shalott. PART III. A BOW-SHOT from her bower-eaves, He rode between the barley-sheaves, The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves, And flamed upon the brazen greaves Of bold Sir Lancelot. A red-cross knight for ever kneel’d To a lady in his shield, That sparkled on the yellow field, Beside remote Shalott. The gemmy bridle glitter’d free, Like to some branch of stars we see Hung in the golden Galaxy. The bridle bells rang merrily As he rode down to Camelot : And from his blazon’d baldric slung A mighty silver bugle hung, And as he rode his armour rung, Beside remote Shalott. All in the blue unclouded weather Thick-jewell’d shone the saddle-leather, The helmet and the helmet-feather Burn’d like one burning flame together, As he rode down to Camelot. As often thro’ the purple night, Below the starry clusters bright, Some bearded meteor, trailing light, Moves over still Shalott. His broad clear brow in sunlight glow’d ; On burnish’d hooves his war-horse trode ; From underneath his helmet flow’d His coal-black curls as on he rode, As he rode down to Camelot. From the bank and from the river He flash’d into the crystal mirror, ‘ Tirra lirra,’ by the river Sang Sir Lancelot. She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces thro’ the room, MARIANA IN THE SOUTH. 29 She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, She look’d down to Camelot. Out flew the web and floated wide ; The mirror crack’d from side to side ; ‘The curse is come upon me,’ cried The Lady of Shalott. PARA LV. IN the stormy east-wind straining, The pale yellow woods were waning, The broad stream in his banks complain- ing, Heavily the low sky raining Over tower’d Camelot ; Down she came and found a boat Beneath a willow left afloat, And round about the prow she wrote The Lady of Shatott. And down the river’s dim expanse Like some bold seér in a trance, Seeing all his own mischance— With a glassy countenance Did she look to Camelot. And at the closing of the day She loosed the chain, and down she lay ; The broad stream bore her far away, The Lady of Shalott. Lying, robed in snowy white That loosely flew to left and right— The leaves upon her falling light— Thro’ the noises of the night She floated down to Camelot : And as the boat-head wound along The willowy hills and fields among, They heard her singing her last song, The Lady of Shalott. Heard a carol, mournful, holy, Chanted loudly, chanted lowly, Till her blood was frozen slowly, And her eyes were darken’d wholly, Turn’d to tower’d Camelot. For ere she reach’d upon the tide The first house by the water-side, Singing in her song she died, The Lady of Shalott. Under tower and balcony, By garden-wall and gallery, A gleaming shape she floated by, Dead-pale between the houses high, Silent into Camelot. Out upon the wharfs they came, Knight and burgher, lord and dame, And round the prow they read her name, The Lady of Shalott. Who is this? and what is here ? And in the lighted palace near Died the sound of royal cheer ; And they cross’d themselves for fear, All the knights at Camelot : But Lancelot mused a little space ; He said, ‘She has a lovely face ; God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott.’ MARIANAS LNT ELE CSOUEH. WITH one black shadow at its feet, The house thro’ all the level shines, Close-latticed to the brooding heat, And silent in its dusty vines : A faint-blue ridge upon the right, An empty river-bed before, And shallows on a distant shore, In glaring sand and inlets bright. But ‘ Ave Mary,’ made she moan, And ‘Ave Mary,’ night and morn, And ‘Ah,’ she sang, ‘to be all alone, Tolive forgotten, and love forlorn.’ She, as her carol sadder grew, From brow and bosom slowly down Thro’ rosy taper fingers drew Her streaming curls of deepest brown To left and right, and made appear Still-lighted in a secret shrine, Her melancholy eyes divine, The home of woe without a tear. And ‘ Ave Mary,’ was her moan, ‘Madonna, sad is night and morn,’ And ‘Ah,’ she sang, ‘to be all alone, Tolive forgotten, and love forlorn.’ Till all the crimson changed, and past Into deep orange o’er the sea, » 30 THE TWO VOICES. Low on her knees herself she cast, Before Our Lady murmur’d she ; Complaining, ‘ Mother, give me grace To help me of my weary load.’ And on the liquid mirror glow’d The clear perfection of her face. ‘Is this the form,’ she made her moan, ‘That won his praises night and morn ?’ And ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘but I wake alone, ‘I sleep forgotten, I wake forlorn.’ Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat, Nor any cloud would cross the vault, But day increased from heat to heat, On stony drought and steaming salt ; ‘Till now at noon she slept again, And seem’d knee-deep in mountain grass, - And heard her native breezes pass, And runlets babbling down the glen. She breathed in sleep a lower moan, And murmuring, as at night and morn, She thought, ‘ Myspirit is here alone, Walks forgotten, and is forlorn.’ Dreaming, she knew it was a dream : She felt he was and was not there. She woke: the babble of the stream Fell, and, without, the steady glare Shrank one sick willow sere and small. The river-bed was dusty-white ; And all the furnace of the light Struck up against the blinding wall. She whisper’d, with a stifled moan More inward thanat night or morn, ‘Sweet Mother, let me not here alone Live forgotten and die forlorn.’ And, rising, from her bosom drew | Old letters, breathing of her worth, For ‘ Love,’ they said, ‘must needs be true, To what is loveliest upon earth.’ An image seem’d to pass the door, To look at her with slight, and say ‘But now thy beauty flows away, So be alone for evermore.’ ‘Ocruel heart,’ she changed her tone, ‘Andcruellove, whose end isscorn, | Is this the end to be left alone, To live forgotten, and die forlorn?’ But sometimes in the falling day An image seem’d to pass the door, To look into her eyes and say, ‘But thou shalt be alone no more.’ And flaming downward over all From heat to heat the day decreased, And slowly rounded to the east The one black shadow from the wall. ‘The day to night,’ she made her moan, ‘The day to night, the night to morn, And day and night I am left alone To live forgotten, and love forlorn. At eve a dry cicala sung, There came a sound as of the sea ; Backward the lattice-blind she flung, And lean’d upon the balcony. There all in spaces rosy-bright Large Hesper glitter’d on her tears, And deepening thro’ the silent spheres Heaven over Heaven rose the night. And weeping then she made her moan, ‘The night comes on that knows not morn, When I shall cease to be all alone, To live forgotten, and love forlorn.’ THE TWO VOICES. A STILL small voice spake unto me, ‘Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be?’ Then to the still small voice I said ; ‘Let me not cast in endless shade What is so wonderfully made.’ To which the voice did urge reply ; ‘To-day I saw the dragon-fly Come from the wells where he did lie. ‘ An inner impulse rent the veil Of his old husk : from head to tail Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. FHE TWO VOICES. 31 ‘ He dried his wings: like gauze they grew ; Thro’ crofts and pastures wet with dew A living flash of light he flew.’ I said, ‘ When first the world began, Young Nature thro’ five cycles ran, And in the sixth she moulded man. ‘She gave him mind, the lordliest Proportion, and, above the rest, Dominion in the head and breast.’ Thereto the silent voice replied ; ‘ Self-blinded are you by your pride : Look up thro’ night: the world is wide. ‘This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse. ‘Think you this mould of hopes and fears _ Could find no statelier than his peers - In yonder hundred million spheres ?’ It spake, moreover, in my mind : _ Tho’ thou wert scatter’d to the wind, | Yet is there plenty of the kind.’ _ Then did my response clearer fall : ‘No compound of this earthly ball Is like another, all in all.’ _ To which he answer’d scoffingly ; _ *Good soul! suppose I grant it thee, | Who'll weep for thy deficiency ? _ ©Or will one beam be less intense, | When thy peculiar difference _ Is cancell’d in the world of sense ?’ _ I would have said, ‘Thou canst not know,’ _ But my full heart, that work’d below, _ Rain’d thro’ my sight its overflow. _ Again the voice spake unto me: ‘Thou art so steep’d in misery, _ Surely ’twere better not to be. _ ©Thine anguish will not let thee sleep, | Nor any train of reason keep : _ Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep.’ I said, ‘ The years with change advance : If I make dark my countenance, I shut my life from happier chance. ‘Some turn this sickness yet might take, Ev’n yet.’ But he: ‘What drug can make A wither’d palsy cease to shake ?’ I wept, ‘Tho’ I should die, I know That all about the thorn will blow In tufts of rosy-tinted snow ; ‘ And men, thro’ novel spheres of thought Still moving after truth long sought, Will learn new things when I am not.’ ‘Vet,’ said the secret voice, ‘some time, Sooner or later, will gray prime Make thy grass hoar with early rime. ‘Not less swift souls that yearn for light, Rapt after heaven’s starry flight, Would sweep the tracts of day and night. ‘Not less the bee would range her cells, The furzy prickle fire the dells, The foxglove cluster dappled bells.’ I said that ‘all the years invent ; Each month is various to present The world with some development. ‘Were this not well, to bide mine hour, Tho’ watching from a ruin’d tower How grows the day of human power ?’ ‘The highest-mounted mind,’ he said, ‘Still sees the sacred morning spread The silent summit overhead. ‘ Will thirty seasons render plain Those lonely lights that still remain, Just breaking over land and main ? ‘Or make that morn, from his cold crown And crystal silence creeping down, Flood with full daylight glebe and town? ‘Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set In midst of knowledge, dream’d not yet. 32 THE TWO VOICES. ‘Thou hast not gain’d a real height, Nor art thou nearer to the light, Because the scale is infinite. ‘°*Twere better not to breathe or speak, Than cry for strength, remaining weak, And seem to find, but still to seek. ‘Moreover, but to seem to find Asks what thou lackest, thought resign’d, A healthy frame, a quiet mind.’ I said, ‘ When I am gone away, ‘‘ He dared not tarry,” men will say, Doing dishonour to my clay.’ ‘This is more vile,’ he made reply, ‘To breathe and loathe, to live and sigh, Than once from dread of pain to die. ‘Sick art thou—a divided will Still heaping on the fear of ill The fear of men, a coward still. ‘Do men love thee? Art thou so bound To men, that how thy name may sound Will vex thee lying underground ? ‘The memory of the wither’d leaf In endless time is scarce more brief Than of the garner’d Autumn-sheaf. ‘Go, vexed Spirit, sleep in trust ; The right ear, that is fill’?d with dust, Hears little of the false or just.’ ‘Hard task, to pluck resolve,’ I cried, ‘From emptiness and the waste wide Of that abyss, or scornful pride ! ‘ Nay—rather yet that I could raise One hope that warm’d me in the days While still I yearn’d for human praise. ‘ When, wide in soul and bold of tongue, Among the tents I paused and sung, The distant battle flash’d and rung. ‘T sung the joyful Pzean clear, And, sitting, burnish’d without fear The brand, the buckler, and the spear— ‘Waiting to strive a happy strife, To war with falsehood to the knife, And not to lose the good of life— ‘Some hidden principle to move, To put together, part and prove, And mete the bounds of hate and love— ‘ As far as might be, to carve out Free space for every human doubt, That the whole mind might orb about— ‘To search thro’ all I felt or saw, The springs of life, the depths of awe, And reach the law within the law : ‘ At least, not rotting like a weed, But, having sown some generous seed, Fruitful of further thought and deed, ‘To pass, when Life her light withdraws, Not void of righteous self-applause, Nor in a merely selfish cause— ‘In some good cause, not in mine own, To perish, wept for, honour’d, known, And like a warrior overthrown ; ‘Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears, When, soil’d with noble dust, he hears His country’s war-song thrill his ears : ‘Then dying of a mortal stroke, What time the foeman’s line is broke, And all the war is roll’d in smoke.’ ‘Yea !’ said the voice, ‘thy dream was good, While thou abodest in the bud. It was the stirring of the blood. ‘If Nature put not forth her power About the opening of the flower, Who is it that could live an hour? ‘Then comes the check, the change, the fall, Pain rises up, old pleasures pall. There is one remedy for all. ‘Yet hadst thou, thro’ enduring pain, Link’d month to month with such a chain Of knitted purport, all were vain. THE TWO VOICES. | 33 ‘Thou hadst not between death and birth Dissolved the riddle of the earth. So were thy labour little-worth. ‘That men with knowledge merely play’d, I told thee—hardly nigher made, Tho’ scaling slow from grade to grade ; ‘Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind, Named man, may hope some truth to find, That bears relation to the mind. ‘For every worm beneath the moon Draws different threads, and late and soon Spins, toiling out his own cocoon. ‘Cry, faint not: either Truth is born Beyond the polar gleam forlorn, Or in the gateways of the morn. ‘Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope | Beyond the furthest flights of hope, Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope. ‘Sometimes a little corner shines, _ As over rainy wist inclines _ A gleaming crag with belts of pines. ‘I will go forward, sayest thou, | I shall not fail to find her now. _ Look up, the fold is on her brow. ‘If straight thy track, or if oblique, Thou know’st not. Shadows thou dost strike, _ Embracing cloud, Ixion-like ; * And owning but a little more _ Than beasts, abidest lame and poor, _ Calling thyself a little lower ‘Than angels. Cease to wail and braw]! Why inch by inch to darkness crawl ? There is one remedy for all.’ £O dull, one-sided voice,’ said I, ‘Wilt thou make everything a lie, To flatter me that I may die? _ ‘I know that age to age succeeds, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, A dust of systems and of creeds. - ‘I cannot hide that some have striven, Achieving calm, to whom was given The joy that mixes man with Heaven : ‘Who, rowing hard against the stream, Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, And did not dream it was a dream ; ‘But heard, by secret transport led, Ev’n in the charnels of the dead, The murmur of the fountain-head ‘Which did accomplish their desire, Bore and forebore, and did not tire, Like Stephen, an unquenched fire. ‘He heeded not reviling tones, Nor sold his heart to idle moans, Tho’ cursed and scorn’d, and bruised with stones : ‘ But looking upward, full of grace, He pray’d, and from a happy place God’s glory smote him on the face.’ The sullen answer slid betwixt : ‘Not that the grounds of hope were fix’d, The elements were kindlier mix’d.’ I said, ‘I toil beneath the curse, But, knowing not the universe, I fear to slide from bad to worse. ‘And that, in seeking to undo One riddle, and to find the true, I knit a hundred others new : ‘Or that this anguish fleeting hence, Unmanacled from bonds of sense, Be fix’d and froz’n to permanence : ‘For I go, weak from suffering here : Naked I go, and void of cheer : What is it that I may not fear ?’ ‘Consider well,’ the voice replied, ‘ His face, that two hours since hath died ; Wilt thou find passion, pain or pride ? ‘Will he obey when one commands? Or answer should one press his hands? He answers not, nor understands. D 34 THE 17W0 VOICES. ‘His palms are folded on his breast : There is no other thing express’d But long disquiet merged in rest. ‘ His lips are very mild and meek : Tho’ one should smite him on the cheek, And on the mouth, he will not speak. ‘ His little daughter, whose sweet face He kiss’d, taking his last embrace, Becomes dishonour to her race-— ‘ His sons grow up that bear his name, Some grow to honour, some to shame,— But he is chill to praise or blame. ‘He will not hear the north-wind rave, Nor, moaning, household shelter crave From winter rains that beat his grave. ‘High up the vapours fold and swim : About him broods the twilight dim : The place he knew forgetteth him.’ ‘If all be dark, vague voice,’ I said, ‘These things are wrapt in doubt and dread, Nor canst thou show the dead are dead. ‘The sap dries up: the plant declines. A deeper tale my heart divines. Know I not Death? the outward signs? ‘T found him when my years were few ; A shadow on the graves I knew, And darkness in the village yew. ‘From grave to grave the shadow crept : In her still place the morning wept : Touch’d by his feet the daisy slept. ‘The simple senses crown’d his head : “‘Qmega! thou art Lord,” they said, ‘‘ We find no motion in the dead.” ‘Why, if man rot in dreamless ease, Should that plain fact, as taught by these, Not make him sure that he shall cease ? ‘Who forged that other influence, That heat of inward evidence, By which he doubts against the sense ? ‘He owns the fatal gift of eyes, That read his spirit blindly wise, Not simple as a thing that dies. ‘Here sits he shaping wings to fly: His heart forebodes a mystery : He names the name Eternity. ‘That type of Perfect in his mind — In Nature can he nowhere find. He sows himself on every wind. ‘He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend, And thro’ thick veils to apprehend A labour working to an end. ‘The end and the beginning vex His reason: many things perplex, With motions, checks, and counterchecks. ‘He knows a baseness in his blood At such strange war with something good, He may not do the thing he would. ‘Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn, Vast images in glimmering dawn, Half shown, are broken and withdrawn. ‘Ah! sure within him and without, Could his dark wisdom find it out, There must be answer to his doubt, ‘But thou canst answer not again. With thine own weapon art thou slain, Or thou wilt answer but in vain. ‘The doubt would rest, I dare not solve. In the same circle we revolve. Assurance only breeds resolve.’ As when a billow, blown against, Falls back, the voice with which I fenced A little ceased, but recommenced. ‘Where wert thou when thy father play’d In his free field, and pastime made, A merry boy in sun and shade ? ‘A merry boy they call’d him then, He sat upon the knees of men In days that never come again. *. THE TWO VOICES. 35 ‘ Before the little ducts began To feed thy bones with lime, and ran ‘Their course, till thou wert also man: ‘Who took a wife, who rear’d his race, Whose wrinkles gather’d on his face, Whose troubles number with his days : ‘A life of nothings, nothing-worth, _ From that first nothing ere his birth _ To that last nothing under earth !’ _ ‘These words,’ I said, ‘are like the rest ; No certain clearness, but at best _ A vague suspicion of the breast : © But if I grant, thou mightst defend The thesis which thy words intend— That to begin implies to end ; ‘Yet how should I for certain hold, _ Because my memory is so cold, _ That I first was in human mould ? ‘I cannot make this matter plain, ' But I would shoot, howe’er in vain, | A random arrow from the brain. ‘It may be that no life is found, _ Which only to one engine bound _ Falls off, but cycles always round. As old mythologies relate, Some draught of Lethe might await The slipping thro’ from state to state. ‘ As here we find in trances, men Forget the dream that happens then, Until they fall in trance again. So might we, if our state were such _ As one before, remember much, _ For those two likes might meet and touch. ‘But, if I lapsed from nobler place, Some legend of a fallen race Alone might hint of my disgrace ; ‘Some vague emotion of delight In gazing up an Alpine height, Some yearning toward the lamps of night ; ‘Or if thro’ lower lives I came— Tho’ all experience past became Consolidate in mind and frame— ‘I might forget my weaker lot ; For is not our first year forgot ? The haunts of memory echo not. ‘And men, whose reason long was blind, From cells of madness unconfined, Oft lose whole years of darker mind. ‘Much more, if first I floated free, As naked essence, must I be Incompetent of memory : ‘For memory dealing but with time, And he with matter, could she climb Beyond her own material prime ? ‘Moreover, something is or seems, That touches me with mystic gleams, Like glimpses of forgotten dreams— ‘Of something felt, like something here , Of something done, I know not where ; Such as no language may declare.’ ‘T talk,’ said he, Suffice it thee The still voice laugh’d. ‘Not with thy dreams. Thy pain is a reality.’ ‘But thou,’ ‘hast missed thy mark, Who sought’st to wreck my mortal ark, By making all the horizon dark. said JT, ‘Why not set forth, if I should do This rashness, that which might ensue With this old soul in organs new? ‘Whatever crazy sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly long’d for death. ‘°Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, Oh life, not death, for which we pant ; More life, and fuller, that I want.’ I ceased, and sat as one forlorn. Then'said the voice, in quiet scorn, ‘ Behold, it is the Sabbath morn.’ 36 THE MILLER’S DAUGHTER. And I arose, and I released The casement, and the light increased With freshness in the dawning east. Like soften’d airs that blowing steal, When meres begin to uncongeal, The sweet church bells began to peal. On to God’s house the people prest : Passing the place where each must rest, Kach enter’d like a welcome guest. One walk’d between his wife and child, With measured footfall firm and mild, And now and then he gravely smiled, The prudent partner of his blood Lean’d on him, faithful, gentle, good, Wearing the rose of womanhood. And in their double love secure, The little maiden walk’d demure, Pacing with downward eyelids pure. These three made unity so sweet, My frozen heart began to beat, Remembering its ancient heat. I blest them, and they wander’d on: I spoke, but answer came there none : The dull and bitter voice was gone, A second voice was at mine ear, A little whisper silver-clear, A murmur, ‘ Be of better cheer.’ As from some blissful neighbourhood, A notice faintly understood, ‘I see the end, and know the good.’ A little hint to solace woe, A hint, a whisper breathing low, ‘IT may not speak of what I know,’ Like an A£olian harp that wakes No certain air, but overtakes Tar thought with music that it makes: Such seem’d the whisper at my side: ‘What is it thou knowest, sweet voice ?’ I cried. ‘A hidden hope,’ the voice replied : So heavenly-toned, that in that hour From out my sullen heart a power Broke, like the rainbow from the shower, To feel, altho’ no tongue can prove, That every cloud, that spreads above And yeileth love, itself is love. And forth into the fields I went, And Nature’s living motion lent The pulse of hope to discontent. I wonder’d at the bounteous hours, The slow result of winter showers : You scarce could see the grass for flowers. I wonder’d, while I paced along : The woods were fill’d so full with song, There seem’d no room for sense of wrong; And all so variously wrought, I marvell’d how the mind was brought To anchor by one gloomy thought ; And wherefore rather I made choice To commune with that barren voice, Than him that said, ‘ Rejoice! Rejoice !’ THE MILLER’S DAUGHTER. I sEE the wealthy miller yet, His double chin, his portly size, And who that knew him could forget The busy wrinkles round his eyes ? The slow wise smile that, round about His dusty forehead drily curl’d, Seem’d half-within and half-without, And full of dealings with the world ? In yonder chair I see him sit, Three fingers round the old silver cup— I see his gray eyes twinkle yet At his own jest—gray eyes lit up With summer lightnings of a soul So full of summer warmth, so glad, So healthy, sound, and clear and whole, His memory scarce can make me sad. Yet fill my glass: give me one kiss: My own sweet Alice, we must die. There’s somewhat in this world amiss Shall be unriddled by and by. THE MILLER’S DAUGHTER. 39 There’s somewhat flows to us in life, — But more is taken quite away. Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife, That we may die the self-same day. Have I not found a happy earth ? I least should breathe a thought of pain. Would God renew me from my birth I'd almost live my life again. So sweet it seems with thee to walk, And once again to woo thee mine— It seems in after-dinner talk Across the walnuts and the wine— To be the long and listless boy Late-left an orphan of the squire, Where this old mansion mounted high Looks down upon the village spire : For even here, where I and you Have lived and loved alone so long, Each morn my sleep was broken thro’ By some wild skylark’s matin song. And oft I heard the tender dove In firry woodlands making moan ; But ere I saw your eyes, my love, I had no motion of my own. For scarce my life with fancy play’d Before I dream’d that pleasant dream— Still hither thither idly sway’d Like those long mosses in the stream. Or from the bridge I lean’d to hear The milldam rushing down with noise, And see the minnows everywhere In crystal eddies glance and poise, The tall flag-flowers when they sprung Below the range of stepping-stones, Or those three chestnuts near, that hung In masses thick with milky cones. But, Alice, what an hour was that, When after roving in the woods (Twas April then), I came and sat Below the chestnuts, when their buds Were glistening to the breezy blue ; And on the slope, an absent fool, I cast me down, nor thought of you, But angled in the higher pool. A love-song I had somewhere read, An echo from a measured strain, Beat time to nothing in my head From some odd corner of the brain. It haunted me, the morning long, With weary sameness in the rhymes, The phantom of a silent song, That went and came a thousand times. Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood I watch’d the little circles die ; They past into the level flood, And there a vision caught my eye ; The reflex of a beauteous form, A glowing arm, a gleaming neck, As when a sunbeam wavers warm Within the dark and dimpled beck. For you remember, you had set, That morning, on the casement-edge A long green box of mignonette, And you were leaning from the ledge: And when I raised my eyes, above They met with two so full and bright— Such eyes! I swear to you, my love, That these have never lost their light. I loved, and love dispell’d the fear That I should die an early death : For love possess’d the atmosphere, And fill’d the breast with purer breath. My mother thought, What ails the boy? For I was alter’d, and began To move about the house with joy, And with the certain step of man. I loved the brimming wave that swam Thro’ quiet meadows round the mill, The sleepy pool above the dam, The pool beneath it never still, The meal-sacks on the whiten’d floor, The dark round of the dripping wheel, The very air about the door Made misty with the floating meal. And oft in ramblings on the wold, When April nights began to blow, And April’s crescent glimmer’d cold, I saw the village lights below ; 38 THE MILLER’S DAUGHTER. I knew your taper far away, And full at heart of trembling hope, From off the wold I came, and lay Upon the freshly-flower’d slope. The deep brook groan’d beneath the mill ; And ‘by that lamp,’ I thought, ‘she sits!’ The white chalk-quarry from the hill Gleam’d to the flying moon by fits. ‘O that I were beside her now ! O will she answer if I call? O would she give me vow for vow, Sweet Alice, if I told her all ?’ Sometimes I saw you sit and spin ; And, in the pauses of the wind, Sometimes I heard you sing within ; Sometimes your shadow cross’d the blind. At last you rose and moved the light, And the long shadow of the chair Flitted across into the night, And all the casement darken’d there. But when at last I dared to speak, The lanes, you know, were white with may, Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek Flush’d like the coming of the day ; And so it was—half-sly, half-shy, You would, and would not, little one! Although I pleaded tenderly, And you and I were all alone. And slowly was my mother brought To yield consent to my desire : She wish’d me happy, but she thought I might have look’d a little higher ; And I was young—too young to wed : ‘Yet must I love her for your sake ; Go fetch your Alice here,’ she said : Her eyelid quiver’d as she spake. And down I went to fetch my bride : But, Alice, you were ill at ease ; This dress and that by turns you tried, Too fearful that you should not please. I loved you better for your fears, I knew you could not look but well ; And dews, that would have fall’n in tears, I kiss’d away before they fell. I watch’d the little flutterings, The doubt my mother would not see ; She spoke at large of many things, And at the last she spoke of me ; And turning look’d upon your face, As near this door you sat apart, And rose, and, with a silent grace Approaching, press’d you heart to heart. Ah, well—but sing the foolish song I gave you, Alice, on the day When, arm in arm, we went along, A pensive pair, and you were gay With bridal flowers—that I may seem, As in the nights of old, to lie Beside the mill-wheel in the stream, While those full chestnuts whisper by. It is the miller’s daughter, And she is grown so dear, so dear, That I would be the jewel That trembles in her ear: For hid in ringlets day and night, I’d touch her neck so warm and white. And I would be the girdle About her dainty dainty waist, _ And her heart would beat against me, In sorrow and in rest : And I should know if it beat right, I'd clasp it round so close and tight. And I would be the necklace, And all day long to fall and rise Upon her balmy bosom, With her laughter or her sighs, And I would lie so light, so light, I scarce should be unclasp’d at night. A trifle, sweet ! which true love spells— True love interprets—right alone. His light upon the letter dwells, For all the spirit is his own. So, if I waste words now, in truth You must blame Love. His early rage Had force to make me rhyme in youth, And makes me talk too much in age. And now those vivid hours are gone, Like mine own life to me thou art, Where Past and Present, wound in one, Do make a garland for the heart : FATIMA. , 39 So sing that other song I made, Half-anger’d with my happy lot, Tae day, when in the chestnut shade I found the blue Forget-me-not. Love that hath us in the net, Can he pass, and we forget? Many suns arise and set. Many a chance the years beget. Love the gift is Love the debt. Even so. Love is hurt with jar and fret. Love is made a vague regret. Eyes with idle tears are wet. Idle habit links us yet. What is love? for we forget : Ah, no! no! Look thro’ mine eyes with thine. ‘True wife, Round my true heart thine arms entwine My other dearer life in life, Look thro’ my very soul with thine! Untouch’d with any shade of years, May those kind eyes for ever dwell ! They have not shed a many tears, Dear eyes, since first I knew them well. Yet tears they shed: they had their part Of sorrow : for when time was ripe, The still affection of the heart Became an outward breathing type, That into stillness past again, And left a want unknown before ; Although the loss had brought us pain, That loss but made us love the more, With farther lookings on. The kiss, The woven arms, seem but to be Weak symbols of the settled bliss, The comfort, I have found in thee : But that God bless thee, dear—who wrought Two spirits to one equal mind— With blessings beyond hope or thought, With blessings which no words can find. Arise, and let us wander forth, To yon old mill across the wolds ; For look, the sunset, south and north, Winds all the vale in rosy folds, And fires your narrow casement glass, Touching the sullen pool below : On the chalk-hill the bearded grass Is dry and dewless. Let us go. FATIMA. O LovE, Love, Love! Owithering might ! O sun, that from thy noonday height Shudderest when I strain my sight, Throbbing thro’ all thy heat and light, Lo, falling from my constant mind, Lo, parch’dand wither’d, deafand blind, I whirl like leaves in roaring wind. Last night I wasted hateful hours Below the city’s eastern towers : I thirsted for the brooks, the showers : I roll’d among the tender flowers : Icrush’d them on my breast, my mouth ; I look’d athwart the burning drouth Of that long desert to the south. Last night, when some one spoke his name, From my swift blood that went and came A thousand little shafts of flame Were shiver’d in my narrow frame. O Love, O fire! once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul thro’ My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew. Before he mounts the hill, I know He cometh quickly: from below Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow Before him, striking on my brow. In my dry brain my spirit soon, Down-deepening from swoon to swoon, Faints like a dazzled morning moon. The wind sounds like a silver wire, And from beyond the noon a fire Is pour’d upon the hills, and nigher The skies stoop down in their desire ; And, isled in sudden seas of light, My heart, pierced thro’ with fierce delight, Bursts into blossom in his sight. My whole soul waiting silently, All naked in a sultry sky, 40 ENONE. Droops blinded with his shining eye: I well possess him or will die. I will grow round him in his place, Grow, live, die looking on his face, Die, dying clasp’d in his embrace. CGENONE, THERE lies a vale in Ida, lovelier Than all the valleys of Ionian hills. The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen, Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine, And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars The long brook falling thro’ the clov’n ravine In cataract after cataract to the sea. Behind the valley topmost Gargarus Stands up and takes the morning: but in front The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal Troas and Ilion’s column’d citadel, The crown of Troas. Hither came at noon Mournful G£none, wandering forlorn Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills. Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck Floated her hair or seem’d to float in rest. She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine, Sang to the stillness, till the mountain- shade Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff. ‘O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida, Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. For now the noonday quiet holds the hill: The grasshopper is silent in the grass : The lizard, with his shadow on the stone, Rests like a shadow, and the winds are dead. The purple flower droops: the golden bee Is lily-cradled : I alone awake. My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love, My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim, And I am all aweary of my life. ‘O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida, Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. Hear me, O Earth, hear me, O Hills, O Caves That house the cold crown’d snake! O mountain brooks, I am the daughter of a River-God, Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed, A cloud that gather’d shape: for it may be That, while I speak of it, a little while My heart may wander from its deeper woe. ‘O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida, Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. T waited underneath the dawning hills, Aloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark, And dewy-dark aloft the mountain pine : Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris, Leading a jet-black goat white-horn’d, white-hooved, Came up from reedy Simois all alone. ‘O mother Ida, harken ere I die. Far-off the torrent call’d me from the cleft : Far up the solitary morning smote The streaks of virgin snow. With down- dropt eyes I sat alone: white-breasted like a star Fronting the dawn he moved ; a leopard skin Droop’d from his shoulder, but his sunny hair Cluster’d about his temples like a God’s : And his cheek brighten’d as the foam-bow brightens When the wind blows the foam, and all my heart Went forth to embrace him coming ere he came. ‘Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. He smiled, and opening out his milk- white palm NONE. 41 Disclosed a fruit of pure Hesperian gold, That smelt ambrosially, and while I look’d And listen’d, the full-flowing river of speech Came down upon my heart. «<¢ My own CEnone, Beautiful-brow’d GEnone, my own soul, Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingrav’n ‘For the most fair,’ would seem to award it thine, As lovelier than whatever Oread haunt The knolls of Ida, loveliest in all grace Of movement, and the charm of married brows.” ‘Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. He prest the blossom of his lips to mine, And added ‘‘This was cast upon the board, When all the full-faced presence of the Gods Ranged in the halls of Peleus ; whereupon Rose feud, with question unto whom ’twere due : But light-foot Iris brought it yester-eve, Delivering, that to me, by common voice Elected umpire, Heré comes to-day, Pallas and Aphrodité, claiming each This meed of fairest. Thou, within the cave Behind yon whispering tuft of oldest pine, Mayst well behold them unbeheld, unheard Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods.” ‘Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. It was the deep midnoon: one silvery cloud Had lost his way between the piney sides Of this long glen. Then to the bower they came, Naked they came to that smooth-swarded bower, And at their feet the crocus brake like fire, Violet, amaracus, and asphodel, Lotos and lilies: and a wind arose, And overhead the wandering ivy and vine, This way and that, in many a wild festoon Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs With bunch and berry and flower thro’ and thro’. ‘O mother Ida, harken ere I die. On the tree-tops a crested peacock lit, And o’er him flow’d a golden cloud, and lean’d Upon him, slowly dropping fragrant dew. Then first I heard the voice of her, to whom Coming thro’ Heaven, like a light that grows Larger andclearer, with one mind the Gods Rise up for reverence. She to Paris made Proffer of royal power, ample rule Unquestion’d, overflowing revenue Wherewith to embellish state, ‘‘ from many a vale And river-sunder’d champaign clothed with corn, Or labour’d mine undrainable of ore. Honour,” she said, ‘‘and homage, tax and toll, From many an inland town and haven large, Mast-throng’d beneath her shadowing citadel In glassy bays among her tallest towers.” ‘O mother Ida, harken ere I die. Still she spake on and still she spake of power, ‘¢ Which in all action is the end of all ; Power fitted to the season; wisdom-bred And throned of wisdom—from all neigh- bour crowns Alliance and allegiance, till thy hand Fail from the sceptre-staff. Such boon from me, From me, Heaven’s Queen, Paris, to thee king-born, A shepherd all thy life but yet king-born, Should come most welcome, seeing men, in power Only, are likest gods, who have attain’d Rest in a happy place and quiet seats Above the thunder, with undying bliss In knowledge of their own supremacy.” 42 CENONE. ‘Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit Out at arm’s-length, so much the thought of power Flatter’d his spirit ; but Pallas where she stood Somewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs O’erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold, The while, above, her full and earnest eye Over rr snow-cold breast and angry cheek Kept watch, waiting decision, reply. made ‘ «¢ Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self- control, These three alone lead life to sovereign power. Yet not for power (power of herself Would come uncall’d for) but to live by law, Acting the law we live by without fear ; And, because right is right, to follow right Were wisdom in thescorn of consequence.” ‘Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. Again she said: ‘*I woo thee not with gifts. Sequel of guerdon could not alter me To fairer. Judge thou me by what I am, So shalt thou find me fairest. Yet, indeed, If gazing on divinity disrobed Thy mortal eyes are frail to judge of fair, Unbias’d by self-profit, oh ! rest thee sure That I shall love thee well and cleave to thee, So that my vigour, wedded to thy blood, Shall strike within thy pulses, like a God’s, To push thee forward thro’ a life of shocks, Dangers, and deeds, until endurance grow Sinew’d with action, and the full-grown will, Circled thro’ all experiences, pure law, Commeasure perfect freedom.” ‘Here she ceas’d, And Paris ponder’d, and I cried, ‘*O Paris, Give it to Pallas!” but he heard me not, Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me! ‘O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida, Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. Idalian Aphrodité beautiful, Fresh as the foam, new-bathed in Paphian wells, With rosy slender fingers backward drew From her warm brows and bosom her deep hair Ambrosial, golden round her lucid throat ° And shoulder : from the violets her light foot Shone rosy-white, and o’er her rounded form Between the shadows of the vine-bunches Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved. ‘Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes, The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh Half-whisper’d in his ear, ‘‘I promise thee The fairest and most loving wife in Greece,” She spoke and laugh’d: I shut my sight for fear : But when I look’d, Paris had raised his arm, And I beheld great Heré’s angry eyes, As she withdrew into the golden cloud, And I was left alone within the bower ; And from that time to this I am alone, And I shall be alone until I die. ‘Yet, mother Ida, harken ere I die. Fairest—why fairest wife ? am I not fair? My love hath told me so a thousand times. Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday, When I past by, a wild and wanton pard, Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail Crouch’d fawning in the weed. loving is she ? Most NONE. 43 Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest Close, close to thine in that quick-falling dew Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains Flash in the pools of whirling Simois. *“O mother, hear me yet before I die. They came, they cut away my tallest pines, My tall dark pines, that plumed the craggy ledge High over the blue gorge, and all between The snowy peak and snow-white cataract Foster’d the callow eaglet—from beneath Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark morn The panther’s roar came muffled, while I sat Low in the valley. Never, never more Shall lone GEnone see the morning mist Sweep thro’ them ; never see them over- laid With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud, Between the loud stream and the trem- bling stars. ‘O mother, hear me yet before I die. I wish that somewhere in the ruin’d folds, _ Among the fragments tumbled from the glens, Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her The Abominable, that uninvited came Into the fair Peleian banquet-hall, And cast the golden fruit upon the board, _ And bred this change ; that I might speak my mind, And tell her to her face how much I hate _ Her presence, hated both of Gods and men. ‘O mother, hear me yet before I die. _ Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times, In this green valley, under this green hill, I-v’n on this hand, and sitting on this stone ? Seal’d it with kisses? water’d it with tears? O happy tears, and how unlike to these ! O happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face ? O happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight ? O death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud, There are enough unhappy on this earth, Pass by the happy souls, that love to live: I pray thee, pass before my light of life, And shadow all my soul, that I may die. Thou weighest heavy on the heart within, Weigh heavy on my eyelids : let me die. *O mother, hear me yet before I die. I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts Do shape themselves within me, more and more, Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear Dead sounds at night come from the in- most hills, Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother Conjectures of the features of her child Ereit is born : her child !—ashudder comes Across me: never child be born of me, Unblest, to vex me with his father’s eyes! ‘O mother, hear me yet before I die. Ilear me, O earth. I will not die alone, Lest their shrill happy laughter come to me Walking the cold and starless road of Death Uncomforted, leaving my ancient love With the Greek woman. I will rise and go Down into Troy, and ere the stars come forth Talk with the wild Cassandra, for she says A fire dances before her, and a sound Rings ever in her ears of armed men. What this may be I know not, but I know That, wheresoe’er I am by night and day, All earth and air seem only burning fire.’ 44 THE SISTERS—“THE PALACE OF ART THES SIS TE Ros WE were two daughters of one race: She was the fairest in the face: The wind is blowing in turret and tree. They were together, and she fell ; Therefore revenge became me well. O the Earl was fair to see ! She died: she went to burning flame: She mix’d her ancient blood with shame. The wind is howling in turret and tree. Whole weeks and months, and early and rite. To win his love I lay in wait: O the Earl was fair to see ! I made a feast; I bad him come; I won his love, I brought him home. The wind is roaring in turret and tree. And after supper, on a bed, Upon my lap he laid his head : O the Earl was fair to see! I kiss’d his eyelids into rest : His ruddy cheek upon my breast. The wind is raging in turret and tree. I hated him with the hate of hell, But I loved his beauty passing well. O the Earl was fair to see ! I rose up in the silent night : I made my dagger sharp and bright. The wind is raving in turret and tree. As half-asleep his breath he drew, Three times I stabb’d him thro’ and thro’. O the Earl was fair to see ! I curl’d and comb’d his comely head, He look’d so grand when he was dead. The wind is blowing in turret and tree, I wrapt his body in the sheet, And laid him at his mother’s feet. O the Earl was fair to see ! TO —. WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM. I SEND you here a sort of allegory, (For you will understand it) of a soul, A sinful soul possess’d of many gifts, A spacious garden full of flowering weeds, A glorious Devil, large in heart and brain, That did love Beauty only, (Beauty seen In all varieties of mould and mind) And Knowledge for its beauty; or if Good, Good only for its beauty, seeing not That Beauty, Good, and Knowledge, are three sisters That doat upon each other, friends to man, Living together under the same roof, And never can be sunder’d without tears. And he that shuts Love out, in turn shall be Shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie Howling in outer darkness. Not for this Was common clay ta’en from the common earth Moulded by God, and temper’d with the tears Of angels to the perfect shape of man. THE PADACE V0) alata. I BUILT my soul a lordly pleasure-house, Wherein at ease for aye to dwell. I said, ‘O Soul, make merry and carouse, Dear soul, for all is well.’ A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish’d . brass I chose. The ranged ramparts bright From level meadow-bases of deep grass Suddenly scaled the light. Thereon I built it firm, shelf The rock rose clear, or winding stair. My soul would live alone unto herself In her high palace there. Of ledge or And ‘while the world runs round and round,’ I said, ‘ Reign thou apart, a quiet king, Still as, while Saturn whirls, his stedfast shade Sleeps on his luminous ring.’ LEE PALACE. OF ART. 45 To which my soul made answer readily : ‘ Trust me, in bliss I shall abide In this great mansion, that is built for me, So royal-rich and wide.’ * * * * * * * * Four courts I made, East, West and South and North, In each a squared lawn, wherefrom The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth A flood of fountain-foam. And round the cool green courts there ran a row Ofcloisters, branch’d like mighty woods, Echoing all night to that sonorous flow Of spouted fountain-floods. And round the roofs a gilded gallery That lent broad verge to distant lands, Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky Dipt down to sea and sands. From those four jets four currents in one swell Across the mountain stream’d below In misty folds, that floating as they fell Lit up a torrent-bow. _ And high on every peak a statue seem’d | To hang on tiptoe, tossing up _ A cloud of incense of all odour steam’d From out a golden cup. So that she thought, ‘And who shall gaze upon My palace with unblinded eyes, _ While this great bow will waver in the sun, And that sweet incense rise ?’ ' For that sweet incense rose and never fail’d, And, while daysank or mounted higher, The light aérial gallery, golden-rail’d, Burnt like a fringe of fire. _ Likewise the deep-set windows, stain’d . and traced, _ Would seem slow-flaming crimson fires _ From shadow’d grots of arches interlaced, And tipt with frost-like spires. * * * * * %* * * Full of long-sounding corridors it was, That over-vaulted grateful gloom, Thro’ which the livelong day my soul did pass, Well-pleased, from room to room. Full of great rooms and small the palace stood, ; All various, each a perfect whole From living Nature, fit for every mood And change of my still soul. For some were hung with arras green and blue, Showing a gaudy summer-morn, Where with puff’d cheek the belted hunter blew His wreathed bugle-horn. One seem’d all dark and red—a tract of sand, And some one pacing there alone, Who paced for ever in a glimmering land, Lit with a low large moon. One show’d an iron coast and waves. You seem’d to hear them climb and fall And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves, Beneath the windy wall. angry And one, a full-fed river winding slow By herds upon an endless plain, The ragged rims of thunder brooding low, With shadow-streaks of rain. And one, the reapers at their sultry toil. In frontthey bound thesheaves. Behind Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil, And hoary to the wind. And one a foreground black with stones and slags, Beyond, a line of heights, and higher All barr’d with long white cloud the scornful crags, And highest, snow and fire. 46 THE PALACE OF ART. And one, an English home—gray twi- light pour’d On dewy pastures, dewy trees, Softer than sleep—all things in order stored, A haunt of ancient Peace. Nor these alone, but every landscape fair, As fit for every mood of mind, Or gay, or grave, or sweet, or stern, was there Not less than truth design’d. * x * * * + %* * Or the maid-mother by a crucifix, In tracts of pasture sunny-warm, Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx Sat smiling, babe in arm. Or in a clear-wall’d city on the sea, Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily ; An angel look’d at her. Or thronging all one porch of Paradise A group of Houris bow’d to see The dying Islamite, with hands and eyes That said, We wait for thee. Or mythic Uther’s deeply-wounded son In some fair space of sloping greens Lay, dozing in the vale of Avalon, And watch’d by weeping queens. Or hollowing one hand against his ear, To list a foot-fall, ere he saw The wood-nymph, stay’d the Ausonian king to hear Of wisdom and of law. Or over hills with peaky tops engrail’d, And many a tract of palm and rice, The throne of Indian Cama slowly sail’d A summer fann’d with spice. Or sweet Europa’s mantle blew unclasp’d, From off her shoulder backward borne : From one hand droop’d a crocus: one hand grasp’d The mild bull’s golden horn, Or else flush’d Ganymede, his rosy thigh Half-buried in the Eagle’s down, Sole as a flying star shot thro’ the sky Above the pillar’d town. Nor these alone: but every-legend fair Which the supreme Caucasian mind Carved out of Nature for itself, was there, Not less than life, design’d. * * * * % * * * Then in the towers I placed great bells that swung, Moved of themselves, withsilver sound ; And with choice paintings of wise men I hung The royal dais round. For there was Milton like aseraph strong, Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild ; And there the world-worn Dante grasp’d his song, And somewhat grimly smiled. And there the Ionian father of the rest ; A million wrinkles carved his skin ; A hundred winters snow’d upon his breast, From cheek and throat and chin. Above, the fair hall-ceiling stately-set Many an arch high up did lift, And angels rising and descending met With interchange of gift. Below was all mosaic choicely plann’d With cycles of the human tale Of this wide world, the times of every land So wrought, they will not fail. The people here, a beast of burden slow, Toil’d onward, prick’d with goads and stings; _ Here play’d, a tiger, rolling to and fro The heads and crowns of kings ; Here rose, an athlete, strong to break or bind All force in bonds that might endure, And here once more like some sick man, declined, And trusted any cure, THE PALACE OF ART. 47 But over these she trod : and those great bells Began to chime. She took her throne: She sat betwixt the shining Oriels, To sing her songs alone. And thro’ the topmost Oriels’ coloured flame Two godlike faces gazed below ; Plato the wise, and large-brow’d Verulam, The first of those who know. And all those names, that in their motion were Full-welling fountain-heads of change, Betwixt the slender shafts were blazon’d fair In diverse raiment strange : Thro’ which the lights, rose, amber, emerald, blue, Flush’d in her temples and her eyes, And from her lips, as morn from Memnon, drew Rivers of melodies. No nightingale delighteth to prolong Her low preamble all alone, More than my soul to hear her echo’d song Throb thro’ the ribbed stone ; Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth, Joying to feel herself alive, Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible earth, Lord of the senses five ; Communing with herself: ‘ All these are mine, And let the world have peace or wars, Tis one tome.’ She—when young night divine Crown’d dying day with stars, - Making sweet close of his delicious toils— Lit light in wreaths and anadems, _ And pure quintessences of precious oils In hollow’d moons of gems, To mimic heaven; and clapt her hands and cried, ‘I marvel if my still delight In this great house so royal-rich, and wide, Be flatter’d to the height. ‘O all things fair to sate my various eyes! O shapes and hues that please me well ! O silent faces of the Great and Wise, My Gods, with whom I dwell ! ‘O God-like isolation which art mine, I can but count thee perfect gain, What time I watch the darkening droves of swine That range on yonder plain. ‘In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin, They graze and wallow, breed and sleep ; And oft some brainless devil enters in, And drives them to the deep.’ Then of the moral instinct would she prate And of the rising from the dead, As hers by right of full-accomplish’d Fate ; And at the last she said : ‘I take possession of man’s mind and deed. I care not what the sects may brawl. I sit as God holding no form of creed, But contemplating all.’ * * * % * * * * Full oft the riddle of the painful earth Flash’d thro’ her as she sat alone, Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth, And intellectual throne. And so she throve and prosper’d: so three years She prosper’d: on the fourth she fell, Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears, Struck thro’ with pangs of hell. Lest she should fail and perish utterly, God, before whom ever lie bare The abysmal deeps of Personality, Plagued her with sore despair. 48 LHE. PALACESOR Aleit. When she would think, where’er she turn’d her sight The airy hand confusion wrought, Wrote, ‘ Mene, mene,’ and divided quite The kingdom of her thought. Deep dread and loathing of her solitude Fell on her, from which mood was born Scorn of herself; again, from out that mood Laughter at her self-scorn. ‘What ! is not this my place of strength,’ she said, ‘ My spacious mansion built for me, Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid Since my first memory ?’ But in dark corners of her palace stood Uncertain shapes ; and unawares On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood, And horrible nightmares, And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame, And, with dim fretted foreheads all, On corpses three-months-old at noon she came, That stood against the wall. A spot of dull stagnation, without light Or power of movement, seem’d my soul, ’Mid onward-sloping motions infinite Making for one sure goal. A. still salt pool, lock’d in with bars of sand, Left on the shore ; that hears all night The plunging seas draw backward from the land Their moon-led waters white, A star that with the choral starry dance Join’d not, but stood, and standing saw The hollow orb of moving Circumstance Roll’d round by one fix’d law. Back on herself her serpent pride had curl’d. ‘No voice,’ she shriek’d in that lone hall, ‘No voice breaks thro’ the stillness of this world : One deep, deep silence all !” She, mouldering with the dull earth’s mouldering sod, Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame, Lay there exiled from eternal God, Lost to her place and name ; And death and life she hated equally, And nothing saw, for her despair, But dreadful time, dreadful eternity, No comfort anywhere ; Remaining utterly confused with fears, And ever worse with growing time, And ever unrelieved by dismal tears, And all alone in crime: Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round With blackness as a solid wall, Far off she seem’d to hear the dully sound Of human footsteps fall. As in strange lands a traveller walking slow, In doubt and great perplexity, A little before moon-rise hears the low Moan of an unknown sea ; And knows not if it be thunder, or a sound Of rocks thrown down, or one deep cry Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, ‘I have found A new land, but I die.’ She howl’d aloud, ‘I am on fire within. There comes no murmur of reply. What is it that will take away my sin, ~ And save me lest I die?’ So when four years were wholly finished, She threw her royal robes away. ‘Make me a cottage in the vale,’ she said, ‘Where I ‘may mourn and pray. LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE. 49 ‘Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are So lightly, beautifully built : Perchance I may return with others there When I have purged my guilt.’ Pay CLARA VERE DE VERE. Lapy Clara Vere de Vere, Of me you shall not win renown : You thought to break a country heart For pastime, ere you went to town. At me you smiled, but unbeguiled I saw the snare, and I retired : The daughter of a hundred Earls, You are not one to be desired. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, I know you proud to bear your name, Your pride is yet no mate for mine, Too proud to care from whence I came. Nor would I break for your sweet sake A heart that doats on truer charms. A simple maiden in her flower Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Some meeker pupil you must find, _ For were you queen of all that is, I could not stoop to such a mind. _ You sought to prove how I could love, And my disdain is my reply. _ The lion on your old stone gates Is not more cold to you than I. _ Lady Clara Vere de Vere, _ You put strange memories in my head. Not thrice your branching limes have blown Since I beheld young Laurence dead. Oh your sweet eyes, your low replies : A great enchantress you may be ; _ But there was that across his throat Which you had hardly cared to see. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, When thus he met his mother’s view, She had the passions of her kind, She spake some certain truths of you. Indeed I heard one bitter word That scarce is fit for you to hear ; Her manners had not that repose Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, There stands a spectre in your hall : The guilt of blood is at your door : You changed a wholesome heart to gall, You held your course without remorse, To make him trust his modest worth, And, last, you fix’d a vacant stare, And slew him with your noble birth. Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, From yon blue heavens above us bent The gardener Adam and his wife Smile at the claims of long descent. Howe’er it be, it seems to me, ’Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood. I know you, Clara Vere de Vere, You pine among your halls and towers : The languid light of your proud eyes Is wearied of the rolling hours. In glowing health, with boundless wealth, But sickening of a vague disease, You know so ill to deal with time, You needs must play such pranks as these. Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, If time be heavy on your hands, Are there no beggars at your gate,, Nor any poor about your lands ? Oh ! teach the orphan-boy to read, Or teach the orphan-girl to sew, Pray Heaven for a human heart, And let the foolish yeoman go. 50 THE MAY QUEEN. THE MAY QUEEN. You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear ; To-morrow ’ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year ; Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest day ; For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May. There’s many a black black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine ; There’s Margaret and Mary, there’s Kate and Caroline : But none so fair as little Alice in all the land they say, So I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May. I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake, If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break : But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands gay, For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, ’m to be Queen o’ the May. As I came up the valley whom think ye should I see, But Robin leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree ? He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him yesterday, But I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May. He thought I was a ghost, mother, for I was all in white, And I ran by him without speaking, like a flash of light. They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say, For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May. They say he’s dying all for love, but that can never be : They say his heart is breaking, mother—what is that to me? There’s many a bolder lad ’ill woo me any summer day, And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May. Little Effie shall go with me to-morrow to the green, And you'll be there, too, mother, to see me made the Queen ; For the shepherd lads on every side ’ill come from far away, And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May. The honeysuckle round the porch has wov’n its wavy bowers, And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers ; And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows gray, And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May. The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-grass, And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they pass ; There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the livelong day, And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May. All the valley, mother, ’ill be fresh and green and still, And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill, And the rivulet in the flowery dale ill merrily glance and play, For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May. LHE MAY QUEEN. ——___— So you must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear, To-morrow “ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year : To-morrow ’ill be of all the year the maddest merriest day, For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May. NEW-YEAR’S EVE. IF yow’re waking call me early, call me early, mother dear, For I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year. It is the last New-year that I shall ever see, Then you may lay me low ? the mould and think no more of me. To-night I saw the sun set: he set and left behind The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind ; And the New-year’s coming up, mother, but I shall never see The blossom on the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree. Last May we made a crown of flowers: we had a merry day ; Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May ; And we danced about the may-pole and in the hazel copse, Till Charles’s Wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops. There’s not a flower on all the hills: the frost is on the pane : I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again : I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high: I long to see a flower so before the day I die. The building rook ’ll caw from the windy tall elm-tree, And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea, And the swallow ’ill come back again with summer o’er the wave, But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave. Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine, In the early early morning the summer sun ’ill shine, Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill, When you are warm-asleep, mother, and all the world is still. When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light You'll never see me more in the long gray fields at night ; When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool. Yow’ll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade, And you’ll come sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid. I shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear you when you pass, With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass. I have been wild and wayward, but you'll forgive me now ; You'll kiss ne, my own mother, and forgive me ere I go; 51 §2 THE MAY QUEEN. Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild, You should not fret for me, mother, you have another child. If I can I’ll come again, mother, from out my resting-place ; Tho’ you’ll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face ; Tho’ I cannot speak a word, I shall harken what you say, And be often, often with you when you think I’m far away. Goodnight, goodnight, when I have said goodnight for evermore, And you see me carried out from the threshold of the door ; Don’t let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green : She'll be a better child to you than ever I have been. She’ll find my garden-tools upon the granary floor : Let her take em: they are hers: I shall never garden more : But tell her, when I’m gone, to train the rosebush that I set About the parlour-window and the box of mignonette. Goodnight, sweet mother: call me before the day is born, All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn ; But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year, So, if you’re waking, call me, call me early, mother dear. CONCLUSION. I rHOUGHT to pass away before, and yet alive I'am ; And in the fields all round I hear the bleating of the lamb. I1ow sadly, I remember, rose the morning of the year ! To die before the snowdrop came, and now the violet’s here. O sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies, And sweeter is the young lamb’s voice to me that cannot rise, And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that blow, And sweeter far is death than life to me that long to go. It seem’d so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun, And now it seems as hard to stay, and yet His will be done! But still I think it can’t be long before I find release ; And that good man, the clergyman, has told me words of peace. O blessings on his kindly voice and on his silver hair ! And blessings on his whole life long, until he meet me there ! O blessings on his kindly heart and on his silver head ! A thousand times I blest him, as he knelt beside my bed. He taught me all the mercy, for he show’d me all the sin. Now, tho’ my lamp was lighted late, there’s One will let me in: Nor would I now be well, mother, again if that could be, lor my desire is but to pass to Him that died for me. THE MAY QUEEN. I did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat, There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet : But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine, And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign. All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call ; It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all; The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll, And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul. For lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear ; I saw you sitting in the house, and I no longer here ; With all my strength I pray’d for both, and so I felt resign’d, And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind. I thought that it was fancy, and [I listen’d in my bed, And then did something speak to me—I know not what was said ; For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind, And up the valley came again the music on the wind. But you were sleeping ; and I said, ‘It’s not for them: it’s mine.’ And if it come three times, I thought, I take it for a sign. And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars, Then seem’d to go right up to Heaven and die among the stars. So now I think my time is near. I trust itis. I know The blessed music went that way my soul will have to go. And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day. But, Effie, you must comfort Zer when I am past away. And say to Robin a kind word, and tell him not to fret ; There’s many a worthier than I, would make him happy yet. If I had lived—I cannot tell—I might have been his wife ; But all these things have ceased to be, with my desire of life. O look ! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow ; He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know. And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine— Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine. O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun— For ever and for ever with those just souls and true— And what is life, that we should moan? why make we such ado? For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home— And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come— To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast— And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. 53 54 THE LOTOS-EATERS. THE LOTOS-EATERS. ‘COURAGE!’ he said, and pointed toward the land, ‘This mounting wave will roll us shore- ward soon.’ In the afternoon they came unto a land In which it seemed always afternoon. All round the coast the languid air did swoon, Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. Full-faced above the valley stood the moon ; And like a downward smoke, the slender stream Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem. A land of streams! some, like a down- ward smoke, Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did 03 And some thro’ wavering lights and shadows broke, Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below. They saw the gleaming river seaward flow From the inner land: mountain-tops, Three silent pinnacles of aged snow, Stood sunset-flush’d: and, dew’d with showery drops, Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse. far off, three The charmed sunset linger’d low adown In the red West: thro’ mountain clefts the dale Was seen far inland, and the yellow down Border’d with palm, and many a winding vale And meadow, set with slender galingale ; A land where all things always seem’d the same ! And round about the keel with faces pale, Dark faces pale against that rosy flame, The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos - eaters came. Branches they bore of that enchanted stem, Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave To each, but whoso did receive of them, And taste, to him the gushing of the wave Far far away did seem to mourn and rave On alien shores; and if his fellow spake, His voice was thin, as voices from the grave 5 And deep-asleep he seem’d, yet all awake, And music in his ears his beating heart did make. They sat them down upon the yellow sand, Between the sun and moon upon the shore; And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland, © Of child, and wife, and slave ; but ever- more Most weary seem’d the sea, weary the oar, Weary the wandering fields of barren | foam. Then some one said, ‘ We will return no more ;’ And all at once they sang, ‘ Our island home Ts far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam.’ CHORIC SONG. 1G: THERE is sweet music here that softer falls Than petals from blown roses on the grass, Or night-dews on still waters between walls Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass 3 Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, Than tir’d eyelids upon tir’d eyes ; ores £9 Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. Here are cool mosses deep, And thro’ the moss the ivies creep, And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep. itt! LOTOS*EATERS. 55 a If. Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness, And utterly consumed with sharp distress, While all things else have rest from weariness ? All things have rest: why should we toil alone, We only toil, who are the first of things, And make perpetual moan, Still from one sorrow to another thrown: Nor ever fold our wings, And cease from wanderings, Nor steep our brows in slumber’s holy balm ; Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, ‘There is no joy but calm !’ Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things ? Ill. Lo! in the middle of the wood, The folded leaf is woo’d from out the bud With winds upon the branch, and there Grows green and broad, and takes no care, Sun-steep’d at noon, and in the moon Nightly dew-fed ; and turning yellow Falls, and floats adown the air. Lo! sweeten’d with the summer light, The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, Drops in a silent autumn night. All its allotted length of days, The flower ripens in its place, Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil. IV. Hateful is the dark-blue sky, Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea. Death is the end of life ; ah, why Should life all labour be ? Let usalone. Time driveth onward fast, And in a little while our lips are dumb. Let us alone. What is it that will last? All things are taken from us, and become Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past. Let us alone. What pleasure can we have To war with evil? Is there any peace In ever climbing up the climbing wave ? All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave In silence ; ripen, fall and cease: Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease. Vie How sweet it were, hearing the down- ward stream, With half-shut eyes ever to seem Falling asleep in a half-dream ! To dream and dream, like yonder amber light, Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height ; To hear each other’s whisper’d speech ; Eating the Lotos day by day, To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, And tender curving lines of creamy spray; To lend our hearts and spirits wholly To the influence of mild-minded melan- choly ; To muse and brood and live again in memory, With those old faces of our infancy Heap’d over with a mound of grass, Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass ! VI. Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, And dear the last embraces of our wives And their warm tears: but all hath suffer’d change: ° For surely now our household hearths are cold : Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange : And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. Or else the island princes over-bold Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings Before them of the ten years’ war in Troy, And our great deeds, as half- forgotten things. Is there confusion in the little isle ? Let what is broken so remain. 56 A DREAM OF FATR WOMEN. The Gods are hard to reconcile : ’Tis hard to settle order once again. There zs confusion worse than death, Trouble on trouble, pain on pain, Long labour unto aged breath, Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars. VII. But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly, How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly) With half-dropt eyelid still, Beneath a heaven dark and holy, To watch the long bright river drawing slowly His waters from the purple hill— To hear the dewy echoes calling From cave to cave thro’ the thick-twined vine— To watch the emerald-colour’d water falling Thro’ many a_wovwn acanthus-wreath divine ! Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine, Only to hear were sweet, stretch’d out beneath the pine. VIIl. The Lotos blooms below the barren peak : The Lotos blows by every winding creek: All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone : Thro’ every hollow cave and alley lone Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown. We have had enough of action, and. of motion we, Roll’d to starboard, roll’d to larboard, when the surge was seething free, Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea. Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl’d Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl’d Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world : Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, Like a tale of little meaning tho’ the words are strong ; Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil ; Till they perish and they suffer—some, ’tis whisper’>d—down in hell Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. I READ, before my eyelids dropt their shade, ‘ The Legend of Good Women,’ long ago Sung by the morning star of song, who made His music heard below ; Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts that fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo still. NaS A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 57 And, for a while, the knowledge of his art Held me above the subject, as strong gales Hold swollen clouds from raining, tho’ my heart, Brimful of those wild tales, Charged both mine eyes with tears. In every land I saw, wherever light illumineth, Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand The downward slope to death. Those far-renowned brides of ancient son Peopled the hollow dark, like burning stars, And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong, And trumpets blown for wars ; And clattering flints batter’d with clanging hoofs ; And I saw crowds in column’d sanctu- aries ; And forms that pass’d at windows and on roofs Of marble palaces ; Corpses across the threshold ; heroes tall Dislodging pinnacle and parapet Upon the tortoise creeping to the wall ; Lances in ambush set ; And high shrine-doors burst thro’ with heated blasts That run before the fluttering tongues of fire ; White surf wind-scatter’d over sails and masts, And ever climbing higher ; Squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates, Scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes, Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron grates, And hush’d seraglios. So shape chased shape as swift as, when to land Bluster the winds and tides the self-same way, Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand, Torn from the fringe of spray. I started once, or seem’d to start in pain, Resolved on noble things, and strove Sy attorspeak, As when a great thought strikes along the brain, And flushes all the cheek. And once my arm was lifted to hew down A cavalier from off his saddle-bow, That bore a lady from a leaguer’d town ; And then, I know not how, All those sharp fancies, by down-lapsing thought Stream’d onward, lost their edges, and did creep Roll’d on each other, rounded, smooth’d, and brought Into the gulfs of sleep. At last methought that I had wander’d far In an old wood: fresh-wash’d in coolest dew The maiden splendours of the morning star Shook in the stedfast blue. Enormous elm-tree-boles did stoop and lean Upon the dusky brushwood underneath Their broad curved branches, fledged with clearest green, New from its silken sheath. The dim red morn had died, her journey done, And with dead lips smiled at the twi- light plain, Half-fall’n across the threshold of the sun, Never to rise again. There wasno motion in the dumb dead air, Not any song of bird or sound of rill ; Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre Ts not so deadly still 58 A DREAM OF FATR WOMEN. As that wide forest. turn’d Their humid arms festooning tree to tree; And at the root thro’ lush green grasses burn’d The red anemone. Growths of jasmine I knew the flowers, I knew the leaves, I knew The tearful glimmer of the languid dawn On those long, rank, dark wood-walks drench’d in dew, Leading from lawn to lawn. The smell of violets, hidden in the green, Pour’d back into my empty soul and frame The times when I remember to have been Joyful and free from blame. And from within me a clear under-tone Thrill’d thro’ mine ears in that unbliss- ful clime, ‘Pass freely thro’ : own, Until the end of time.’ the wood is all thine At length I saw a lady within call, Stiller than chisell’d marble, standing there ; A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, And most divinely fair. Her loveliness with shame and with sur- prise Froze my swift speech : she turning on my face The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes, Spoke slowly in her place. ‘T had great beauty: ask thou not my name : No one can be more wise than destiny. Many drew swords and died. Where’er I came I brought calamity.’ ‘No marvel, sovereign lady Myself for such a face had boldly died,’ I answer’d free ; and turning I appeal’d To one that stood beside. : in fair field Butshe, with sick and scornfullooks averse, To her full height her stately stature draws ; ‘My youth,’ she said, ‘was blasted with a curse : This woman was the cause. ‘J was cut off from hope in that sad place, Which men call’d Aulis in those iron ears : My father held his hand upon his face ; I, blinded with my tears, ‘Still strove to speak: my voice was thick with sighs As inadream. Dimly I could descry The stern black-bearded kings with wolf ish eyes, Waiting to see me die. ‘ The high masts flicker’d as they lay afloat ; The crowds, the temples, waver’d, and the shore ; The bright death quiver’d at the victim’s throat ; Touch’d ; and I knew no more.’ Whereto the other witha downward brow: ‘I would the white cold heavy-plung- ing foam, Whirl’d by the wind, had roll’d me deep below, Then when I left my home.’ Her slow full words sank thro’ the silence drear, As thunder-drops fall on a sleeping sea : Sudden I heard a voice that cried, ‘Come here, That I may look on thee.’ I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise, One sitting on a crimson scarf unroll’d ; A queen, with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes, Brow-bound with burning gold. She, flashing forth a haughty smile, began : “I govern’d men by change, and so I sway d All moods. ’Tis long since I have seen a man. Once, like the moon, I made A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 59 ‘The ever-shifting currents of the blood According to my humour ebb and flow. I have no men to govern in this wood : That makes my only woe. ‘ Nay—yet it chafes me that I could not bend One will; nor tame and tutor with mine eye That dull cold-blooded Czesar. Prythee, friend, Where is Mark Antony ? ‘The man, my lover, with whom I rode sublime On Fortune’s neck : we sat as God by God : The Nilus would have risen before his time And flooded at our nod. ‘We drank the Libyan Sun to sleep, and lit Lamps which out-burn’d Canopus. O my life In Egypt! O the dalliance and the wit, The flattery and the strife, ‘ And the wild kiss, when fresh from war’s alarms, My Hercules, my Roman Antony, My mailed Bacchus leapt into my arms, Contented there to die ! ‘ And there he died: and when I heard my name Sigh’d forth with life I would not brook my fear Of the other: with a worm I balk’d his fame. What else was left? look here !’ (With that she tore her robe apart, and half The polish’d argent of her breast to sight Laid bare. Thereto she pointed with a laugh, Showing the aspick’s bite.) *I died a Queen. found Me lying dead, my crown about my brows, The Roman soldier A name for ever!—lying robed and crown’d, Worthy a Roman spouse.’ Her warbling voice, a lyre of widest range Struck by all passion, did fall down and glance From tone to tone, and glided thro’ all change Of liveliest utterance. When she made pause I knew not for delight ; Because with sudden motion from the ground She raised her piercing orbs, and fill’d with light The interval of sound. Still with their fires Love tipt his keenest darts ; As once they drewinto two burning rings All beams of Love, melting the mighty hearts Of captains and of kings. Slowly my sense undazzled. Then I heard A noise of some one coming thro’ the lawn, And singing clearer than the crested bird That claps his wings at dawn. ‘The torrent brooks of hallow’d Israel From craggy hollows pouring, late and soon, Sound all night long, in falling thro’ the dell, Far-heard beneath the moon. ‘The balmy moon of blessed Israel Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine : All night the splinter’d crags that wall the dell With spires of silver shine.’ As one that museth where broad sunshine laves The lawn by some cathedral, thro’ the door Hearing the holy organ rolling waves Of sound on roof and floor 60 A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. Within, and anthem sung, is charm’d and tied To where he stands,—so stood I, when that flow Of music left the lips of her that died To save her father’s vow ; The daughter of the warrior Gileadite, A maiden pure; as when she went along From Mizpeh’s tower’d gate with welcome light, With timbrel and with song. My words leapt forth: ‘ Heaven heads the count of crimes With that wild oath.’ answer high : ‘ Not so, nor once alone ; a thousand times I would be born and die. She render’d ‘Single I grew, like some green plant, whose root Creeps to the garden water-pipes be- neath, Feeding the flower; but ere my flower to fruit Changed, I was ripe for death. ‘My God, my land, my father—these did move Me from my bliss of life, that Nature gave, Lower’d softly with a threefold cord of love Down to a silent grave. ‘And I went mourning, ‘No fair Hebrew boy Shall smile away my maiden blame among The Hebrew mothers ”—emptied of all joy, Leaving the dance and song, ‘ Leaving the olive-gardens far below, Leaving the promise of my _ bridal bewer, The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow Beneath the battled tower. ‘The light white cloud swam over us. Anon We heard the lion roaring from his den ; We saw the large white stars rise one by one, Or, from the darken’d glen, ‘Saw God divide the night with flying flame, And thunder on the everlasting hills. I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became A solemn scorn of ills. ‘When the next moon was roll’d into the sky, Strength came to me that equall’d my desire. How beautiful a thing it was to die For God and for my sire ! ‘It comforts me in this one thought to dwell, That I subdued me to my father’s will ; Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell, Sweetens the spirit still. ‘Moreover it is written that my race. Hew’d Ammon, hip and thigh, from Aroer On Arnon unto Minneth.’ Here her face -Glow’d, as I look’d at her. She lock’d her lips: she left me where I stood : ‘Glory to God,’ she sang, and past afar, Thridding the sombre boskage of the wood, Toward the morning-star. Losing her carol I stood pensively, As one that from a casement leans his head, When midnight bells cease ringing sud- denly, And the old year is dead. ‘Alas! alas!’ a low voice, full of care, Murmur’d beside me: ‘ Turn and look on me: Tam that Rosamond, whom men call fair, If what I was I be. THE BLACKBIRD. “Would I had been some maiden coarse and poor ! O me, that I should ever see the light ! Those dragon eyes of anger’d Eleanor Do hunt me, day and night.’ She ceased in tears, fallen from hope and trust : , To whom the Egyptian: ‘O, you tamely died ! You should have clung to Fulvia’s waist, and thrust The dagger thro’ her side.’ With that sharp sound the white dawn’s creeping beams, Stol’n to my brain, dissolved the mystery Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams Ruled in the eastern sky. Morn broaden’d on the borders of the dark, Ere I saw her, who clasp’d in her last trance Her murder’d father’s head, or Joan of Arc, *A light of ancient France ; Or her who knew that Love can vanquish Death, Who kneeling, with one arm about her king, Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath, Sweet as new buds in Spring. No memory labours longer from the deep Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep To gather and tell o’er Each little sound and sight. With what dull pain Compass’d, how eagerly I sought to strike Into that wondrous track of dreams again ! But no two dreams are like. 61 As when a soul laments, which hath been blest, Desiring what is mingled with past years, In yearnings that can never be exprest By signs or groans or tears ; Because all words, tho’ cull’d with choicest art, Failing to give the bitter of the sweet, Wither beneath the palate, and the heart Faints, faded by its heat. THE BEACK BIRD: O BLACKBIRD ! sing me something well: While all the neighbours shoot thee round, I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground, Where thou may’st warble, eat and dwell. The espaliers and the standards all Are thine; the range of lawn and park : The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark, All thine, against the garden wall. Yet, tho’ I spared thee all the spring, Thy sole delight is, sitting still, With that gold dagger of thy bill To fret the summer jenneting. A golden bill! the silver tongue, Cold February loved, is dry: Plenty corrupts the melody That made thee famous once, young : when And in the sultry garden-squares, Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse, I hear thee not at all, or hoarse As when a hawker hawks his wares. Take warning ! he that will not sing While yon sun prospers in the blue, Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new, Caught in the frozen palms of Spring. 62 THE DEATH OF TiS THE DEATH OF DTiiiaOLD YEAR. FULL knee-deep lies the winter snow, And the winter winds are wearily sigh- ing : Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow, And tread softly and speak low, For the old year lies a-dying. Old year, you must not die ; You came to us so readily, You lived with us so steadily, Old year, you shall not die. He lieth still: he doth not move: He will not see the dawn of day. He hath no other life above. He gave me a friend, and a true true-love, And the New-year will take ’em away. Old year, you must not go; So long as you have been with us, Such joy as you have seen with us, Old year, you shall not go. He froth’d his bumpers to the brim ; A jollier year we shall not see. But tho’ his eyes are waxing dim, And tho’ his foes speak ill of him, He was a friend to me. Old year, you shall not die ; We did so laugh and cry with you, I’ve half a mind to die with you, Old year, if you must die. He was full of joke and jest, But all his merry quips are o’er. To see him die, across the waste His son and heir doth ride post-haste, But he’ll be dead before. Every one for his own. The night is starry and cold, my friend, And the New-year blithe and bold, my friend, Comes up to take his own. How hard he breathes! over the snow I heard just now the crowing cock. The shadows flicker to and fro : The cricket chirps: the light burns low : ’Tis nearly twelve o’clock. OLD YEAR—TO /. S. Shake hands, before you die. Old year, we’ll dearly rue for you : What is it we can do for you ? Speak out before you die. His face is growing sharp and thin. Alack ! our friend is gone. Close up his eyes: tie up his chin : Step from the corpse, and let him in That standeth there alone, And waiteth at the door. There’s a new foot on the floor, my friend, And a new face at the door, my friend, A new face at the door. TOA Se J THE wind, that beats the mountain, blows More softly round the open wold, And gently comes the world to those That are cast in gentle mould. And me this knowledge bolder made, Or else I had not dared to flow In these words toward you, and invade Even with a verse your holy woe. ’Tis strange that those we lean on most, Those in whose laps our limbs are nursed, Fall into shadow, soonest lost : Those we love first are taken first. God gives us love. Something to love He lends us; but, when love is grown To ripeness, that on which it throve Falls off, and love is left alone. © This is the curse of time. Alas! In grief I am not all unlearn’d ; Once thro’ mine own doors Death did pass ; One went, who never hath return’d. He will not smile—not speak to me Once more. ‘Two years his chair is seen Empty before us. That was he Without whose life I had not been. ON A MOURNER. 63 Your loss is rarer ; for this star Rose with you thro’ a little arc Of heaven, nor having wander’d far Shot on the sudden into dark. I knew your brother: his mute dust T honour and his living worth : A man more pure and bold and just Was never born into the earth. I have not look’d upon you nigh, Since that dear soul hath fall’nasleep. Great Nature is more wise than I: I will not tell you not to weep. And tho’ mine own eyes fill with dew, Drawn from the spirit thro’ the brain, I will not even preach to you, ‘Weep, weeping dulls the inward pain.’ Let Grief be her own mistress still. She loveth her own anguish deep More than much pleasure. Let her will Be done—to weep or not to weep. I will not say, ‘God’s ordinance Of Death is blown in every wind ;’ For that is not a common chance That takes away a noble mind. His memory long will live alone In all our hearts, as mournful light That broods above the fallen sun, And dwells in heaven half the night. Vain solace ! Memory standing near © Cast down her eyes, and in her throat Her voice seem’d distant, and a tear Dropt on the letters as I wrote. I wrote I know not what. In truth, How should I soothe you anyway, Who miss the brother of your youth? Yet something IJ did wish to say: For he too was a friend to me : Both are my friends, and my true breast Bleedeth for both ; yet it may be That only silence suiteth best. Words weaker than your grief would make Grief more. cease Although myself could almost take The place of him that sleeps in peace, ’Twere better I should Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace : Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, While the stars burn, the moons increase, And the great ages onward roll. Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet. Nothing comes to theenew orstrange. Sleep full of rest from head to feet ; Lie still, dry dust, secure of change. ON A MOURNER. I, NATURE, so far as in her lies, Imitates God, and turns her face To every land beneath the skies, Counts nothing that she meets with base, But lives and loves in every place ; 1s Fills out the homely quickset-screens, And makes the purple lilac ripe, Steps from her airy hill, and greens The swamp, where htmm’d the drop- ping snipe, With moss and braided marish-pipe ; III. And on thy heart a finger lays, Saying, ‘ Beat quicker, for the time Is pleasant, and the woods and ways Are pleasant, and the beech and lime Put forth and feel a gladder clime.’ IV. And murmurs of a deeper voice, Going before to some far shrine, Teach that sick heart the stronger choice, Till all thy life one way incline With one wide Will that closes thine. 64 LOVE. THOOG LAY LAND, Mes And when the zoning eve has died Where yon dark valleys wind forlorn, Come Hope and Memory, spouse and bride, From out the borders of the morn, With that fair child betwixt them born. VI, And when no mortal motion jars The blackness round the tombing sod, Thro’ silence and the trembling stars Comes Faith from tracts no feet have trod, And Virtue, like a household god VIl. Promising empire ; such as those Once heard at dead of night to greet Troy’s wandering prince, so that he rose With sacrifice, while all the fleet Had rest by stony hills of Crete. You ask me, why, tho’ ill at ease, Within this region I subsist, Whose spirits falter in the mist, And languish for the purple seas. Tt is the land that freemen till, That sober-suited Freedom chose, The land, where girt with friends or foes A man may speak the thing he will ; A land of settled government, A land of just and old renown, Where Freedom slowly broadens down From precedent to precedent : Where faction seldom gathers head, But by degrees to fullness wrought, The strength of some diffusive thought Hath time and space to work and spread. Should banded unions persecute Opinion, and induce a time When single thought is civil crime, And individual freedom mute ; Tho’ Power should make from land to land The name of Britain trebly great— Tho’ every channel of the State Should fill and choke with golden sand— Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth, Wild wind! I seek a warmer sky, And I will see before I die The palms and temples of the South. OF old sat Freedom on the heights, The thunders ‘breaking at her feet : Above her shook the starry lights : She heard the torrents meet. There in her place she did rejoice, Self-gather’d in her prophet-mind, But fragments of her mighty voice Came rolling on the wind. Then stept she down thro’ town and field To mingle with the human race, And part by part to men reveal’d The fullness of her face— Grave mother of majestic works, From her isle-altar gazing down, Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks, And, King-like, wears the crown : Her open eyes desire the truth. The wisdom of a thousand years Is in them. May perpetual youth Keep dry their light from tears ; That her fair form may stand and shine, Make bright our days and light our dreams, Turning to scorn with lips divine The falsehood of extremes ! LovE thou thy land, with love far-brought From out the storied Past, and used Within the Present, but transfused Thro’ future time by power of thought. LOVE THOU THY LAND. 65 True love turn’d round on fixed poles, Love, that endures not sordid ends, For English natures, freemen, friends, Thy brothers and immortal souls. But pamper not a hasty time, Nor feed with crude imaginings The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings That every sophister can lime. Deliver not the tasks of might To weakness, neither hide the ray From those, not blind, who wait for day, Tho’ sitting girt with doubtful light. Make knowledge circle with the winds ; But let her herald, Reverence, fly Before her to whatever sky Bear seed of men and growth of minds. Watch what main-currents draw the years : Cut Prejudice against the grain : But gentle words are always gain : Regard the weakness of thy peers : Nor toil for title, place, or touch Of pension, neither count on praise : It grows to guerdon after-days : _ Nor deal in watch-words overmuch : _ Not clinging to some ancient saw ; Not master’d by some modern term ; Not swift nor slow to change, but firm: And in its season bring the law ; _ That from Discussion’s lip may fall With Life, that, working strongly, binds— Set in all lights by many minds, To close the interests of all. For Nature also, cold and warm, And moist and dry, devising long, Thro’ many agents making strong, Matures the individual form. Meet is it changes should control Our being, lest we rust in ease. We all are changed by still degrees, All but the basis of the soul. So let the change which comes be free To ingroove itself with that which flies, And work, a joint of state, that plies Its office, moved with sympathy. A saying, hard to shape in act ; For all the past of Time reveals A bridal dawn of thunder-peals, Wherever Thought hath wedded Fact. Ev’n now we hear with inward strife A motion toiling in the gloom— The Spirit of the years to come Yearning to mix himself with Life. A slow-develop’d strength awaits Completion in a painful school ; Phantoms of other forms of rule, New Majesties of mighty States— The warders of the growing hour, But vague in vapour, hard to mark ; And round them sea and air are dark With great contrivances of Power. Of many changes, aptly join’d, Is bodied forth the second whole. Regard gradation, lest the soul Of Discord race the rising wind ; A wind to puff your idol-fires, And heap their ashes on the head ; To shame the boast so often made, That we are wiser than our sires. Oh yet, if Nature’s evil star Drive men in manhood, as in youth, To follow flying steps of Truth Across the brazen bridge of war— If New and Old, disastrous feud, Must ever shock, like armed foes, And this be true, till Time shall close, That Principles are rain’d in blood ; Not yet the wise of heart would cease To hold his hope thro’ shame and guilt, But with his hand against the hilt, Would pace the troubled land, Peace ; like ¥ 66 ENGLAND AND AMERICA IN 1782—THE GOOSE. Not less, tho’ dogs of Faction bay, Would serve his kind in deed and word, Certain, if knowledge bring the sword, That knowledge takes the sword away— Would love the gleams of good that broke From either side, nor veil his eyes : And if some dreadful need should rise Would strike, and firmly, and one stroke : To-morrow yet would reap to-day, As we bear blossom of the dead ; Earn well the thrifty months, nor wed Raw Haste, half-sister to Delay. ENGLAND AND AMERICA Line L702: O THOU, that sendest out the man To rule by land and sea, Strong mother of a Lion-line, Be proud of those strong sons of thine Who wrench’d their rights from thee! What wonder, if in noble heat Those men thine arms withstood, Retaught the lesson thou hadst taught, And in thy spirit with thee fought— Who sprang from English blood! But Thou rejoice with liberal joy, Lift up thy rocky face, And shatter, when the storms are black, In many a streaming torrent back, The seas that shock thy base ! Whatever harmonies of law The growing world assume, Thy work is thine—The single note From that deep chord which Hampden smote Will vibrate to the doom. THE. GOOSE, I KNEW an old wife lean and poor, Her rags scarce held together ; There strode a stranger to the door, And it was windy weather. He held a goose upon his arm, He utter’d rhyme and reason, ‘Here, take the goose, and keep you warm, It is a stormy season.’ She caught the white goose by the leg, A goose—’twas no great matter. The goose let fall a golden egg With cackle and with clatter. She dropt the goose, and caught the pelf, And ran to tell her neighbours ; And bless’d herself, and cursed herself, And rested from her labours. And feeding high, and living soft, Grew plump and able-bodied ; Until the grave churchwarden doff’d, The parson smirk’d and nodded. So sitting, served by man and maid, She felt her heart grow prouder : But ah! the more the white goose laid It clack’d and cackled louder. It clutter’d here, it chuckled there ; It stirr’d the old wife’s mettle : She shifted in her elbow-chair, And hurl’d the pan and kettle. ‘A quinsy choke thy cursed note !’ Then wax’d her anger stronger. ‘Go, take the goose, and wring her throat, I will not bear it longer.’ Then yelp’d the cur, and yawl’d the cat ; Ran Gaffer, stumbled Gammer. The goose flew this way and flew that, And fill’d the house with clamour. As head and heels upon the floor They flounder’d all together, There strode a stranger to the door, And it was windy weather : He took the goose upon his arm, He utter’d words of scorning ; ‘So keep you cold, or keep you warm, It is a stormy morning.’ Liter fC, The wild wind rang from park and plain, And round the attics rumbled, Till all the tables danced again, And half the chimneys tumbled. The glass blew in, the fire blew out, The blast was hard and harder. 67 Her cap blew off, her gown blew up, And a whirlwind clear’d the larder : And while on all sides breaking loose Her household fled the danger, Quoth she, ‘The Devil take the goose, And God forget the stranger !’ Lo Nhe bpd bee ea feed I AND OTHER POEMS. Tite ePIC. Av Francis Allen’s on the Christmas - eve, — The game of forfeits done—the girls all kiss’d Beneath the sacred bush and past away— The parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall, The host, and I sat round the wassail- bowl, Then Bale way ebb’d: and there we held : a talk, How alltheold honour had from Christmas gone, Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd | games In some odd nooks like this ; till I, tired out With cutting eights that day upon the pond, “Where, three times slipping from the outer edge, _I bump’d the ice into three several stars, Fell in a doze ; The parson taking wide and wider and half-awake I heard sweeps, Now harping on the church - commis- sioners, | Naw hawking at Geology and schism ; Until I woke, and found him settled down Upon the general pccey of faith ‘Right thro’ the world, ‘at home was little left, And none abroad: there was no anchor, none, To hold by.’ Francis, laughing, clapt his hand On Everard’s shoulder, with ‘I hold by him.’ ‘And I,’ quoth Everard, ‘ by the wassail- bowl.’ ‘Why yes,’ I said, ‘we knew your gift that way At college : but another which you had, I mean of verse (for so we held it then), What came of that?’ ‘ You know,’ said Frank, ‘he burnt His epic, his King Arthur, some twelve books ’— And then to me demanding why? ‘Oh, sir, He thought that nothing new was said, or else Something so said ’twas nothing—that a truth Looks freshest in the fashion of the day : God knows : he has a mint of reasons: ask. It pleased me well enough.’ ‘ Nay, nay,’ said Hall, ‘Why take the style of those heroic times? For nature brings not back the Mastodon, Nor we those times ; and why should any man Remodel models ? these twelve books of mine Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing - worth, 68 MORTE D ARTHUR. Mere chaff and draff, much better burnt.’ *‘Butd,’ Said Francis, ‘ pick’d the eleventh from this hearth And have it: keep a thing, its use will come. I hoard it as a sugar-plum for Holmes.’ He laugh’d, and I, tho’ sleepy, like a horse That hears the corn-bin open, prick’d my ears ; For I remember’d Everard’s college fame When we were Freshmen: then at my request He brought it ; and the poet little urged, But with some prelude of disparagement, Read, mouthing out his hollow oes and aes, Deep-chested music, and to this result. MORTE sDARTHUR So all day long the noise of battle roll’d Among the mountains by the winter sea; Until King Arthur’s table, man by man, Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their Lord, King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep, The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him, Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights, And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, A broken chancel with a broken cross, That stood ona dark strait of barren land. On one side lay the Ocean, and on one Lay a great water, and the moon was full. Then spake Bedivere : ‘The sequel of to-day unsolders all The goodliest fellowship of famous knights King Arthur to Sir Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep They sleep—the men I loved. I think that we Shall never more, at any future time, Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, Walking about the gardens and the halls Of Camelot, as in the days that were. I perish by this people which I made,— Tho’ Merlin sware that I should come again To rule once more—but let what will be, be, I am so deeply smitten thro’ the helm That without help I cannot last till morn. Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, Which was my pride: for thou remem- berest how In those old days, one summer noon, an arm Rose up from out the bosom of the lake, Clothed in white samite, mystic, won- derful, Holding the sword—and how I row’d across And took it, and have worn it, like a king : And, wheresoever I am sung or told In aftertime, this also shall be known : But now delay not.: take Excalibur, And fling him far into the middle mere: Watch what thou seést, and lightly bring me word.’ To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere : ‘It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus, Aidless, alone, and smitten thro’ the helm. A little thing may harm a wounded man. Yet I thy hest will all perform at full, Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word.’ So saying, from the ruin’d shrine he stept And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. stepping down By zig-zag paths, and juts of pointed rock, Came on the shining levels of the lake. He, There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, And o’er him, drawing it, the winter moon, Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth MORTE D ARTHUR. 69 And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt : For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood, This way and that dividing the swift mind, In act to throw: but at the last it seem’d Better to leave Excalibur conceal’d There in the many-knotted waterflags, That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. So strode he back slow to the wounded King. Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedi- vere : ‘Hast thou perform’d my mission which I gave? What is it thou hast seen ? or what hast heard ?’ And answer madethe bold Sir Bedivere: ‘I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, And the wild water lapping on the crag.’ To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale : ‘Thou hast betray’d thy nature and thy name, Not rendering true answer, as beseem’d Thy féalty, nor like a noble knight : For surer sign had follow’d, either hand, Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. This is a shameful thing for men to lie. Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing I bad thee, watch, and lightly bring me word.’ Then went Sir Bedivere the second time Across the ridge, and paced beside the were; y Counting the dewy pebbles, fix’d in thought ; But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, How curiously and strangely chased, he smote His palms together, and he cried aloud, ‘And if indeed I cast the brand away, Surely a precious thing, one worthy note, >? Should thus be lost for ever from the earth, Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. What good should follow this, if this were done ? What harm, undone? deep harm to dis- obey, Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. Were it well to obey then, ifa king demand An act unprofitable, against himself? The King is sick, and knows not what he does. What record, or what relic of my lord Should be to aftertime, but empty breath And rumours of a doubt? but were this kept, Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, Some one might show it at a joust of arms, Saying, ‘‘ King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps Upon the hidden bases of the hills.” So might some old man speak in the aftertime To all the people, winning reverence. But now much honour and much fame were lost.’ So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, And hid Excalibur the second time, And so strode back slow to the wounded King. Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily : ‘What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard ?’ Andanswer made the bold Sir Bedivere : ‘I heard the water lapping on the crag, And the long ripple washing in the reeds.’ To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath : ‘Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, _ Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me! Authority forgets a dying king, Laid widow’d of the power in his eye That bow’d the will. I see thee what thou art, For thou, the latest-left of all my knights, 70 MORTE D’ ARTHUR. In whom should meet the offices of all, Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt ; Either from lust of gold, or like a girl Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, And the third time may prosper, get thee hence : But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, I will arise and slay thee with my hands.’ Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged Among the bulrush-beds, and clutch’d the sword, And strongly wheel’d and threw it. great brand Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon, And flashing round and round, and whirl’d in an arch, Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, Seen where the moving isles of winter shock By night, with noises of the northern sea. So flash’d and fell the brand Excalibur : But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm Clothed in white samite, mystic, won- derful, And caught him by the hilt, and bran- dish’d him Three times, and drew him under in the mere. And lightly went the other to the King. Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath : ‘Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen ?’ And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : ‘Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems Should blind my purpose, for I never saw, Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, Not tho’ I live three lives of mortal men, So great a miracle as yonder hilt. Then with both hands I flung him, wheel- ing him ; The But when I look’d again, behold an arm, Clothed in white samite, mystic, won- derful, That caught him by the hilt, and bran- dish’d him Three times, and drew him under in the mere.’ And answer made King Arthur, breath- ing hard: ‘My end draws nigh; ’tis time that I were gone. Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight, And bear me to the margin; yet I fear My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die.’ So saying, from the pavement he half rose, Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere Remorsefully regarded thro’ his tears, And would have spoken, but he found not words, Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee, O’er both his shoulders drew the languid hands, And rising bore him thro’ the place of tombs. But, as he walk’d, King Arthur panted hard, Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed When all the house is mute. So sigh’d the King, Muttering and murmuring at his ear, ‘Quick, quick ! I fear it is too late, and I shall die.’ But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk’d, < Larger than human on the frozen hills. He heard the deep behind him, and a cry His own thought drove him, like a goad. Dry clash’d his harness in the icy cayes And barren chasms, and all to left and right Before, MORTE D’ ARTHUR. 71 The bare black cliff clang’d round him, as he based His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels— : And on a sudden, lo! the level lake, And the long glories of the winter moon. Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, Beneath them; and descending they were ware That all the decks were dense with stately forms Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream —by these Three Queens with crowns of gold—and from them rose A cry that shiver’d to the tingling stars, And, as it were one voice an agony Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills All night in a waste land, where no one comes, Or hath come, since the making of the world. Then murmur’d Arthur, ‘ Place me in the barge,’ And to the barge they came. three Queens Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept. But she, that rose the tallest of them all And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, And loosed the shatter’d casque, and chafed his hands, And call’d him by his name, complaining loud, And dropping bitter tears against his brow Striped with dark blood : for all his face was white And colourless, and like the wither’d moon Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east; And all his greaves and cuisses dash’d with drops Of onset ; and the light and lustrous curls— _ That made his forehead like a rising sun High from the dais-throne—were parch’d with dust ; There those Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, Mix’d with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. So like a shatter’d column lay the King ; Not like that Arthur who, with lance in YESE; From spur to plume a star of tournament, Shot thro’ the lists at Camelot, and charged Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere, ‘Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I - goP Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes ? For now I see the true old times are dead, When every morning brought a noble chance, And every chance brought out a noble knight. Such times have been not since the light that led The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. But now the whole ROUND TABLE is dissolved Which was an image of the mighty world ; And I, the last, go forth companionless, And the days darken round me, and the years, Among new men, strange faces, other minds.’ And slowly answered Arthur from the barge : ‘The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? I have lived my life, and that which I have done May He within Himself make pure ! but thou, If thou shouldst never see my face again, Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats Wherefore, 72 THE GARDENER’S DAUGHTER ; That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend ? For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. But now farewell. J am going a long way With these thou seést—if indeed I go— (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) To the island-valley of Avilion ; Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it lies Deep-meadow’d, happy fair with orchard- lawns And bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea, Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.’ So said he, and the barge with oar and sail Moved from the brink, like some full- breasted swan That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood With swarthy webs. Bedivere Revolving many memories, till the hull Look’d one black dot against the verge of dawn, And on the mere the wailing died away. Long stood Sir HERE ended Hall, and our last light, that long Had wink’d and threaten’d darkness, flared and fell : At which the Parson, sent to sleep with sound, And waked with silence, grunted ‘Good!’ but we Sat rapt: it was the tone with which he read— Perhaps some modern touches here and there Redeem’d it from the charge of nothing- ness— Or else we loved the man, and prized his work ; I know not: but we sitting, as I said, The cock crew loud; as at that time of year The lusty bird takes every hour for dawn : Then Francis, muttering, like a man ill-used, ‘There now—that’s nothing!’ drew a little back, And drove his heel into the smoulder’d log, That sent a blast of sparkles up the flue: And so to bed; where yet in sleep I seem’d To sail with Arthur under looming shores, Point after point; till on to dawn, when dreams Begin to feel the truth and stir of day, To me, methought, who waited with a crowd, There came a bark that, blowing forward, bore King Arthur, like a modern gentleman Of stateliest port; and all the people cried, ‘ Arthur is come again: he cannot die.’ Then those that stood upon the hills behind Repeated—‘ Come again, and thrice as faix;” And, further inland, voices echoed— ‘Come With all good things, and war shall be no more.’ At this a hundred bells began to peal, That with the sound I woke, and heard indeed The clear church-bells ring in the Christmas-morn. THE GARDENER’S DAUGHTER; OR, THE PICTURES. THIS morning is the morning of the day, When I and Eustace from the city went To see the Gardener’s Daughter ; Iandhe, Brothers in Art ; a friendship so complete Portion’d in halves between us, that we grew The fable of the city where we dwelt. ©°Tis not your work, but Love's. OR, THE PICTURES. 73 My Eustace might have sat for Hercules ; So muscular he spread, so broad of breast. He, by some law that holds in love, and draws The greater to the lesser, long desired A certain miracle of symmetry, A miniature of loveliness, all grace Summ’d up and closed in little ;—Juliet, she So light of foot, so light of spirit—oh, she To me myself, for some three careless moons, The summer pilot of an empty heart Untothe shoresofnothing! Know you not Such touches are but embassies of love, To tamper with the feelings, ere he found Empire for life? but Eustace painted her, And said to me, she sitting with us then, ‘When will yow paint like this?’ and I replied, (My words were half in earnest, half in jest,) Love, unperceived, A more ideal Artist he than all, Came, drew your pencil from you, made those eyes Darker than darkest pansies, and that hair More black than ashbuds in the front of March.’ And Juliet answer’d laughing, ‘Go and see The Gardener’s daughter : trust me, after that, You scarce can fail to match his master- piece.’ And up we rose, and on the spur we went. Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love. News from the humming city comes to it In sound of funeral or of marriage bells ; And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear The windy clanging of the minster clock ; Although between it and the garden lies A league of grass, wash’d by a slow broad stream, That, stirr’d with languid pulses of the oar, Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on, Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge Crown’d with the minster-towers. The fields between Are dewy-fresh, browsed by deep-udder’d kine, And all about the large lime feathers low, The lime a summer home of murmurous wings. In that still place she, hoarded in herself, Grew, seldom seen; not less among us lived Her fame from lip to lip. Who had not heard Of Rose, the Gardener’s daughter? Where was he, So blunt in memory, so old at heart, At such a distance from his youth in grief, That, having seen, forgot? —The common mouth, So gross to express delight, in praise of her Grew oratory. Such a lord is Love, And Beauty such a mistress of the world. And if I said that Fancy, led by Love, Would play with flying forms and images, Yet this is also true, that, long before I look’d upon her, when I heard her name My heart was like a prophet to my heart, And told me I should love. A crowd of hopes, That sought to sow themselves like winged seeds, Born out of everything I heard and saw, Flutter’d about my senses and my soul ; And vague desires, like fitful blasts of balm To one that travels quickly, made the air Of Life delicious, and all kinds of thought, That verged upon them, sweeter than the dream Dream’d by a happy man, when the dark East, Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn. And sure this orbit of the memory folds For ever in itself the day we went To see her. All the land in flowery squares, Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind, Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud Drew downward : but all else of heaven was pure 74 THE GARDENER’S DAUGHTER ; Up to the Sun, and May from verge to verge, And May with me from head to heel. And now, As tho’ ’twere yesterday, as tho’ it were The hour just flown, that morn with all its sound, (For those old Mays had thrice the life of these, ) Rings in mine ears. graze, And, where the hedge-row cuts the pathway, stood, Leaning his horns into the neighbour field, And lowing to his fellows. From the woods Came voices of the well-contented doves. The lark could scarce get out his notes for joy, But shook his song together as he near’d His happy home, the ground. To left and right, The cuckoo told his name to all the hills ; The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm ; The redcap whistled ; and the nightingale Sang loud, as tho’ he were the bird of day. And Eustace turn’d, and smiling said to me, ‘Hear how the bushes echo! by my life, These birds have joyful thoughts. Think you they sing Like poets, from the vanity of song ? Or have they any sense of why they sing ? And would they praise the heavens for what they have ?’ And I made answer, ‘ Were there nothing else For which to praise the heavens but only love, That only love were cause enough for praise.’ Lightly he laugh’d, as one that read my thought, And on we went; but ere an hour had pass’d, We reach’d a meadow slanting to the North ; Down which a well-worn pathway courted us To one green wicket in a privet hedge ; The steer forgot to This, yielding, gave into a grassy walk Thro’ crowded lilac-ambush trimly pruned ; And one warm gust, full-fed with perfume, blew Beyond us, as we enter’d in the cool. The garden stretches southward. In the midst A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade. The garden-glasses shone, and momently The twinkling laurel scatter’d silver lights. ‘Eustace,’ I said, ‘this wonder keeps the house.’ He nodded, but a moment afterwards He cried, ‘Look ! look!’ Before he ceased I turn’d, And, ere a star can wink, beheld her there. For up the porch there grew an Eastern rose, That, flowering high, the last night’s gale had caught, And blown across the walk. One arm aloft— Gown’d in pure white, that fitted to the shape— Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood, A single stream of all her soft brown hair Pour’d on one side: the shadow of the flowers Stole all the golden gloss, and, wavering Lovingly lower, trembled on her waist— Ah, happy shade—and still went waver- ing down, But, ere it touch’d a foot, that might have danced The greensward into greener circles, dipt, And mix’d with shadows of the common ground ! But the full day dwelt on her brows, and sunn’d Her violet eyes, and all her Hebe bloom, And doubled his own warmth against her lips, And on the bounteous wave of such a breast As never pencil drew. shade, She stood, a sight to make an old man young. Half light, half OR, THE PICTURES. ms So rapt, we near’d the house ; but she, a Rose In roses, mingled with her fragrant toil, Nor heard us come, nor from her tendance turn’d Into the world without; till close at hand, And almost ere I knew mine own intent, This murmur broke the stillness of that air Which brooded round about her : ‘ Ah, one rose, One rose, but one, by those fair fingers cull’d, Were worth a hundred kisses press’d on lips Less exquisite than thine.’ She look’d: but all Suffused with blushes—neither self-pos- sess’d Nor startled, but betwixt this mood and that, Divided in a graceful quiet—-paused, And dropt the branch she held, and turn- ing, wound Her looser hair in braid, and stirr’d her lips For some sweet answer, tho’ no answer came, Nor yet refused the rose, but granted it, And moved away, and left me, statue-like, In act to render thanks. I, that whole day, Saw her no more, altho’ I linger’d there Till every daisy slept, and Love’s white star Beam/’d thro’ the thicken’d cedar in the dusk. So home we went, and all the livelong wa With solemn gibe did Eustace banter me. ‘Now,’ said he, ‘will you climb the top of Art. You cannot fail but work in hues to dim The Titianic Flora. Will you match My Juliet? you, not you,—the Master, Love, A more ideal Artist he than all.’ So home I went, but could not sleep for joy, Reading her perfect features in the gloom, Kissing the rose she gave me o’er and o’er, And shaping faithful record of the glance That graced the giving—such a noise of life Swarm’d in the golden present, such a voice Call’d to me from the years to come, and such A length of bright horizon rimm/’d the dark. And all that night I heard the watchman peal The sliding season : all that night I heard The heavy clocks knolling the drowsy hours. The drowsy hours, dispensers of all good, O’er the mute city stole with folded wings, Distilling odours on me as they went To greet their fairer sisters of the East. Love at first sight, first-born, and heir to all, Made this night thus. squall nor storm Could keep me from that Eden where she dwelt. Light pretexts drew me; sometimes a Dutch love For tulips ; then for roses, moss or musk, To grace my city rooms; or fruits and cream Served in the weeping elm ; and more and more A word could bring the colour to my cheek ; A thought would fill my eyes with happy dew ; Love trebled life within me, and with each The year increased. The daughters of the year, One after one, thro’ that still garden pass’d ; Each garlanded with her peculiar flower Danced into light, and died into the Henceforward shade 3; And each in passing touch’d with some new grace Or seem’d to touch her, so that day by day, Like one that never can be wholly known, 76 THE GARDENER’S DAUGHTER. till Autumn brought Her beauty grew ; an hour For Eustace, when I heard his deep ‘I will,’ Breathed, like the covenant of a God, to hold From thence thro’ all the worlds: but I rose u Full of his bliss, and following her dark eyes Felt earth as air beneath me, till I reach’d The wicket-gate, and found her standing there. There sat we down upon a garden mound, Two mutually enfolded ; Love, the third, Between us, in the circle of his arms Enwound us both; and over many a range Of waning lime the gray cathedral towers, Across a hazy glimmer of the west, Reveal’d their shining windows : them clash’d The bells; we listen’d; with the time we play’d, We spoke of other things ; about The subject most at heart, more near and near, Like doves about a dovecote, wheeling round The central wish, until we settled there. Then, in that time and place, I spoke to her, Requiring, tho’ I knew it was mine own, Yet for the pleasure that I took to hear, Requiring at her hand the greatest gift, A woman’s heart, the heart of her I loved ; And in that time and place she answer’d me, And in the compass of three little words, More musical than ever came in one, The silver fragments of a broken voice, Made me most happy, faltering, ‘I am thine.’ Shall I cease here ? say That my desire, like all strongest hopes, By its own energy fulfill’d itself, Merged in completion? Would you learn at full from we coursed Is this enough to How passion rose thro’ circumstantial — grades Beyond all grades develop’d ? and indeed I had not staid so long to tell you all, But while I mused came Memory with sad eyes, Holding the folded annals of my youth ; And while I mused, Love with knit brows went by, And with a flying finger swept my lips, And spake, ‘ Be wise : not easily forgiven Are those, who setting wide the doors that bar The secret bridal chambers of the heart, Let in the day.’ Here, then, my words have end, Yet might I tell of meetings, of fare- wells — Of that which came between, more sweet than each, In whispers, like the se of the leaves That tremble round a nightingale —in sighs Which perfect Joy, perplex’d for utter- ance, Stole from her sister Sorrow. Might I not tell Of difference, reconcilement, pledges given, And vows, where there was never need of vows, And kisses, where the heart on one wild leap Hung tranced from all pulsation, as above The heavens between their fairy fleeces pale Sow’d all their mystic, gulfs with fleeting stars ; Or while the balmy glooming, crescent-lit, Spread the light haze along the river- shores, ; And in the hollows; or as once we met Unheedful, tho’ beneath a whispering rain Night slid down one long stream of sigh- ing wind, And in her bosom bore the baby, Sleep. But this whole hour your eyes have been intent DORA. 77 On that veil’d picture—veil’d, for what it holds May not be dwelt on by the common day. This prelude has prepared thee. Raise thy soul ; Make thine heart ready with thine eyes : the time Is come to raise the veil. Behola her there, As I beheld her ere she knew my heart, My first, last love ; the idol of my youth, The darling of my manhood, and, alas ! Now the most blessed memory of mine age. DORA. WitTH farmer Allan at the farm abode William and Dora. William was his son, And she his niece. He often look’d at them, And often thought, ‘Tl make them man and wife.’ Now Dora felt her uncle’s will in all, And yearn’d towards William; but the youth, because He had been always with her in the house, _ Thought not of Dora. Then there came a day When Allan call’d his son, and said, ‘My son: I married late, but I would wish to see My grandchild on my knees before I die: And I have set my heart upon a match. Now therefore look to Dora; she is well To look to; thrifty too beyond her age. She is my brother’s daughter : he and I Had once hard words, and parted, and he died In foreign lands ; but for his sake I bred His daughter Dora: take her for your wife ; For I have wish’d this marriage, night and day, For many years.’. But William answer’d short 3 ‘I cannot marry Dora; by my life, _ I willnot marry Dora.’ Then the old man | Was wroth, and doubled up his hands, and said ; ‘You will not, boy ! you dare to answer thus ! But in my time a father’s word was law, And so it shall be now for me. Look to its Consider, William: take a month to think, And let me have an answer to my wish ; Or, by the Lord that made me, you shall pack, And never more darken my doors again.’ But William answer’d madly; bit his lips, And broke away. The more he look’d at her The less he liked her; and his ways were harsh ; But Dora bore them meekly. Then before The month was out he left his father’s "s+ > house; And hired himself to work within the fields ; And half in love, half spite, he woo’d and wed A labourer’s daughter, Mary Morrison. Then, when the bells were ringing, Allan call’d His niece and said: ‘ My girl, I love you well ; But if you speak with him that was my son, Or change a word with her he calls his wife, My home is none of yours. My will is law.’ And Dora promised, being meek. She thought, ‘It cannot be: my uncle’s mind will change !’ And days went on, and there was born a boy To William; then distresses came on him ; And day by day he pass’d his father’s gate, Heart-broken, and his father help’d him not. But Dora stored what little she could save, 78 | DORA. And sent it them by stealth, nor did they know Who sent it; till at last a fever seized On William, and in harvest time he died. Then Dora went to Mary. Mary sat And look’d with tears upon her boy, and thought Hard things of Dora. said : ‘I have obey’d my uncle until now, And I have sinn’d, for it was all thro’ me This evil came on William at the first. But, Mary, for the sake of him that’s gone, And for your sake, the woman that he chose, And for this orphan, I am come to you : You know there has not been for these five years So full a harvest: let me take the boy, And I will set him in my uncle’s eye Among the wheat; that when his heart is glad Of the full harvest, he may see the boy, And bless him for the sake of him that’s gone.’ And Dora took the child, and went her way Across the wheat, and sat upon a mound That was unsown, where many poppies grew. Far off the farmer came into the field And spied her not; for none of all his men Dare tell him Dora waited with the child ; And Dora would have risen and gone to him, But her heart fail’d her; and the reapers reap’d, And the sun fell, and all the land was dark. But when the morrow came, she rose and took The child once more, and sat upon the mound ; And made a little wreath of all the flowers ‘That grew about, and tied it round his hat ‘To make him pleasing in her uncle’s eye. Then when the farmer pass’d into the field He spied her, and he left his men at work, Dora came and And came and said: ‘Where were you yesterday P Whose child is that ?. What are you doing here ?’ So Dora cast her eyes upon the ground, | And answer’d softly, ‘This is William’s child !’ ‘And did I not,’ said Allan, ‘did I not Forbid you, Dora?’ Dora said again : ‘Do with me as you will, but take the child, And bless him for the sake of him that’s gone !’ And Allan said, ‘I see it is a trick Got up betwixt you and the woman there. I must be taught my duty, and by you! You knew my word was law, and yet you dared To slight it. boy ; But go you hence, and never see me more.’ So saying, he took the boy that cried aloud And _ struggled hard. flowers fell At Dora’s feet. hands, And the boy’s cry came to her from the field, More and more. distant. down her head, Remembering the day when first shecame, And all the things that had been. She bow’d down And wept in secret; and the reapers reap’d, And the sun fell, and all the land was dark. | Then Dora went to Mary’s house, and stood Upon the threshold. Was not with Dora. praise ToGod, that help’d her in her widowhood. And Dora said, ‘ My uncle took the boy; But, Mary, let me live and work with you: He says that he will never see me more.’ Then answer’d Mary, ‘ This shall never be, That thou shouldst take my trouble on thyself: Well—for I will take the The wreath of She bow’d upon her She bow’d Mary saw the boy She broke out in AUDLEY COURT. 79 And, now I think, he shall not have the boy, For he will teach him hardness, ahd to slight His mother ; therefore thou and I will go, And I will have my boy, and bring him home ; And I will beg of him to take thee back : But if he will not take thee back again, : : Then thou and I will live within one 7 house, And work for William’s child, until he grows Of age to help us.’ So the women kiss’d Each other, and set out; and reach’d the farm. The door was off the latch : they peep’d, and saw The boy set up betwixt his grandsire’s knees, Who thrust him in the hollows of his arm, And clapt him on the hands and on the cheeks, Like one that loved him: stretch’d out and the lad And babbled for the golden seal, that hung | ‘From Allan’s watch, and sparkled by the fire. Then they came in: but when the boy beheld His mother, he cried out to come to her: _ And Allan set him down, and Mary said : ‘O Father !—if you let me call you so— _ I never came a-begging for myself, Or William, or this child; but now I come For Dora: take her back ; she loves you . well. | O Sir, when William died, he died at peace With all men; for I ask’d him, and he | said, | He could not ever rue his marrying me— 11 had been a patient wife: but, Sir, he | said That he was wrong to cross his father thus : ‘¢God bless him !”’ he said, ‘ he never know The troubles I have gone thro’ !” he turn’d His face and pass’d—unhappy that Iam! But now, Sir, let me have my boy, for and may Then you Will make him hard, and he will learn to slight His father’s memory; and take Dora back, And let all this be as it was before.’ So Mary said, and Dora hid her face By Mary. There was silence in the room ; And all at once the old man burst in sobs :— ‘I have been to blame—to blame. I have kill’d my son. I have kill’d him—but I loved him-—my dear son. May God forgive me !—I have been to blame. Kiss me, my children.’ Then they clung about The old man’s neck, and kiss’d him many times. And all the man was broken with re- morse ; And all his love came back a hundred- fold ; And for three hours he sobb’d o’er Wil- liam’s child Thinking of William. So those four abode Within one house together ; and as years Went forward, Mary took another mate ; But Dora lived unmarried till her death. AUDLEY, COUR: ‘THE Bull, the Fleece are cramm’d, and not a room For love or money. At Audley Court.’ I spoke, while Audley feast Humm’d like a hive all round the narrow quay, To Francis, with a basket on his arm, Let us picnic there | To Francis just alighted from the boat, 80 ; AUDLEY COGRTI. And breathing of the sea. ‘ With all my heart,’ Said Francis. Then we shoulder’d thro’ the swarm, And rounded by the stillness of the beach To where the bay runs up its latest horn. We left the dying ebb that faintly lipp’d The flat red granite; so by many asweep Of meadow smooth from aftermath we reach’d The griffin-guarded gates, and pass’d thro’ all The pillar’d dusk of sounding sycamores, And cross’d the garden to the gardener’s lodge, With all its casements bedded, and its walls And chimneys muffled in the leafy vine. There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid A damask napkin wrought with horse and hound, Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home, And, half-cut-down, a pasty costly-made, Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay, Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks Imbedded and injellied ; last, with these, A flask of cider from his father’s vats, Prime, which I knew ; and so we sat and eat And talk’d old matters over; who was dead, Who married, who was like to be, and how The races went, and who would rent the hall : Then touch’d upon the game, how scarce it was This season; glancing thence, discuss’d the farm, The four-field system, and the price of grain ; And struck upon the corn-laws, where we split, And came again together on the king With heated faces ; till he laugh’d aloud ; And, while the blackbird on the pippin hung To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and sang— ‘Oh! who would fight and march and countermarch, Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field, And shovell’d up into some bloody trench Where no one knows? but let me live my life. ‘Oh! who would cast and balance at a desk, . Perch’d like a crow upon a three-legg’d stool, Till all his juice is dried, and all his joints Are full of chalk ? but let me live my life. ‘Who'd serve the state ? for if I carved my namé Upon the cliffs that guard my native land, I might as well have traced it in the sands ; The sea wastes all: but let me live my life. ‘Oh! who would love? I woo’d a woman once, But she was sharper than an eastern wind, And all my heart turn’d from her, as a thorn Turns from the sea; but let me live my life.’ He sang his song, and I replied with mine : I found it in a volume, all of songs, Knock’d down to me, when old Sir Robert’s pride, His books—the more the pity, so I said— Came to the hammer here in March— and this— I set the words, and added names I knew. ‘Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, sleep, and dream of me: Sleep, Ellen, folded in thy sister’s arm, And sleeping, haply dream her arm is mine. ‘Sleep, Ellen, folded in Emilia’s arm ; Emilia, fairer than all else but thou, For thou art fairer than all else that is. ‘Sleep, breathing health and peace upon her breast : Sleep, breathing love and trust against her lip: I go to-night: I come to-morrow morn. ‘I go, but I return: I would I were The pilot of the darkness and the dream. WALKING 70 THE MAIL, 81 | Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, love, and dream of me.’ So sang we each to either, Hale, ‘The farmer’s son, who lived across the | bay, ‘My friend; and I, that having where- | withal, ‘And i in the fallow leisure of my life A rolling stone of here and everywhere, ‘Did what I would ; but ere the night we rose And saunter’>d home beneath a moon, that, just ‘In crescent, dimly rain’d about the leaf ‘Twilights of airy silver, till we reach’d The limit of the hills; and as we sank From rock to rock upon the glooming quay, Francis The town was hush’d beneath us: lower down The bay was oily calm; the harbour- buoy, ‘Sole star of phosphorescence in the calm, With one green sparkle ever and anon Dipt by itself, and we were glad at heart. : _ WALKING TO THE MAIL. John. 1M glad I walk’d. the meadows look Above the river, and, but a month ago, The whole hill-side was redder than a fox. Is yon plantation where this byway joins The turnpike ? James. John. James. John. James. A quarter to. Sohn. Whose house is that I see ? No, not the County Member’s with the vane : Up higher with the yew-tree by it, and half A score of gables. James. That? But he’s abroad: John. Oh, How fresh | Yes. And when does this come by ? The mail? At one o’clock. What is it now? Sir Edward Head’s: the place is to be sold. his. He was not broken. James. No, sir, he, Vex’d with a morbid devil in his blood. That veil’d the world with jaundice, hid his face From all men, and commercing with himself, He lost the sense that handles daily life— That keeps us all in order more or less— And sick of home went overseas for change. John. And whither ? James. Nay, who knows? he’s here and there. But let him go ; his devil goes with him, As well as with his tenant, Jocky Dawes. John. What’s that ? James. You saw the man—on Mon- day, was it >— There by the humpback’d willow ; half stands up And bristles ; half has fall’n and made a bridge ; And there he caught the younker tickling trout— Caught zz flagrante—what’s the Latin word ?— Delicto: but his house, for so they say, Was haunted with a jolly ghost, that shook The curtains, whined in lobbies, tapt at doors, And rummaged like a rat: no servant stay’d : The farmer vext packs up his beds and chairs, And all his household stuff ; and with his boy Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt, Sets out, and meets a friend who hails him, ‘ What ! You're flitting!’ ‘Yes, we’re flitting,’ says the ghost (For they had pack’d the thing among the beds, ) ‘Oh well,’ says he, too— Jack, turn the horses’ heads and home again.’ John. Fe \eft his wife behind ; I heard. ‘you flitting with us for so G 82 WALKING TO THE MAIL. James. He left her, yes. lady once : A woman like a butt, and harsh as crabs. John. Oh yet but I remember, ten years back— "Tis now at least ten years—and then she was — You could not light upon a a sweeter thing: A body slight and round, and like a pear In growing, modest eyes, a hand, a foot Lessening in perfect cadence, and a skin As clean and white as privet when it flowers. James. Ay, ay, the blossom fades, and they that loved At first like dove and dove were cat and dog. She was the daughter of a cottager, Out of her sphere. What betwixt shame and pride, New things and old, himself and her, she sour’d To what she is: a nature never kind ! Like men, like manners: like breeds like, they say : Kind nature is the best : next That fit us like a nature second-hand ; Which are indeed the manners of the great. John. But I had heard it was this bill that past, And fear of change at home, that drove him hence. James. That was the last drop in the cup of gall. I once was near him, when his bailiff those manners brought A Chartist pike. You should have seen him wince As from a venomous thing: he thought himself A mark for all, and shudder’d, lest a cry Should break his sleep by night, and his nice eyes Should see the raw mechanic’s bloody thumbs Sweat on his blazon’d chairs; but, sir, you know That these two parties still divide the world— I met my | Of those that want, and those that hay and still The same old sore breaks out from a to age With much the same result. Now myself, A Tory to the quick, was as a boy Destructive, when I had not what I woul I was at school—a college in the Sout] There lived a flayflint near ; we stole I fruit, His hens, his eggs; but there was la for ws ; We paid in person. She, With meditative grunts of much conten Lay great with pig, wallowing in sun ar mud. By night we dragg’d her to the colle tower From her warm bed, and up the cor] screw stair With hand and rope we haled the groai ing sow, And on the leads we kept her till st pigg’d. Large range of prospect had the moth sow, And but for daily loss of one she loved. As one by one we took them—but fc this— As never sow was higher in this world- Might have been happy: but what lot} pure? We took them all, till she was left alom Upon her tower, the Niobe of swine, And so return’d unfarrow’d to her sty. John. They found you out ? James. Not they Sohn. Well—after all— What know we of the secret of a man? | His nerves were wrong. What ails us who are sound, That we should mimic this raw fool th world, Which charts us all in its coarse black. or whites, As ruthless as a baby with a worm, As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows To Pity—more from ignorance than will He had a sow, si : EDWIN MORRIS; OR, THE LAKE. 83 ' But put your best foot forward, or I | And well his words became him: was he fear “hat we shall miss the mail: and here it | comes Vith five at top: as quaint a four-in-hand 1s you shall see—three pyebalds and a | roan. | ; EDWIN MORRIS; OR, THE LAKE. ) ME, my pleasant rambles by the lake, ‘ly sweet, wild, fresh three quarters of a year, ly one Oasis in the dust and drouth of city life! I was a sketcher then : ‘ee here, my doing: curves of mountain, bridge, ; soat, island, ruins of a castle, built Vhen men knew how to build, upon a | rock Vith turrets lichen-gilded like a rock : nd here, new-comers in an ancient hold, ‘Tew-comers from the Mersey, million- | aires, Tere lived the Hills—a Tudor-chimnied i bulk )f£ mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers. Ome, my pleasant rambles by the lake Vith Edwin Morris and with Edward i Bull “he curate ; he was fatter than his cure. But Edwin Morris, he that knew the | names, ong learned names of agaric, moss and | fern, Vho forged a thousand theories of the rocks, ee taught me how to skate, to row, to swim, Vho read me rhymes elaborately good, lis own—I call’d him Crichton, for he seem’d ll-perfect, finish’d to the finger nail. | And once I ask’d him of his early life, snd his first passion ; and he answer’d me; not A full-cel’d honeycomb of eloquence Stored from all flowers? Poet-like he spoke. ‘My love for Nature is as old as I; But thirty moons, one honeymoon to that, And three rich sennights more, my love for her. My love for Nature and my love for her, Of different ages, like twin-sisters grew, Twin-sisters differently beautiful. To some full music rose and sank the sun, And some full music seem’d to move and - change With all the varied changes of the dark, And either twilight and the day between ; For daily hope fulfill’d, to rise again Revolving toward fulfilment, made it sweet To walk, to sit, to sleep, to wake, to breathe.’ Or this or something like to this he spoke. Then said the fat-faced curate Edward Bull, ‘I take it, God made the woman for the man, And for the good and increase of the world. A pretty face is well, and this is well, To have a dame indoors, that trims us up, And keeps us tight; but these unreal ways Seem but the theme of writers, and in- deed Worn threadbare. Man is made of solid stuff. I say, God made the woman for the man, And for the good and increase of the world.’ ‘Parson,’ said I, ‘you pitch the pipe too low: But I have sudden touches, and can run My faith beyond my practice into his: Tho’ if, in dancing after Letty Hill, I do not hear the bells upon my cap, I scarce have other music: yet say on. 84 EDWIN MORRIS; OR, THE LAKE. What should one give to light on such a dream ?’ I ask’d him half-sardonically. ‘Give? Give all thou art,’ he answer’d, and a light Of laughter dimpled in his swarthy cheek ; ‘I would have hid her needle in my heart, To save her little finger from a scratch No deeper than the skin: my ears could hear Her lightest breath; her least remark was worth The experience of the wise. I went and came ; Her voice fled always thro’ the summer land ; I spoke her name alone. Thrice-happy days ! The flower of each, those moments when we met, The crown of all, we met to part no more.’ Were not his words delicious, I a beast To take them as I did? but something jarr’d ; Whether he spoke too largely ; that there seem’d A touch of something false, some self- conceit, Or over-smoothness : howsoe’er it was, He scarcely hit my humour, and I said: ‘Friend Edwin, do not think yourself alone Of all men happy. me, As in the Latin song I learnt at school, Sneeze out a full God-bless-you right and left ? But you can talk: yours is a kindly vein: I have, I think, —— Heaven knows—as much within ; Have, or should have, but for a thought or two, That like a purple beech among the greens Looks out of place: ’tis from no want in her; Shall not Love to It is my shyness, or my self-distrust, Or something of a wayward modern min Dissecting passion. Time will set m right.’ So spoke I knowing not the thing that were. Then said the fat-faced curate, Edwai Bull: ‘God made the woman for the use ' man, And for the good and increase of tl world.’ And I and Edwin laughed ; and now w paused About the windings of the marge to he: The soft wind blowing over meadow holms And alders, garden-isles; and now we le The clerk behind us, I and he, and ran By ripply shallows of the lisping lake, Delighted with the freshness and tt sound. But, when the bracken rusted on the crags, My suit had wither’d, nipt to death him That was a God, and is a lawyer’s clerk The rentroll Cupid of our rainy isles. ’Tis true, we met; one hour I had, n more : She sent a note, the seal an E7Z/e vous sui The close, ‘Your Letty, only yours ;’ an this Thrice underscored. of morn Clung to the lake. I boated over, ran My craft aground, and heard with bea’ ing heart The Sweet-Gale rustle round the shelvin | keel ; And out I stept, and up I crept: sh moved, Like Proserpine in Enna, gatherin flowers : Then low and sweet I whistled thrice and she, She turn’d, we closed, we kiss’d, swor faith, I breathed The friendly mi) ~ n some new planet: a silent cousin stole ‘pon us and departed: ‘Leave,’ she | cried, O leave me!’ ‘ Never, dearest, never: here | brave the worst :’ and while we stood like fools hy mbracing, all at once a score of pugs ie poodles yell’d within, and out they came “rustees and Aunts and Uncles. ‘What, with him ! x0’ (shrill’d the cotton-spinning chorus) ; f ‘him !’ choked. Again they shriek’d the burthen—‘ Him !’ Again with hands of wild rejection ‘Go !— irl, get youin!’ She went—and in one | month (hey wedded her tosixty thousand pounds, To lands in Kent and messuages in York, And slight Sir Robert with his watery smile \nd educated whisker. But for me, They set an ancient creditor to work : ‘t seems I broke a close with force and arms : Chere came a mystic token from the king iy 0 greet the sheriff, needless courtesy ! i read, and fled by night, and flying turn’d : der taper glimmer’d in the lake below : _ turn’d once more, close-button’d to the storm ; 50 left the place, left Edwin, nor have seen dim since, nor heard of her, nor cared to hear. _ Nor cared to hear? perhaps : | ago ( have pardon’d little Letty ; not indeed, (t may be, for her own dear sake but this, She seems a part of those fresh days to me ; For in the dust and drouth of London life Bhe moves among my visions of the lake, Waite the prime swallow dips his wing, or then While the gold-lily blows, and overhead The light cloud smoulders on the summer crag, yet long nee SAMEON SLYLITES. 85 SSI IMEON*STYLITES: ALTHO’ I be the basest of mankind, From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin, Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet For troops of devils, mad with blasphemy, I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold Of saintdom, and to clamour, mourn and sob, Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer, Have mercy, Lord, and take away my sin. Let this avail, just, dreadful, mighty God, This not be all in vain, that thrice ten years, Thrice multiplied by superhuman pangs, In hungers and in thirsts, fevers and cold, In coughs, aches, stitches, ulcerous throes and cramps, A sign betwixt the meadow and the cloud, Patient on this tall pillar I have borne Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow ; And [had hoped that ere this period closed Thou wouldst have caught me up into thy rest, Denying not these weather-beaten limbs The meed of saints, the white robe and the palm. O take the meaning, Lord: I do not breathe, Not whisper, any murmur of complaint. Pain heap’d ten-hundred-fold to this, were still Less burthen, by ten-hundred-fold, to bear, Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that crush’d My spirit flat before thee. O Lord, Lord, Thou knowest I bore this better at the first, For I was strong and hale of body then ; And tho’ my teeth, which now are dropt away, Would chatter with the cold, and all my beard 86 ST. SIMEON STYLITES. Was tagg’d with icy fringes in the moon, I drown’d the whoopings of the owl with sound Of pious hymns and psalms, and some- times saw An angel stand and watch me, as I sang. Now am I feeble grown ; my end draws nigh ; I hope myend draws nigh: half deaf Iam, So that I scarce can hear the people hum About the column’s base, and almost blind, And scarce can recognise the fields I know; . And both my thighs are rotted with the dew ; Yet cease I not to clamour and to cry, While my stiff spine can hold my weary head, Till all my limbs drop piecemeal from the stone, Hlave mercy, mercy: take away my sin. O Jesus, if thou wilt not save my soul, Who may be saved? who is it may be saved ? Who may be made a saint, if I fail here ? Show me the man hath suffer’d more than I. For did not all thy martyrs die one death ? For either they were stoned, or crucified, Or burn’d in fire, or boil’d in oil, or sawn In twain beneath the ribs ; but I die here To-day, and whole years long, a life of death. sear witness, if I could have found a way (And heedfully I sifted all my thought) More slowly-painful to subdue this home Of sin, my flesh, which I despise and hate, I had not stinted practice, O my God. For not alone this pillar-punishment, Not this alone I bore: but while I lived In the white convent down the valley there, For many weeks about my loins I wore The rope that haled the buckets from the well, Twisted as tight as Icould knot the noose ; And spake not of it to a single soul, Until the ulcer, eating thro’ my skin, Betray’d my secret penance, so that all My brethren marvell’d greatly. More than this I bore, whereof, O God, thou knowest all. Three winters, that my soul might grow to thee, I lived up there on yonder mountain ~ side. My right leg chain’d into the crag, I lay Pent in a roofless close of ragged stones ; i Inswathed sometimes in wandering mist, — and twice Black’d with thy branding thunder, and sometimes : Sucking the damps for drink, and eating - not, Except the spare chance-gift of thosell that came To touch my body and be heal’d, and lived And they say then that I work’d miracles, Whereof my fame is loud amongst man- kind, Cured lameness, palsies, cancers. Thou, O God, Knowest alone whether this was or no. Have mercy, mercy ! cover all my sin. Then, that I might be more alone with thee, . Three years I lived upon a pillar, high Six cubits, and three years on one of | twelve ; And twice three years I crouch’d on one that rose Twenty by measure ; last of all, I grew Twice ten long weary weary years to this, That numbers forty cubits from the soil. I think that I have borne as much as this— Or else I dream—and for so long a time, | If I may measure time by yon slow light, And this high dial, which my sorrow crowns— So much—even so. And yet I know not well, For that the evil ones come here, and say, ‘ Fall down, O Simeon: thou hast suffer’d long For ages and for ages !’ then they prate Of penances I cannot have gone thro’, Perplexing me with lies; and oft I fall, Maybe for months, in such blind lethargies | That Heaven, and Earth, and Time are choked. But yet Bethink thee, Lord, while thou and all | the saints Enjoy themselves in heaven, and men on earth ‘House in the shade of comfortable roofs, ‘Sit with their wives by fires, eat whole- some food, And wear warm clothes, and even beasts have stalls, i, *tween the spring and downfall of the . light, Bow down one thousand and two hundred times, To Christ, the Virgin’ Mother, and the saints ; Or in the night, after a little sleep, ‘I wake: the chill stars sparkle ;. I am i wet With drenching dews, or stiff with crack- ling frost. I wear an undress’d goatskin on my | back ; _A grazing iron collar grinds my neck ; a in my weak, lean arms I lift the cross, And strive and wrestle with thee till I . die: Oo mercy, mercy ! wash away my sin. O Lord, thou knowest what a man I am 3 A sinful man, conceived and born in sin : Tis their own doing; this is none of mine; j Gay it not tome. Am I to blame for this, That here come those that worship me? Ha! ha! They think that I am somewhat. What am I? The silly people take me for a saint, And bring me offerings of fruit and | flowers : And I, in truth (thou wilt bear witness here) Have all in all endured as much, and more Than many just and holy men, whose | names Are register’d and calendar’d for saints. ST. SIMEON STVLITES. 87 Good people, you do ill to kneel to me. What is it I can have done to merit this ? I am a sinner viler than you all. It may be I have wrought some miracles, And cured some halt and maim’d; but what of that ? It may be, no one, even among the saints, May match his pains with mine; but what of that ? Yet do not rise ; for you may look on me, And in your looking you may kneel to God. Speak! is there any of you halt or maim’d? I think you know I have some power with Heaven From my long penance: his wish. Yes, I can. heal. him, forth from me. They say that they are heal’d. hark! they shout ‘St. Simeon Stylites.’ Why, if so, God reaps a harvest inme. O my soul, God reaps a harvest in thee. If this be, Can I work miracles and not be saved ? This is not told of any. They were saints. It cannot be but that I shall be saved ; Yea, crown’d a saint. They shout, ‘ Behold a saint !’ And lower voices saint me from above. Courage, St. Simeon! This dull chrysalis Cracks into shining wings, and hope ere death Spreads more and more and more, that God hath now Sponged and made blank of crimeful record all My mortal archives. O my sons, my sons, I, Simeon of the pillar, by surname Stylites, among men ; I, Simeon, The watcher on the column till the end ; I, Simeon, whose brain the sunshine bakes ; I, whose bald brows become Unnaturally hoar with rime, do now . From my high nest of penance here pro- claim That Pontius and Iscariot by my side let him speak Power goes Ah, in silent hours 88 THE TALKING OAK. Show’d like fair seraphs. On the coals I lay, A vessel full of sin : Made me boil over. sleeve, Abaddon and Asmodeus caught at me. I smote them with the cross; they swarm’d again. In bed like monstrous apes they crush’d my chest : They flapp’d my light out as I read: I saw Their faces grow between me and my book ; With colt-like whinny and with hoggish whine They burst my prayer. was left, And by this way I’scaped them. Mortify Your flesh, like me, with scourges and with thorns ; Smite, shrink not, spare not. be, fast Whole Lents, and pray. slow steps, With slow, faint steps, and much exceed- ing pain, H[ave scrambled past those pits of fire, that still Sing in mine ears. praise : God only thro’ his bounty hath thought fit, Among the powers and princes of this world, To make me an example to mankind, Which few can reach to. Yet I do not say But that a time may come—yea, even now, Now, now, his footsteps smite the thresh- old stairs Of life—I say, that time is at the doors When you may worship me without re- proach ; For I will leave my relics in your land, And you may carve a shrine about my dust, And burn a fragrant lamp before my bones, all hell beneath Devils pluck’d my Yet this way If it may I hardly, with But yield not me the When I am gather’d to the glorious saints. While I spake then, a sting of shrewd est pain . Ran shrivelling thro’ me, and a clond aa change, In passing, with a grosser film made thicll } These heavy, horny eyes. The end! the end! k Surely the end! What’s here? a shape, a shade, | A flash of light. Is that the angel there That holds a crown? Come, blessed brother, come. I know thy glittering face. I waited long ; . My brows are ready. What! deny it now ? Nay, draw, draw, draw nigh. So JI clutch it. Christ ! ’Tis gone: ’tis here again; the crown! the crown ! So now ’tis fitted on and grows to me, And from it melt the dews of Paradise, Sweet ! sweet ! spikenard, and balm, and frankincense. Ah! let me not be fool’d, sweet saints: I trust That I am whole, and clean, and meet for Heaven. Speak, if there be a priest, a man of God, Among you there, and let him presently Approach, and lean a ladder on the shaft, And climbing up into my airy home, Deliver me the blessed sacrament ; For by the warning of the Holy Ghost, I prophesy that I shall die to-night, A quarter before twelve. ‘ But thou, O Lord, Aid all this foolish people ; let them take Example, pattern: lead them to thy light. THE TALKING OAK. ONCE more the gate behind me falls ; Once more before my face I see the moulder’d Abbey-walls, That stand within the chace. | Beyond the lodge the city lies, _ Beneath its drift of smoke ; And ah! with what delighted eyes I turn to yonder oak. For when my passion first began, Ere that, which in me burn’d, The love, that makes me thrice a man, Could hope itself return’d ; To yonder oak within the field _ I spoke without restraint, And with a larger faith appeal’d _ Than Papist unto Saint. For oft I talk’d with him apart, And told him of my choice, Until he plagiarised a heart, And answer’d with a voice. Tho’ what he whisper’d under Heaven None else could understand ; I found him garrulously given, __ A babbler in the land. | But since I heard him make reply _ Is many a weary hour ; _*Twere well to question him, and try If yet he keeps the power. _ Hail, hidden to the knees in fern, _ Broad Oak of Sumner-chace, _ Whose topmost branches can discern The roofs of Sumner-place ! Say thou, whereon I carved her name, If ever maid or spouse, As fair as my Olivia, came To rest beneath thy boughs. — | ‘O Walter, I have shelter’d here _ Whatever maiden grace | The good old Summers, year by year __ Made ripe in Sumner-chace : Old Summers, when the monk was fat, And, issuing shorn and sleek, - Would twist his girdle tight, and pat The girls upon the cheek, THE TALKING OAK. 89 ‘Ere yet, in scorn of Peter’s-pence, And number’d bead, and shrift, Bluff Harry broke into the spence And turn’d the cowls adrift : ‘ And I have seen some score of those Fresh faces, that would thrive When his man-minded offset rose To chase the deer at five ; ‘ And all that from the town would stroll, Till that wild wind made work In which the gloomy brewer’s soul Went by me, like a stork : ‘The slight she-slips of loyal blood, And others, passing praise, Strait-laced, but all-too-full in bud For puritanic stays : ‘And I have shadow’d many a group Of beauties, that were born In teacup-times of hood and hoop, Or while the patch was worn ; ‘ And, leg and arm with love-knots gay, About me leap’d and laugh’d The modish Cupid of the day, And shrill’d his tinsel shaft. ‘IT swear (and else may insects prick Each leaf into a gall) This girl, for whom your heart is sick, Is three times worth them all ; ‘For those and theirs, by Nature’s law, Have faded long ago ; But in these latter springs I saw Your own Olivia blow, ‘ From when she gamboll’d on the greens A baby-germ, to when The maiden blossoms of her teens Could number five from ten. ‘I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain, (And hear me with thine ears, ) That, tho’ I circle in the grain Five hundred rings of years— 90 THE TALKING OAK. ‘Vet, since I first could cast a shade, Did never creature pass So slightly, musically made, So light upon the grass : ‘For as to fairies, that will flit To make the greensward fresh, I hold them exquisitely knit, But far too spare of flesh.’ Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern, And overlook the chace ; And from thy topmost branch discern The roofs of Sumner-place. But thou, whereon I carved her name, That oft hast heard my vows, Declare when last Olivia came To sport beneath thy boughs. ‘O yesterday, you know, the fair Was holden at the town ; Her father left his good arm-chair, And rode his hunter down. ‘And with him Albert came on his. I look’d at him with joy : As cowslip unto oxlip is, So seems she to the boy. ‘An hour had past—and, sitting straight Within the low-wheel’d chaise, Her mother trundled to the gate Behind the dappled grays. ‘But as for her, she stay’d at home, And on the roof she went, And down the way you use to come, She look’d with discontent. ‘ She left the novel half-uncut Upon the rosewood shelf ; She left the new piano shut : She could not please herself. ‘Then ran she, gamesome as the colt, And livelier than a lark She sent her voice thro’ all the holt Before her, and the park. ‘A light wind chased her on the wing, And in the chase grew wild, As close as might be would he cling About the darling child: ‘But light as any wind that blows So fleetly did she stir, The flower, she touch’d on, dipt and rose, And turn’d to look at her. ‘ And here she came, and round me play’d, And sang to me the whole Of those three stanzas that you made About my ‘giant bole ;” ‘ And in a fit of frolic mirth She strove to span my waist : Alas, I was so broad of girth, I could not be embraced. ‘I wish’d myself the fair young beech That here beside me stands, That round me, clasping each in each, She might have lock’d her hands. ‘Yet seem’d the pressure thrice as sweet As woodbine’s fragile hold, Or when I feel about my feet The berried briony fold.’ O muffle round thy knees with fern, — And shadow Sumner-chace ! Long may thy topmost branch discern The roofs of Sumner-place ! But tell me, did she read the name I carved with many vows When last with throbbing heart I came To rest beneath thy boughs ? ‘O yes, she wander’d round and round These knotted knees of mine, And found, and kiss’d the name she found, And sweetly murmur’d thine. ‘A teardrop trembled from its source, And down my surface crept. My sense of touch is something coarse, But I believe she wept. LHE TALEING OA K. gl ‘Then flush’d her cheek with rosy light, She glanced across the plain ; But not a creature was in sight : She kiss’d me once again. ‘Her kisses were so close and kind, That, trust me on my word, Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind, But yet my sap was stirr’d: ‘ And even into my inmost ring A pleasure I discern’d, Like those blind motions of the Spring, That show the year is turn’d. ‘ Thrice-happy he that may caress The ringlet’s waving balm— The cushions of whose touch may press The maiden’s tender palm. ‘I, rooted here among the groves But languidly adjust _. My vapid vegetable loves With anthers and with dust : “For ah! my friend, the days were brief Whereof the poets talk, When that, which breathes within the leaf, Could slip its bark and walk. ‘But could I, as in times foregone, From spray, and branch, and stem, Have suck’d and gather’d into one The life that spreads in them, ‘She had not found me so remiss ; But lightly issuing thro’, I would have paid her kiss for kiss, With usury thereto.’ _ O flourish high, with leafy towers, And overlook the lea, _ Pursue thy loves among the bowers But leave thou mine to me. _O flourish, hidden deep in fern, Old oak, I love thee well ; _ A thousand thanks for what I learn And what remains to tell. ‘Tis little more: the day was warm ; At last, tired out with play, She sank her head upon her arm And at my feet she lay. ‘ Her eyelids dropp’d their silken eaves. I breathed upon her eyes Thro’ all the summer of my leaves A welcome mix’d with sighs. ‘T took the swarming sound of life -.- The music from the town— The murmurs of the drum and fife And lull’d them in my own. ‘Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip, To light her shaded eye ; A second flutter’d round her lip Like a golden butterfly ; ‘A third would glimmer on her neck To make the necklace shine ; Another slid, a sunny fleck, From head to ancle fine, ‘Then close and dark my arms I spread, And shadow’d all her rest— Dropt dews upon her golden head, An acorn in her breast. ‘But in a pet she started up, And pluck’d it out, and drew My little oakling from the cup, And flung him in the dew. ‘And yet it was a graceful gift— I felt a pang within As when I see the woodman lift His axe to slay my kin. ‘I shook him down because he was The finest on the tree. He lies beside thee on the grass. O kiss him once for me. ‘O kiss him twice and thrice for me, That have no lips to kiss, For never yet was oak on lea Shall grow so fair as this.’ » 92 LOVE AND DUTY. Step deeper yet in herb and fern, Look further thro’ the chace, Spread upward till thy boughs discern The front of Sumner-place. This fruit of thine by Love is blest, That but a moment lay Where fairer fruit of Love may rest Some happy future day. I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice, The warmth it thence shall win To riper life may magnetise The baby-oak within. But thou, while kingdoms overset, Or lapse from hand to hand, Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet Thine acorn in the land. May never saw dismember thee, Nor wielded axe disjoint, That art the fairest-spoken tree From here to Lizard-point. ° O rock upon thy towery-top All throats that gurgle sweet ! All starry culmination drop Balm-dews to bathe thy feet ! All grass of silky feather grow— And while he sinks or swells The full south-breeze around thee blow The sound of minster bells. The fat earth feed thy branchy root, That under deeply strikes ! The northern morning o’er thee shoot, High up, in silver spikes ! Nor ever lightning char thy grain, But, rolling as in sleep, Low thunders bring the mellow rain, That makes thee broad and deep ! And hear me swear a solemn oath, That only by thy side Will I to Olive plight my troth, And gain her for my bride. And when my marriage morn may fall, She, Dryad-like, shall wear Alternate leaf and acorn-ball In wreath about her hair. And I will work in prose and rhyme, And praise thee more in both Than bard has honour’d beech or lime, Or that Thessalian growth, In which the swarthy ringdove sat, And mystic sentence spoke ; And more than England honours that, Thy famous brother-oak, Wherein the younger Charles abode ~ Till all the paths were dim, And far below the Roundhead rode, And humm’d a surly hymn. LOVE AND DUTY. OF love that never found his earthly close, What sequel? Streaming eyes and break: ing hearts ? Or all the same as if he had not been ? Not so. Shall Error in the round of time Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself Thro’ madness, hated by the wise, to law System and empire? Sin itself be found The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun? And only he, this wonder, dead, become Mere highway dust ? or year by year alone Sit brooding in the ruins of a life, Nightmare of youth, the spectre of him- self? If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all, Better the narrow brain, the stony heart, The staring eye glazed o’er with sapless days, The long mechanic pacings to and fro, The set gray life, and apathetic end. But am I not the nobler thro’ thy love ? O three times less unworthy ! likewise thou LOVE AND DUTY. | 93 Art more thro’ Love, and greater than thy years, The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will brin The drooping flower ofknowledge changed to fruit Of wisdom. Wait: my faith is large in Time, And that which shapes it to some perfect end. Will some one say, Then why not ill for good ? Why took ye not your pastime? To that man My work shall answer, since I knew the right And did it ; for a man is not as God, But then most Godlike being most a man. —So let me think ’tis well for thee and me— Ill-fated that I am, what lot is mine Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart so slow To feel it! For how hard it seem’d to me, When eyes, love-languid thro’ half tears would dwell One earnest, earnest moment upon mine, Then not to dare to see! when thy low voice, Faltering, would break its syllables, to keep My own full-tuned,—hold passion in a leash, And not leap forth and fall about thy neck, And on thy bosom (deep desired relief !) Rain out the heavy mist of tears, that weigh’d Upon my brain, my senses and my soul ! For Love himself took part against himself To warn us off, and Duty loved of Love— O this world’s curse,—beloved but hated —came Like Death betwixt thy dear embrace and mine, And crying, ‘ Who is this? behold thy bride,’ She push’d me from thee. If the sense is hard To alien ears, I did not speak to these— No, not to thee, but to thyself in me : Hard is my doom and thine: thou knowest it all. Could Love part thus? was it not well to speak, To have spoken once? be well. The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good, The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill, And all good things from evil, brought the night In which we sat together and alone, And to the want, that hollow’d all the heart, Gave utterance by the yearning of an eye, That burn’d upon its object thro’ such tears As flow but once a life. The trance gave way To those caresses, when a hundred times In that last kiss, which never was the last, Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and It could not but died. Then follow’d counsel, comfort, and the words That make a man feel strong in speaking truth ; Till now the dark was worn, and overhead The lights of sunset and of sunrise mix’d In that brief night; the summer night, that paused Among her stars to hear us; stars that hung Love-charm’d to listen: all the wheels of Time Spun round in station, but the end had come. O then like those, who clench their nerves to rush Upon their dissolution, we two rose, There—closing like an individual life— In one blind cry of passion and of pain, Like bitter accusation ev’n to death, Caught up the whole of love and utter’d it, And bade adieu for ever. * 94 THE GOLDEN: VEAR. Live—yet live— Shall sharpest pathos blight us, knowing all Life needs for life is possible to will— Live happy ; tend thy flowers ; be tended by My blessing! Should my Shadow cross thy thoughts Too sadly for their peace, remand it thou For calmer hours to Memory’s darkest hold, If not to be forgotten—not at once— Not all forgotten. Should it cross thy dreams, O might it come like one that looks con- tent, With quiet eyes unfaithful to the truth, And point thee forward to a distant light, Or seem to lift a burthen from thy heart And leave thee freér, till thou wake refresh’d ‘Then when the first low matin-chirp hath grown Full quire, and morning driv’n her plow of pearl Far furrowing into light the mounded rack, Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea. THE GOLDEN YEAR. WELL, you shall have that song which Leonard wrote: It was last summer on a tour in Wales: Old James was with me: we that day had been Up Snowdon ; and I wish’d for Leonard there, And found him in Llanberis: then we crost Between the lakes, and clamber’d half way up The counter side; and that same song of his He told me; for I banter’d him, and swore They said he lived shut up within himself, A tongue-tied Poet in the feverous days, That, setting the ow much before the how, Cry, like the daughters of the horseleech, ‘ Give, Cram us with all,’ but count not me the herd ! To which ‘They call me what they will,’ he said : ‘But I was born too late: the fair new forms, That float about the threshold of an age, Like truths of Science waiting to be caught— Catch me who can, and make the catcher crown’d— Are taken by the forelock. Let it be. But if you care indeed to listen, hear These measured words, my work of yestermorn. ‘We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move ; The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun ; The dark Earth follows wheel’d in her ellipse ; And human things returning on them- selves Move onward, leading up the golden year. ‘Ah, tho’ the times, when some new thought can bud, Are but as poets’ seasons when they flower, Yet seas, that daily gain upon the shore, Have ebb and flow conditioning their march, And slow and sure comes up the golden year. ‘When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps, But smit with freér light shall slowly melt In many streams to fatten lower lands, And light shall spread, and man be liker man Thro’ all the season of the golden year. ‘Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens P If all the world were falcons, what of that ? The wonder of the eagle were the less, But he not less the eagle. Happy days UL VSSES. Bern 95 Roll onward, leading up the golden year. ‘Fly, happy happy sails, and bear the Press ; Fly happy with the mission of the Cross ; Knit land to land, and blowing haven- ward With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll, Enrich the markets of the golden year. ‘But we grow old. Ah! when shall all men’s good Be each man’s rule, and universal Peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, Thro’ all the circle of the golden year ?’ Thus far he flow’d, and ended; where- upon ‘Ah, folly !’ in mimic cadence answer’d James— ‘Ah, folly! for it lies so far away, Not in our time, nor in our children’s : time, _, ?Tis like the second world to us that live; ’Twere all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven As on this vision of the golden year.’ With that he struck his staff against the rocks And broke it,—James,—you know him, —old, but full Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet, _ And like an oaken stock in winter woods, O’erflourish’d with the hoary clematis : Then added, all in heat : ‘What stuff is this ! Old writers push’d the happy season back, — The more fools they,—we forward : dreamers both: You most, that in an age, when every hour Must sweat her sixty minutes to the death, | Live on, God love us, as if the seedsman, rapt Upon the teeming harvest, should not plunge ‘His hand into the bag: but well I know ! That unto him who works, and feels he works, This same grand year is ever at the doors.’ He spoke; and, high above, I heard them blast The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo flap And buffet round the hills, from bluff to bluff. ULYSSES. Ir little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy’d Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, govern- ments, Myself not least, but honour’d of them all's And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the Troy. I am a part of all that I have met ; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’ Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use! As tho’ to breathe were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me ringing plains of windy 96 TITHONUS. Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. This is my son, mine own Telemachus, Towhom I leave the sceptre and the isle— Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil This labour, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail : There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me— That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old ; Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; Death closes all : but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks : The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs : the deep Moans round with many voices. my friends, ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Come, Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows ; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho’ much is taken, much abides ; and tho’ We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven ; that which we are, we are ; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. TITHONUS. THE woods decay, the woods decay and fall, The vapours weep their burthen to the — ground, Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, And after many a summer dies the swan. Me only cruel immortality Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms, Here at the quiet limit of the world, A white-hair’d shadow roaming like a dream The ever-silent spaces of the East, Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn. Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man— So glorious in his beauty and thy choice, Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem’d To his great heart none other than a God! I ask’d thee, ‘Give me immortality.’ Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile, Like wealthy men who care not how they give. TITHONUS. oF ut thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills, nd beat me down and marr’d and wasted me, nd tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d ‘o dwell in presence of immortal youth, mmortal age beside immortal youth, nd all I was, in ashes. Can thy love, ‘hy beauty, make amends, tho’ even now, ‘lose over us, the silver star, thy guide, hines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears ‘o hear me? Let me go: take back thy gift : Vhy should a man desire in any way ‘o vary from the kindly race of men, ir pass beyond the goal of ordinance Vhere all should pause, as is most meet for all? A soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes . glimpse of that dark world where I was born. })nce more the old mysterious glimmer steals ‘rom thy pure brows, and from_ thy shoulders pure, ind bosom beating with a heart renew’d. “hy cheek begins to redden thro’ the gloom, “hy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine, cre yet they blind the stars, and the wild | team Vhich love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise, ind shake the darkness from their | loosen’d manes, And beat the twilight into flakes of fire. | ° _ Lo! ever thus thou growest beautiful n silence, then before thine answer . given Jepartest, and thy tears are on my cheek. _ Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears, ‘And make me tremble lest a saying learnt, In days far-off, on that dark earth, be true ? ‘The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.’ Ay me! ay me! with what another heart In days far-off, and with what other eyes I used to watch—if I be he that watch’d— The lucid outline forming round thee; saw The dim curls kindle into sunny rings ; Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my blood Glow with the glow that slowly crimson’d all Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay, Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy- warm With kisses balmier than half- opening buds Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss’d Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet, Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing, While Ilion like a mist rose into towers. Yet hold me not for ever in thine East : How can my nature longer mix with thine ? Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam Floats up from those dim fields about the homes Of happy men that have the power to die, And grassy barrows of the happier dead. Release me, and restore me to the ground ; Thou seést all things, thou wilt see my grave : Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn ; I earth in earth forget these empty courts, And thee returning on thy silver wheels. Il 08 LOCKSLEWV GALS LOCKSLEY- HALE, COMRADES, leave me here a little, while as yet ’tis early morn : Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn. EV is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call, Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall ; Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts. Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West. Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro’ the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid. Here about the beach I wander’d, nourishing a youth sublime With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time ; When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed ; When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed : When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see ; Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.——-- In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin’s breast ; In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest ; In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish’d dove ; In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young, And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung. And I said, ‘My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me, Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee.’ On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light, As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night. And she turn’d—her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs— All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes— Saying, ‘I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong ; * Saying, ‘ Dost thou love me, cousin?’ weeping, ‘I have loved thee long.’ Love took up the glass of Time, and turn’d it in his glowing hands ; Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might ; ~ Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass’d in music out of sight. LOCKSLEY HALL. 99 _Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring, And her whisper throng’d my pulses with the fulness of the Spring. Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships, And our spirits rush’d together at the touching of the lips. O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more! O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore ! Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung, Puppet to a father’s threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue ! Is it well to wish thee happy ?>—having known me—to decline On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine! Vet it shall be: thou shalt lower to his level day by day, What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathise with clay. As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown, And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down. He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse. What is this ? his eyes are heavy: think not they are glazed with wine. Go to him: it is thy duty: kiss him: take his hand in thine. It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought : Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought. He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand— Better thou wert dead before me, tho’ I slew thee with my hand ! Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart’s disgrace, Roll’d in one another’s arms, and silent in a last embrace. Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth ! Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth ! Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature’s rule ! Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten’d forehead of the fool! Well—’tis well that I should bluster !—Hadst thou less unworthy proved— Would to God—for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved. Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit ? I will pluck it from my bosom, tho’ my heart be at the root. Never, tho’ my mortal summers to such length of years should come As the many-winter’d crow that leads the clanging rookery home. Where is comfort ? in division of the records of the mind ? i Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind ? - 100 LOCKSLEY HALL. I remember one that perish’d : sweetly did she speak and move : Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love. Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore ? No—she never loved me truly : love is love for evermore. Comfort ? comfort scorn’d of devils! this is truth the poet sings, That a sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier things. Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof, In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof. Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall, Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall. Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep, To thy widow’d marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep. Thou shalt hear the ‘ Never, never,’ whisper’d by the phantom years, And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears ; And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain. Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow: get thee to thy rest again. Nay, but Nature brings thee solace ; for a tender voice will cry. *Tis a purer life than thine; a lip to drain thy trouble dry. Baby lips will laugh me down: my latest rival brings thee rest. Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother’s breast. O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due. Half is thine and half is his: it will be worthy of the two. O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,” With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter’s heart. ‘They were dangerous guides the feelings—she herself was not exempt— Truly, she herself had suffer’d ’—Perish in thy self-contempt ! Overlive it—lower yet—be happy ! wherefore should I care? I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair. What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these ? I-very door is barr’d with gold, and opens but to golden keys. Every gate is throng’d with suitors, all the markets overflow. I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do? I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman’s ground, When the ranks are roll’d in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound. But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels, And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other’s heels. LOCKSLEY HALLE. 101 Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page. Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother-Age! Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife, When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life ; Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield, Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father’s field, And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn, Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn ; And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men : Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new : That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do : For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be ; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales ; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a ghastly dew From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue ; Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging thro’ the thunder-storm ; Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. So I triumph’d ere my passion sweeping thro’ me left me dry, Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye ; Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint : Science moves, but slowly slowly, creeping on from point to point : Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion creeping nigher, Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire. Yet I doubt not thro’ the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widen’d with the process of the suns. What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys, Tho’ the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy’s? Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore, And the individual withers, and the world is more and more. 102 LOCKSLE YeRALE. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast, Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest. Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn, They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn : Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder’d string ? I am shamed thro’ all my nature to have loved so slight a thing. Weakness to be wroth with weakness ! woman’s pleasure, woman’s pain— Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain : Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match’d with mine, Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine— Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat ; Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr’d ;— I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle’s ward. Or to burst all links of habit—there to wander far away, On from island unto island at the gateways of the day. Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise. Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag, Slides the bird o’er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag ; Droops the heavy-blossom’d bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree— Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea. There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind, In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind. There the passions cramp’d no longer shall have scope and breathing spac I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race. Tron jointed, supple-sinew’d, they shall dive, and they shall run, Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun ; s Whistle back the parrot’s call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks, Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books— Fool, again the dream, the fancy ! but I £zow my words are wild, But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child. I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains, Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains ! Mated with a squalid savage—what to me were sun or clime? I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time— Not in vain the distance beacons. GODIVA. 103 I that rather held it better men should perish one by one, Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua’s moon in Ajalon! Forward, forward let us range, Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change. Thro’ the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day : Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. Re Sa oe GODIVA. I waited for the train at Coventry ; Zz hung with grooms and porters on the | bridge, To watch the three tall spires; and there L shaped |The city’s ancient legend into this :— Not only we, the latest seed of Time, New men, that in the flying of a wheel Cry down the past, not only we, that prate Of rights and wrongs, have loved the | people well, And loathed to see them overtax’d ; but she Did more, and underwent, and overcame, The woman of a thousand summers back, Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled In Coventry ; for when he laid a tax | : : | Upon his town, and all the mothers brought Their children, clamouring, ‘If we pay, we starve !’ ‘She sought her lord, and found him, where | he strode About the hall, among his dogs, alone, ‘His beard a foot before him, and his hair \ | Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun : 7 Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun. O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. Ancient founts of inspiration well thro’ all my fancy yet. Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall ! Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall. Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt, Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt. Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow ; For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go. A yard behind. She told him of their tears, And pray’d him, ‘If they pay this tax, they starve.’ Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed, ‘You would not let your little finger ache For such as ¢hese ?’—‘ But I would die,’ said she. He laugh’d, and swore by Peter and by Paul : Then fillip’d at the diamond in her ear ; ‘Oh ay, ay, ay, you talk! °—‘ Alas!’ she said, ‘ But prove me what it is I would not do.’ And from a heart as rough as Esau’s hand, He answer’d, ‘ Ride you naked thro’ the town, And I repeal it ;’ and nodding, as in scorn, He parted, with great strides among his dogs. So left alone, the passions of her mind, As winds from all the compass shift and blow, Made war upon each other for an hour, Till pity won. She sent a herald forth, And bade him cry, with sound of trumpet, all 104 The hard condition ; but that she would loose The people: therefore, as they loved her well, From then till noon no foot should pace the street, Noeyelook down, she passing ; but that all Should keep within, door shut, and window barr’d. Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there Unclasp’d the wedded eagles of her belt, The grim Earl’s gift ; but ever at a breath She linger’d, looking like a summer moon Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head, And shower’d the rippled ringlets to her knee ; Unclad herself in haste ; adown the stair Stole on ; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid From pillar unto pillar, until she reach’d The gateway ; there she found her palfrey trapt In purple blazon’d with armorial gold. Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity : The deep air listen’d round her as she rode, And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear. The little wide-mouth’d heads upon the spout Had cunning eyes to see : the barking cur Made her cheek flame: her palfrey’s foot- fall shot Light horrors thro’ her pulses: the blind walls Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she Not less thro’ all bore up, till, last, she saw The white-flower’d elder-thicket from the field Gleam thro’ the Gothic archway in the wall. Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity : And one low churl, compact of thankless earth, The fatal byword of all years to come, THE DAY-DREAM. Boring a little auger-hole in fear, Peep’d—but his eyes, before they ha their will, Were shrivell’d into darkness in his heac And dropt before him. So the Power: who wait On noble deeds, cancell’d a sense misused And she, that knew not, pass’d: and a at once, With twelve great shocks of sound, th shameless noon Was clash’d andhammer’d from ahundre towers, One after one: but even then she gain’ Her bower ; whence reissuing, robed an crown’d, To meet her lord, she took the tax awa And built herself an everlasting name. THE DAY-DREAM. PROLOGUE. O Lapy FLorRA, let me speak : A pleasant hour has passed away While, dreaming on your damask cheel The dewy sister-eyelids lay. As by the lattice you reclined, I went thro’? many wayward moods To see you dreaming—and, behind, A summer crisp with shining woods. And I too dream’d, until at last Across my fancy, brooding warm, The reflex of a legend past, And loosely settled into form. And would you have the thought I had. And see,the vision that I saw, Then take the broidery-frame, and add A crimson to the quaint Macaw, And I will tell it. Turn your face, Nor look with that too-earnest eye— The rhymes are dazzled from their place And order’d words asunder fly. THE SLEEPING PALACE. I. THE varying year with blade and sheaf Clothes and reclothes the happy plains lere rests the sap within the leaf, " Here stays the blood along the veins. aint shadows, vapours lightly curl’d, , Faint murmurs from the meadows come, ike hints and echoes of the world | To spirits folded in the womb. Ii: soft lustre bathes the range of urns | On every slanting terrace-lawn. (he fountain to his place returns Deep in the garden lake withdrawn. 'lere droops the banner on the tower, On the hall-hearths the festal fires, Che peacock in his laurel bower, _ The parrot in his gilded wires. III. Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs : _ In these, in those the life is stay’d. The mantles from the golden pegs Droop sleepily : no sound is made, Not even of a gnat that sings. | More like a picture seemeth all Than those old portraits of old kings, _ That watch the sleepers from the wall. | # Here sits the Butler with a flask Between his knees, half-drain’d ; and there The wrinkled steward at his task, _ The maid-of-honour blooming fair ; ‘The page has caught her hand in his : _ Her lips are sever’d as to speak : His own are pouted to a kiss : The blush is fix’d upon her cheek. Vv. Till all the hundred summers pass, _ The beams, that thro’ the Oriel shine, Make prisms in every carven glass, And beaker brimm’d with noble wine. Each baron at the banquet sleeps, | Grave faces gather’d in a ring. | His state the king reposing keeps. | He must have been a jovial king. . { . THE DAY-DREAM. 105 VI. All round a hedge upshoots, and shows At distance like a little wood ; Thorns, ivies, woodbine, mistletoes, And grapes with bunches red as blood ; All creeping plants, a wall of green Close-matted, bur and brake and briar, And glimpsing over these, just seen, High up, the topmost palace spire. VII. When will the hundred summers die, And thought and time be born again, And newer knowledge, drawing nigh, Bring truth that sways the soul of men ? Here all things in their place remain, As all were order’d, ages since. Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain, And bring the fated fairy Prince. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. I. YEAR after year unto her feet, She lying on her couch alone, Across the purple coverlet, The maiden’s jet-black hair has grown, On either side her tranced form Forth streaming from a braid of pearl : The slumbrous light is rich and warm, And moves not on the rounded curl. II. The silk star-broider’d coverlid Unto her limbs itself doth mould Languidly ever ; and, amid Her full black ringlets downward roll’d, Glows forth each softly-shadow’d arm With bracelets of the diamond bright : Her constant beauty doth inform Stillness with love, and day with light. Ill. She sleeps: her breathings are not heard In palace chambers far apart. The fragrant tresses are not stirr’d That lie upon her charmed heart. 106 She sleeps: on either hand upswells The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest : She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells A perfect form in perfect rest. THE ARRIVAL. I. ALL precious things, discover’d late, To those that seek them issue forth ; For love in sequel works with fate, And draws the veil from hidden worth. IIe travels far from other skies— His mantle glitters on the rocks— A fairy Prince, with joyful eyes, And lighter-footed than the fox. II. The bodies and the bones of those That strove in other days to pass, Are wither’d in the thorny close, Or scatter’d blanching on the grass. Ile gazes on the silent dead: ‘They perish’d in their daring deeds.’ This proverb flashes thro’ his head, ‘The many fail: the one succeeds.’ LOBE IIe comes, scarce knowing what he seeks : He breaks the hedge: he entezs there : The colour flies into his cheeks : He trusts to light on something fair ; For all his life the charm did talk About his path, and hover near With words of promise in his walk, And whisper’d voices at his ear. IV. More close and wind : The Magic Music in his heart Beats quick and quicker, till he find The quiet chamber far apart. close his footsteps THE DAY-DREAM. His spirit flutters like a lark, He stoops—to kiss her—on his knee. ‘Love, if thy tresses be so dark, How dark those hidden eyes must be !’ THE REVIVAL. I, A TOUCH, a kiss! the charm was snapt. There rose a noise of striking clocks, And feet that ran, and doors that clapt, And barking dogs, and crowing cocks ; A fuller light illumined all, A breeze thro’ all the garden swept, A sudden hubbub shook the hall, And sixty feet the fountain leapt. II. The hedge broke in, the banner blew, The butler drank, the steward scrawl’d, The fire shot up, the martin flew, The parrot scream’d, the peacock squall’d, The maid and page renew’d their strife, The palace bang’d, and buzz’d and clackt, And all the long-pent stream of life Dash’d downward in a cataract. i, And last with these the king awoke, And in his chair himself uprear’d, And yawn’d, and rubb’d his face, and spoke, ‘ By holy rood, a royal beard ! How say you? we have slept, my lords. My beard has grown into my lap.’ The barons swore, with many words, ’Twas but an after-dinner’s nap. TVs ‘Pardy,’ return’d the king, ‘ but still My joints are somewhat stiff or so. My lord, and shall we pass the bill I mention’d half an hour ago ?’ The chancellor, sedate and vain, In courteous words return’d reply : But dallied with his golden chain, And, smiling, put the question by. THE DAY-DREAM. THE DEPARTURE. if AND on her lover’s arm she leant, And round her waist she felt it fold, And far across the hills they went In that new world which is the old: Across the hills, and far away Beyond their utmost purple rim, And deep into the dying day The happy princess follow’d him. Ik. ‘Td sleep another hundred years, O love, for such another kiss ;’ ‘O wake for ever, love,’ she hears, “O love, ’twas such as this and this.’ And o’er them many a sliding star, And many a merry wind was borne, And, stream’d thro’ many a golden bar, The twilight melted into morn. 1g oe *O eyes long laid in happy sleep !’ “O happy sleep, that lightly fled !’ ‘O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep !’ ‘O love, thy kiss would wake the dead ! And o’er them many a flowing range Of vapour buoy’d the crescent-bark, And, rapt thro’ many a rosy change, The twilight died into the dark. IV. ‘A hundred summers ! can it be? And whither goest thou, tell me where?’ *O seek my father’s court with me, For there are greater wonders there.’ _ And o’er the hills, and far away Beyond their utmost purple rim, _ Beyond the night, across the day, _ Thro’ all the world she follow’d him. MORAL. i So, Lady Flora, take my lay, _ And if you find no moral there, _ Go, look in any glass and say, What moral is in being fair. | | | 107 Oh, to what uses shall we put The wildweed-flower that simply blows? And is there any moral shut Within the bosom of the rose ? Il. But any man that walks the mead, In bud or blade, or bloom, may find, According as his humours lead, A meaning suited to his mind. And liberal applications lie In Art like Nature, dearest friend ; So ’twere to cramp its use, if I Should hook it to some useful end. LVENVOI. I You shake your head. A random string Your finer female sense offends. Well—were it not a pleasant thing To fall asleep with all one’s friends ; To pass with all our social ties To silence from the paths of men ; And every hundred years to rise And learn the world, and sleep again ; To sleep thro’ terms of mighty wars, And wake on science grown to more, On secrets of the brain, the stars, As wild as aught of fairy lore ; And all that else the years will show, The Poet-forms of stronger hours, The vast Republics that may grow, The Federations and the Powers ; Titanic forces taking birth In divers seasons, divers climes ; For we are Ancients of the earth, And in the morning of the times. Il. So sleeping, so aroused from sleep Thro’ sunny decads new and strange, Or gay quinquenniads would we reap The flower and quintessence of change. Ili. Ah, yet would I—and would I might ! So much your eyes my fancy take— Be still the first to leap to light That I might kiss those eyes awake ! 108 AMPHION. For, am I right, or am I wrong, To choose your own you did not care ; You’d have my moral from the song, And I will take my pleasure there : And, am I right or am I wrong, My fancy, ranging thro’ and thro’, To search a meaning for the song, Perforce will still revert to you ; Nor finds a closer truth than this All-graceful head, so richly curl’d, And evermore a costly kiss The prelude to some brighter world. IV. For since the time when Adam first Embraced his Eve in happy hour, And every bird of Eden burst In carol, every bud to flower, What eyes, like thine, have waken’d hopes, What lips, like thine, so sweetly join’d ? Where on the double rosebud droops The fulness of the pensive mind ; Which all too dearly self-involved, Yet sleeps a dreamless sleep to me ; A sleep by kisses undissolved, That lets thee neither hear nor see : But break it. In the name of wife, And in the rights that name may give, Are clasp’d the moral of thy life, And that for which I care to live. EPILOGUE. S50, Lady Flora, take my lay, And, if you find a meaning there, O whisper to your glass, and say, ‘ What wonder, if he thinks me fair ?’ What wonder I was all unwise, To shape the song for your delight Like long-tail’d birds of Paradise That float thro? Heaven, and cannot light ? Or old-world trains, upheld at court By Cupid-boys of blooming hue— But take it—earnest wed with Sport, And either sacred unto you. AMPHION. My father left a park to me, But it is wild and barren, A garden too with scarce a tree, And waster than a warren : Yet say the neighbours when they call, It is not bad but good land, And in it is the germ of all That grows within the woodland. O had I lived when song was great In days of old Amphion, And ta’en my fiddle to the gate, Nor cared for seed or scion ! And had I lived when song was great, And legs of trees were limber, And ta’en my fiddle to the gate, And fiddled in the timber ! ’Tis said he had a tuneful tongue, Such happy intonation, Wherever he sat down and sung He left a small plantation ; Wherever in a lonely grove He set up his forlorn pipes, The gouty oak began to move, And flounder into hornpipes. The mountain stirr’d its bushy crown, And, as tradition teaches, Young ashes pirouetted down Coquetting with young beeches ; And briony-vine and ivy-wreath Ran forward to his rhyming, And from the valleys underneath Came little copses climbing. The linden broke her ranks and rent The woodbine wreaths that bind her, And down the middle, buzz! she went With all her bees behind her ;: The poplars, in long order due, With cypress promenaded, The shock-head willows two and two By rivers gallopaded. Came wet-shod alder from the wave, Came yews, a dismal coterie ; Each pluck’d his one foot from the grave, Poussetting with a sloe-tree : SI. AGNES EVE. Old elms came breaking from the vine, The vine stream’d out to follow, And, sweating rosin, plump’d the pine From many a cloudy hollow. And wasn’t it a sight to see, When, ere his song was ended, Like some great landslip, tree by tree, The country-side descended ; And shepherds from the mountain-eaves Look’d down, half-pleased, half-fright- en’d, As dash’d about the drunken leaves The random sunshine lighten’d ! Oh, nature first was fresh to men, And wanton without measure ; So youthful and so flexile then, You moved her at your pleasure. Twang out, my fiddle! shake the twigs ! And make her dance attendance ; | Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs, And scirrhous roots and tendons. *Tis vain! in such a brassy age I could not move a thistle ; The very sparrows in the hedge Scarce answer to my whistle ; Or at the most, when three-parts-sick With strumming and with scraping, A jackass heehaws from the rick, The passive oxen gaping. But what is that I hear? a sound Like sleepy counsel pleading ; O Lord !—’tis in my neighbour’s ground, The modern Muses reading. They read Botanic Treatises, And Works on Gardening thro’ there, And Methods of transplanting trees To look as if they grew there. The wither’d Misses ! how they prose O’er books of travell’d seamen, And show you slips of all that grows From England to Van Diemen. They read in arbours clipt and cut, And alleys, faded places, By squares of tropic summer shut And warm’d in crystal cases. 10g But these, tho’ fed with careful dirt, Are neither green nor sappy ; Half-conscious of the garden-squirt, The spindlings look unhappy. Better to me the meanest weed That blows upon its mountain, The vilest herb that runs to seed Beside its native fountain. And I must work thro’ months of toil, And years of cultivation, Upon my proper patch of soil To grow my own plantation. I'll take the showers as they fall, I will not vex my bosom : Enough if at the end of all A little garden blossom. ST, AGNES’ EVE, DEEP on the convent-roof the snows Are sparkling to the moon : My breath to heaven like vapour goes : May my soul follow soon ! The shadows of the convent-towers Slant down the snowy sward, Still creeping with the creeping hours That lead me to my Lord: Make Thou my spirit pure and clear As are the frosty skies, Or this first snowdrop of the year That in my bosom lies. As these white robes are soil’d and dark, To yonder shining ground ; As this pale taper’s earthly spark, To yonder argent round ; So shows my soul before the Lamb, My spirit before Thee ; So in mine earthly house I am, To that I hope to be. -Break up the heavens, O Lord ! and far, Thro’ all yon starlight keen, Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star, In raiment white and clean. He lifts me to the golden doors ; The flashes come and go ; All heaven bursts her starry floors, And strows her lights below, IIo STR GALAHAD. And deepens on and up! the gates Roll back, and far within For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits, To make me pure of sin. The sabbaths of Eternity, One sabbath deep and wide— A light upon the shining sea— The Bridegroom with his bride ! SIR GALAHAD. My good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure. The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, The hard brands shiver on the steel, The splinter’d spear-shafts crack and fly, The horse and rider reel : ‘They reel, they roll in clanging lists, And when the tide of combat stands, Perfume and flowers fall in showers, That lightly rain from ladies’ hands. TIow sweet are looks that ladies bend On whom their favours fall! For them I battle till the end, To save from shame and thrall : But all my heart is drawn above, My knees are bow’d in crypt and shrine : I never felt the kiss of love, Nor maiden’s hand in mine. More bounteous aspects on me beam, Me mightier transports move and thrill ; So keep I fair thro’ faith and prayer A virgin heart in work and will. When down the stormy crescent goes, A light before me swims, Between dark stems the forest glows, I hear a noise of hymns : Then by some secret shrine I ride ; I hear a voice but none are there ; The stalls are void, the doors are wide, The tapers burning fair. Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth, The silver vessels sparkle clean, The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, And solemn chaunts resound between. Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres I find a magic bark ; I leap on board: no helmsman steers : I float till all is dark. A gentle sound, an awful light ! Three angels bear the holy Grail : With folded feet, in stoles of white, On sleeping wings they sail.” Ah, blessed vision! blood of God ! My spirit beats her mortal bars, As down dark tides the glory slides, And star-like mingles with the stars. When on my goodly charger borne Thro’ dreaming towns I go, The cock crows ere the Christmas morn, The streets are dumb with snow. The tempest crackles on the leads, And, ringing, springs from brand and mail ; But o’er the dark a glory spreads, And gilds the driving hail. I leave the plain, I climb the height ; No branchy thicket shelter yields ; But blessed forms in whistling storms Fly o’er waste fens and windy fields. A maiden knight—to me is given Such hope, I know not fear ; I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven That often meet me here. I muse on joy that will not cease, Pure spaces clothed in living beams, Pure lilies of eternal peace, Whose odours haunt my dreams ; And, stricken by an angel’s hand, This mortal armour that I wear, This weight and size, this heart and eyes, Are touch’d, are turn’d to finest air. The clouds are broken in the sky, And thro’ the mountain-walls A rolling organ-harmony Swells up, and shakes and falls. Then move the trees, the copses nod, Wings flutter, voices hover clear : *O just and faithful knight of God ! Ride on! the prize is near,’ EDWARD GRAY. | 3o pass I hostel, hall, and grange ; By bridge and ford, by park and pale, All-arm’d I ride, whate’er betide, Until I find the holy Grail. EDWARD GRAY. SWEET Emma Moreland of yonder town Met me walking on yonder way, * And have you lost your heart ?’ she said ; _ *And are you married yet, Edward Gray ?’ ‘Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me: Bitterly weeping I turn’d away : Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more Can touch the heart of Edward Gray. ‘Ellen Adair she loved me well, Against her father’s and mother’s will : To-day I sat for an hour and wept, - By Ellen’s grave, on the windy hill. ‘Shy she was, and I thought her cold ; _ Thought her proud, and fled over thesea; Fill’d I was with folly and spite, When Ellen Adair was dying for me. ‘Cruel, cruel the words I said ! Cruelly came they back to-day : “You're too slight and fickle,” I said, **Totrouble the heart of Edward Gray.” ‘There I put my face in the grass— | Whisper’d, ‘‘ Listen to my despair : repent me of all I did: | Speak a little, Ellen Adair !” ‘Then I took a pencil, and wrote | On the mossy stone, as I lay, _“ Here lies the body of Ellen Adair ; And here the heart of Edward Gray !” ‘Love may come, and love may go, And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree ; But I will love no more, no more, Till Ellen Adair come back to me. ‘ Bitterly wept I over the stone : Bitterly weeping I turn’d away: | There lies the body of Ellen Adair ! And there the heart of Edward Gray !’ II! WILL WATERPROOF’S PY were vo NOLOGUIE, MADE AT THE COCK. O PLUMP head-waiter at The Cock, To which I most resort, How goes the time ? ’Tis five o’clock. Go fetch a pint of port: But let it not be such as that You set before chance-comers, But such whose father-grape grew fat On Lusitanian summers. No vain libation to the Muse, But may she still be kind, And whisper lovely words, and use Her influence on the mind, To make me write my random rhymes, Ere they be half-forgotten ; Nor add and alter, many times, Till all be ripe and rotten. I pledge her, and she comes and dips Her laurel in the wine, And lays it thrice upon my lips, These favour’d lips of mine ; Until the charm have power to make New lifeblood warm the bosom, And barren commonplaces break In full and kindly blossom. I pledge her silent at the board ; Her gradual fingers steal And touch upon the master-chord Of all I felt and feel. Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans, And phantom hopes assemble ; And that child’s heart within the man’s Begins to move and tremble. Thro’ many an hour of summer suns, By many pleasant ways, Against its fountain upward runs The current of my days: I kiss the lips I once have kiss’d ; The gas-light wavers dimmer ; And softly, thro’ a vinous mist, My college friendships glimmer. 112 I grow in worth, and wit, and sense, Unboding critic-pen, Or that eternal want of pence, Which vexes public men, Who hold their hands to all, and cry For that which all deny them— Who sweep the crossings, wet or dry, And all the world go by them, Ah yet, tho’ all the world forsake, Tho’ fortune clip my wings, I will not cramp my heart, nor take Half-views of men and things. Let Whig and Tory stir their blood ; There must be stormy weather ; But for some true result of good All parties work together. Let there’ be thistles, there are grapes ; If old things, there are new ; Ten thousand broken lights and shapes, Yet glimpses of the true. Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme, We lack not rhymes and reasons, As on this whirligig of Time We circle with the seasons. This earth is rich in man and maid ; With fair horizons bound : This whole wide earth of light and shade Comes out a perfect round. High over roaring Temple-bar, And set in Heaven’s third story, I look at all things as they are, But thro’ a kind of glory. Head-waiter, honour’d by the guest Half-mused, or reeling ripe, The pint, you brought me, was the best That ever came from pipe. But tho’ the port surpasses praise, My nerves have dealt with stiffer. Is there some magic in the place ? Or do my peptics differ ? For since I came to live and learn, No pint of white or red Had ever half the power to turn This wheel within my head, WILL WATERPROOF’S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE. Which bears a season’d brain about, Unsubject to confusion, Tho’ soak’d and saturate, out and out Thro’ every convolution. For I am of a numerous house, With many kinsmen gay, Where long and largely we carouse As who shall say me nay: Each month, a birth-day coming on, We drink defying trouble, Or sometimes two would meet in one, And then we drank it double ; Whether the vintage, yet unkept, Had relish fiery-new, Or elbow-deep in sawdust, slept, As old as Waterloo ; Or stow’d, when classic Canning died In musty bins and chambers, Had cast upon its crusty side The gloom of ten Decembers. The Muse, the jolly Muse, it is ! She answer’d to my call, She changes with that mood or this, Is all-in-all to all: She lit the spark within my throat, To make my blood run quicker, Used all her fiery will, and smote Her life into the liquor. And hence this halo lives about The waiter’s hands, that reach To each his perfect pint of stout, His proper chop to each. He looks not like the common breed That with the napkin dally ; I think he came like Ganymede, From some delightful valley. The Cock was of a larger egg Than modern poultry drop, Stept forward on a firmer leg, And cramm/’d a plumper crop ; Upon an ampler dunghill trod, Crow’d lustier late and early, Sipt wine from silver, praising God, And raked in golden barley. — = \ . private life was all his joy, _ Till in a court he saw int, something-pottle-bodied boy That knuckled at the taw: Te stoop’d and clutch’d hin, fair and good, Flew over roof and casement : lis brothers of the weather stood Stock-still for sheer amazement. 3ut he, by farmstead, thorpe and spire, And follow’d with acclaims, \ sign to many a staring shire Came crowing over Thames. Light down by smoky Paul’s they bore, Till, where the street grows straiter, Ine fix’d for ever at the door, And one became head-waiter. ed But whither would my fancy go? How out of place she makes he violet of a legend blow Among the chops and steaks ! Tis but a steward of the can, One shade more plump than common ; As just and mere a serving-man As any born of woman. [ ranged too high: what draws me down Into the common day? [s it the weight of that half-crown, Which I shall have to pay? For, something duller than at first, Nor wholly comfortable, [ sit, my empty glass reversed, And thrumming on the table : Half fearful that, with self at strife, I take myself to task ; Lest of the fulness of my life I leave an empty flask : For I had hope, by something rare To prove myself a poet : But, while I plan and plan, my hair Is gray before I know it. So fares it since the years began, Till they be gather’d up ; The truth, that flies the flowing can, Will haunt the vacant cup : WILL WATERPROOF’S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE. 113 And others’ follies teach us not, Nor much their wisdom teaches ; And most, of sterling worth, is what Our own experience preaches. Ah, let the rusty theme alone ! We know not what we know. But for my pleasant hour, ’tis gone ; Tis gone, and let it go. *Tis gone: a thousand such have slipt Away from my embraces, And fall’n into the dusty crypt Of darken’d forms and faces. Go, therefore, thou ! thy betters went Long since, and came no more ; With peals of genial clamour sent From many a tavern-door, With twisted quirks and happy hits, From misty men of letters ; The tavern-hours of mighty wits— Thine elders and thy betters. Hours, when the Poet’s words and looks Had yet their native glow : Nor yet the fear of little books Had made him talk for show ; But, all his vast heart sherris-warm’d, He flash’d his random speeches, Ere days, that deal in ana, swarm’d His literary leeches. So mix for ever with the past, Like all good things on earth ! For should I prize thee, couldst thou last, At half thy real worth? I hold it good, good things should pass: With time I will not quarrel : It is but yonder empty glass That makes me maudlin-moral. Head-waiter of the chop-house here, To which I most resort, I too must part: I hold thee dear For this good pint of port. For this, thou shalt from all things suck Marrow of mirth and laughter ; And wheresoe’er thou move, good luck Shall fling her old shoe after. I 114 But thou wilt never move from hence, The sphere thy fate allots : Thy latter days increased with pence Go down among the pots: Thou battenest by the greasy gleam In haunts of hungry sinners, Old boxes, larded with the steam Of thirty thousand dinners. We fret, we fume, would shift our skins, Would quarrel with our lot ; Thy care is, under polish’d tins, To serve the hot-and-hot ; To come and go, and come again, Returning like the pewit, And watch’d by silent gentlemen, That trifle with the cruet. Live long, ere from thy topmost head The thick-set hazel dies ; Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread The corners of thine eyes : Live long, nor feel in head or chest Our changeful equinoxes, Till mellow Death, like some late guest, Shall call thee from the boxes. But when he calls, and thou shalt cease To pace the gritted floor, And, laying down an unctuous lease Of life, shalt earn no more ; Nocarved cross-bones, the types of Death, Shall show thee past to Heaven : But carved cross-pipes, and, underneath, A pint-pot neatly graven. LADY -CLARE: IT was the time when lilies blow, And clouds are highest up in air, Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe To give his cousin, Lady Clare. I trow they did not part in scorn : Lovers long-betroth’d were they : They two will wed the morrow morn : God’s blessing on the day ! ‘He does not love me for my birth, Nor for my lands so broad and fair ; He loves me for my own true worth, And that is well,’ said Lady Clare. LADV CLARE: In there came old Alice the nurse, Said, ‘Who was this that went fre thee ?’ ‘It was my cousin,’ said Lady Clare, ‘To-morrow he weds with me.’ ‘O God be thank’d!’ nurse, ‘ That all comes round so just and fa Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands, And you are zof the Lady Clare.’ said Alice t ‘Are ye out of your mind, my nur. my nurse ?’ Said Lady Clare, ‘that ye speak wild ?’ ‘As God’s above,’ said Alice the nurse ‘I speak the truth: you are my chil ‘The old Earl’s daughter died at 1 breast ; I speak the truth, as I live by breac I buried her like my own sweet child, And put my child in her stead.’ ‘Falsely, falsely have ye done, O mother,’ she said, ‘if this be true To keep the best man under the sun So many years from his due.’ ‘Nay now, my child,’ said Alice t nurse, ‘But keep the secret for your life, And all you have will be Lord Ronald When you are man and wife.’ ‘If I’m a beggar born,’ she said, ‘I will speak out, for I dare not lie. Pull off, pull off, the brooch of gold, And fling the diamond necklace by. ‘Nay now, my child,’ said Alice t nurse, ‘But keep the secret all ye can.’ She said, ‘Not so: but I will know If there be any faith in man.’ ‘Nay now, what faith?’ said Alice t nurse, ‘The man will cleave unto his right ‘ And he shall have it,’ the lady replie: ‘Tho’ I should die to-night.’ ‘et give one kiss to your mother dear ! ‘Alas, my child, I sinn’d for thee.’ ) mother, mother, mother,’ she said, i} ‘So strange it seems to me. ‘et here’s a kiss for my mother dear, My mother dear, if this be so, id lay your hand upon my head, ‘And bless me, mother, ere I go.’ e clad herself in a russet gown, She was no longer Lady Clare : ‘te went by dale, and she went by down, With a single rose in her hair. ie lily- white doe Lord Ronald had | brought Leapt up from where she lay, ‘opt her head in the maiden’s hand, And follow’d her all the way. awn stept Lord Ronald from his tower : *O Lady Clare, you shame your worth! hy come you drest like a village maid, That are the flower of the earth ?’ 1 £1 come drest like a village maid, Iam but as my fortunes are : am a beggar born,’ she said, ‘And not the Lady Clare.’ *lay me no tricks,’ said Lord Ronald, ‘For I am yours in word and in deed. ay me no tricks,’ said Lord Ronald, Your riddle is hard to read.’ and proudly stood she up ! | Her heart within her did not fail : 1e look’d into Lord Ronald’s eyes, | And told him all her nurse’s tale. ‘e laugh’d a laugh of merry scorn: He turn’d and kiss’d her where she stood : [f you are not the heiress born, _ And I,’ said he, ‘the next in blood— y {f you are not the heiress born, f And I,’ said he, ‘ the lawful heir, Je two will wed to-morrow morn, _ And you shall still be Lady Clare.’ H LHE CAPTAIN, THE CAPTAIN: A LEGEND OF THE NAVY, HE that only rules by terror Doeth grievous wrong. Deep as Hell I count his error. Let him hear my song. Brave the Captain was: the seamen Made a gallant crew, Gallant sons of English freemen, Sailors bold and true. But they hated his oppression, Stern he was and rash ; So for every light transgression Doom’d them to the lash. Day by day more harsh and cruel Seem’d the Captain’s mood. Secret wrath like smother’d fuel Burnt in each man’s blood. Yet he hoped to purchase glory, Hoped to make the name Of his vessel great in story, Wheresoe’er he came. So they past by capes and islands, Many a harbour-mouth, Sailing under palmy highlands Far within the South. On a day when they were going O’er the lone expanse, In the north, her canvas flowing, Rose a ship of France. Then the Captain’s colour heighten’d, Joyful came his speech : But a cloudy gladness lighten’d In the eyes of each. ‘Chase,’ he said: the ship flew for- ward, And the wind did blow ; Stately, lightly, went she Norward, Till she near’d the foe. Then they look’d at him they hated, Had what they desired : Mute with folded arms they waited— Not a gun was fired. But they heard the foeman’s thunder Roaring out their doom ; All the air was torn in sunder, Crashing went the boom, 11S 116 THE LORD OF BURLEIGA. Spars were splinter’d, decks were shatter’d, Bullets fell like rain ; Over mast and deck were scatter’d Blood and brains of men. Spars were splinter’d ; decks were broken: Every mother’s son— Down they dropt—no word was spoken— Each beside his gun. On the decks as they were lying, Were their faces grim. In their blood, as they lay dying, Did they smile on him. Those, in whom he had reliance For his noble name, With one smile of still defiance Sold him unto shame. Shame and wrath his heart confounded, Pale he turn’d and red, Till himself was deadly wounded Falling on the dead. Dismal error! fearful slaughter ! Years have wander’d by, Side by side beneath the water Crew and Captain lie ; There the sunlit ocean tosses O’er them mouldering, And the lonely seabird crosses With one waft of the wing. THE LORD*OFr BURLEIGH, IN her ear he whispers gaily, ‘If my heart by signs can tell, Maiden, I have watch’d thee daily, And I think thou lov’st me well.’ She replies, in accents fainter, ‘ There is none I love like thee.’ He is but a landscape-painter, And a village maiden she. He to lips, that fondly falter, Presses his without reproof : Leads her to the village altar, And they leave her father’s roof. ‘I can make no marriage present : Little can I give my wife. Love will make our cottage pleasant, And I love thee more than life.’ They by parks and lodges going See the lordly castles stand : Summer woods, about them blowing, Made a murmur in the land. From deep thought himself he rouses, Says to her that loves him well, ‘Let us see these handsome houses Where the wealthy nobles dwell.’ So she goes by him attended, Hears him lovingly converse, Sees whatever fair and splendid Lay betwixt his home and hers ; Parks with oak and chestnut shady, Parks and order’d gardens great, Ancient homes of lord and lady, Built for pleasure and for state. All he shows her makes him dearer Evermore she seems to gaze On that cottage growing nearer, Where they twain will spend their da O but she will love him truly ! He shall have a cheerful home ; She will order all things duly, When beneath his roof they come. Thus her heart rejoices greatly, Till a gateway she discerns With armorial bearings stately, And beneath the gate she turns ; Sees a mansion more majestic Than all those she saw before : Many a gallant gay domestic Bows before him at the door. And they speak in gentle murmur, When they answer to his call, While he treads with footstep firmer, Leading on from hall to hall. And, while now she wonders blindly, Nor the meaning can divine, Proudly turns he round and kindly, ‘ All of this is mine and thine.’ Here he lives in state and bounty, Lord of Burleigh, fair and free, Not a lord in all the county Is so great a lord as he. All at once the colour flushes Her sweet face from brow to chin: As it were with shame she blushes, And her spirit changed within. Then her countenance all over Pale again as death did prove : But he clasp’d her like a lover, And he cheer’d her soul with love. THE VOVAGE. 117 }) she strove against her weakness, Tho’ at times her spirit sank : §jiaped her heart with woman’s meekness To all duties of her rank : id a gentle consort made he, And her gentle mind was such iat she grew a noble lady, And the people loved her much. it a trouble weigh’d upon her, And perplex’d her, night and morn, ith the burthen of an honour Unto which she was not born. -juint she grew, and ever fainter, And she murmur’d, ‘Oh, that he ere once more that landscape-painter, Which did win my heart from me !’ ) she droop’d and droop’d before him, ) Fading slowly from his side : qree fair children first she bore him, Then before her time she died. eeping, weeping late and early, | Walking up and pacing down, zeply mourn’d the Lord of Burleigh, Burleigh-house by Stamford-town. ad he came to look upon her, And he look’d at her and said, 3ring the dress and put it on her, That she wore when she was wed.’ en her people, softly treading, Bore to earth her body, drest _the dress that she was wed in, That her spirit might have rest. ahi VOYAGE. I 7k left behind the painted buoy | That tosses at the harbour-mouth ; nd madly danced our hearts with joy, _ As fast we fleeted to the South : _ow fresh was every sight and sound On open main or winding shore ! )/e knew the merry world was round, _ And we might sail for evermore. If. Yarm broke the breeze against the brow, it Dry sang the tackle, sang the sail : The Lady’s-head upon the prow Caught the shrill salt, and sheer’d the gale. The broad seas swell’d to meet the keel, And swept behind ; so quick the run, We felt the good ship shake and reel, We seem’d to sail into the Sun ! TET. How oft we saw the Sun retire, And burn the threshold of the night, Fall from his Ocean-lane of fire, And sleep beneath his pillar’d light ! How oft the purple-skirted robe Of twilight slowly downward drawn, As thro’ the slumber of the globe Again we dash’d into the dawn ! IV. New stars all night above the brim Of waters lighten’d into view ; They climb’d as quickly, for the rim Changed every moment as we flew. Far ran the naked moon across The houseless ocean’s heaving field, Or flying shone, the silver boss Of her own halo’s dusky shield ; V. The peaky islet shifted shapes, High towns on hills were dimly seen, We past long lines of Northern capes And dewy Northern meadows green. We came to warmer waves, and deep Across the boundless east we drove, Where those long swells of breaker sweep The nutmeg rocks and isles of clove. VI. By peaks that flamed, or, all in shade, Gloom’d the low coast and quivering brine With ashy rains, that spreading made Fantastic plume or sable pine ; By sands and steaming flats, and floods Of mighty mouth, we scudded fast, And hills and scarlet-mingled woods Glow’d for a moment as we past, 118 STR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE. VII. O hundred shores of happy climes, How swiftly stream’d ye by the bark ! At times the whole sea burn’d, at times With wakes of fire we tore the dark ; At times a carven craft would shoot From havens hid in fairy bowers, With naked limbs and flowers and fruit, But we nor paused for fruit nor flowers. VIII. For one fair Vision ever fled Down the waste waters day and night, And still we follow’d where she led, In hope to gain upon her flight. Her face was evermore unseen, And fixt upon the far sea-line ; But each man murmur’d, ‘O my Queen, I follow till I make thee mine.’ IX. And now we lost her, now she gleam’d Like Fancy made of golden air, Now nearer to the prow she seem’d Like Virtue firm, like Knowledge fair, Now high on waves that idly burst Like Heavenly Hope she crown’d the sea, And now, the bloodless point reversed, She bore the blade of Liberty. X, And only one among us—him We pleased not—he was pleased : He saw not far: his eyes were dim : But ours he swore were all diseased. ‘ A ship of fools,’ he shriek’d in spite, ‘A ship of fools,’ he sneer’d and wept. And overboard one stormy night IIe cast his body, and on we swept. XI. And never sail of ours was furl’d, Nor anchor dropt at eve or morn ; We lov’d the glories of the world, But laws of nature were our scorn. seldom For blasts would rise and rave and ceas But whence were those that drove tl sail Across the whirlwind’s heart of peace, And to and thro’ the counter gale ? BG DE: Again to colder climes we came, For still we follow’d where she led : Now mate is blind and captain lame, And half the crew are sick or dead, But, blind or lame or sick or sound, We follow that which flies before : We know the merry world is round, And we may sail for evermore. SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE. A FRAGMENT, LIKE souls that balance joy and pain, With tears and smiles from heaven aga The maiden Spring upon the plain Came in a sun-lit fall of rain. In crystal vapour everywhere Blue isles of heaven laugh’d between, And far, in forest-deeps unseen, The topmost elm-tree gather’d green From draughts of balmy air. Sometimes the linnet piped his song : Sometimes the throstle whistled strong Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel’d alon; Hush’d all the groves from fear of wrong By grassy capes with fuller sound In curves the yellowing river ran, And drooping chestnut-buds began To spread into the perfect fan, Above the teeming ground. Then, in the boyhood of the year, Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere Rode thro’ the coverts of the deer, With blissful treble ringing clear. She seem’d a part of joyous Spring A gown of grass-green silk she wore, Buckled with golden clasps before ; A light-green tuft of plumes she bore Closed in a golden ring. ‘ow on some twisted ivy-net, ‘low by some tinkling rivulet, -mosses mixt with violet ifer cream-white mule his pastern set : And fleeter now she skimm’d the plains 1an she whose elfin prancer springs 7 night to eery warblings, hen all the glimmering moorland rings With jingling bridle-reins. 3 she fled fast thro’ sun and shade, ae happy winds upon her play’d, } owing the ringlet from the braid : 1e look’d so lovely, as she sway’d The rein with dainty finger-tips, man had given all other bliss, nd all his worldly worth for this, o waste his whole heart in one kiss Upon her perfect lips. A FAREWELL. LOW down, cold rivulet, to the sea, Thy tribute wave deliver : ‘0 more by thee my steps shall be, For ever and for ever. low, softly flow, by lawn and lea, A rivulet then a river : [0 where by thee my steps shall be, For ever and for ever. jut here will sigh thine alder tree, _ And here thine aspen shiver ; ind here by thee will hum the bee, For ever and for ever. | \ thousand suns will stream on thee, A thousand moons will quiver ; 3ut not by thee my steps shall be, For ever and for ever. THE BEGGAR MAID. Her arms across her breast she laid ; 3are-footed came the beggar maid Before the king Cophetua. | | Mean hWwERTEL—THE BEGGAR MAID—THE EAGLE. _ She was more fair than words can say: 119 In robe and crown the king stept down, To meet and greet her on her way ; ‘It is no wonder,’ said the lords, ‘She is more beautiful than day.’ As shines the moon in clouded skies, She in her poor attire was seen : One praised her ancles, one her eyes, One her dark hair and lovesome mien. So sweet a face, such angel grace, In all that land had never been : Cophetua sware a royal oath : ‘ This beggar maid shall be my queen !’ fs 9 a Ed OR FRAGMENT. HE clasps the crag with crooked hands ; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring’d with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls ; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls. MovVE eastward, happy earth, and leave Yon orange sunset waning slow: From fringes of the faded eve, O, happy planet, eastward go ; Till over thy dark shoulder glow Thy silver sister-world, and rise To glass herself in dewy eyes That watch me from the glen below. Ah, bear me with thee, smoothly borne, Dip forward under starry light, And move me to my marriage-morn, And round again to happy night. ComE not, when I am dead, To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave, To trample round my fallen head, And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save. There let the wind sweep and the plover cry ; But thou, go by. 120 THE LETTERS —THE Vision ea Child, if it were thine error or thy crime I care no longer, being all unblest : Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time, And I desire to rest. Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where Tlie: Go by, go by. THESLASL PERS: I. STILL on the tower stood the vane, A black yew gloom’d the stagnant air, I peer’d athwart the chancel pane And saw the altar cold and bare. A clog of lead was round my feet, A band of pain across my brow ; ‘Cold altar, Heaven and earth shall meet Before you hear my marriage vow.’ II, I turn’d and humm/’d a bitter song That mock’d the wholesome human heart, And then we met in wrath and wrong, We met, but only meant to part. Full cold my greeting was and dry ; She faintly smiled, she hardly moved ; I saw with half-unconscious eye She wore the colours I approved. Ill. She took the little ivory chest, With half a sigh she turn’d the key, Then raised her head with lips comprest, And gave my letters back to me. And gave the trinkets and the rings, My gifts, when gifts of mine could please ; As looks a father on the things Of his dead son, I look’d on these. IV. She told me all her friends had said ; I raged against the public liar ; She talk’d as if her love were dead, But in my words were seeds of fire. ‘No more of love ; your sex is known: I never will be twice deceived. Henceforth I trust the man alone, The woman cannot be believed. Vv. ‘Thro’ slander, meanest spawn of Hell— And women’s slander is the worst, — And you, whom once I lov’d so well, — Thro’ you, my life will be accurst.’ I spoke with heart, and heat and force, I shook her breast with vague alarms— Like torrents from a mountain source — We rush’d into each other’s arms. VI. We parted: sweetly gleam’d the stars, And sweet the vapour-braided blue, Low breezes fann’d the belfry bars, As homeward by the church I drew. The very graves appear’d to smile, So fresh they rose in shadow’d swells ‘Dark porch,’ I said, ‘and silent aisle, There comes a sound of marriage bells. THE VISION OF ‘SIN, I. I HAD a vision when the night was late A youth came riding toward a palace-gat He rode a horse with wings, that woul have flown, But that his heavy rider kept him down And from the palace came a child of sir And took him by the curls, and led him ir Where sat a company with heated eyes, Expecting when a fountain should arise A sleepy light upon their brows and lips— As when the sun, a crescent of eclipse, Dreams over lake and lawn, and isles an capes— Suffused them, sitting, lying, langui shapes, By heaps of gourds, and skins of wine and piles of grapes. 3 II. Then methought I heard a mellow sound Gathering up from all the lower ground 2 rrowing in to where they sat assembled w voluptuous music winding trembled, dv’n in circles: they that heard it sigh’d, nted hand-in-hand with faces pale, mung themselves, and in low tones re- plied ; \l the fountain spouted, showering wide set of diamond-drift and pearly hail ; 1en themusic touch’d the gatesand died ; se again from where it seem’d to fail, orm’d in orbs of song, a growing gale ; (ll thronging in and in, to where they waited, twere a hundred-throated nightingale, ie strong tempestuous treble throbb’d and palpitated ; in into its giddiest whirl of sound, ught the sparkles, and in circles, ple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes, Hung the torrent rainbow round : 1en they started from their places, Hoved with violence, changed in hue, wught each other with wild grimaces, alf-invisible to the view, heeling with precipitate paces ) the melody, till they flew, air, and eyes, and limbs, and faces, wisted hard in fierce embraces, ke to Furies, like to Graces, ash’d together in blinding dew: Hl, kill’d with some luxurious agony, ne nerve-dissolving melody utter’d headlong from the sky. III. d then I look’d up toward a mountain- tract, hat girt the region with high cliff and lawn : saw that every morning, far withdrawn 2yond the darkness and the cataract, od made Himself an awful rose of dawn, nheeded: and detaching, fold by fold, rom those still heights, and, slowly drawing near, vapour heavy, hueless, formless, cold, ame floating on for many a month and ear, ‘nheeded: and I thought I would have i spoken, THE VISION OF SIN. }2T And warn’d that madman ere it grew too late : But, as in dreams, I could not. was broken, When that cold vapour touch’d the palace gate, And link’d again. I saw within my head A gray and gap-tooth’d man as lean as death, Who slowly rode across a wither’d heath, And lighted at a ruin’d inn, and said: Mine IV. ‘ Wrinkled ostler, grim and thin! Here is custom come your way ; Take my brute, and lead him in, Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay. ‘Bitter barmaid, waning fast ! See that sheets are on my bed ; What ! the flower of life is past : It is long before you wed. ‘Slip-shod waiter, lank and sour, At the Dragon on the heath ! Let us have a quiet hour, Let us hob-and-nob with Death. ‘T am old, but let me drink ; Bring me spices, bring me wine ; I remember, when I think, That my youth was half divine. Wine is good for shrivell’d lips, When a blanket wraps the day, When the rotten woodland drips, And the leaf is stamp’d in clay. ‘Sit thee down, and have no shame, Cheek by jowl, and knee by knee: What care I for any name? What for order or degree ? ‘Let me screw thee up a peg: Let me loose thy tongue with wine: Callest thou that thing a leg? Which is thinnest ? thine or mine ? ‘Thou shalt not be saved by works: Thou hast been a sinner too: Ruin’d trunks on wither’d forks, Empty scarecrows, I and you! 122 THE VISION OF SIN. ‘Fill the cup, and fill the can: Have a rouse before the morn : Every moment dies a man, Every moment one is born. ‘We are men of ruin’d blood ; Therefore comes it we are wise. Fish are we that love the mud, Rising to no fancy-flies. ‘Name and fame! to fly sublime Thro’ the courts, the camps, the schools, Is to be the ball of Time, Bandied by the hands of fools. «Friendship !—to be two in one— Let the canting liar pack ! Well I know, when I am gone, How she mouths behind my back. ‘Virtue !—to be good and just— Every heart, when sifted well, Is a clot of warmer dust, Mix’d with cunning sparks of hell. *O! we two as well can look Whited thought and cleanly life As the priest, above his book Leering at his neighbour’s wife. ‘ Fill the cup, and fill the can: Have a rouse before the morn: Every moment dies a man, Every moment one is born. ‘ Drink, and let the parties rave : They are fill’d with idle spleen ; Rising, falling, like a wave, For they know not what they mean. ‘Te that roars for liberty Faster binds a tyrant’s power ; And the tyrant’s cruel glee Forces on the freer hour. ‘Fill the can, and fill the cup: All the windy ways of men Are but dust that rises up, And is lightly laid again. ‘Greet her with applausive breath, Freedom, gaily doth she tread ; In her right a civic wreath, In her left a human head. “No, I love not what is new ; She is of an ancient house: And I think we know the hue Of that cap upon her brows. ‘Let her go! her thirst she slakes Where the bloody conduit runs, Then her sweetest meal she makes On the first-born of her sons. ‘Drink to lofty hopes that cool— Visions of a perfect State: Drink we, last, the public fool, Frantic love and frantic hate. ‘Chant me now some wicked stave, Till thy drooping courage rise, And the glow-worm of the grave Glimmer in thy rheumy eyes. ‘ Fear not thou to loose thy tongue ; Set thy hoary fancies free ; What is loathsome to the young Savours well to thee and me. ‘Change, reverting to the years, When thy nerves could understand What there is in loving tears, And the warmth of hand in hand. ‘Tell me tales of thy first love— April hopes, the fools of chance ; Till the graves begin to move, And the dead begin to dance. ‘Fill the can, and fill the cup: All the windy ways of men Are but dust that rises up, And is lightly laid again. ‘ Trooping from their mouldy dens The chap-fallen circle spreads : Welcome, fellow-citizens, Hollow hearts and empty heads ! “You are bones, and what of that ? _ Every face, however full, Padded round with flesh and fat, Is but modell’d on a skull. ‘Death is king, and Vivat Rex ! Tread a measure on the stones, Madam—if I know your sex, From the fashion of your bones. “No, I cannot praise the fire _ In your eye—nor yet your lip: All the more do I admire Joints of cunning workmanship. ‘Lo ! God’s likeness—the ground-plan—- Neither modell’d, glazed, nor framed : Buss me, thou rough sketch of man, Far too naked to be shamed ! ‘Drink to Fortune, drink to Chance, _ While we keep a little breath ! ‘Drink to heavy Ignorance! Hob-and-nob with brother Death ! ‘Thou art mazed, the night is long, _ And the longer night is near: ‘What ! I am not all as wrong As a bitter jest is dear, ‘Youthful hopes, by scores, to all, When the locks are crisp and curl’d ; Unto me my maudlin gall And my mockeries of the world. Fill the cup, and fill the can: _ Mingle madness, mingle scorn ! » Dregs of life, and lees of man: _ Yet we will not die forlorn.’ | Vi The voice grew faint: there came a . further change : § Once more uprose the mystic mountain- ' range : Below were men and horses pierced with worms, And slowly quickening into lower forms ; By shards and scurf of salt, and scum of { dross, Old plash of rains, and refuse patch’d with moss. i IHE VISION OF SIN. 123 Then some one spake: ‘ Behold ! it was a crime Of sense avenged by sense that wore with time.’ Another said: ‘The crime of sense became The crime of malice, and is equal blame.’ And one: ‘ He had not wholly quench’d his power ; A little grain of conscience made him sour.’ At last I heard a voice upon the slope Cry to the summit, ‘Is there any hope ?’ To which an answer peal’d from that high land, But in a tongue no man could understand ; And on the glimmering limit far with- drawn God made Himself an awful rose of dawn. TX eee AFTER READING A LIFE AND LETTERS, ‘Cursed be he that moves my bones.’ Shakespeare's Lipitaph. You might have won the Poet’s name, If such be worth the winning now, And gain’d a laurel for your brow Of sounder leaf than I can claim ; But you have made the wiser choice, A life that moves to gracious ends Thro’ troops of unrecording friends, A deedful life, a silent voice : And you have miss’d the irreverent doom Of those that wear the Poet’s crown: Hereafter, neither knave nor clown Shall hold their orgies at your tomb. For now the Poet cannot die, Nor leave his music as of old, But round him ere he scarce be cold Begins the scandal and the cry: ‘ Proclaim the faults he would not show : Break lock and seal: betray the trust: Keep nothing sacred: ’tis but just The many-headed beast should know.’ 124 TO E. L., ON HIS. TRAVELS TIN Greee Ah shameless ! for he did but sing A song that pleased us from its worth ; No public life was his on earth, No blazon’d statesman he, nor king. He gave the people of his best : His worst he kept, his. best he gave. My Shakespeare’s curse on clown and knave Who will not let his ashes rest ! Who make it seem more sweet to be The little life of bank and brier, The bird that pipes his lone desire And dies unheard within his tree, Than he that warbles long and loud And drops at Glory’s temple-gates, For whom the carrion vulture waits To tear his heart before the crowd ! Osteo. ON TAS TRAVEES IN GREECE, ILLYRIAN woodlands, echoing falls Of water, sheets of summer glass, The long divine Peneian pass, The vast Akrokeraunian walls, Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair, With such a pencil, such a pen, You shadow forth to distant men, I read and felt that I was there: And trust me while I turn’d the page, And track’d you still on classic ground, I grew in gladness till I found My spirits in the golden age. lor me the torrent ever pour’d And glisten’d—here and there alone The broad-limb’d Gods at random thrown By fountain-urns ;—and Naiads oar’d A glimmering shoulder under gloom Of cavern pillars ; on the swell The silver lily heaved and fell ; And many a slope was rich in bloom And the stately ships go on From him that on the mountain lea By dancing rivulets fed his flocks To him who sat upon the rocks, And fluted to the morning sea. BREAK, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me. q O well for the fisherman’s boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! ! O well for the sailor lad, 5 That he sings in his boat on the bay 1 To their haven under the hill ; But O for the touch of a vanish’d hand, — And the sound of a voice that is still Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead” Will never come back to me. THE POETS {SONG THE rain had fallen, the Poet arose, ] He pass’d by the town and out of the street, A light wind blew from the gates of the sun, And waves of shadow went over the wheat, And he sat him down in a lonely place, And chanted a melody loud and sweet, That made the wild-swan pause in her cloud, And the lark drop down at his feet. — The swallow stopt as he hunted the fly, The snake slipt under a spray, : The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak, | And stared, with his foat on the prey, And the nightingale thought, ‘I have sung many songs, But never a one so gay, For he sings of what the world will be When the years have died away,’ “*T loved the brimming wave that swam Thro quiet meadows round the mill, The sleepy pool above the dam, The pool beneath it never still.” ENOCH ENOCH ARDEN. Lone lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm ; And in the chasm are foam and yellow . sands ; Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf } In cluster ; then a moulder’d church ; and higher A long street climbs to one tall-tower’d mill ; And high in beaven behind it a gray down With Danish barrows ; and a hazelwood, By autumn nutters haunted, flourishes ‘Green in a cuplike hollow of the down. Here on this beach a hundred years ago, Three children of three houses, Annie Lee, | The prettiest little damsel in the port, And Philip Ray the miller’s only son, And Enoch Arden, a rough sailor’s fad | Made orphan bya winter shipwreck, play’d Among the waste and lumber of the shore, Hard coils of cordage, swarthy fishing-nets, Anchors of rusty fluke, and boats up- ; drawn ; And built their castles of dissolving sand To watch them overflow’d, or following up And flying the white breaker, daily left The little footprint daily wash’d away. ae eae _ A narrow cave ran in beneath the cliff: tm this the children play’d at keeping q house. Enoch was host one day, Philip the next, While Annie still was mistress; but at times Enoch would hold possession for a week : “This is my house and this my little wife.’ “Mine too’ said Philip ‘turn and turn ‘a about :’ When, if they quarrell’d, Enoch stronger- made ENOCH ARDEN. 125 ARDEN AND OTHER POEMS. Was master : eyes All flooded with the helpless wrath of tears, Shriek out ‘I hate you, Enoch,’ and at this The little wife would weep for company, And pray them not to quarrel for her sake, And say she would be little wife to both. then would Philip, his blue But when the dawn of rosy childhood past, And the new warmth of life’s ascending wel sun Was felt by either, either fixt his heart On that one girl; and Enoch spoke his love, But Philip loved in silence ; and the girl Seem’d kinder unto Philip than to him ; But she loved Enoch; tho’ she knew it not, And would if ask’d deny it. Enoch set A purpose evermore before his eyes, To hoard all savings to the uttermost, To purchase his own boat, and make a home For Annie: and so prosper’d that at last A luckier or a bolder fisherman, A carefuller in peril, did not breathe For leagues along that breaker- beaten coast Than Enoch. Likewise had he served a year On board a merchantman, himself Full sailor; and he thrice had pluck’d a life From the dread sweep of the down-stream- ing seas: And all men look’d upon him favourably: And ere he touch’d his one-and-twentieth May and made 126 ENOCH ARDEN. He purchased his own boat, and made a home For Annie, neat and nestlike, halfway up The narrow street that clamber’d toward the mill. Then, on a golden autumn eyventide, The younger people making holiday, With bag and sack and basket, great and small, Went nutting to the hazels. Philip stay’d (His father lying sick and needing him) An hour behind ; but as he climb’d the hill, Just where the prone edge of the wood began To feather toward the hollow, saw the pair, Enoch and Annie, sitting hand-in-hand, His large gray eyes and weather-beaten face All-kindled by a still and sacred fire, That burn’d as onanaltar. Philip look’d, And in their eyes and faces read his doom ; Then, as their faces drew together, groan’d, And slipt aside, and like a wounded life Crept down into the hollows of the wood ; There, while the rest were loud in merry- making, Had his dark hour unseen, and rose and past Bearing a lifelong hunger in his heart. So these were wed, and merrily rang the bells, And merrily ran the years, seven happy years, Seven happy years. of health and com- petence, And mutual love and honourable toil ; With children ; first a daughter. In him woke, With his first babe’s first cry, the noble wish To save all earnings to the uttermost, And give his child a better bringing-up Than his had been, or hers ; a wish re- new’d, When two years after came a The rosy idol of her solitudes, boy to be dint While Enoch was abroad on wrathful seas, - Or often journeying landward ; for in truth Enoch’s white horse, and Enoch’s ocean- spoil In ocean-smelling osier, and his face, Rough-redden’d with a thousand winter gales, Not only to the market-cross were known, But in the leafy lanes behind the down, Far as the portal-warding lion-whelp, And peacock-yewtree of the lonely Hall, | Whose Friday fare was Enoch’s minister- ing. Then came a change, as all things human change. Ten miles to northward of the narrow port Open’d a larger haven: thither used Enoch at times to go by land or sea ; And once when there, and clambering on a mast In harbour, by mischance he slipt and fell: A limb was broken when they lifted > shim, And while he lay recovering there, his wife Bore him another son, a sickly one: Another hand crept too across his trade Taking her bread and theirs: and on him fell, Altho’ a grave and staid God- fearing man, Yet lying thus inactive, doubt and gloom, He seem’d, as in a nightmare of the night, To see his children leading evermore Low miserable lives of hand-to-mouth, And her, he loved, a beggar: then he pray’d ‘Save them from this, whatever comes to me.’ And while he pray’d, the master of that ship Enoch had served in, hearing his mig chance, Came, for he knew the man and valuaa him, ; Reporting of his vessel China-bound, And wanting yet a boatswain. Would he go? : [here yet were many weeks before she sail’d, jail’d from this port. have the place? And Enoch all at once assented to it, Rejoicing at that answer to his prayer. Would Enoch So now that shadow of mischance appear’d No graver than as when some little cloud suts off the fiery highway of the sun, And isles a light in the offing: yet the wife— Nhen he was gone—the children—what to do? chen Enoch lay long- pondering on his plans ; 7o sell the boat—and yet he loved her well— | low many a rough sea had he weather’d in her ! ') le knew her, as a horseman knows his horse— /) 1nd yet to sell her—then with what she | brought . 3uy goods and stores—set Annie forth in trade Vith all that seamen needed or their | /) o might she keep the house while he was gone. r lhonld he not trade himself out yonder ? | go »| his voyage more than once? yea twice or thrice— \s oft as neede »ecome the master of a larger craft, Vith fuller profits lead an easier life, fave all his pretty young ones educated, nd pass his days in peace among his own. _ Thus Enoch in his heart determined all: hen moving homeward came on Annie . \ pale, ‘ursing the sickly babe, her latest-born. orward she started with a happy cry, nd laid the feeble infant in his arms ; Yom Enoch took, and handled all his limbs, ae Se ENOCH ARDEN. 127 Appraised his weight and fondled father- like, But had no heart to break his purposes To Annie, till the morrow, when he spoke. Then first since Enoch’s golden ring had girt Her finger, Annie fought against his will: Yet not with brawling opposition she, But manifold entreaties, many a tear, Many a sad kiss by day by night renew’d (Sure that all evil would come out of it) Besought him, supplicating, if he cared For her or his dear children, not to go. He not for his own self caring but her, Her and her children, let her plead in vain ; So grieving held his will, and. bore it thro’. For Enoch parted with his old sea- friend, Bought Annie goods and stores, and set his hand To fit their little streetward sitting-room With shelf and corner for the goods and stores. So all day long till Enoch’s last at home, Shaking their pretty cabin, hammer and axe, Auger and saw, while Annie seem’d to hear Her own death-scaffold raising, shrill’d and rang, Till this was ended, hand, — The space was narrow, —having order’d all Almost as neat and close as Nature packs Her blossom or her seedling, paused ; and he, Who needs would work for Annie to the last, Ascending tired, heavily slept till morn. and his careful And Enoch faced this morning of fare- well Brightly and boldly. All his Annie’s fears, Save, as his Annie’s, were a laughter to him. Yet Enoch as a brave God- tcaring man Bow’d himself down, and in that mystery 128 Where God-in-man is one with man-in- God, Pray’d for a blessing on his wife and babes Whatever came to him: and then he said ‘Annie, this voyage by the grace of God Will bring fair weather yet to all of us. Keep a clean hearth and a clear fire for me, For Dll be back, my girl, before you know it.’ Then lightly rocking baby’s cradle ‘and he, This pretty, puny, weakly little one,— Nay—for I love him all the better for it— God bless him, he shall sit upon my knees And I will tell him tales of foreign parts, And make him merry, when I come home again. Come, Annie, come, cheer up before I go.’ Him running on thus hopefully she heard, And almost hoped herself; but when he turn’d The current of his talk to graver things In sailor fashion roughly sermonizing On providence and trust in Heaven, she heard, Heard and not heard him ; as the village girl, Who sets her pitcher underneath the spring, Musing on him that used to fill it for her, Hears and not hears, and lets it overflow. At length she spoke ‘O Enoch, you are wise ; And yet for all your wisdom well know I That I shall look upon your face no more.’ ‘ Well then,’ said Enoch, ‘I shall look on yours. Annie, the ship I sail in passes here (He named the day) get you a seaman’s glass, Spy out my face, and laugh at all your fears.’ But when the last of those last moments came, ‘Annie, my girl, cheer up, be comforted, Look to the babes, and till I come again ENOCH ARDEN. Keep everything shipshape, for I must go And fear no more for me; or if you fear’ Cast all your cares on God ; that ancho holds. Is He not yonder in those uttermost Parts of the morning? if I flee to these Can I go from Him? and the sea is His The sea is His: He made it.’ : Enoch rose Cast his strong arms about his droopin; wife, And kiss’d his wonder-stricken little ones But for the third, the sickly one, who slep After a night of feverous wakefulness, When Annie would have raised hin Enoch said ‘Wake him not; let him sleep; hos should the child Remember this?’ and kiss’d him in hi cot. But Annie from her baby’s forehead clip A tiny curl, and gave it: this he kept Thro’ all his future; but now hastil) caught | His bundle, waved his hand, and wen his way. She when the day, that Enoc mention’d, came, Borrow’d a glass, but all in vain: perhar She could not fix the glass to suit her eye Perhaps her eye was dim, hand tremulous She saw him not: and while he stood 0 deck Waving, the moment and the vessel pas! Ev’n to the last dip of the vanishing sa She watch’d it, and departed weeping fc him ; Then, tho’ she mourn’d his absence as h. grave, | Set her sad will no less to chime with his But throve not in her trade, not being bre To barter, nor compensating the want By shrewdness, neither capable of lies, Nor asking overmuch and taking less, - And still foreboding ‘ what would Enoc say ?? | For more than once, in days of difficult) i @ less what she gave in buying what she sold: : fail’d and sadden’d knowing it ; and sf) 6=—s thus, i’d for her own a scanty sustenance, _lived a life of silent melancholy. and grew fsicklier, tho’ the mother cared for it Th all a mother’s care: nevertheless, ther her business often call’d her from i eit, i thro’ the want of what it needed most, jaeans to pay the voice who best could fae tell lit most it needed—howsoe’er it was, Ir a lingering,—ere she was aware,— §> the caged bird escaping suddenly, 'l little innocent soul flitted away. P that same week when Annie buried ip ois fip’s true heart, which hunger’d for her peace ce Enoch left he had not look’d upon ther), went, ). thro’ the solitary room in front, ised for a moment at an inner door, n struck it thrice, and, no one opening, rer'd; but Annie, seated with her grief, sh from the burial of her little one, fed not to look on any human face, turn’d her own toward the wall and wept. Te spoke ; the passion in her moan’d reply .am !’ half abash’d him ; yet unask’d, | bashfulness and tenderness at war, iset himself beside her, saying to her: ENOCH ARDEN. pressure, had she sold her wares for 129 ‘I came to speak to you of what he wish’d, Enoch, your husband: I have ever said You chose the best among us—a strong man : For where he fixt his heart he set his hand To do the thing he will’d, and bore it thro.’ And wherefore did he go this weary way, And leave you lonely? not to see the world— For pleasure p—nay, but for the where- withal To give his babes a better bringing-up Than his had been, or yours: that was his wish. And if he come again, vext will he be To find the precious morning hours were lost. And it would vex him even in his grave, If he could know his babes were running wild Like colts about the waste. So, Annie, now— Have we not known each other all our lives ? I do beseech you by the love you bear Him and his children not to say me nay— For, if you will, when Enoch comes again Why then he shall repay me—if you will, Annie—for I am rich and well-to-do. Now let me put the boy and girl to school: This is the favour that I came to ask.’ Then Annie with her brows against the wall Answer’d ‘I cannot look you in the face; I seem so foolish and so broken down. When you came in my sorrow broke me down ; And now I think your kindness breaks me down ; But Enoch lives; that is borne in on me: He will repay you: money can be repaid ; Not kindness such as yours.’ And Philip ask’d ‘Then you will let me, Annie?’ There she turn’d, She rose, and fixt her swimming eyes upon him, K 130 ENOCH ARDEN. And dwelt a moment on his kindly face, Then calling down a blessing on his head Caught at his hand, and wrung it passion- ately, And past into the little garth beyond. So lifted up in spirit he moved away. Then Philip put the boy and girl to school, And bought them needful books, and everyway, Like one who does his duty by his own, Made himself theirs ; and tho’ for Annie’s sake, Fearing the lazy gossip of the port, He oft denied his heart his dearest wish, And seldom crost her threshold, yet be sent Gifts by the children, garden-herbs and fruit, The late and early roses from his wall, Or conies from the down, and now and then, With some pretext of fineness in the meal To save the offence of charitable, flour From his tall mill that whistled on the waste. But Philip did not fathom Annie’s mind : Scarce could the woman when he came upon her, Out of full heart and boundless gratitude Light on a broken word to thank him with. But Philip was her children’s all-in-all ; From distant corners of the street they ran To greet his hearty welcome heartily ; Lords of his house and of his mill were they ; Worried his passive ear with petty wrongs Or pleasures, hung upon him, play’d with him And call’d him Father Philip. Philip gain’d As Enoch lost ; for Enoch seem’d to them Uncertain as a vision or a dream, Faint as a figure seen in early dawn Down at the far end of an avenue, Going we know not where: and so years, Since Enoch left his hearth and nai land, | Fled forward, and no news of ot came. It chanced one evening Annie’s chill Iong’d | To go with others, nutting to the woc} And Annie would go with them; ft] they bege’d { For Father Philip (as they call’d him)t Him, like the working bee in bloss¢| dust, | Blanch’d with his mill, they found ; saying to him | ‘Come with us Father Philip’ he denif oa the children pluck’d at hin} se | For was not Annie with them ? and t 4 went. But after scaling half the weary do} Just where the prone edge of the w} began To feather toward the hollow, all her fe} Fail’d her; and sighing, ‘ Let me rest’ } said : | So Philip rested with her well-conten While all the younger ones with jubil} cries Down thro’ the whitening hazels mac plunge . To the bottom, and dispersed, and If or broke I The lithe reluctant boughs to tear aw Their tawny clusters, crying to each o} And calling, here and there, about ' wood. But Philip sitting at her side ford | Her presence, and remember’d one a hour | Here in this wood, een like a woun}} life q He crept into the shadow; at last hes § ‘ng his honest forehead, Annie, merry they are down yonder in the wood. @d, Annie?’ for she did not speak a word. ed ?” but her face had fall’n upon her i hands; rhich, as with a kind of anger in him, e ship was lost,’ he said, ‘the ship was lost ! more of that! why should you kill yourself / make them orphans quite ?’ Annie said @hought not of it: but—I know not [ie why— ir voices make me feel so solitary.’ ‘ Listen, And hen Philip coming somewhat closer spoke. mie, there is a thing upon my mind, it has been upon my mind so long, t tho’ I know not when it first came there, .ow that it will out at last. O Annie, beyond all hope, against all chance, t he who left you ten long years ago uld still be living ; well then—let me | speak : eve to see you poor and wanting help: nnot help you as I wish to do ®ess—they say that women are so quick— ®iaps you know what I would have _ you know— ish you for my wife. prove ither to your children: I do think By love me as a father: I am sure Mt I love them as if they were mine | OWN; _I believe, if you were fast my wife, t after all these sad uncertain years, might be still as happy as God | grants any of his creatures. Think upon it: Tam well-to-do—no kin, no care, ‘burthen, save my care for you and yours : I fain would ENOCH ARDEN. 131 And we have known each other all our lives, And I have loved you longer than you know.’ Then answer’d Annie; tenderly she spoke : ‘You have been as God’s good angel in our house. God bless you for it, God reward you for it; Philip, with something happier than my- self. Can one love twice? can you be ever loved As Enoch was? what is it that you ask ?’ ‘IT am content’ he answer’d ‘ to be loved A little after Enoch.’ ‘O”’ she cried, Scared as it were, ‘dear Philip, wait a while: If Enoch comes—but Enoch will not come— Yet wait a year, a year is not so long: Surely I shall be wiser in a year : O wait a little!’ Philip sadly said ‘ Annie, as I have waited all my life I well may wait a little? ‘Nay’ she cried ‘Iam bound: you have my promise—in a year: Will you not bide your year as I bide mine ?’ And Philip answer’d ‘I will bide my year.’ Here both were mute, till Philip glanc- ing up Beheld the dead flame of the fallen day Pass from the Danish barrow overhead ; Then fearing night and chill for Annie, rose And sent his voice beneath him thro’ the wood. Up came the children laden with their spoil ; Then all descended to the port, and there At Annie’s door he paused and gave his hand, Saying gently ‘Annie, when I spoke to you, 132 ENOCH ARDEN. That was your hour of weakness. I was wrong, I am always bound to you, but you are free.’ Then Annie weeping answer’d ‘I am bound.’ She spoke; and in one moment as it were, While yet she went about her household ways, Ev’n as she dwelt upon his latest words, That he had loved her longer than she knew, That autumn into autumn flash’d again, And there he stood once more before her face, Claiming her promise. she ask’d. ‘Yes, if the nuts’ he said ‘ be ripe again: Come out and see.’ But she—she put him off— So much to look to—such a change—a month— Give her a month—she knew that she was bound— A month—no more. his eyes Full of that lifelong hunger, and his voice Shaking a little like a drunkard’s hand, ‘Take your own time, Annie, take your own time.’ And Annie could have wept for pity of him ; And yet she held him on delayingly With many a scarce-believable excuse, Trying his truth and his long-sufferance, Till half-another year had slipt away. ‘Is it a year?’ Then Philip with By this the lazy gossips of the port, Abhorrent of a calculation crost, Began to chafe as at a personal wrong. Some thought that Philip did but trifle with her ; Some that she but held off to draw him on ; And others laugh’d at her and Philip too, As simple folk that knew not their own minds, And one, in whom all evil fancies clung Like serpent eggs together, laughingly | So you will wed me, let it be at once. Would hint at worse in either. Here son . Was silent, tho’ he often look’d his wi But evermore the daughter prest upon To wed the man so dear to all of ther And lift the household out of poverty | And Philip’s rosy face contracting gre Careworn and wan ; and all these thi) fell on her Sharp as reproach. At last one night it chan That Annie on not sleep, but earne:| Pray’d for a sign ‘my Enoch is he gon) Then compass’d round by the blind yj of night | Brook’d not the expectant terror of / heart, Started from bed, and struck herd ) light, Then desperately seized the holy Bool} Suddenly set it wide to find a sign, Suddenly put her finger on the text, |} ‘Under the palm-tree.’ That-was noth} to her: | No meaning there: she closed the Bi] and slept : | When lo! her Enoch sitting on a heig} Under a palm-tree, over him the Sun } ‘He is gone,’ she thought, ‘he is hap | he is singing } 4 Hosanna in the highest : yonder shine} The Sun of Righteousness, and these} palms | Whereof the happy people strowing ci} ‘¢ Hosanna in the highest !””’ Heng | woke, 1) Resolved, sent for him and said wild . him ‘There is no reason why we shoul wed.’ ‘Then for God’s sake,’ he answer’d, » our sakes, So these were wed and merrily rang bells, Merrily rang the bells and they were W But never merrily beat Annie’s heart. A footstep seem’d to fall beside her pa knew not whence ; a whisper on her ear, knew not what; nor loved she to be left ae at home, nor ventured out alone. at ail’d her then, that ere she enter’d, |? often hand dwelt lingeringly on the latch, ring to enter: Philip thought he knew: a doubts and fears were common to her state, Hig with child : but when her child was | = born, n her newchild was as herself renew’d, in the new mother came about her heart, n her good Philip was her all-in-all, | that mysterious instinct wholly died. ae nd where was Enoch? prosperously sail’d ® ship ‘Good Fortune,’ tho’ at setting forth : Biscay, roughly ridging eastward, § © shook { almost overwhelm’d her, yet unvext slipt across the summer of the world, :n after a long tumble about the Cape frequent interchange of foul and fair, passing thro’ the summer world again, : breath of heaven came continually 1 sent her sweetly by the golden isles, silent in her oriental haven. “here Enoch traded for himself, and - bought @int monsters for the market of those | times, ‘ilded dragon, also, for the babes. ess lucky her home-voyage: at first _ indeed ‘oO’ many a fair sea-circle, day by day, rce-rocking, her full-busted figure-head red o’er the ripple feathering from her | bows: mn follow’d calms, and then winds variable, n baffling, a long course of them; and last rm, such as drove her under moonless heavens ENOCH ARDEN. 133 Till hard upon the cry of ‘breakers’ came The crash of ruin, and the loss of all But Enoch and two others. Half the night, Buoy’d upon floating tackle and broken spars, These drifted, stranding on an isle at morn Rich, but the loneliest in a lonely sea. Nowant was there of human sustenance, Soft fruitage, mighty nuts, and nourishing roots ; Nor save for pity was it hard to take The helpless life so wild that it was tame. There in aseaward-gazing mountain-gorge They built, and thatch’d with leaves of palm, a hut, Half hut, half native cavern, three, Set in this Eden of all plenteousness, Dwelt with eternal summer, ill-content. So the For one, the youngest, hardly more than boy, Hurt in that night of sudden ruin and wreck, Lay lingering out a five-years’ death-in- life. They could not leave him. gone, The two remaining found a fallen stem ; And Enoch’s comrade, careless of himself, Fire-hollowing this in Indian fashion, fell Sun-stricken, and that other lived alone. In those two deaths he read God’s warn- ing ‘ wait.’ After he was The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven, The slender coco’s drooping crown of plumes, The lightning flash of insect and of bird, The lustre of the long convolvuluses That coil’d around the stately stems, and ran Ev’n to the limit of the land, the glows And glories of the broad belt of the world, All these he saw; but what he fain had seen 134 He'could not see, the kindly human face, Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard Themyriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl, The league-long roller thundering on the reef, The moving whisper of huge trees that branch’d And blossom’d in the zenith, or the sweep Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave, As down the shore he ranged, or all day long Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge, A shipwreck’d sailor, waiting for a sail : No sail from day to day, but every day The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts Among the palms and ferns and precipices ; The blaze upon the waters to the east ; The blaze upon his island overhead ; The blaze upon the waters to the west ; Then the great stars that globed them- selves in Heaven, The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again The scarlet shafts of sunrise—but no sail. There often as he watch’d or seem’d to watch, So still, the golden lizard on him paused, A phantom made of many phantoms moved Before him haunting him, or he himself Moved haunting people, thingsand places, known Far in a darker isle beyond the line ; The babes, their babble, Annie, the small house, The climbing street, the mill, the leafy lanes, The peacock-yewtree and the lonely Hall, The horse he drove, the boat he sold, the chill November dawns and dewy - glooming downs, The gentle shower, the smell of dying leaves, And the low moan of leaden-colour’d seas. Once likewise, in the ringing of his ears, Tho’ faintly, merrily—far and far away— He heard the pealing of his parish bells ; ENOCH ARDEN. see Then, tho’ he knew not ee sar ay | Shuddering, and when the beaute hateful isle Return’d upon him, had not his poor he Spoken with That, which bemg eve where a Lets none, who speaks with Hin # all Sleuet J Surely the man had died of solitude, a Thus over Enoch’s early-silvering i The sunny and rainy seasons came a] went q Year after year. His hopes to see his oy| And pace the sacred old familiar fields! Not yet had perish’d, when his lon! doom a) Came suddenly to an end. Another sl| (She wanted water) blown by bal winds, Like the Good Fortune, from her Jedi | course, bs Stay’d by this isle, not knowing whi she lay : a For since the mate had seen at early day Across a break on the mist- wreathen it , The silent water slipping from the They sent a crew that landing burst aa In search of stream or fount, and fill’dt. shores =| clamour. Downward from | | mountain gorge | Stept the long-hair’d long-bearded solita j Brown, looking hardly human, a | clad, Muttering and mumbling, idiotlike | } seem’d, i With inarticulate rage, and making da | | They knew not what: and yet he led t| wa “| To where the rivulets of sweet water ral And ever as he mingled with the crea And heard them talking, his long-bound | tongue Was loosen’d, till he made them und stand ; Whom, wien: their casks were fill’d : took aboard : And there the tale he utter’d brokentil With ENOCH ARDEN. 135 e-credited at first but more and more, zed and melted all who listen’d to it: @ clothes they gave him and free pass- age home ; f oft he work’d among the rest and shook isolation from him. None of these ie from his country, or could answer him, 1zestion’d, aught of what he cared to know. dull the voyage was with long delays, ‘vessel scarce sea-worthy ; but ever- more ‘@ fancy fled before the lazy wind urning, till beneath a clouded moon like a lover down thro’ all his blood w in the dewy meadowy morning- breath ngland, blown across her ghostly wall: that same morning officers and men Bed a kindly tax upon themselves, ing the lonely man, and gave him it: moving up the coast they landed him, 1 in that harbour whence he sail’d | before. Fie J here Enoch spoke no word to any one, homeward—home—what home? had 4 | hea home? home, he walk’d. Bright was that afternoon, ny but chill; till drawn thro’ either (ae chasm, ere either haven open’d on the deeps, '’d a sea-haze and whelm’d the world in gray ; off the length of highway on before, left but narrow breadth to left and |) right vither’d holt or tilth or pasturage. the nigh-naked tree the robin piped sonsolate, and thro’ the dripping haze dead weight of the dead leaf bore it down: cker the drizzle grew, deeper the gloom ; tas it seem’d, a great mist-blotted light ed on him, and he came upon the place. Then down the long street having slowly stolen, His heart foreshadowing all calamity, His eyes upon the stones, he reach’d the home Where Annie lived and loved him, and his babes In those far-off seven happy years were born ; But finding neither light nor murmur there (A bill of sale gleam’d thro’ the drizzle) crept Still downward thinking ‘dead or dead to me !’ _ Down to the pool and narrow wharf he went, Seeking a tavern which of old he knew, A front of timber-crost antiquity, So propt, worm-eaten, ruinously old, He thought it must have gone; but he was gone Who kept it; and his widow Miriam Lane, With daily-dwindling profits held the house ; A haunt of brawling seamen once, but now Stiller, with yet a bed for wandering men. There Enoch rested silent many days. But Miriam Lane was good and garru- lous, Nor let him be, but often breaking in, Told him, with other annals of the port, Not knowing—Enoch was so brown, so bow’d, So broken—all the story of his house. His baby’s death, her growing poverty, How Philip put her little ones to school, And kept them in it, his long wooing her, Her slow consent, and marriage, and the birth ; Of Philip’s child: and o’er his counte- nance No shadow past, nor motion: any one, Regarding, well had deem’d he felt the tale Less than the teller: only when she closed ‘Enoch, poor man, was cast away and lost’ * 136 ENOCH ARDEN. He, shaking his gray head pathetically, Repeated muttering ‘cast away and lost ;’ Again in deeper inward whispers ‘lost!’ But Enoch yearn’d to see her face again ; “If I might look on her sweet face again And know that she is happy.’ So the thought Haunted and harass’d him, and drove him forth, At evening when the dull November day Was growing duller twilight, to the hill. There he sat down gazing on all below ; There did a thousand memories roll upon him, Unspeakable for sadness. By and by The ruddy square of comfortable light, Far-blazing from the rear of ~ Philip’s house, Allured him, as the beacon-blaze allures The bird of passage, till he madly strikes Against it, and beats out his weary life. For Philip’s dwelling fronted on the street, The latest house to landward ; but be- hind, With one small gate that open’d on the waste, Flourish’d a little garden square and wall’d : And in it throve an ancient evergreen, A yewtree, and all round it ran a walk Of shingle, and a walk divided it : But Enoch shunn’d the middle walk and stole Up by the wall, behind the yew; and thence That which he better might have shunn’d, if griefs «Like his have worse or better, saw. Enoch For cups and silver on the burnish’d board Sparkled and shone; so genial was the hearth : And on the right hand of the hearth he saw Philip, the slighted suitor of old times, Stout, rosy, with his babe across knees ; And o’er her second father stoopt a A later but a loftier Annie Lee, Fair-hair’d and tall, and from her li hand é Dangled a length of ribbon and a ring To tempt the babe, who rear’d bts re arms, Caught at and ever miss’d it, and) th laugh’d ; And on the left bane of the hearth = The mother glancing often toward | babe, a But turning now and then to speak 4 him, & Her son, who stood beside her tall a) strong, 4 And saying that which pleased him, | he smiled. | Now when the dead man come to | beheld , His wife his wife no more, and saw babe | Hers, yet not his, upon the father’s kni And all the warmth, the peace, | happiness, { And his own children tall and beautif And him, that other, reigning in his Lord of his rights and of his childn love, — Then he, tho’ Miriam Lane had told all, Because things seen are mightier things heard, Stagger’d and shook, holding the bran and fear’d To send abroad a shrill and terrible Which in one moment, like the blast doom, Would shatter all the happiness of hearth. He therefore turning softly like a Lest the harsh shingle should grate w foot, And feeling all along the garden- wl Lest he should swoon and tumble and found, nd there he would have knelt, but _ that his knees e feeble, so that falling prone he dug fingers into the wet earth, and pray’d Woo hard to bear! why did they take me thence ? rod Almighty, blessed Saviour, Thou 't didst uphold me on my lonely isle, ) rold me, Father, in my loneliness Bittle longer! aid me, give me strength to tell her, never to let her know. Pp me not to break in upon her peace. children too! must I not speak to Pe tese 2 ty know me not. myself. Wer: No father’s kiss for me—the girl like her mother, and the boy, my ie son.” I should betray } “here speech and thought and nature fail’d a little, he lay tranced ; but when he rose and paced +k toward his solitary home again, down the long and narrow street he | went iting it in upon his weary brain, tho’ it were the burthen of a song, ‘ot to tell her, never to let her know.’ de was not all unhappy. His resolve bore him, and firm faith, and ever- | more yer from a living source within the |) will, < eating up thro’ all the bitter world, ‘e fountains of sweet water in the sea, t him a living soul. ‘This miller’s | wife’ said to Miriam ‘that you spoke about, 's she no fear that her first husband lives ?’ ENOCH ARDEN. 137 ‘Ay, ay, poor soul’ said Miriam, ‘ fear enow ! If you could tell her you had seen him dead, Why, that would be her comfort ;’ and he thought ‘ After the Lord has call’d me she shall know, I wait His time,’ and Enoch set himself, Scorning an alms, to work whereby to live. Almost to all things could he turn his hand. Cooper he was and carpenter, and wrought To make the boatmen fishing-nets, or help’d At lading and unlading the tall barks, That brought the stinted commerce of those days ; Thus earn’d a scanty living for himself : Yet since he did but labour for himself, Work without hope, there was not life in it Whereby the man could live ; and as the year Roll’d itself round again to meet the day When Enoch had return’d, a languor came Upon him, gentle sickness, gradually Weakening the man, till he could do no Prno0re; But kept the house, his chair, and last his bed. And Enoch bore his weakness cheerfully. For sure no gladlier does the stranded wreck See thro’ the gray skirts of a lifting squall The boat that bears the hope of life approach To save the life despair’d of, than he saw Death dawning on him, and the close of all. For thro’ that dawning gleam’d a kind- lier hope On Enoch thinking ‘after I am gone, Then may she learn I lov’d her to the last.’ He call’d aloud for Miriam Lane and said ‘Woman, I have a secret—only swear, Before I tell you—swear upon the book Not to reveal it, till you see me dead.’ 138 ENOCH ARDEN. ‘Dead,’ clamour’d the good woman, ‘hear him talk ! I warrant, man, that we shall bring you round.’ ‘Swear’ added Enoch sternly book.’ And on the book, half-frighted, Miriam swore. Then Enoch rolling his gray eyes upon her, ‘Did you know Enoch Arden of this town ?’ ‘Know him?’ she said ‘I knew him far away. Ay, ay, I mind him coming down the street ; Held his head high, and cared for no man, he.’ Slowly and sadly Enoch answer’d her ; ‘His head is low, and no man cares for him, I think I have not three days more to live ; Iamthe man.’ At which the woman gave A half-incredulous, half-hysterical cry. ‘You Arden, you ! nay,—sure he was a foot Higher than you be.’ Enoch said again ‘My God has bow’d me down to what I am ; My grief and solitude have broken me ; Nevertheless, know you that I am he Who married—but that name has twice been changed— I married her who married Philip Ray. Sit, listen.’ Then he told her of his voyage, His wreck, his lonely life, his coming back, His gazing in on Annie, his resolve, And how he kept it. As the woman heard, Fast flow’d the current of her easy tears, While in her heart she yearn’d incessantly To rush abroad all round the little haven, Proclaiming Enoch Arden and his woes ; But awed and promise-bounden she for- bore, Saying only ‘See your bairns before yougo! Eh, let me fetch ’em, Arden,’ and arose Eager to bring them down, for Enoch hung A moment on her words, but then replied : ‘on the ‘Woman, disturb me not now | } last, But let me hold my purpose till I die Sit down again ; mark me and understa ] While I have power to speak. I chai! you now, | When you shall see her, tell her that ra Blessing her, praying for her, loving h} Save for the bar between us, loving hi} As when she laid her head beside my 6 And tell my daughter Annie, whom Is Was spent in blessing her and praying her. And tell my son that I died ie And say to Philip that I blest him t He never meant us any thing but g But if my children care to see me deat Who hardly knew me living, let th come, | I am their father; but she must not con For my dead face would vex her a: | And now there is but one of all my Who will embrace me in the world-to-b This hair is his: she cut it off and gave | And I have borne it with me all the years. 7 And thought to bear it with me tom grave ; But now my mind is changed, for I sh see him, My babe in bliss: wherefore when i gone, % Take, give her this, for it may comm her : It will moreover be a token to her, — That I am he.’ He ceased ; and Miriam j Made such a voluble answer promising That once again he roll’d his eyes t her ' Repeating all he wish’d, and once She promised. Then the third night after th While Enoch slumber’d motionless al pale, \ And Miriam watch’d and dozed at nt vals, THE BROOK. 139 ‘e came so loud a calling of the sea, - all the houses in the haven rang. Hwoke, he rose, he spread his arms abroad ng with a loud voice ‘A sail! a sail! 1 saved ;’ and so fell back and spoke no more. | > past the strong heroic soul away. ® seldom seen a costlier funeral. THE BROOK. ‘E, by this brook, we parted; I to the East he for Italy—too late—too late : whom the strong sons of the world despise ; lucky rhymes to him were scrip and it) share, | mellow metres more than cent for feecent 5 could he understand how money breeds, ught it a dead thing; yet himself could make thing that is not as the thing that is. ad he lived! In our schoolbooks we B® say, @ hose that held their heads above the crowd, ®y flourish’d then or then; but life in Bhim ld scarce be said to flourish, only | touch’d such a time as goes before the leaf, fen all the wood stands in a mist of | green, { nothing perfect: yet the brook he ® loved, which, in branding summers of | Bengal, vn the sweet half-English Neilgherry pe) air anted, seems, as I re-listen to it, ttling the primrose fancies of the boy, ‘me that loved him ; for ‘O brook,’ } he says, when they buried him the little port. ‘O babbling brook,’ says Edmund in his rhyme, ‘Whence come you?’ and the brook, why not ? replies. I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally, And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley. By thirty hills I hurry down, Or slip between the ridges, By twenty thorps, a little town, And half a hundred bridges. Till last by Philip’s farm I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever. ‘Poor lad, he died at Florence, quite worn out, Travelling to Naples. There is Darnley bridge, It has more ivy; there the river ; and there Stands Philip’s farm where brook and river meet. I chatter over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles, I bubble into eddying bays, I babble on the pebbles. With many a curve my banks I fret By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set With willow-weed and mallow. I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever. ‘But Philip chatter’d more than brook or bird ; Old Philip ; all about the fields you caught His weary daylong chirping, like the dry High-elbow’d grigs that leap in summer grass. I wind about, and in and out, With here a blossom sailing, And here and there a lusty trout, And here and there a grayling, And here and there a foamy flake Upon me, as I travel With many a silvery waterbreak Above the golden gravel, 140 And draw them all along, and flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever. ‘O darling Katie Willows, his one child ! A maiden of our century, yet most meek ; A daughter of our meadows, yet not coarse ; Straight, but as lissome as a hazel wand ; Her eyes a bashful azure, and her hair In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell Divides threefold to show the fruit within. ‘Sweet Katie, once I did her a good turn, Her and her far-off cousin and betrothed, James Willows, of one name and heart with her. For here I came, twenty years back—the week Before I parted with poor Edmund ; crost By that old bridge which, half in ruins then, Still makes a hoary eyebrow for the gleam Beyondit, where the waters marry—crost, Whistling a random bar of Bonny Doon, And push’d at Philip’s garden-gate. The gate, Half-parted from a weak and scolding hinge, Stuck ; and he clamour’d from a case-. ment, **Run” To Katie somewhere in the walks below, “Run, Katie!” Katie never ran :. she moved To meet me, winding under woodbine bowers, A little flutter’d, with her eyelids down, Fresh apple-blossom, blushing for a boon. ‘What was it? less of sentiment than sense Had Katie; not illiterate ; nor of those Who dabbling in the fount of fictive tears, And nursed by mealy-mouth’d philan- thropies, Divorce the Feeling from her mate the Deed. THE BROOK. ' ‘She told me. She and James quarrel’d. Why? i What cause of quarrel? None, shes no cause ; 4 James had no cause: but when I P the cause, I learnt that James had flickering lousies Which anger’d her. Who anger’d Jan I said. , But Katie snatch’d her eyes at once f mine, And sketching with her slender poir foot Some figure like a wizard pentagram On garden gravel, let my query pass Unclaim’d, in flushing silence, till I as If James were coming. ‘‘ Coming ey day,” She answer’d, ‘‘ ever longing to expla But evermore her father came across — With some long-winded tale, and br him short ; And James departed vext with him her.” I How could I help her? *‘ Would I— it wrong?” (Claspt hands and that petitionary gt Of sweet seventeen subdued me ere spoke) “OQ would I take her father for one he For one half-hour, and let him talk tom And even while she spoke, I saw @ James Made toward us, like a wader in the s Beyond the brook, waist-deep in mead sweet. ‘O Katie, what I suffer’d for your sa For in I went, and call’d old Philip ¢ To show the farm : full willingly he ro He led me thro’ the short sweet- sma lanes | Of his wheat-suburb, babbling as he we He praised his land, his horses, | machines ; | He praised his ploughs, his cows, his he his dogs ; He praised his hens, his geese, his guit hens ; pigeons, who in session on their roofs woved him, bowing at their own pirdeserts : in from the plaintive mother’s teat he If} took | blind and shuddering puppies, naming i each, | naming those, his friends, for whom I they were: ‘Pm crost the common into Darnley r chase show Sir Arthur’s deer. In copse and fern Pinkled the innumerable ear and tail. m, seated on a serpent-rooted beech, pointed out a pasturing colt, and | ie said : “hat was the four-year-old I sold the Squire.” \1 there he told a long long-winded tale how the Squire had seen the colt at grass, 4 how it was the thing his daughter wish’d, Ad how he sent the bailiff to the farm learn the price, and what the price he ask’d, fd how the bailiff swore that he was mad, Jt he stood firm ; at so the matter hung ; : and five days after that T: met the bailiff at the Golden Fleece, 10 then and there had offer’d something more, ‘it he stood firm; and so the matter hung ; > knew the man ; its price ; 2 gave them line: at last (. might be May or April, he forgot, i last of April or the first of May) ‘© found the bailiff riding by the farm, ad, talking from the point, he drew the colt would fetch and how by chance Va him in, Ad there he Geilo wed all his heart with | ale, ntil they closed a bargain, hand in hand. THE BROOK. I4I ‘Then, while I breathed in sight of haven, he, Poor fellow, could he help it? recom- menced, And ran thro’ all the coltish chronicle, Wild Will, Black Bess, Tantivy, Tallyho, Reform, White Rose, Bellerophon, the Jilt, Arbaces, and Phenomenon, and the rest, Till, not to die a listener, I arose, And with me Philip, talking still; andso We turn’d our foreheads from the falling sun, And following our own shadows thrice as long As when they follow’d us from Philip’s door, Arrived, and found the sun of sweet con- tent Re-risen in Katie’s eyes, and all things well. I steal by lawns and grassy plots, I slide by hazel covers; I move the sweet forget-me-nots That grow for happy lovers. I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, Among my skimming swallows ; T make the netted sunbeam dance Against my sandy shallows. I murmur under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses 5 I linger by my shingly bars ; I loiter round my cresses ; And out again I curve and flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever. Yes, men may come and go; and these are gone, All gone. My dearest brother, Edmund, sleeps, Not by the well-known stream and rustic spire, But unfamiliar Arno, and the dome Of Brunelleschi ; sleeps in peace: and he, Poor Philip, of all his lavish waste of words Remains the lean P. W. on his tomb: 142 Katie walks : ‘Have you not heard?’ said Kat I scraped the lichen from it By the long wash of Australasian seas Far off, and holds her head to other stars, And breathes in April—Autumns. All are gone.’ So Lawrence Aylmer, seated on a stile In the long hedge, and rolling in his mind Old waifs of rhyme, and bowing o’er the brook A tonsured head in middle age forlorn, Mused, and was mute. On a sudden a low breath Of tender air made tremble hedge The fragile bindweed-bells and briony rings ; And he look’d up. There stood a maiden near, Waiting to pass. stared On eyes a bashful azure, and on hair In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell Divides threefold to show the fruit with- in: Then, wondering, ask’d her ‘Are you from the farm ?’ ‘Yes’ answer’d she. ‘ Pray stay a little: pardon me ; in the In much amaze he What do they call you?’ ‘Katie.” ‘That were strange. What surname?’ ‘ Wallon ss SNod: ‘That is my name.’ ‘Indeed !’ and here he look’d so ane perplext, That Katie laugh’d, and laughing blush’d, till he Laugh’d also, but as one before he wakes, Who feels a glimmering strangeness in his dream. Then looking at her; ‘Too happy, fresh and fair, Too fresh and fair in our sad world’s best bloom, To be the ghost of one who bore your name About these meadows, twenty years ago.’ AVLMER’S FIELD. nies “we came back. We bought the farm we tenanted befo Am I so like her? so they said on boa) Sir, if you knew her in her English da My mother, as it seems you did, the di That most she loves to talk of, co with me. My brother James is in the harvest-fiel But she—you will be welcome—O, cor indy AYLMER’S, FIELD: 1793. DustT are our frames; and, gilded du our pride Looks only for a moment whole a sound ; { Like that long: buried body of the king Found lying with his urns and ornamen’ Which at a touch of light, an air heaven, | Slipt into ashes, and was found no moi Here is a story which in rougher shaj Came from a grizzled cripple, whom saw Sunning himself in a waste field alone- Old, and a mine of memories—who 2 served, Long since, a bygone Rector of the plac And been himself a part of what he tol Sir AYLMER AYLMER, that almigh man, L The county God—in whose capac hall, Hung with a hundred shields, the fami tree Sprang from the midriff of a prostra king— Whose blazing wyvern weathercock’d #1 spire, Stood from his walls and wing’d his entr gates And swang besides on many a wine sign— Whose eyes from under a pyramidal hea own } her, ii only child, his Edith, whom he loved ihefeiress and not heir regretfully ? ‘he that marries her marries her / name’ stil; fiat somewhat soothed himself and | wife, | wife a faded beauty of the Baths, ipid as the Queen upon a card ; | all of thought and bearing hardly more - n his own shadow in a sickly sun. j@. land of hops and poppy- mingled . = corn, ile about it stirring save a brook ! sleepy land, where under the same | wheel » same old rut would deepen year by year ; fere almost all the village had one /7> name ; ere Aylmer followed Aylmer at the Hall Averill Averill at the Rectory vice over ; so that Rectory and Hall, ind in an immemorial intimacy, had made #> hoar hair of the Baronet bristle up ith horror, worse than had he heard his priest land. And might not Averill, had he will’d | it so, mewhere beneath his own low range of roofs, ive also set his many-shielded tree ? ere was an Aylmer-Averill marriage | once. nen the red rose was redder than itself, id York’s white rose as red as Lancas- 1 il ter’s, AVLMER’S FIELD. 143 With wounded peace which each had prick’d to death. ‘Not proven’ Averill said, or laughingly ‘Some other race of Averills ’—prow’n or no, What cared he? what, if other or the same ? He lean’d not on his fathers but himself. But Leolin, his brother, living oft With Averill, and a year or two before Call’d to the bar, but ever call’d away By one low voice to one dear neighbour- hood, Would often, in his walks with Edith, claim A distant kinship to the gracious blood That shook the heart of Edith hearing him. Sanguine he was: a but less vivid hue Than of that islet in the chestnut-bloom Flamed in his cheek; and eager eyes, that still Took joyful note of all things joyful, beam/’d, Beneath a manelike mass of rolling gold, Their best and brightest, when they dwelt on hers, Edith, whose pensive beauty, perfect else, But subject to the season or the mood, Shone like a mystic star between the less And greater glory varying to and fro, We know not wherefore; bounteously made, And yet so finely, that a troublous touch Thinn’d, or would seem to thin her in a day, A joyous to dilate, as toward the light. And these had been together from the first. Leolin’s first nurse was, five years after, hers : So much the boy foreran; but when his date Doubled her own, for want of playmates, he (Since Averill was a decad and a half His elder, and their parents underground) Had tost his ball and flown his kite, and roll’d 144 His hoop to pleasure Edith, with her dipt Against the rush of the air in the prone swing, Made blossom- ball or daisy-chain, ar- ranged Her garden, sow’d her name and kept it green In living letters, told her fairy-tales, Show’d her the fairy footings on the grass, The little dells of cowslip, fairy palms, The petty marestail forest, fairy pines, Or from the tiny pitted target blew What look’d a flight of fairy arrows aim’d All at one mark, all hitting: make-be- lieves For Edith and himself: or else he forged, But that was later, boyish histories Of battle, bold adventure, dungeon, wreck, Flights, terrors, sudden rescues, and true love Crown’d after trial; sketches rude and faint, But where a passion yet unborn perhaps Lay hidden as the music of the moon Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale, And thus together, save for college-times Or Temple-eaten terms, a couple, fair As ever painter painted, poet sang, Or Heaven in lavish bounty moulded, grew. And more and more, the maiden woman- grown, He wasted hours with Averill ; when first The tented winter-field was broken up Into that phalanx of the summer spears That soon should wear the garland ; there again When burr and bine were gather’d ; lastly there At Christmas ; ever welcome at the Hall, On whose dull sameness his full tide of outh Broke with a phosphorescence charming even My lady ; and the Baronet yet had laid No bar between them: dull and self- involved, AYVLMER’S FIELD. there, - Tall and erect, but bending from his height With half-allowing smiles for all the world, And mighty courteous in the main—his pride Lay deeper than to wear it as his rmg— He, like an Aylmer in his Aylmerism, Would care no more for Leolin’s walking _ with her Than for his old Newfoundland’s, when they ran To loose him at the stables, for he rose Twofooted at the limit of his chain, Roaring to make a third : and how should Love, Whom the cross-lightnings of four chance- | met eyes Flash into fiery life from nothing, follow Such dear familiarities of dawn? Seldom, but when he does, Master of all. So these young hearts not knowing that | they loved, EY Not she at least, nor conscious of a bar — Between them, nor by plight or broken © ring Bound, but an immemorial intimacy, _—_| Wander’d at will, and oft accompanied © By Averill: his, a brother’s love, that hun = | With wings of brooding shelter o’er her | peace, Might have been other, save for Leolin’s— Who knows? but so they wander’d, hour 7 by hour Gather’d the blossom that rebloom’d, aril drank - | The magic cup that fill’d itself anew. A whisper half reveal’d her to herselll | For out beyond her lodges, where the | brook Vocal, with here and there a silence, ran / By sallowy rims, arose the labourers” | homes, 7 A frequent haunt of Edith, on low knoll That dimpling died into each other, huts | At random scatter’d, each a nest im | bloom. | be) art, her hand, her counsel all had wrought ut them : here was one that, summer- blanch’d, parcel-bearded with the traveller’s- ) den, parcel ivy-clad ; and here warm-blue breathings of a hidden hearth :e from a bower of vine and honey- suckle : , look’d all rosetree, and another wore ose-set robe of jasmine sown with | Stars: | had a rosy sea of gillyflowers tat it; this, a milky-way on earth, «{ visions in the Northern dreamer’s heavens, y y-avenue climbing to the doors ; , almost to the martin-haunted eaves | mmer burial deep in hollyhocks ; 41, its own charm ; and Edith’s every- | ‘where ; Edith ever visitant with him, «but less loved than Edith, of her | *ypoor : »she—so lowly-lovely and so loving, jnly responsive when the loyal hand : from the clay it work’d in as she past, icsowing hedgerow texts and passing | by. & dealing goodly counsel from a height © makes the lowest hate it, but a voice ¥Homfort and an open hand of help, >lendid presence flattering the poor . roofs ‘red as theirs, but kindlier than them- | selves Piling wife or wailing infancy ‘ ld bedridden palsy,—was adored ; ‘loved for her and for himself. —but I cared not for it. O pardon me, I seem to be ungraciousness itself.’ ‘Take it’ she added sweetly, ‘tho’ his gift ; For I am more ungracious ev’n than you, I care not for it either ;’ and he said ‘Why then I love it:’ but Sir Aylmer past, And neither loved nor liked the thing he heard. AVLMER’S FIELD. The next day came a neigh Blues and reds They talk’d of : blues were sure of) thought : Then of the latest fox—where star killd In such a bottom: ‘ Peter had the t My Peter, first :’ and did SirAylmer That great pock-pitten fellow hag caught ? Then made his pleasure echo, ha hand, | And rolling as it were the substance Between his palms a moment up down— ‘The birds were warm, the birds warm upon Aah | We have him now : and had Sir | heard— : Nay, but he must—the land was ri of it— This blacksmith border -marriage- they knew— Raw from the nursery—who could a child ? That cursed France with her egaliti| And did Sir Aylmer (deferentially With nearing chair and lower’d a think— For people talk’d—that it was wholh To let that handsome fellow Averill, So freely with his daughter? ff talk’d— : The boy might get a notion into hi The girl might be entangled ere she] Sir Aylmer Aylmer slowly stifl spoke : ‘ The girl and boy, Sir, know thei \ ences !’ ‘Good,’ said his friend, ‘but we and he, ‘ Enough, | More than enough, Sir! I can gual) own.’ They parted, and Sir Aylmer A watch’d. Pale, for on her the thunders ¢ house Had fallen first, was Edith that night ; | as the Jephtha’s daughter, a rough piece |rly rigid colour, under which lrawing by the counter door to that h Leolin open’d, she cast back upon him f2ous glance, and vanish’d. - one it in a burst of unexpected storm, relted with outrageous epithets, ng beheld the Powers of the House ither side the hearth, indignant; wher; ag her false cheek with a featherfan, glaring, by his own stale devil spurr’d, like a beast hard-ridden, breathing | hard. enerous, dishonourable, base, mptuous! trusted as he was with her, ole succeeder to their wealth, their lands, ast remaining pillar of their house, ne transmitter of their ancient name, child? ‘Our child!’ ‘Our _heiress!’ ‘ Ours !’ for still, echoes from beyond a hollow, came icklier iteration. Last he said, ,mark me! for your fortunes are to make. ar you shall not make them out of | @mine. Inasmuch as you have practised on | her, xt her, made her half forget herself, ve from her duty to herself and us— 7s in an Aylmer deem’d impossible, is we track ourselves—I say that this— I withdraw favour and countenance you and yours for ever—shall you do. hen you see her—but you shall not see her— ou shall write, and not to her, but | ome: you shall say that having spoken with me, after look’d into yourself, you find He, as AVLMER’S FIELD. 147 That you meant nothing—as indeed you know That you meant nothing. Such a match as this ! Impossible, prodigious!’ These were words, As meted by his measure of himself, Arguing boundless forbearance : which, And Leolin’s horror-stricken answer, ‘I So foul a traitor to myself and her, Never oh never,’ for about as long As the wind-hover hangs in balance, paused Sir Aylmer reddening from the storm within, Then broke all bonds of courtesy, and crying ‘Boy, should I find you by my doors again, My men shall lash you from them like a dog ; Hence !’ with a sudden execration drove The footstool from before him, and arose ; So, stammering ‘scoundrel’ out of teeth that ground As in a dreadful dream, while Leolin still Retreated half-aghast, the fierce old man Follow’d, and under his own lintel stood Storming with lifted hands, a hoary face Meet for the reverence of the hearth, but now, Beneath a pale and unimpassion’d moon, Vext with unworthy madness, and de- form’d. after Slowly and conscious of the rageful eye That watch’d him, till he heard the ponderous door Close, crashing with long echoes thro’ the land, Went Leolin; then, his passions all in flood And masters of his motion, furiously Down thro’ the bright lawns to his brother’s ran, And foam’d away his heart at Averill’s ear : Whom Averill solaced as he might, amazed : 148 The man was his, had been his father’s, friend : He must have seen, himself had seen it long ; He must have known, himself had known : besides, He never yet had set his daughter forth Here in the woman-markets of the west, Where our Caucasians let themselves be sold. Some one, he thought, had slander’d Leolin to him. ‘Brother, for I have loved you more as son Than brother, let me tell you: I myself— What is their pretty saying ? jilted, is it? Jilted I was: I say it for your peace. Pain’d, and, as bearing in myself the shame The woman should have borne, humili- ated, I lived for years a stunted sunless life ; Till after our good parents past away Watching your growth, I seem’d again to grow. Leolin, I almost sin in envying you : The very whitest lamb in all my fold Loves you: I know her: the worst thought she has Is whiter even than her pretty hand : She must prove true : for, brother, where two fight The strongest wins, and truth and love are strength, And you are happy: let her parents be.’ But Leolin cried out the more upon them— Insolent, brainless, heartless ! heiress, wealth, Their wealth, their heiress ! wealth enough was theirs For twenty matches. Were he lord of this, Why twenty boys and girls should marry on it, And forty blest ones bless him, and him- self Be wealthy still, ay wealthier. lieved ; He be- AYVLMER’S FIELD. This filthy marriage-hindering Ma made ; The harlot of the cities: nature crc Was mother of the foul adulteries That saturate soul with body. 1 too! name, Their ancient name ! proud ; its worth they mig Was being Edith’s. Ah how pal had look’d Darling, to-night ! they must have # her Beyondall tolerance. Theseold phe: # lords, These partridge- breeders of a tho years, Who had mildew’d in their thous doing nothing Since Egbert—why, the greater disgrace ! Fall back upon a name! rest, rot in Not feep it noble, make it nobler? # With such a vantage-ground for noble He had known a man, a quintesser man, The life of all—who madly loved—an Thwarted by one of these old father- Had rioted his life out, and made an He would not do it ! her sweet face # faith Held him from that: but he had po: he knew it: Back would he to hisstudies, makean Name, fortune too: the world should of him To shame these mouldy Aylmers in graves : Chancellor, or what is greatest woul be— ‘O brother, I am grieved to learn grief— Give me my fling, and let me say my At which, like one that sees his | eXCess, And easily forgives it as his own, He laugh’d; and then was mute; presently Wept like a storm: and honest Av} seeing | low his brother’s mood had fallen, fetch’d told vintage—when ¢izs Aylmer came of | drank and past it; till at length the | two, Leolin flamed and fell again, agreed men. i 2n angry dream this kindlier glow jet once by night again the lovers met, ‘ilous meeting under the tall pines asion, no, nor death could alter her: passionately hopefuller, would go, ur for his own Edith, and return gach a sunlight of prosperity Jiaould not be rejected. ‘Write to me ! 3 loved me, and because I love their child _hate me: there is war between us, | dear, fh breaks all bonds but ours; we — must remain d to one another.’ So they talk’d, blew ; cain of heaven, and their own bitter tears, 5, and the careless rain of heaven, mixt 1 their faces, as they kiss’d each other itkness, and above them roar’d the pine. — Leolin went; and as we task our- selves arn a language known but smatter- _ ingly brases here and there at random, | toil’d AVLMER’S FIELD. 149 Mastering the lawless science of our law, That codeless myriad of precedent, That wilderness of single instances, Thro’ which a few, by wit or fortune led, May beat a pathway out to wealth and fame. The jests, that flash’d about the pleader’s roomole Lightning of the hour, the pun, the scurrilous tale, — Old scandals buried now seven decads deep In other scandals that have lived and died, And left the living scandal that shall die— Were dead to him already ; bent as he was To make disproof of scorn, and strong in hopes, And prodigal of all brain-labour he, Charier of sleep, and wine, and exercise, Except when for a breathing-while at eve, Some niggard fraction of an hour, he ran Beside the river-bank : and then indeed Harder the times were, and the hands of power Were bloodier, and the according hearts of men Seem’d harder too; but the soft river- breeze, Which fann’d the gardens of that rival rose Yet fragrant in a heart remembering His former talks with Edith, on him breathed Far purelier in his rushings to and fro, After his books, to flush his blood with air, Then to his books again. . cousin, Half-sickening of his pension’d afternoon, Drove in upon the student once or twice, Ran a Malayan amuck against the times, Had golden hopes for France and all mankind, Answer’d all queries touching those at home With a heaved shoulder and a saucy smile, And fain had haled him out into the world, And air’d him there: his nearer friend would say ‘Screw not the chord too sharply lest it snap.’ My lady’s 150 Then left alone he pluck’d her dagger forth From where his worldless heart had kept it warm, Kissing his vows upon it like a knight. And wrinkled benchers often talk’d of him Approvingly, and prophesied his rise : For heart, I think, help’d head: her letters too, Tho’ far between, and coming fitfully Like broken music, written as she found Or made occasion, being strictly watch’d, Charm’d him thro’ every labyrinth till he saw An end, a hope, a light breaking upon him, But they that cast her spirit into flesh, Her worldly-wise begetters, plagued them- _ selves To sell her, those good parents, for her good. Whatever eldest-born of rank or wealth Might lie within their compass, him they lured Into their net made pleasant by the baits Of gold and beauty, wooing him to woo. So month by month the noise about their doors, And distant blaze of those dull banquets, made The nightly wirer of their innocent hare Falter before he took it. All in vain. Sullen, defiant, pitying, wroth, return’d Leolin’s rejected rivals from their suit So often, that the folly taking wings Slipt o’er those lazy limits down the wind With rumour, and became in other fields A mockery to the yeomen over ale, And laughter to their lords: but those at home, As hunters round a hunted creature draw The cordon close and closer toward the death, Narrow’d her goings out and comings in ; Forbad her first the house of Averill, Then closed her access to the wealthier farms, Last from her own home-circle of the poor AYLMER’S FIELD. | Listless in all despondence,—read ; | They barr’d her : cheek : | Kept colour: wondrous ! but, O my: What amulet drew her down to th: oak, So old, that twenty years befonedll Falling had let appear the brand of a yet she bore it: y Of touchwood, with a single flouri spray. Raking in that millennial touchwood Found for himself a bitter treasure-ti Writhing a letter from his child, for y Came at the moment Leolin’s emiss; A crippled lad, and coming turn’d t But scared with threats of jail and If gave To him that fluster’d his poor parish }} The letter which he brought, and s#} besides To play their go-between as. heretofc(h Nor let them know themselves betra hh and then, Soul-stricken at their kindness to went Hating his own lean heart and miseri Thenceforward oft from out a de dream The father panting woke, and oft, | Aroused the black republic on his eli Sweeping the frothfly from the fe brush’d the dim meadow toward treasure-trove, Seized it, took home, and to my lady who made . A downward crescent ofher minion mo Thro’ tore, | As if the living passion symbol’d ther Were living nerves to feel the rent; ; } burnt, Now chafing at his own great self det Now striking on huge stumbling-block scorm ae ‘j)byisms, and dear diminutives er’d all over the vocabulary lj¥ch a love as like a chidden child, l much wailing, hush’d itself at last less ofanswer: then tho’ Averill wrote ‘| bad him with good heart sustain ‘lt ~=himself— vassionately restless came and went, j-ustling once at night about the place, i> by a keeper shot at, slightly hurt, ‘fg return’d: nor was it well for her ij to the garden now, and grove of pines, h’d even there ; and one was set to + watch ®watcher, and Sir Aylmer watch’d them all, ifbitterer from his readings: once indeed, i§n’d with his wines, or taking pride in her, sfo0k’d so sweet, he kiss’d her tenderly i#knowing what possess’d him: that one kiss i@Leolin’s one strong rival upon earth ; ‘Bided, for my lady follow’d suit, *d hope’s returning rose: and then ensued irtin’s summer of his faded love, @deal by kindness ; after this §:ldom crost his child without a sneer ; nies : r one kindly smile, one kindly word : #.at the gentle creature shut from all charitable use, and face to face twenty months of silence, slowly lost zreatly cared to lose, her hold on life. ‘some low fever ranging round to spy weakness of a people or a house, flies that haunt a wound, or deer, or _ men, most all that is, hurting the hurt— Christ as we believe him—found the | girl flung her down upon a couch of fire, recareless of the household facesnear, ‘crying upon the name of Leolin, jand with her the race of Aylmer, past. AVLMER’S FIELD. mother flow’d in shallower acrimo- |' 151 Star to star vibrates light: may soul to soul Strike thro’ a finer element of her own ? So,—from afar,—touch as at once? or why That night, that moment, when she named his name, Did the keen shriek ‘ Yes love, yes, Edith, yesy Shrill, till the comrade of his chambers woke, And came upon him half-arisen from sleep, With a weird bright eye, sweating and trembling, His hair as it were crackling into flames, His body half flung forward in pursuit, And his long arms stretch’d as to grasp a flyer : Nor knew he wherefore he had made the ery’; And being much befool’d and idioted By the rough amity of the other, sank As into sleep again. The second day, My lady’s Indian kinsman rushing in, A breaker of the bitter news from home, Found a dead man, a letter edged with death Beside him, and the dagger which himself Gave Edith, redden’d with no bandit’s blood : ‘From Edith’ was engraven on the blade. Then Averill went and gazed upon his death. And when he came again, his flock be- lieved— Beholding how the years which are not Time’s Had blasted him—that many thousand days Were clipt by horror from his term of life. Yet the sad mother, for the second death Scarce touch’d her thro’ that nearness of the first, And being used to find her pastor texts, Sent to the harrow’d brother, praying him To speak before the people of her child, And fixt the Sabbath. Darkly that day rose : AS? Autumn’s mock sunshine of the faded woods Was all the life of it; for hard on these, A breathless burthen of low-folded heavens Stifled and chill’d at once; but every roof Sent out a listener: many too had known Edith among the hamlets round, and since The parents’ harshness and the hapless loves And double death were widely murmur’d, left Their own gray tower, or plain-faced tabernacle, To hear him ; all in mourning these, and those With blots of it about them, ribbon, glove Or kerchief; while the church,—one night, except For greenish glimmerings thro’ thelancets, —made Still paler the pale head of him; who tower’d Above them, with his hopes in either grave. Long o’er his bent brows linger’d Averill, His face magnetic to the hand from which Livid he pluck’d it forth, and labour’d thro’ His brief prayer-prelude, gave the verse ’ ‘ Behold, Your house is left unto you desolate !’ But lapsed into so long a pause again As half amazed half frighted all his flock : Then from his height and loneliness of grief Bore down in flood, and dash’d his angry heart Against the desolations of the world. Never since our bad earth became one sea, Which rolling o’er the palaces of the proud, And all but those who knew the living God—. Eight that were left to make a purer world— AYVLMER’S FIELD. . . ‘i she ea le When since had flood, fire, earthquake, thunder, wrought Such waste and havock as the idolatriéaln Which from the low light of mortality Shot up their shadows to the Heaven of Heavens, And worshipt their own darkness in the _ Highest? ‘Gash thyself, priest, and honour thy brute Baal, And to thy worst self sacrifice thyself, For with thy worst self hast thou clothed thy God. Then came a Lord in no wise like to Baal. The babe shall lead thelion. Surely now The wilderness shall blossom as the rose. Crown thyself, worm, and worship thine own lusts !— No coarse and blockish God of acreage _ Stands at thy gate for thee to grovel to— Thy God is far diffused in noble groves And princely halls, and farms, and tov lawns, And heaps of living gold that daily grow, | And title-scrolls and gorgeous heraldries. In such a shape dost thou behold thy | God. Thou wilt not-gash thy flesh for Az ; i. thine Fares richly, in fine linen, not a hair Ruffled upon the scarfskin, even while The deathless ruler of thy dying house Is wounded to the death that cannot die ; | And tho’ thounumberest with the followers Of One who cried, ‘‘ Leave all and follags me. ) Thee therefore with His light about thy feet, Thee with His message ringing in thine ears, Thee shall thy brother man, the Lord from | Heaven, ] Born of a village girl, carpenter’s son, Wonderful, Prince of peace, the Mighty God, Count the more base idolater of the two; Crueller: as not passing thro’ the fire Bodies, but souls—thy children’s—thro’ | the smoke. AVLMER’S FIELD. 153 The blight of low desires—darkening thine own To thine own likeness ; or if one of these, Thy better born unhappily from thee, Should, as by miracle, grow straight and fair— Friends, I was bid to speak of such a one By those who most have cause to sorrow for her— Fairer than Rachel by the palmy well, Fairer than Ruth among the fields of corn, Fair as the Angel that said ‘‘ Hail !”’ she _. seem/’d, Who entering fill’d the house with sudden light. For so mine own was brighten’d: where indeed The roof so. lowly but that beam of Heaven Dawn’d sometime thro’ the doorway ? whose the babe Too ragged to be fondled on her lap, Warm’d at her bosom? The poor child of shame The common care whom no one cared for, leapt To greet her, wasting his forgotten heart, As with the mother he had never known, In gambols ; for her fresh and innocent eyes Had such a star of morning in their blue, That all neglected places of the field Broke into nature’s music when they saw her. Low was her voice; but won mysterious way Thro’ the seal’d ear to which a louder one Was all but silence—free of alms her hand— i The hand that robed your cottage-walls with flowers Has often toil’d to clothe your little ones ; How often placed upon the sick man’s brow Cool’d it, or laid his feverous pillow smooth ! Had you one sorrow and she shared it not ? One burthen and she would not lighten it? One spiritual doubt she did not soothe? Or when some heat of difference sparkled out, How sweetly would she glide between your wraths, And steal you from each other! for she walk’d Wearing the light yoke of that Lord of love, Who still’d the rolling wave of Galilee ! And one—of him I was not bid to speak— Was always with her, whom you also knew. Him too you loved, for he was love. And these had been together from the first ; They might have been together till the last. Friends, this frail bark of ours, when sorely tried, May wreck itself without the pilot’s guilt, Without the captain’s knowledge: hope with me. Whose shame is that, if he went hence with shame ? Nor mine the fault, if losing both of these I cry to vacant chairs and widow’d walls, ‘¢ My house is left unto me desolate.” ’ worthy While thus he spoke, his hearers wept ; but some, Sons of the glebe, with other frowns than those That knit themselves for summer shadow, scowl’d At their great lord. He, when it seem’d he saw No pale sheet-lightnings from afar, but fork’d Of the near storm, and aiming at his head, Sat anger-charm’d from sorrow, soldier- like, Erect : but when the preacher’s cadence flow’d Softening thro’ all the gentle attributes Of his lost child, the wife, who watch’d his face, 154 Paled at a sudden twitch of his iron mouth ; And ‘O pray God that he hold up’ she thought ‘Or surely I shall shame myself and him.’ ‘Nor yours the blame—for who beside your hearths Can take her place—if echoing me you ey _ Our house is left unto us desolate”? But thou, O thou that killest, hadst thou known, O thou that stonest, hadst thou under- stood The things belonging to thy peace and ours ! Is there no prophet but the voice that “faecalis Doom upon kings, or in the waste ‘‘ Re- pent’? Is not our own child on the narrow way, Who down to those that saunter in the’ broad Cries ‘‘ Come up hither,” as a prophet to us ? Is there no stoning save with flint and rock ? Yes, as the dead we weep for testify— No desolation but by sword and fire ? Yes, as your moanings witness, and my- self Am lonelier, darker, earthlier for my loss. Give me your prayers, for he is past your prayers, Not past the living fount of pity in Heaven. But I that thought myself long-suffering, meek, Exceeding ‘poor in spirit ’?—how the words Have twisted back upon themselves, and mean Vileness, we are grown so proud—I wish’d my voice A rushing tempest of the wrath of God To blow these sacrifices thro’ the world— . Sent like the twelve-divided concubine To inflame the tribes: but there— out yonder—earth AVLMER’S FIELD. | Ignorant, devising their own daughter’s — Lightens from her own central Hell—O” there The red fruit of an old idolatry— a The heads of chiefs and princes fall so — fast, | They cling ‘together i in the ghastly sack The land all shambles—naked marriages” Flash from the bridge, and ever- murder’d France, 7 By shores that darken with the gathering wolf, ; Runs in a river of blood to the sick sea. — Is this a time to madden madness then? Was this a time for these to flaunt their — pride ? & May Pharaoh’s darkness, folds as dense as those Which hid the Holiest from the peoples . eyes = Ere the great death, shroud this great sin from all! * Doubtless our narrow world must canvass it's O rather pray for those and pity them, __ Who, thro’ their own desire accomplish’d, bring Ps Their own gray hairs with sorrow to the grave— Pd Who broke the bond which they desired — to break, 4 Which else had link’d their race with times to come— : Who wove coarse webs to snare her ~ purity, Grossly contriving their dear daughter’ sf - good— 7 Poor souls, and knew not what they did, = but sat death ! May not that earthly chastisement suffice? Have not our love and reverence le them bare? . Will not another take their heritage ? Will there be children’s laughter in thes hall For ever and for ever, or one stone Left on another, or is it a light thing That I, their guest, their host, their ~ ancient friend, . i AVLMER’S FIELD. I made by these the last of all my race, Must cry to these the last of theirs, as | cried ‘Christ ere His agony to those that swore Not by the temple but the gold, and made ‘Their own traditions God, and slew the Lord, And left their memories a world’s curse— | “* Behold, Your house is left unto you desolate ”’?’ Ended he had not, but she brook’d no more : Long since her heart had beat remorse- lessly, Her crampt-up sorrow pain’d her, and a sense Of meanness in her unresisting life. Then their eyes vext her ; for on entering ‘He had cast the curtains of their seat aside— Black velvet of the costliest—she herself Had seen to that: fain had she closed them now, Yet dared not stir to do it, only near’d Her husband inch by inch, but when she laid, Wifelike, her hand in one of his, he veil’d His face with the other, and at once, as falls A creeper when the prop is broken, fell The woman shrieking at his feet, and swoon’d. Then her own people bore along the nave ‘Her pendent hands, and narrow meagre face Seam’d with the shallow cares. of fifty years : |And her the Lord of all the landscape round Ev’n to its last horizon, and of all ‘Who peerd at him so keenly, follow’d | out Tall and erect, but in the middle aisle Reel’, as a footsore ox in crowded ways Stumbling across the market to his death, Unpitied ; for he groped as blind, and seem’d | ai about to fall, grasping the pews } 155 And oaken finials till he touch’d the door ; Yet to the lychgate, where his chariot stood, Strode from the porch, tall and erect again. But nevermore did either pass the gate Save under pall with bearers. In one month, Thro’ weary and yet ever wearier hours, The childless mother went to seek her child ; And when he felt the silence of his house About him, and the change and not the change, And those fixt eyes of painted ancestors Staring for ever from their gilded walls On him their last descendant, his own head Began to droop, to fall ; the man became Imbecile ; his one word was ‘ desolate ;’ Dead for two years before his death was he ; But when the second Christmas came, escaped His keepers, and the silence which he felt, To find a deeper in the narrow gloom By wife and child; nor wanted at his end The dark retinue reverencing death At golden thresholds; nor from tender hearts, And those who sorrow’d o’er a vanish’d race, Pity, the violet on the tyrant’s grave. Then the great Hall was wholly broken down, And the broad woodland parcell’d into farms ; And where the two contrived daughter’s good, Lies the hawk’s cast, the mole has made his run, The hedgehog underneath the plantain bores, The rabbit fondles his own harmless face, The slow-worm creeps, and the thin weasel there Follows the mouse, and all is open field. “ their 156 SEA DREAMS. A ciTy clerk, but gently born and bred ; His wife, an unknown artist’s orphan child— One babe was theirs, a Margaret, three years old: They, thinking that her clear germander eye Droopt in the giant-factoried city-gloom, Came, with a month’s leave given them, to the sea: For which his gains were dock’d, however small : Small were his gains, and hard his work ; ; besides, Their slender household fortunes (for the man Had risk’d his little) like the little thrift, Trembled in perilous places o’er a deep: And oft, when sitting all alone, his face Would darken, as he cursed his credulous- ness, And that one unctuous mouth which lured him, rogue, To buy strange shares in some Peruvian mine. Now seaward-bound for health they gain’d a coast, All sandand cliff and deep-inrunning cave, At close of day ; slept, woke, and went the next, Sabbath, pious variers from the church, To chapel ; where a heated pulpiteer, Not preaching simple Christ tosimple men, Announced the coming doom, and ful- minated Against the scarlet woman and her creed ; For sideways up he swung his arms, and shriek’d ‘Thus, thus with violence,’ ev’n ‘as if he held The Apocalyptic millstone, and himself Were that great Angel; ‘Thus with violence Shall Babylon be cast into the sea ; Then comes the close.’ The gentle- hearted wife The SEA DREAMS. Sat shuddering at the ruin of a world ; He at his own: but when the wordy storm Had ended, forth they came and paced the shore, Ran in and out the long sea-framing caves, Drank the large air, and saw, but scarce believed (The sootflake of so many a summer still Clung to their fancies) that they saw, the sea. So now on sand they walk’d, and now on cliff, Lingering about the thymy promontories, Till all the sails were darken’d in the west, And rosed in the east: then homeward and to bed : Where she, who kept a tender Christian hope, Haunting a holy text, and still to that Returning, as the bird returns, at night, ‘Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,’ Said, ‘Love, forgive him:’ but he did not speak ; And silenced by that silence lay the wife, Remembering her dear Lord who died for _ all, . And musing on the little lives of men, And how they mar this little by their feuds. But while the two were sleeping, a full _ tide Rose with ground-swell, which, on the foremost rocks } Touching, upjetted in spirts of wild sea- smoke, And scaled in sheets of wasteful foam, and fell In vast sea-cataracts—ever and anon Dead claps of thunder from within the cliffs Heard thro’ the living roar. At this the babe, Their Margaret cradled near them, wail’d and woke The mother, and the father suddenly cried, ‘A wreck, a wreck!’ then turn’d, and groaning said, ‘Forgive ! How many will say, ‘‘ for- give,” and find A sort of absolution in the sound “SEA DREAMS. 157 To hate a little longer! No; the sin That neither God nor man can well for- give, Hypocrisy, I saw it in him at once. Is it so true that second thoughts are best? Not first, and third, which are a riper first ? Too ripe, too late! they come too late for use. Ah love, there surely lives in man and beast Something divine to warn them of their foes : And such a sense, when first I fronted him, Said, ‘‘ Trust him not ;” but after, when I came To know him more, I lost it, knew him - less ; Fought with what seem’d my own un- charity ; Sat at his table; drank his costly wines ; Made more and more allowance for his talk ; Went further, fool ! and trusted him with all, All my poor scrapings from a dozen years Of dust and deskwork : there is no such mine, None; but a gulf of ruin, swallowing gold, Not making. Ruin’d! ruin’d! the sea roars Ruin: a fearful night !’ ‘Not fearful ; fair,’ Said the good wife, ‘if every star in heaven Can make it fair: you do but hear the tide. Had you ill dreams ?’ *O yes,’ he said, ‘I dream’d Of such a tide swelling toward the land, And I from out the boundless outer deep Swept with it to the shore, and enter’d one Of those dark caves that run beneath the cliffs. I thought the motion of the boundless deep Bore thro’ the cave, and I was heaved upon it In darkness : then I saw one lovely star Larger and larger. ‘‘ What a world,” I thought, “To live in !” but in moving on I found Only the landward exit of the cave, Bright with the sun upon the stream beyond : And near the light a giant woman sat, All over earthy, like a piece of earth, A pickaxe in her hand: then out I slipt Into a land all sun and blossom, trees As high as heaven, and every bird that sings : And here the night-light flickering in my eyes Awoke me.’ ‘That was then your dream,’ she said, ‘Not sad, but sweet.’ ‘So sweet, I lay,” said he, ‘And mused upon it, drifting up the stream In fancy, till I slept again, and pieced The broken vision; for I dream’d that still The motion of the great deep bore me on, And that the woman walk’d upon the brink : I wonder’d at her strength, and ask’d her of it: “*It came,” she said, ‘‘ by working in the mines :” : O then to ask her of my shares, I thought; And ask’d; but not a word; she shook her head. And then the motion of the current ceased, And there was rolling thunder ; and we reach’d A mountain, like a wall of burs and thorns ; But she with her strong feet up the steep hill Trod out a path: I follow’d; and at top She pointed seaward: there a fleet of glass, That seem’d a fleet of jewels under me, Sailing along before a gloomy cloud That not one moment ceased to thunder, past Insunshine: right across its track there lay, Down in the water, a long reef of gold, Or what seem’d gold: and I was glad at first 158 To think that in our often-ransack’d world Still so much gold was left; and then I fear’d Lest the gay navy there should splinter on it, And fearing waved my arm to warn them off ; An idle signal, for the brittle fleet (I thought I could have died to save it) near’d, Touch’d, clink’d, and clash’d, and vanish’d, and I woke, I heard the clash so clearly. Now I see My dream was Life; the woman honest Work ; And my poor venture but a fleet of glass Wreck’d on a reef of visionary gold.’ ‘Nay,’ said the kindly wife to comfort him, ‘You raised your arm, you tumbled down and broke The glass with little Margaret’s medicine in it ; And, breaking that, you made and broke your dream : A trifle makes a dream, a trifle breaks.’ “ No trifle,’ groan’d the husband; ‘yesterday I met him suddenly in the street, and ask’d That which I ask’d the woman in my dream. Like her, he shook his head. the books !” He dodged me with a long and loose account. “‘ The books, the books!” but he, he could not wait, Bound on a matter he of life and death: When the great Books (see Daniel seven and ten) Were open’d, I should find he meant me well ; And then began to bloat himself, and ooze All over with the fat affectionate smile ‘«Show me That makes the widow lean. ‘‘My dearest friend, Have faith, have faith! We live by faith,” said he ; SHA DREAMS. ‘¢ Andall things work together for the good — Of those” —it makes me sick to quote him —last Gript my hand hard, and with God-bless- you went. I stood like one that had received a blow: I found a hard friend in his loose accounts, A loose one in the hard grip of his hand, A curse in his God-bless-you: then my eyes Pursued him down the street, and far away, Among the honest shoulders of the crowd, Read rascal in the motions of his back, And scoundrel in the supple-sliding knee.’ ‘Was he so bound, poor soul ?’ said the good wife ; ‘So are we all: but do not call him, love, Before you prove him, rogue, and proved, forgive. His gain is loss; for he that wrongs his friend Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about A silent court-of justice in his breast, Himself the judge and jury, and himself The prisoner at the bar, ever condemn’d: And that drags down his life: then comes what comes Hereafter: and he meant, he said he meant, Perhaps he meant, or okie meant, you well.’ ‘*< With all his conscience and one ya askew ” Love, let me nate these lines, that you may learn A man is likewise counsel for himself, Too often, in that silent court of yours— ‘‘ With all his conscience and one eye askew, So false, he partly took himself for true ; Whose pious talk, when most his heart was dry, Made wet the crafty crowsfoot round his eye; Who, never naming God except for gain, So never took that useful name in vain, SHA DREAMS. Made Him his catspaw and the Cross his tool, And Christ the bait to trap his dupe and fool ; Nor deeds of gift, but gifts of grace he forged, And snake-like slimed his victim ere he . gorged ; And oft at Bible meetings, o’er the rest Arising, did his holy oily best, Dropping the too rough H in Hell and Heaven, To spread the Word by which himself had thriven.” How like you this old satire ?’ ‘ Nay,’ she said, ‘I loathe it: he had never kindly heart, Nor ever cared to better his own kind, Who first wrote satire, with no pity in it. But will you hear my dream, for I had one That altogether went to music? Still It awed me.’ Then she told it, having dream’d Of that same coast. —But round the North, a light, A belt, it seem’d, of luminous vapour, lay, And ever in it a low musical note Swell’d up and died ; and, as it swell’d, : -a ridge Of breaker issued from the belt, and still Grew with the growing note, and when the note Had reach’d a thunderous fulness, on those cliffs Broke, mixt with awful light (the same as that Living within the belt) whereby she saw That all those lines of cliffs were cliffs no more, ‘But huge cathedral fronts of every age, Graye, florid, stern, as far as eye could see, One after one: and then the great ridge drew, Lessening to the lessening music, back, And past into the belt and swell’d again Slowly to music: ever when it broke The statues, king or saint, or founder fell ; 159 Then from the gaps and chasms of ruin left Came men and women in dark clusters round, | Some crying, ‘Set them up! they shall not fall !’ And others, ‘ Tat them lie, for Bey. have fall’n. And still ey strove and wrangled: and she grieved In her strange dream, she knew not why, to find Their wildest wailings never out of tune With that sweet note; and ever as their shrieks Ran highest up the gamut, that great wave Returning, while none mark’d it, on the crowd Broke, mixt with awful light, and show’d _ their eyes Glaring, and passionate looks, and swept away The men of flesh and blood, and men of stone, To the waste deeps together. ‘Then I fixt My wistful eyes on two fair images, Both crown’d with stars and high among the stars,— The Virgin Mother standing with her child High up on one of those dark minster- fronts — Till she began to totter, and the child Clung to the mother, and sent out a cry Which mixt with little Margaret’s, and I woke, And my dream awed me :—well—but what are dreams ? Yours came but from the breaking of a glass, And mine but from the crying of a child.’ ‘Child? No!’ said he, ‘but this tide’s roar, and his, Our Boanerges with his threats of doom, And loud-lung’d Antibabylonianisms (Altho’ I grant but little music there) 160 Went both to make your dream: but if there were A music harmonizing our wild cries, Sphere-music such as that you dream’d about, Why, that would make our passions far - too like The discords dear to the musician. No— One shriek of hate would jar all the hymns of heaven : True Devils with no ear, they howl in tune With nothing but the Devil !’ «**"Lrue:’ mdeed:} One of our town, but later by an hour Here than ourselves, spoke with me on the shore ; While you were running down the sands, and made The dimpled flounce of the sea-furbelow flap, Good man, to please the child. brought strange news. Why were you silent when I spoke to- night ? I had set my heart on your forgiving him Before you knew. We must forgive the dead.’ ‘Dead ! who is dead ?’ ‘The man your eye pursued. A little after you had parted with him, He suddenly dropt dead of heart-disease.’ She ‘Dead? he? of heart-disease? what heart had he To die of? dead !’ ‘Ah, dearest, if there be A devil in man, there is an angel too, And if he did that wrong you charge him with, His angel broke his heart. rough voice (You spoke so loud) has roused the child But your again. Sleep, little birdie, sleep ! will she not sleep Without her ‘‘little birdie”? well then, hisleep; And I will sing you ‘ birdie.”’’ -*His deeds yet live, the worst is yet to SEA DREAMS. Saying this, The woman half turn?d round from him she loved, Left him one hand, and reaching thro’ the night Her other, found (for it was close be- side) And half-embraced the basket cradle- head With one soft arm, which, like the pliant bough That moving moves the nest and nestling, - sway’d The cradle, while she sang this baby song What does little birdie say In her nest at peep of day ? Let me fly, says little birdie, Mother, let me fly away. Birdie, rest a little longer, Till the little wings are stronger. So she rests a little longer, Then she flies away. What does little baby say, In her bed at peep of day? Baby says, like little birdie, Let me rise and fly away. Baby, sleep a little longer, Till the little limbs are stronger. If she sleeps a little longer, Baby too shall fly away. ‘She sleeps: let us too, let all evil, sleep. He also sleeps—another sleep than ours. He can do no more wrong: forgive him, | dear, And I shall sleep the sounder !’ Then the man, : come. Yet let your sleep for this one night be sound : I do forgive him !’ ‘Thanks, my love,’ she said, | ‘Your own will be the sweeter,’ and they | slept. } LUCRETIUS. BUCKRETIUS. UCILIA, wedded to Lucretius, found ‘er master cold; for when the morning flush f passion and the first embrace had died etween them, tho’ he lov’d her none the less, et often when the woman heard his foot eturn from pacings in the field, and ran o greet him with a kiss, the master took mall notice, or austerely, for—his mind alf buried in some weightier argument, r fancy-borne perhaps upon the rise nd long roll of the Hexameter—he past o turn and ponder those three hundred scrolls eft by the Teacher, whom he held divine. ae brook’d it not ; but wrathful, petulant, reaming some rival, sought and found a witch Tho brew’d the philtre which had power, they said, o lead an errant passion home again. nd this, at times, she mingled with his drink, nd this destroy’d him ; for the wicked broth onfused the chemic labour of the blood, nd tickling the brute brain within the man’s ade havock among those tender cells, and check’d is power to shape: he loathed himself ; and once fter a tempest woke upon a morn hat mock’d him with returning calm, and cried : -*Storm in the night ! for thrice I heard the rain ushing; and once the flash of a | thunderbolt— ethought I never saw so fierce a fork— tuck out the streaming mountain-side, and show’d riotous confluence of watercourses anching and billowing in a hollow of it, (here all but yester-eve was dusty-dry. | 161 ‘Storm, and what dreams, ye holy Gods, what dreams ! For thrice I waken’d after dreams. chance We do but recollect the dreams that come Just ere the waking: terrible! for it seem’d A void was made in Nature ; all her bonds Crack’d; and I saw the flaring atom- streams And torrents of her myriad universe, Ruining along the illimitable inane, Fly on to clash together again, and make Another and another frame of things For ever: that was mine, my dream, I knew it— Of and belonging to me, as the dog With inward yelp and restless forefoot plies His function of the woodland: but the next ! I thought that all the blood by Sylla shed Came driving rainlike down again on earth, And where it dash’d the reddening mea- dow, sprang No dragon warriors from Cadmean teeth, For these I thought my dream would show to me, But girls, Hetairai, curious in their art, Hired animalisms, vile as those that made The mulberry-faced Dictator’s orgies worse Than aught they fable of the quiet Gods. And hands they mixt, and yell’d and round me drove In narrowing circles till I yell’d again Half-suffocated, and sprang up, and saw— Was it the first beam of my latest day ? Per- ‘Then, then, from utter gloom stood out the breasts, The breasts of Helen, and hoveringly a sword Now over and now under, now direct, Pointed itself to pierce, but sank down shamed At all that beauty ; and as I stared, a fire, The fire that left a roofless Ilion, Shot out of them, and scorch’d me that I woke. M 162 ‘Is this thy vengeance, holy Venus, . thine, Because I would not one of thine own doves, Not ev’n a rose, were offer’d to thee? thine, Forgetful how my rich procemion makes Thy glory fly along the Italian field, In lays that will outlast thy Deity? ‘Deity? nay, thy worshippers. tongue Trips, or I speak profanely. Which of these Angers thee most, or angers thee at all? Not if thou be’st of those who, far aloof From envy, hate and pity, and spite and scorn, Live the great life which all our greatest fain Would follow, center’d in eternal calm. ‘Nay, if thou canst, O Goddess, like ourselves Touch, and be touch’d, then would I cry to’ thee To kiss thy Mavors, roll thy tender arms Round him, and keep him from the lust of blood That makes a steaming slaughter-house of Rome. “Ay, but I meant not thee; I meant not her, Whom all the pines of Ida shook to see Slide from that quiet heaven of hers, and tempt The Trojan, while his neat-herds were abroad ; Nor her that o’er her wounded hunter wept Her Deity false in human-amorous tears ; Nor whom her beardless apple-arbiter Decided fairest. Rather, O ye Gods, Poet-like, as the great Sicilian called Calliope to grace his golden verse— Ay, and this Kypris also—did I take That popular name of thine to shadow forth The all-generating powers and genial heat My LUCRETIUS. Of Nature, when she strikes thro’ t thick blood Of cattle, and light is large, and lam are glad Nosing the mother’s udder, and the bi Makes his heart voice amid the blaze flowers : Which things appear the work of migh Gods. ‘The Gods! and if I go my work left Unfinish’d—zf I go. haunt The lucid interspace of world and worl Where never creeps a cloud, or moves: wind, Nor ever falls the least white star snow, Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans, Nor sound of human sorrow mounts mar Their sacred everlasting calm ! and suc Not all so fine, nor so divine a calm, Not such, nor all unlike it, man may ga The Gods, wl Letting his own life go. The Gods, tl Gods! . ‘ If all be atoms, how then should tl Gods Being atomic not be dissoluble, ‘ Not follow the great law? My mast held That Gods there are, for all men | believe. I prest my footsteps into his, and mean Surely to lead my Memmius in a train Of flowery clauses onward to the proof That Gods there are, and deathles Meant ? I meant? I have forgotten what I meant: my mit Stumbles, and all my faculties are lame ‘Look where another of our Gods, #]| Sun, Apollo, Delius, or of older use All-seeing Hyperion—what you will— Has mounted yonder; since he nev sware, 4 Except his wrath were wreak’d ¢ wretched man, LUCRETIUS. ‘hat he would only shine among the dead lereafter ; tales! for never yet on earth ould dead flesh creep, or bits of roast- ing ox [oan round the spit—nor knows he ~ what he sees ; ing of the East altho’ he seem, and girt Vith song and flame and fragrance, slowly lifts lis golden feet on those empurpled stairs hat climb into the windy halls of heaven : nd here he glances on an eye new-born, nd gets for greeting but a wail of pain ; nd here he stays upon a freezing orb hat fain would gaze upon him to the last ; nd here upon a yellow eyelid fall’n nd closed by those who mourn a friend in vain, ot thankful that his troubles are no more. nd me, altho’ his fire is on my face linding, he sees not, nor at all can tell 'hether I mean this day to end myself, r lend an ear to Plato where he says, hat men like soldiers may not quit the post llotted by the Gods: but he that holds ne Gods are careless, wherefore need he care ceatly for them, nor rather plunge at once, sing troubled, wholly out of sight, and : sink ist earthquake—ay, and gout and stone, | that break ody toward death, and palsy, death-in- life, ad wretched age—and worst disease of all, ese prodigies of myriad nakednesses, ad twisted shapes of lust, unspeakable, »ominable, strangers at my hearth 2t welcome, harpies miring every dish, ie phantom husks of something foully done, ad fleeting thro’ the boundless universe, jd blasting the long quiet of my breast ith animal heat and dire insanity ? 163 ‘How should the mind, except it loved them, clasp These idols to herself? or do they fly Now thinner, and now thicker, like the flakes In a fall of snow, and so press in, perforce Of multitude, as crowds that in an hour Of civic tumult jam the doors, and bear The keepers down, and throng, their rags and they The basest, far into that council-hall Where sit the best and stateliest of the land? ‘Can I not fling this horror off me again, Seeing with how great ease Nature can smile, Balmier and nobler from her bath of storm, At random ravage? and how easily The mountain there has cast his cloudy slough, Now towering o’er him in serenest air, A mountain o’er a mountain,—ay, and within All hollow as the hopes and fears of men? ‘But who was he, that in the garden snared Picus and Faunus, rustic Gods? a tale To laugh at—more to laugh at in myself— For look ! what is it ? there ? yon arbutus Totters ; a noiseless riot underneath Strikes through the wood, sets all the tops quivering — The mountain quickens into Nymph and Faun ; And here an Oread—how the sun delights To-glance and shift about her slippery sides, And rosy knees and supple roundedness, And budded bosom-peaks—who this way runs Before the rest—A satyr, a satyr, see, Follows ; but him I proved impossible ; Twy-natured is no nature: yet he draws Nearer and nearer, and I scan him now Beastlier than any phantom of his kind 164 LUCRETIUS. : 4 That ever butted his rough brother-brute For lust or lusty blood or provender : I hate, abhor, spit, sicken at him; and she Loathes him as well; such a precipitate heel, Fledged as it were with Mercury’s ankle- wing, ; Whirls her to me: but will she fling herself, Shameless upon me? Catch her, goat- foot : nay, Hide, hide them, million-myrtled wilder- ness, And cavern-shadowing laurels, hide! do I wish— What ?—that the bush were leafless? or to whelm All of them in one massacre? O ye Gods, I know you careless, yet, behold, to you From childly wont and ancient use I call— I thought I lived securely as yourselves— No lewdness, narrowing envy, monkey- spite, No madness of ambition, avarice, none: No larger feast than under plane or pine With neighbours laid along the grass, to take Only such cups as left us friendly-warm, Affirming each his own philosophy— Nothing to mar the sober majesties Of settled, sweet, Epicurean life. But now it seems some unseen monster lays His vast and filthy hands upon my will, Wrenching it backward into his; and spoils My bliss in being; and it was not great 5 For save when shutting reasons ay in rhythm, Or Heliconian honey in living ore To make a truth less harsh, I often grew Tired of so much within our little life, Or of so little in our little life— Poor little life that toddles half an hour Crown’d with a flower or two, and there an end— And since the nobler pleasure seems to fade, Why should I, beastlike as I find mysel! Not manlikeend myself?—our privilege— What beast has heart to doit? And be man, What Roman would be dragg’d in tiump thus ? Not I; not he, who bears one name wit her Whose death-blow struck the dateles doom of kings, When, brooking not the Tarquin in ie veins, She made her blood in sight of Collatin And all his peers, flushing the guilt air, Spout from the maiden fountain in e heart. And from it sprang the Commonwealth which breaks As I am breaking now! ‘And therefore noy Let her, that is the womb and tomb ofall Great Nature, take, and forcing far apar Those blind beginnings that have mad: me man, 7 Dash them anew together at her will — Thro’ all her cycles—into man once more Or beast or bird or fish, or opulent flower: But till this cosmic order everywhere Fs Shatter’d into one earthquake in one da’ Cracks all to pieces,—and that hou perhaps Is not so far when momentary man Shall seem no more a something to hi self, But he, his hopes and hates, his home and fanes, And even his bones long laid within th: grave, é The very sides of the grave itself shall pass Vanishing, atom and void, atom and void Into the unseen for ever,—till that hour My golden work in which I told a truth That stays the rolling Ixionian wheel, And numbs the Fury’s ringlet-snake, anc plucks : The mortal soul from out immortal hell, Shall stand: ay, surely: then it fails a last a (nd perishes as I must ; for O Thou, assionless bride, divine Tranquillity, \earn’d after by the wisest of the wise, \Vho fail to find thee, being as thou art Vithout one pleasure and without one | pain, ‘Lowbeit I know thou surely must be mine ye soon or late, yet out of season, thus | woo thee roughly, for thou carest not \low roughly men may woo thee so they win— hus—thus: the soul flies out and dies | in the air.’ PROLOGUE. “IR Walter Vivian all a summer’s day ‘rave his broad lawns until the set of sun Jp to the people: thither flock’d at noon lis tenants, wife and child, and thither | half “he neighbouring borough with their | Institute é which he was the patron. I was } there rom college, visiting the son,—the son \ Walter too,—with others of our set, five others: we were seven at Vivian- | place. _ And me that morning Walter show’d the house, hall flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names, 3rew side by side ; and on the pavement lay \arved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the | park, Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of i Time ; ‘And on the tables every clime and age HE IPRINCESS 3° A MEDLEY. “areek, set with busts: from vases in the 165 With that he drove the knife into his side : She heard him raging, heard him fall ; ran in, Beat breast, tore hair, cried out upon herself As having fail’d in duty to him, shriek’d That she but meant to win him back, fell on him, Clasp’d, kiss’d him, wail’d : he answer’d, ‘Care not thou ! Thy duty? What is duty? well !’ Fare thee Setalesk nh VINO. 5,; A MEDLEY, Jumbled together ; celts and calumets, Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fans Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries, Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere, The cursed Malayan crease, and battle- clubs From the isles of palm: and higher on the walls, Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer, His own forefathers’ arms and armour hung. And ‘this’ he said ‘was Hugh’s at Agincourt ; And that was old Sir Ralph’s at As- calon : A good knight he! we keep a chronicle With all about him ’—which he brought, and I Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights, Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings Who laid about them at their wills and died ; And mixt with these, a lady, one that arm’d 166 THE PRINCESS ; A MEDLEY. hie’ Me Her own fair head, and sallying thro’ the gate, Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls. ‘O miracle of women,’ said the book, ‘O noble heart who, being strait-besieged By this wild king to force her to his wish, Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunn’d a soldier’s death, But now when all was lost or seem’d as lost— Her stature more than mortal in the burst Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire— Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate, And, falling on them like a thunderbolt, She trampled some beneath her horses’ heels, And some were whelm’d with missiles of the wall, And some were push’d with lances from the rock, And part were drown’d within the whirl- ing brook : O miracle of noble womanhood !’ So sang the gallant glorious chrenicle ; And, I all rapt in this, ‘Come out,’ he said, ‘To the Abbey: there is Aunt Elizabeth And sister Lilia with the rest.’ We went (I kept the book and had my finger in it) Down thro’ the park: strange was the sight to me ; For all the sloping pasture murmur’d, sown With happy faces and with holiday. There moved the multitude, a thousand heads : The patient-leaders of their Institute Taught them with facts. One rear’d a font of stone And drew, from butts of water on the slope, The fountain of the moment, playing, now A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls, Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball Danced like a wisp: and somewhat low down | A man with knobs and wires and a fired A cannon: Echo answer’d in her sleep From hollow fields: and here were tele scopes : For azure views ; girls In circle waited, whom the electric shoe] Dislink’d with shrieks and laughter round the lake A little clock-work steamer paddling pliec And shook the lilies: perch’d about thi knolls ¥ A dozen angry models jetted steam : A petty railway ran: a fire-balloon Rose gem-like up before the dusky grove: And dropt a fairy parachute and past : And there thro’ twenty posts of telegrapl They flash’d a saucy message to and fro Between the mimic stations ; so that spor Went hand in hand with Science ; other where Pure sport : a herd of boys with clamou: bowl’d And stump’d the wicket ; about Like tumbled fruit in grass; and mer and maids Arranged a country dance, and flew thro light And shadow, while the twangling violin | Struck up with Soldier-laddie, and over head The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lint Made noise with bees and breeze fron end to end. and there a group © babies roll’ Strange was the sight and smacking 0 the time ; And long we gazed, but satiated at length Came to the ruins. High-arch’d and ivy- claspt, Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire, Thro’ one wide chasm of time and frost they gave The park, the crowd, the house ; but all within The sward was trim as any garden lawn: | | = | nd here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth, ad Lilia with the rest, and lady friends rom neighbour seats: and there was Ralph himself, broken statue propt against the wall, sgay asany. Lilia, wild with sport, alf child half woman as she was, had . wound scarf of orange round the stony helm, nd robed the shoulders in a rosy silk, hat made the old warrior from his ivied nook low like a sunbeam: near his tomb a feast one, silver-set ; about it lay the guests, nd there we join’d them: then the maiden Aunt ook this fair day for text, and from it preach’d n universal culture for the crowd, nd all things great ; but we, unworthier, f college: he had climb’d across the spikes, nd he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars, ‘nd he had breathed the Proctor’s dogs ; and one ‘iscuss’d his tutor, rough to common men, ut honeying at the whisper of a lord; nd one the Master, as a rogue in grain veneer’d with sanctimonious theory. —e + i ; _ But while they talk’d, above their heads I saw whe feudal warrior lady-clad ; which . brought ly book to mind: and opening this I } read ‘f old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang Vith tilt and tourney ; then the tale of her hat drove her foes with slaughter from her walls, nd much I praised her nobleness, and H ‘ Where,’ ssk’d Walter, patting Lilia’s head (she lay jeside him) ‘lives there such a woman now ?’ | \ fi j | 1 | \ i } THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY. 167 Quick answer’d Lilia ‘ There are thou- sands now Such women, but convention beats them down : It is but bringing up ; no more than that : You men have done it: how I hate you all! Ah, were I something great! I wish I were Some mighty poetess, I would shame you then, That love to keep us children! O I wish That I were some great princess, I would build Far off from men a college like a man’s, And I would teach them all that men are taught ; We are twice as quick !” shook aside The hand that play’d the patron with her curls. And here she And one said smiling ‘ Pretty were the sight If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair. I think they should not wear our rusty gowns, But move as rich as Emperor-moths, or Ralph Who shines so in the corner ; yet I fear, If there were many Lilias in the brood, However deep you might embower the nest, Some boy would spy it.’ At this upon the sward She tapt her tiny silken-sandal’d foot : ‘That’s your light way; but I would make it death For any male thing but to peep at us.’ Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laugh’d ; A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, And sweet as English air could make her, she : 168 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY. But Walter hail’d a score of names upon her, And ‘petty Ogress,’ and ‘ungrateful Puss,’ And swore he long’d at college, only long’d, All else was well, for she-society. They boated and they cricketed ; talk’d At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics ; They lost their weeks; they vext the souls of deans ; They rode ; they betted ; made a hundred friends, And caught the blossom of the flying terms, But miss’d the mignonette of Vivian-place, The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke, Part banter, part affection. ‘ True,’ she said, O yes, you miss’d they ‘We doubt not that. us much. I’ll stake my ruby ring upon it you did.’ She held it out ; and as a parrot turns Up thro’ gilt wires a crafty loving eye, And takes a lady’s finger with all care, And bites it for true heart and not for harm, So he with Lilia’s. And wrung it. he said. listen! here is proof that you were miss’d : We seven stay’d at Christmas up to read ; And there we took one tutor as to read : The hard-grain’d Muses of the cube and square Were out of season : never man, I think, So moulder’d in a sinecure as he: For while our cloisters echo’d frosty feet, And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms, We did but talk you over, pledge you all In wassail; often, like as many girls— Sick for the hollies and the yews of home— As many little trifling Lilias—play’d Charades and riddles as at Christmas here, Daintily she shriek’d ‘Doubt my word again !’ “d: I am sad and glad To see you, Florian. J give thee to death My brother ! it was duty spoke, not I. My needful seeming harshness, pardon it. Our mother, is she well ?’ With that she kiss’d His forehead, then, a moment after, clung About him, and betwixt them blossom’d up From out a common vein of memory Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth, N 178 And far allusion, till the gracious dews Began to glisten and to fall :. and while They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice, ‘IT brought a message here from Lady Blanche.’ Back started she, and turning round we saw The Lady Blanche’s daughter where she stood, Melissa, with her hand upon the lock, A rosy blonde, and in a college gown, That clad her like an April daffodilly (Her mother’s colour) with her lips apart, And all her thoughts as fair within her eyes, As bottom agates seen to wave and float In crystal currents of clear morning seas. So stood that same fair creature at the door. Then Lady Psyche, ‘ Ah—Melissa—you ! You heard us?’ and Melissa, ‘O pardon me I heard, I could not help it, did not wish: But, dearest Lady, pray you fear me not, Nor think I bear that heart within my breast, To give three gallant gentlemen to death.’ ‘I trust you,’ said the other, ‘ for we two Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine: But yet your mother’s jealous tempera- ment— Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove The Danaid of a leaky vase, for fear This whole foundation ruin, and I lose My honour, these their lives.’ £ Ah, fear me not’ Replied Melissa; ‘no—I would not tell, No, not for all Aspasia’s cleverness, No, not to answer, Madam, all those hard things That Sheba came to ask of Solomon.’ ‘Be it so’ the other, ‘that we still may lead The new light up, and culminate in peace, Tor Solomon may come to Sheba yet.’ THE PRINCESS ; -A MEDLEY. ' < Said Cyril, ‘ Madam, he the wisest | Feasted the woman wisest then, in hall Of Lebanonian cedar: nor should you (Tho? Madam you should answer, z would ask) i Less welcome find among us, if you cam Among us, debtors for our lives to you, Myself for something more.’ He sai not what, But ‘Thanks,’ she answer’d ‘Go: we hay been too long Together: keep your hoods about 4 face ; a | They do so that affect abstraction i Speak little ; mix not with the rest ; hold Your promise: all, I trust, may _ well.’ 2 i We turn’d to go, but Cyril took th child, e And held her round the knees againsi™ hi waist, And blew the swoll’n cheek ofa trumpeter While Psyche watch’d them, smiling, am the child Push’d her flat hand against his face an laugh’d ; ¥ And thus our iia Grids closed. ca And then we stroll’ For half the day thro’ stately theatres Bench’d crescent-wise. In each we sat we heard P The grave Professor. slate The circle rounded under female handle With flawless demonstration : folloms then 5 A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, With scraps of thundrous Epic lilted ae By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies And quoted odes, and jewels five-words long That on the stretch’d forefinger of al Time Sparkle for ever: then we dipt in all That treats of whatsoever is, the state, The total chronicles of man, the mind, The morals, something of the frame, the rock, ; On the leotar Wie star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the flower, ‘ectric, chemic laws, and all the rest, lad whatsoever can be taught and . known ; ll like three horses that have broken fence, ha glutted all night long breast-deep in corn, ye issued gorged with knowledge, and I spoke: hy, ae they do all this as well as (Chey Eat old trails’ well ; it when aid woman ever yet invent ?’ Jngracious !’ answer’d Florian; ‘have you learnt o more from Psyche’s lecture, you that talk’d ie trash that made me sick, and almost sad ?? ) trash’ he said, said Cyril ‘very ‘but with a kernel in ats Loula I not call her wise, who made me wise ? » ad learnt? I learnt more from her ina flash, an if my brainpan were an empty hull, : nd every Muse tumbled a science in. thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls, ad round these halls a thousand baby irre tere moe a loves ty twanging headless arrows at the hearts, » ‘hence follows many a vacant pang ; | but O ‘ith me, Sir, enter’d in the bigger boy, he Head of all the golden-shafted firm, he long-limb’d lad that had a Psyche | too ; ‘e cleft me thro’ the stomacher; and | now. ‘hat think you of it, Florian? do I chase he substance or the shadow? will it hold ? have no sorcerer’s malison on me, oghostly hauntings like his Highness. I latter myself that always everywhere know the substance when I see it, Well, | u THE PRINCESS ; Unmann’d me: A MEDLEY. 179 Are castles shadows? ‘Three of them? Is she The sweet proprietress a shadow ? If not, Shall those three castles patch my tatter’d coat ? For dear are those three castles to my wants, And dear is sister Psyche to my heart, And two dear things are one of double worth, And much I might have said, but that my zone then the Doctors! O to hear The Doctors ! plants Imbibing ! once or twice I thought to roar, To break my chain, to shake my mane: but thou, Modulate me, Soul of mincing mimicry ! Make liquid treble of that bassoon, my throat ; Abase those eyes that ever loved to meet O to watch the thirsty Star-sisters answering under crescent brows ; Abate the stride, which speaks of man, and loose A flying charm of blushes o’er this cheek, Where they like swallows coming out of time Will wonder why they came: the bell For dinner, let us go !’ And in we stream’d Among the columns, pacing staid and still By twos and threes, till all from end to end With beauties every shade of brown and fair In colours gayer than the morning mist, The long hall glitter’d like a bed of but hark flowers. How might a man not wander from his wits Pierced thro’ with eyes, but that I kept mine own Intent on her, who rapt in glorious dreams, The second-sight of some Astrzean age, Sat compass’d with professors: they, the while, 180 THE PRINCESS ;~A VEBDLE ¥. Discuss’d a doubt and tost it to and fro: A clamour thicken’d, mixt with inmost terms Of art and science: Lady Blanche alone Of faded form and haughtiest lineaments, With all her autumn tresses falsely brown, Shot sidelong daggers at us, a tiger-cat In act to spring. At last a solemn grace Concluded, and we sought the gardens: there One walk’d reciting by herself, and one In this hand held a volume as to read, And smoothed a petted peacock down with that : Some to a low song oar’d a shallop by, Or under arches of the marble bridge Hung, shadow’d from the heat: some hid and sought In the orange thickets: others tost a ball Above the fountain-jets, and back again With laughter: others lay about the lawns, Of the older sort, and murmur’d that their May Was passing : them ? They wish’d to marry ; they could rule a house ; Men hated learned women : but we three Sat muffled like the Fates; and often came Melissa hitting all we saw with shafts Of gentle satire, kin to charity, That harm’d not: then day droopt ; the chapel bells Call’d us: we left the walks; we mixt with those Six hundred maidens clad in purest white, Before two streams of light from wall to wall, While the great organ almost burst his pipes, Groaning for power, and rolling thro’ the court A long melodious thunder to the sound Of solemn psalms, and silver litanies, The work of Ida, to call down from Heaven A blessing on her labours for the world. what was learning unto IIt. Sweet and low, sweet and low, € Wind of the western sea, | Low, low, breathe and blow, F Wind of the western sea ! Over the rolling waters go, i Come from the dying moon, and blow, Blow him again to me; a While my little one, while my pretty one, slee) Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, ; Father will come to thee soon ; Rest, rest, on mother’s breast, Father will come to thee soon 3 Father will come to his babe in the nest, 4 | Silver sails all out of the west ; Under the silver moon: a | Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, ser | Morn in the white wake of the mornit | star | Came furrowing all the orient into gold We rose, and each by other drest wij) care Descended to the court that lay three par In shadow, but the Muses’ heads wei iduchrd Above the darkness from their native Eas There while we stood beside the foun and watch’d Or seem’d to watch the dancing bubbl approach’d 4 Melissa, tinged with wan from lack < sleep, | Or grief, and glowing round her dew eyes The circled Iris of a night of tears; — ‘And ‘fly,’ she cred 2Oeny: while ys you may ! | My mother knows:’ and when I ae her ‘how,’ ; ‘My fault’ she wept ‘my fault ! af | not mine ; Yet mine in part. me. My mother, ’tis her wont from night t night To rail at Lady Psyche and her side. She says the Princess should have bee’ the Head, | Herself and Lady Psyche the two arms }) O hear me, pall y iid so it was agreed when first they came ; . it Lady Psyche was the right hand now, ad she the left, or not, or seldom used ; ‘ers more than half the students, all the love. id so last night she fell to canvass you : *y countrywomen! she did not envy her. Who ever saw such wild barbarians ? rls?—more like men !”’ and at these words the snake, y secret, seem’d to stir within my breast ; id oh, Sirs, could I help it, but my cheek ‘gan to burn and burn, and her lynx eye > fix and make me hotter, till she laugh’d: ‘O marvellously modest maiden, you ! yen! girls, like men! why, if they had been men ou need not set your thoughts in rubric thus 7 >r wholesale comment.” Pardon, I am i shamed iat I must needs repeat for my excuse hat looks so little graceful: ‘‘men” (for still y mother went revolving on the word) And so they are,—very like men in- deed— \ ad with that woman closeted for hours !” » 1en came these dreadful words out one | by one, \Why—these—ave—men : ” Tshudder’d: | ‘and you know it.” O ask me nothing,” I said: ‘‘ And she knows too, y ad she conceals it.” So my mother clutch’d ) ne truth at once, but with no word from | me ; ad now thus early risen she goes to ‘| inform )he Princess: Lady Psyche will be | crush’d ; at you may yet be saved, and therefore at heal me with your pardon ere you go.’ | | | | THE TPRINCESS ; A MEDLEY. 181 ‘What pardon, sweet Melissa, for a blush ?? Said Cyril: ‘Pale one, blush again: than wear Those lilies, better blush our lives away. Yet let us breathe for one hour more in Heaven’ He added, ‘lest some classic Angel speak In scorn of us, ‘‘ They mounted, Gany- medes, Totumble, Vulcans, on the second morn.” But I will melt this marble into wax To yield us farther furlough :’ and he went. Melissa shook her doubtful curls, and thought He scarce would prosper. Florian ask’d, ‘How grew this feud betwixt the right ell aise and left.’ “O long ago,’ she said, ‘betwixt these two Division smoulders hidden; ’tis my mother, Too jealous, often fretful as the wind Pent ina crevice: much I bear with her: I never knew my father, but she says (God help her) she was wedded to a fool ; And still she rail’d against the state of things. She had the care of Lady Ida’s youth, And from the Queen’s decease she brought her up. But when your sister came she won the heart Of Ida: they were still together, grew (For so they said themselves) inosculated ; Consonant chords that shiver to one note; One mind in all things: yet my mother still Affirms your Psyche thieved her theories, And angled with them for her pupil’s love : She calls her plagiarist ; I know not what: But I must go: I dare not tarry,’ and light, As flies the shadow of a bird, she fled. Then murmur’d Florian gazing after her, ‘An open-hearted maiden, true and pure, 182 THE PRINCESS ; A MEDLEY. t If I could love, why this were she: how pretty Her blushing was, and how she blush’d again, As if to close with Cyril’s random wish: Not like your Princess cramm’d with erring pride, Nor like poor Psyche whom she drags in tow.’ “The ‘crane,’ I said, *itay ‘chatter or the crane, The dove may murmur of the dove, but I An eagle clang an eagle to the sphere. My princess, O my princess ! true she errs, But in her own grand way: being herself Three times more noble than three score of men, She sees herself in every woman else, And so she wears her error like a crown To blind the truth and me: for her, and her, Hebes are they to hand ambrosia, mix The nectar ; but—-ah she—whene’er she moves The Samian Hereé rises and she speaks A Memnon smitten with the morning Sun.’ So saying from the court we paced, and gain’d The terrace ranged along the Northern front, And leaning there on those balusters, high Above the empurpled champaign, drank the gale That blown about the foliage underneath, And sated with the innumerable rose, Beat balm upon our eyelids. Hither came Cyril, and yawning ‘O hard task,’ he cried ; ‘No fighting shadows here ! way Thro’ solid opposition crabb’d and gnarl’d. Better to clear prime forests, heave and I forced a thump A league of street in summer solstice down, Than hammer at this reverend gentle- woman. I knock’d and, bidden, enter’d ; foun her there At point to move, and settled in her eye The green malignant light of cong storm. ee Sir, I was courteous, every phrase wel oil’d, As man’s could be ; yet maiden- meek | pray’d Concealment : were, And why we came? I fabled nothing fait But, your example pilot, told her all. Up went the hush’d amaze of hand tf eye. But when I dwelt upon your old affiance She answer’d sharply that I talk’d astray I urged the fierce inscription on the gate And our three lives. True—we hai limed ourselves : With open eyes, and we must take th chance. But such extremes, I told her, well migh harm : The woman’s cause. now,” she said, | ‘. \A MEDLEY. Howe’er you babble, great deeds c die ; They with the sun and moon renew the light For ever, blessing those that look © them. | Children—that men may pluck them ‘- our hearts, - Kill us with pity, break us with curse O—children—there is nothing upon eart! More miserable than she that has a son And sees him err: nor would we via for fame ; x Tho’ she perhaps might reap the apple) of Great, Who learns the one POU STO whence afte hands 4 May move the world, tho’ she herself effec But little : wherefore up and act, no shrink 2 For fear our solid aim be dissipated By frail successors. Would, indeed, we had been, ‘d In lieu of many mortal flies, a race Of giants living, each, a thousand years, That we might see our own work ont; and watch | The sandy footprint harden into stone.’ I answer’d nothing, doubtful in mysel! If that strange Poet-princess with hei grand 4 Imaginations might at all be won. And she broke out interpreting my thoughts : 4 ‘No doubt we seem a kind of monster to you ; We are used to that: for women, up till this Cramp’d under worse than South- sea-isle taboo, Dwarfs of the gynzeceum, fail so far In high desire, they know not, cannot guess How much their welfare is a passi to us, If we could give them surer, quod proof— Oh if our end were less achievable z i ~ ‘7 slow approaches, than by single act _ fimmolation, any phase of death, “| Ye were as prompt to spring against the pikes, r down the fiery gulf as talk of it, 0 compass our dear sisters’ liberties.’ She bow’d as if to veil a noble tear ; *) nd up we came to where the river sloped o plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks breadth of thunder. O’er it shook the woods, cot the colour, and, below, stuck out . she bones of some vast bulk that lived and roar’d " efore man was. She gazed awhile and said, As these rude bones to us, are we to her hat will be.’ ‘Dare we dream of that,’ | I ask’d, _ Which wrought us, as the workman and a | his work, _ ‘hat practice betters?’ ‘How,’ she cried, ‘you love | ‘he metaphysics! read and earn our prize, . golden brooch: beneath an emerald oi plane its Diotima, teaching him that died _ f hemlock ; our device ; wrought to the | life ; _ he rapt upon her subject, he on her : _ or there are schools for all.’ ‘And yet’ | I said ; ‘Methinks I have not found among them | all if Yne anatomic.’ ‘Nay, we thought of | that,’ 2 she answer’d, ‘but it pleased us not: in A | truth Ve shudder but to dream our maids : should ape ‘hose monstrous males that carve the living hound, ind cram him with the fragments of the ij grave, _)r in the dark dissolving human heart, ind holy secrets of this microcosm, ‘ 7 | | | ,| i | THE PRINCESS ; A MEDLEY. 185 Dabbling a shameless hand with shameful jest, Encarnalize their spirits: yet we know Knowledge is knowledge, and this matter hangs : Howbeit ourself, foreseeing casualty, Nor willing men should come among us, learnt, For many weary moons before we came, This craft of healing. Were you sick, ourself Would tend upon you. To your question now, | Which touches on the workman and his work. Let there be light and there was light: tis SO: For was, and is, and will be, are but is ; And all creation is one act at once, The birth of light : but we that are not all, As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that, And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and make One act a phantom of succession: thus Our weakness somehow shapes the shadow, Time ; But in the shadow will we work, and mould The woman to the fuller day.’ She spake With kindled eyes: we rode a league beyond, And, o’er a bridge of pinewood crossing, came On flowery levels underneath the crag, Full of all beauty. ‘O how sweet’ I said (For I was half-oblivious of my mask) ‘To linger here with one that loved us.’ Vea, She answer’d, ‘or with fair philosophies That lift the fancy; for indeed these fields Are lovely, lovelier not the Elysian lawns, Where paced the Demigods of old, and saw The soft white vapour streak the crowned towers Built to the Sun:’ then, turning to her maids, ‘Pitch our pavilion here upon the sward ; 186 THE PRINCESS ; A MEDLEY. Lay out the viands.’ raised A tent of satin, elaborately wrought At the word, they With fair Corinna’s triumph; here she. stood, Engirt with many a florid maiden-cheek, The woman-conqueror ; woman-conquer’d there The bearded Victor of ten-thousand hymns, And all the men mourn’d at his side : we Set forth to climb ; kept With Psyche, with Melissa Florian, I With mine affanced. Many a little hand Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks, Many a light foot shone like a jewel set In the dark crag: and then we turn’d, we wound About the cliffs, the copses, out and in, Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff, Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the Sun Grew broader toward his death and fell, and all The rosy heights came out above the lawns. but then, climbing, Cyril IV. The splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. O hark, O hear ! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going ! O sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing ! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying : Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river: Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow for ever and for ever. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. ‘There sinks the nebulous star we cal the Sun, If that hypothesis of theirs be sound? . Said Ida; ‘let us down and rest ;’ we Down from the lean and wrinkled pre ci pices, 7 By every coppice-feather’d chasm cleft, t Dropt thro’ the ambrosial gloom to wh ( below No bigger than a glow-worm shone th + tent ; Lamp-lit from the inner. Once she lez on me, 7 Descending ; once or twice she lent. he hand, And blissful ‘palpitations in the blood, | | Stirring a sudden transport rose and f But when we planted level feet, dipt | Beneath the satin dome and enter’d i in, There leaning deep in broider’d down we sank Our elbows: on a tripod in the midst __ A fragrant flame rose, and before us glow’ Fruit, blossom, viand, amber wine, . gold. ae, | lightlier move m The minutes fledged with music :’ and maid, . Tears from the depth of some divine dienate Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more. _ ‘Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, _ That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one a That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. ; ‘ Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawr The earliest pipe of half-awaken’d birds . To dying ears, when unto dying eyes >| The casement slowly grows a glimmering squall? 3 | So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. ‘Dear as remember’d kisses after death, id sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign’d 1 lips that are for others ; deep as love, sep as first love, and wild with all regret ; ‘Death in Life, the days that are no more.’ 'She ended with such passion that the tear, ne sang of, shook and fell, an erring pearl ost in her bosom: but with some disdain nswer’d the Princess, ‘If indeed there haunt bout the moulder’d lodges of the Past 2 sweet a voice and vague, fatal to men, ell needs it we should cram our ears with wool nd so pace by: but thine are fancies hatch’d nN silken-folded idleness ; nor is it Jiser to weep a true occasion lost, ‘at trim our sails, and let old bygones be, Vhile down the streams that float us each and all ‘o the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice, “hrone after throne, and molten on the waste secomes a cloud: for all things serve their time “oward that great year of equal mights and rights, Jor would I fight with iron laws, in the a ete j end “ound golden: let the past be past ; let | be heir cancell’d Babels: tho’ the rough kex break che starr’d mosaic, and the beard-blown goat dang on the shaft, and the wild figtree split Their monstrous idols, care not while we | hear \ trumpet in the distance pealing news Of better, and Hope, a poising eagle, burns Above the unrisen morrow :’ then to me; _ Know you no song of your own land,’ she said, THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY. 187 ‘Not such as moans about the retrospect, But deals with the other distance and the hues Of promise ; not a death’s-head at the wine.’ Then I remember’d one myself had made, What time I watch’d the swallow wing- ing south From mine own land, part made long since, and part Now while I sang, and maidenlike as far As I could ape their treble, did I sing. ‘O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee. *O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, And dark and true and tender is the North. *O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, And cheep and twitter twenty million loves. “O were I thou that she might take me in, And lay me on her bosom, and her heart Would rock the snowy cradle till I died. ‘Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, Delaying as the tender ash delays To clothe herself, when all the woods are green? *O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown : Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, But in the North long since my nest is made. *O tell her, brief is life but love is long, And brief the sun of summer in the North, And brief the moon of beauty in the South. ‘O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.’ I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each, Like the Ithacensian suitors in old time, Stared with great eyes, and laugh’d with alien lips, And knew not what they meant ; for still my voice Rang false: but smiling ‘ Not for thee,’ she said, 188 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY. ‘O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan Shall burst her veil: marsh-divers, rather, maid, Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow- crake Grate her harsh kindred in the grass: and this A mere love-poem! O for such, my friend, We hold them slight: they mind us of the time When we made bricks in Egypt. are men, That lute and flute fantastic tenderness, And dress the victim to the offering up. And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise, And play the slave to gain the tyranny. Poor soul ! I had a maid of honour once; She wept her true eyes blind for such a one, A rogue of canzonets and serenades. Knaves I loved her. Peace be with her. She is dead. So they blaspheme the muse! But great is song Used to great ends: ourself have often tried Valkyrian hymns, or into rhythm have dash’d The passion of the prophetess ; for song Is duer unto freedom, force and growth Of spirit than to junketing and love. Love is it? Would this same mock-love, and this Mock-Hymen were laid up like winter bats, Till all men grew to rate us at our worth, Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes To be dandled, no, but living wills, and sphered Whole in ourselves and owed to none. Enough ! But now to leaven play with profit, you, Know you no song, the true growth of your soil, That gives the manners of your country- women ?” She spoke and turn’d her sumptuous head with eyes Of shining expectation fixt on mine. Then while I dragg’d my brains for si a song, i Cyril, with whom the bell-mouth’d glas: had wrought, 4 Or master’d by the sense of sport, began To troll a careless, careless tavern- catch Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him, 4 I frowning ; Psyche flush’d and wann’d and shook ; q The Hily ice Melissa droop’d her brows 3 ‘ Forbear,’ the Princess cried ; ‘ Forbear, Siri 4 And heated thro? and thro’ with wrath and love, I smote him on the breast ; up 5 2 There rose a shriek as of a city sack’d 2 Melissa clamour’d ‘ Flee the death ;’ ‘ > horse’ Said Ida; ‘home! to horse!’ and fle as flies A troop of snowy doves athwart the dua When some one batters at the dovecote- doors, Disorderly the women. Alone I stood With Florian, cursing Cyril, vext at heart, In the pavilion: there like parting hopes I heard them passing from me: hoof by hoof, E And every hoof a knell to my desires, — Clang’d on the bridge ; and then another shriek, ‘The Head, the Head, the Princess, om the Head! }? For blind with rage she miss’d the plank, and roll’d In the river. Out I sprang from glow 4 gloom : There whirl’d her white robe like a ; blossom’d branch Rapt to the horrible fall : a glance I gave, No more; but woman-vested as I was _ Plunged; and the flood drew; yet Fi caught her ; then Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left. The weight of all the hopes of half the world, Strove to buffet to land in vain. he started A tree as half-disrooted from his place and (ae -Stoop’d Yo drench his dark locks in the gurgling wave fid-channel. Right on this we drove and caught, ) nd grasping down the boughs I gain’d i the shore. _ There stood her maidens glimmeringly group’d hollow bank. : forward drew 7) “ly burthen from mine arms; they cried i ‘she lives :’ ~hey bore her back into the tent: but I, 0 much a kind of shame within me | wrought, Not yet endured to meet her opening eyes, Nor found my friends ; but push’d alone . on foot _ For since her horse was lost I left hermine) Across the woods, and less from Indian } n the One reaching (a | Fi | craft Than beelike instinct hiveward, found at : length The garden portals. Two great statues, Art ; land Science, Caryatids, lifted up iN weight of emblem, and betwixt were i valves _ Of open-work in which the hunter rued is rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows _ Had sprouted, and the branches thereupon Spread out at top, and ny spiked the . gates. A little space was left between the | | 7 | | horns, it Thro’ which I clamber’d o’er at top with pain, Dropt on the sward, and up the linden walks, land, tost on thoughts that changed from : | hue to hue, _ Now poring on the glowworm, now the ; | star, } I paced the terrace, till the Bear had wheel’d | Thro’ a great arc his seven slow suns. f | | | | | - | | RAE PRINCESS’; A MEDLEY. 189 A step Of lightest echo, then a loftier form Than female, moving thro’ the uncertain gloom, Disturb’d me with the doubt were she,’ But it was Florian. said, ‘They seek us: rules. Moreover ‘seize the strangers’ is the cry. How came you here?’ I told him: ‘I’ said he, ‘Last of the train, a moral leper, I, To whom none spake, half-sick at heart, return’d. Arriving all confused among the rest With hooded brows I crept into the hall, And, couch’d behind a Judith, underneath The head of Holofernes peep’d and saw. Girl after girl was call’d to trial: each Disclaim’d all knowledge of us: last of all, Melissa : trust me, Sir, I pitied her. She, question’d if she knew us men, at first Was silent ; closer prest, denied it not : And then, demanded if her mother knew, Or Psyche, she affirm’d not, or denied : From whence the Royal mind, familiar with her, Easily gather’d either guilt. She sent For Psyche, but she was not there; she call’d For Psyche’schild to castit from the doors ; She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to face ; And I slipt out: but whither will you now? And where are Psyche, Cyril? both are fled : What, if together ? that were not so well. Would rather we had never come! I dread His wildness, and the chances of the dark,’ ‘if this ‘“HistvOs Hist,’ he out so late is out of ‘And yet,’ I said, ‘you wrong him more than I That struck him: clown, Tho’ smock’d, or furr’d and purpled, still the clown, this is proper to the 190 To harm the thing that trusts him, and to shame That which he says he loves: howe’er He deal in frolic, as to-night—the song Might have been worse and sinn’d in grosser lips Beyond all pardon—as it is, I hold These flashes on the surface are not he. He has a solid base of temperament : But as the waterlily starts and slides Upon the level in little puffs of wind, Tho’ anchor’d to the bottom, such is he.’ for Cyril, Scarce had I ceased when from a tamarisk near Two Proctors leapt upon us, crying, ‘Names :’ He, standing still, was clutch’d; but I began To thrid the musky-circled mazes, wind And double in and out the boles, and race By all the fountains: fleet I was of foot: Before me shower’d the rose in flakes ; behind I heard the puff’d pursuer ; at mine ear Bubbled the nightingale and heeded not, And secret laughter tickled all my soul. At last I hook’d my ankle in a vine, That claspt the feet of a Mnemosyne, And falling on my face was caught and known. They haled us to the Princess where she sat High in the hall: lamp, And made the single jewel on her brow Burn like the mystic fire on a mast- head, Prophet of storm : side Bow’d toward her, combing out her long black hair Damp from the river; and close behind her stood Eight daughters of the plough, stronger than men, Huge women blowzed with health, and wind, and rain, above her droop’d a a handmaid on. each THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY. And labour. Each was like a Druid rodl Or like a spire of land that stands apart Cleft from the main, and wail’d ab out with mews. Then, as we came, the crowd dividi ing clove An advent to the throne: and therebeside Half-naked as if caught at once from And tumbled on the purple footcloth, lay The lily-shining child ; and on the left, Bow’d on her palms and folded up from wrong, Her round white shoulder shaken with her sobs, Melissa knelt ; but Lady Blanche erect Stood up and ‘spake, an affluent orator, ‘It was not thus, O Princess, in old days : i You prized my counsel, lived upon m lips : I led you then to all the Castalies ; I fed you with the milk of every Muse; I loved you like this kneeler, and yo Your second mother: those were grac times. Then came your new friend: you began to change— I saw it and grieved—to slacken and to cool ; 4 Till taken with her seeming openness — You turn’d your warmer currents all 1 to a her, 4 To me you froze: this was my meed for all. Yet I bore up in part from ancient love, And partly that I hoped to win you back, — And partly conscious of my own desert And partly that you were my civil hea And chiefly you were born for somet. great, In which I might your fellow-worker be, When time should serve; and thusa | scheme Grew up from seed we two long since had sown ; 4 In us true erowth, in her a Jonah’s gour Up in one night and due to sudden sun: | We took this palace; but even from the first : . ry 'u stood in your own light and darken’d mine. student came but that you planed | her path _Lady Psyche, younger, not so wise, foreigner, and I your countrywoman, our old friend and tried, she new in all ? t still her lists were swell’d and mine '. were lean ; 't I boreup in hope she would be known: ‘en came these wolves: ¢ey knew her : they endured, Jmg-closeted with her the yestermorn, » tell her what they were, and she to hear : id me none told: not less to an eye like mine _lidless watcher of the public weal, ist night, their mask was patent, and my | foot astoyou: but I thought again: I fear’d ‘y meet a cold ‘‘ We thank you, we shall | __ hear of it vom Lady Psyche:” you had gone to her, ietold, perforce ; and winning easy grace, o doubt, for slight delay, remain’d r among us , our young nursery still unknown, the f stem ess grain than touchwood, while my honest heat ‘ere all miscounted as malignant haste ‘0 push my rival out of place and power. lat public use required she should be known ; ) nd since my oath was ta’en for public use, broke the letter of it to keep the sense. spoke not then at first, but watch’d them | well, aw that they kept apart, no mischief done ; ' nd yet this day (tho’ you should hate . me for it) came to tell you ; found that you had I gone, \idd’n to the hills, she likewise: now, I thought, “hat surely she will speak ; if not, then I: THE PRINCESS ; A MEDLEY. IQ! Did she? These monsters blazon’d what they were, According to the coarseness of their kind, For thus I hear ; and known at last (my work And full of cowardice and guilty shame, I grant in her some sense of shame, she flies ; And I remain on whom to wreak your rage, I, that have lent my life to build up yours, I that have wasted here health, wealth, and time, And talent, I—you know it—I will not boast: Dismiss me, and I prophesy your plan, Divorced from my experience, will be chaff For every gust of chance, and men will say We did not know the real light, but chased The wisp that flickers where no foot can tread.’ She ceased: the Princess answer’d coldly, ‘ Good : Your oath is broken: we dismiss you: go. For this lost lamb (she pointed to the child) Our mind is changed: we take it to our- selfy Thereat the Lady stretch’d a vulture throat, ' And shot from crooked lips a haggard smile. ‘The plan was mine. I built the nest’ she said ‘To hatch the cuckoo. Rise!’ and stoop’d to updrag Melissa: she, half on her mother propt, Half-drooping from her, turn’d her face, and cast A liquid look on Ida, full of prayer, Which melted Florian’s fancy as she hung, A Niobéan daughter, one arm out, Appealing to the bolts of Heaven; and while We gazed upon her came a little stir About the doors, and on a sudden rush’d Among us, out of breath, as one pursued, A woman-post in flying raiment. Fear 192 Stared in her eyes, and chalk’d her face, and wing’d Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell Delivering seal’d dispatches which the Head Took half-amazed, and in her lion’s mood Tore open, silent we with blind surmise Regarding, while she read, till over brow And cheek and bosom brake the wrath- ful bloom As of some fire against a stormy cloud, When the wild peasant rights himself, the rick Flames, and his anger reddens in the heavens ; For anger most it seem’d, while now her _ breast, Beaten with some great passion at her heart, Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard In the dead hush the papers that she held Rustle : at once the lost lamb at her feet Sent out a bitter bleating for its dam ; The plaintive cry jarr’d on her ire; she crush’d - The scrolls together, made a sudden turn As if to speak, but, utterance failing her, She whirl’d them on to me, as who should say ‘ Read,’ and I read—two letters—one her sire’s. ' ‘Fair daughter, when we sent the Prince your way We knew not your ungracious laws, which learnt, We, conscious of what temper you are built, Came all in haste to hinder wrong, but fell Into his father’s hands, who has this night, You lying close upon his territory, Slipt round and in the dark invested you, And here he keeps me hostage for his son,’ The second was my father’s running thus : ‘You have our son: his head : Render him up unscathed : give him your hand ; touch not a hair of THE PRINCESS’; A MEDIEX. Cleave to your contract: tho’ ind hear You hold the woman is the better ma A rampant heresy, such as if it spread Would make all women kick against the Lords Thro’ all the world, and which might w deserve That we this night should pluck. ; palace down ; And we will do it, unless you send us bat Our son, on the instant, whole.’ & So far I reac And then stood up and spoke impetuous] But led by golden wishes, and a hop The child of regal compact, did I br Your precinct ; not a scorner of your s¢ But venerator, zealous it should be All that it might be: hear me, for I bea Tho’ man, yet human, whatsoe’er e wrongs, From the flaxen curl to the gray lock life Less mine than yours: tell me of you ; ‘O not to pry and peer on your =, my nurse wou! I babbled for you, as babies for the ef Vague brightness ; when a boy, you a to me From all high places, lived in all fair light | Came in long breezes rapt from inmo south And blown to inmost north; at eve an dawn With Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the woods 7 The leader wildswan in among the stars Would clang it, and lapt in wreaths \ glowworm light The mellow breaker murmur’d Ida. Because I would have reach’d you, ha you been Sphered up with Cassiopéia, or the cs throned | Persephone in Hades, now at length, Those winters of abeyance all worn out, A man I came to see you: but, indeed, Nov Not in this frequence can I lend fu’ tongue, O noble Ida, to those thoughts that ve | i “you, their centre : let me say but this, at many a famous man and woman, town ‘d landskip, have I heard of, after seen e dwarfs of presage; tho’ when known, there grew \other kind of beauty in detail ide them worth knowing ; but in you I found 7 boyish dream involved and dazzled + down id master’d, while that after- beauty a) makes ch head from act to act, from hour to hour, ithin me, that except you slay me here, 4cording to your bitter statute-book, vannot cease to follow you, as they say “ne seal does music ; who desire you more ‘an growing boys their manhood ; dy- .| ing lips, \ith many thousand matters left to do, | ‘he breath of life; O more than poor men wealth, ‘yan sick men health—yours, yours, not | mine—but half ithout you; with you, whole; and of those halves pu worthiest ; and howe’er you block | and bar bur heart with system out from mine, I | hold “hat it becomes no man to nurse despair, { at in the teeth of clench’d antagonisms J > follow up the worthiest till he die : et that I came not all unauthorized shold your father’s letter.’ | On one knee i neeling, I gave it, which she caught, and dash’d nopen’d at her feet : a tide of fierce _ vective seem’d to wait behind her lips, 5 waits a river level with the dam | sady to burst and flood the world with | foam : ad so she would have spoken, but there rose _hubbub in the court of half the maids ather’d together: from the illumined hall | | THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY. 193 Long lanes of splendour slanted o’er a press Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes, And rainbow robes, and gems and gem- like eyes, And gold and golden heads ; they to and fro Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some pale, All open-mouth’d, all gazing to the light, Some crying there was an army in the land, And some that men were in the very walls, And some they cared not ; till a clamour grew As-of a new-world Babel, woman-built, And worse-confounded : high above them stood The placid marble Muses, looking peace. Not peace she look’d, the Head: but rising up Robed in the long night of her deep hair, sO To the open window moved, remaining there Fixt like a beacon-tower above the waves Of tempest, when the crimson-rolling eye Glares ruin, and the wild birds on the light Dash themselves dead. her arms and call’d Across the tumult and the tumult fell. She stretch’d ‘What fear ye, brawlers? am not I your Head ? On me, me, me, the storm first breaks: / dare All these male thunderbolts : ye fear? Peace ! there are those to avenge us and they come: If not,—myself were like enough, O girls, To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights, And clad in iron burst the ranks of war, Or, falling, protomartyr of our cause, Die: yet I blame you not so much for fear; what is it O 194 THE PRINCESS 5" A MADEES, Six thousand years of fear have made you that From which I would redeem you: but for those That stir this hubbub—you and you—I know Your faces there in the crowd—to-morrow morm We hold a great convention: then shall they That love their voices more than duty, learn With whom they deal, dismiss’d in shame to live No wiser than their mothers, household stuff, Live chattels, mincers of each other’s fame, Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown, The drunkard’s football, laughing-stocks ' of Time, Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels, But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum, To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour, For ever slaves at home and fools abroad.’ She, ending, waved her hands: thereat the crowd Muttering, dissolved : that look’d A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cliff, When all the glens are drown’d in azure gloom Of thunder-shower, she floated to us and said : then with a smile, ‘You have done well and like a gentleman, And like a prince for all: And you look well too in your woman’s dress : Well have you done and like a gentleman. You saved our life: we owe you bitter thanks : Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood— : you have our thanks Then men had said—but now— hinders me : To take such bloody vengeance on - both >— Yet since our father— Wasps in our g Barbarians, grosser than your bears— 3 O would I had his sceptre for one hour You that have dared to break our bound and gull’d Our servants, wrong’d and lied an thwarted us— I wed with thee ! 7 bound by preconta Your bride, your bondslave ! not tho’ a the gold | That veins the world were pack’d— * make your crown, Fs And every spoken tongue should ier you. Sir, Your falsehood and yourself are hatel to us: I trample on your offers and on you: Begone: we will not look upon yey more Here, push them out at gates.’ } In wrath she spake Then those eight mighty daughters oq : plough Bent their broad faces toward us an address’d Their motion: twice I sought to ples my cause, But on my shoulder hung their heay hands, The weight of destiny: so from her a They push’d us, down the steps, an thro’ the court, | And with grim laughter thrust us out: eg We cross’d the street and gain’d a 4 mound Beyond it, whence we saw the lights a heard . The voices murmuring. While I listen" came | On a sudden the weird seizure and tl doubt : THE PRINCESS ; A MEDLEY. 195 seem’d to move among a world of | It chanced, her empty glove upon the ghosts ; tomb he Princess with her monstrous woman- | Lay by her like a model of her hand. | guard, She took it and she flung it. ‘ Fight’ he jest and earnest working side by side, she said, he cataract and the tumult and the kings | ‘And make us all we would be, great vere shadows; and the long fantastic and good.’ night He knightlike in his cap instead of casque, ‘ith all its doings had and had not been, | A cap of Tyrol borrow’d from the hall, ad all things were and were not. Arranged the favour, and assumed the This went by Prince. ; strangely as it came, and on my spirits o ‘ttled a gentle cloud of melancholy ; ot long; I shook it off; for spite of | Now, scarce three paces measured from __ doubts the mound, nd sudden ghostly shadowings I was one | We stumbled on a stationary voice, 7» whom the touch of all mischance but | And ‘Stand, who goes?’ ‘Two from the came palace’ I. 3 night to him that sitting on a hill ‘The second two: they wait,’ he said, ses the midsummer, midnight, Norway ‘pass on ; | sun His Highness wakes:’ and one, that +t into sunrise ; then we moved away. clash’d in arms, By glimmering lanes and walls of canvas | Thy voice is heard thro’ rolling drums, ed That beat to battle where he stands ; Threading the soldier-city, till we heard _ Thy face across his fancy comes, The drowsy folds of our great ensign ___ And gives the battle to his hands: shake ee Poe the trumpets blow, From blazon’d lions o’er the imperial tent He sees his brood about thy knee ; | The next, like fire he meets the foe, Whispers of war. Entering, the sudden light SS ie enema Dazed me half-blind: I stood and seem’d > Lilia sang: we thought her half- to hear, . possess’d, As in a poplar grove when a light wind xe struck such warbling fury thro’ the wakes words ; A lisping of the innumerous leaf and dies, _ ad, after, feigning pique at what she | Each hissing in his neighbour’s ear ; and f call’d then ne raillery, or grotesque, or false sub- | A strangled titter, out of which there | lime— brake ke one that wishes at a dance to change | On all sides, clamouring etiquette to xe music—clapt her hands and cried death, S| for war, Unmeasured mirth; while now the two _ £ some grand fight to kill and make an old kings | end: Began to wag their baldness up and down, _ ad he that next inherited the tale The fresh young captains flash’d their _alf turning to the broken statue, said, glittering teeth, _ dir Ralph has got your colours: if I | The huge bush-bearded Barons heaved | prove and blew, _ our knight, and fight your battle, what | And slain with laughter roll’d the gilded } for me?’ Squire. 196 At length my Sire, his rough cheek wet with tears, Panted from weary sides ‘ King, you are free ! We did but keep you surety for our son, If this be he,—or a draggled mawkin, thou, That tends her bristled grunters in the sludge :’ For I was drench’d with ooze, and torn with briers, More crumpled than a poppy from the sheath, And all one rag, disprinced from head to heel. Then some one sent beneath his vaulted palm A whisper’d jest to some one near him, ‘ Look, He has been among his shadows.’ ‘Satan take The old women and their shadows! (thus the King Roar’d) make yourself a man to fight with men. Go: Cyril told us all.’ As boys that slink From ferule and the trespass-chiding eye, Away we stole, and transient in a trice From what was left of faded woman- slough To sheathing splendours and the golden scale Of harness, issued in the sun, that now Leapt from the dewy shoulders of the Earth, And hit the Northern hills. met us. A little shy at first, but by and by We twain, with mutual pardon ask’d and given For stroke and song, resolder’d peace, whereon Follow’d his tale. Amazed he fled away Thro’ the dark land, and later in the night Here Cyril Had come on Psyche weeping: ‘then we fell Into your father’s hand, and there she lies, But will not speak, nor stir.’ THE PRINCESS 5 A (MEDLEY, He show’d a ten A stone-shot off: we enter’d in, and th er Among piled arms and rough accou ments, a | Pitiful sight, wrapp’d in a soldier’s old kK, Like some sweet sculpture draped from head to foot, And push’d by rude hands from pedestal, All her ce length upon the ground s ; la And at ee head a follower of the camp, | A charr’d and wrinkled piece of wom an hood, Sat watching like a watcher by the da Then Florian knelt, and ‘Come “hy whisper’d to her, . ‘Lift up your head, sweet sister: lie mc thus. , e What have you done but right? you coul } not slay at Me, nor your prince: look up: be com} forted : Sweet isit to have done the thing oneo When fall’n in darker ways.’ And wise I: ‘Be comforted: have I not lost her In whose least act abides the name les charm y That none has else forme?’ She hea! she moved, ie @ She moan’d, a folded voice; and up sh sat, a And raised the cloak from brows as pa and smooth As those that mourn half-shrouded of} death In deathless marble. ‘ Her,’ she ‘my friend— | Parted from her—betray’d her cause an § mine— Where shall I breathe? why kept ye ni} your faith? ek | O base and bad! what comfort? nox for me !” To whom remorseful Cyril, ‘Yet I Take comfort: live, dear lady, for you child !” a | At which she lifted up her voice and : : . ‘ «Ah me, my babe, my blossom, ah, my child, y one sweet child, whom I shall see no more ! r now will cruel Ida keep her back ; ad either she will die from want of care, ¢ sicken with ill-usage, when they say ie child is hers—for every little fault, ie child is hers; and they will beat my girl smembering her mother: O my flower! « they will take her, they will make her ; hard, ad she will pass me by in after-life ith some cold reverence worse than | were she dead. | mother that I was to leave her there, o lag behind, scared by the cry they i made, he horror of the shame among them all: at I will go and sit beside the doors, nd make a wild petition night and day, antil they hate to hear me like a wind Tailing for ever, till they open to me, nd lay my little blossom at my feet, “y babe, my sweet Aglaia, my one child: nd I will take her up and go my way, nd satisfy my soul with kissing her : hh ! what might that man not deserve of | me 7ho gave me back my child?’ comforted,’ aid Cyril, ‘you shall have it:’ but again he yeil’d her brows, and prone she sank, and so ike tender things that being caught feign death, poke not, nor stirr’d. By this a murmur ran ‘hro’ all the camp and inward raced the scouts Vith rumour of Prince Arac hard at hand. Ve left her by the woman, and without ‘ound the pray kings at parle: and ‘ Look you ’ cried Ty father ‘that our compact be fulfill’d : “ou have spoilt this child ; she laughs at f you and man: he wrongs herself, her sex, and me, and him : ear ‘Be THE PRINCESS ; A MEDLEY. 197 But red-faced war has rods of steel and fire ; She yields, or war.’ Then Gama turn’d to me: ‘We fear, indeed, you spent a stormy time With our strange girl: and yet they say that still You love her. Give us, then, your mind at large : How say you, war or not ?’ ‘Not war, if possible, O king,’ I said, ‘lest from the abuse of war, The desecrated shrine, the trampled year, The smouldering homestead, and the household flower Torn from the lintel—all the common wrong— A smoke go up thro’ which I loom to her Three times a monster: now she lightens scorn At him that mars her plan, but then would hate (And every voice she talk’d with ratify it, And every face she look’d on justify it) The general foe. More soluble is this knot, By gentleness than war. I want her love. What were I nigher this altho’ we dash’d Your cities into shards with catapults, She would not love ;—or brought her chain’d, a slave, The lifting of whose eyelash is my lord, Not ever would she love; but brooding turn The book of scorn, till all my flitting chance Were caught within the record of her wrongs, And crush’d to death: than this I would the old God of war himself were dead, Forgotten, rusting on his iron hills, Rotting on some wild shore with ribs of wreck, Or like an old-world mammoth bulk’d in ice, Not to be molten out.’ and rather, Sire, 198 THE PRINCESS ; A\MEDPTL, And roughly spake My father, ‘Tut, you know them not, the girls. Boy, when I hear you prate I almost think That idiot legend credible. Look you, Sir ! Man is the hunter ; woman is his game: The sleek and shining creatures of the chase, We hunt them for the beauty of their skins ; They love us for it, and we ride them down. Wheedling and siding with them! for shame ! Boy, there’s no rose that’s half so dear to them As he that does the thing they dare not do, Breathing and sounding beauteous battle, comes . With the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps in Among the women, snares them by the score Flatter’d and fluster’d, wins, tho’ dash’d with death He reddens what he kisses: thus I won Your mother, a good mother, a good wife, Worth winning; but this firebrand— gentleness To such as her ! if Cyril spake her true, To catch a dragon in a cherry net, To trip a tigress with a gossamer, Were wisdom to it.’ ‘Yea but Sire,’ I cried, Out! ‘Wild natures need wise curbs. The soldier? No: What dares not Ida do that she should rize The soldier ? I beheld her, when she rose The yesternight, and storming in extremes, Stood for her cause, and flung defiance down Gagelike to man, and had not shunn’d the death, No, not the soldier’s: yet I hold her, king, True woman: but you clash them all in one, That have as many differences as we. The violet varies from the lily as far As oak from elm: one loves the s one The silken priest of peace, one thie that, . And some unworthily ; their sinless fe A maiden moon that sparkles on a sty, : Glorifying clown and satyr ; whence the need * More breadth of culture: is not Ida rij They worth it? truer to the law withi Severer in the logic of a life? . Twice as magnetic to sweet influences — Of earth and heaven? and she of whol you speak, . My mother, looks as whole as some seren Creation minted in the golden moods ~ Of sovereign artists; not a thought, touch, But pure as lines of green that streak th white d Of the first snowdrop’s inner leaves ; I say | Not like the piebald miscellany, man, | Bursts of great heart and slips in sensu) mire, . But whole and one: in-all, Were we ourselves but half as good, as Kine As truthful, much that Ida claims as righ’ Had ne’er been mooted, but as frank! | theirs As dues of Nature. war: Lest I lose all.’ ‘Nay, nay, you spake but sense Said Gama. ‘ We remember love ourse In our sweet youth ; we did not rate | then This red-hot iron to be shaped with ble | You talk almost like Ida: she can talk}| And there is something in it as you say | But you talk kindlier: we esteem you fi, it.— He seems a gracious and a gallant Princ | I would he had our daughter: for the res’ Our own detention, why, the causi| weigh’d, | Fatherly fearon sian used us courteous f We would do much to gratify your Prince- | We pardon it ; and for your ingress her| Upon the skirt and fringe of our fair lan«| and take them al To our point: ne - oD ; did but come as goblins in the night, \- in the furrow broke the ploughman’s head, WN: burnt the grange, nor buss’d the +) milking-maid, - robb’d the farmer of his bowl of cream : B let your Prince (our royal word upon it, comes back safe) ride with us to our lines, \ispeak with Arac: Arac’s word is thrice {ours with Ida: something may be | done— Bow not what—and ours shall see us friends. Yi, likewise, our late guests, if so you *); will, Flow us: who knows? we four may build some plan Fursquare to opposition.’ : \ Here he reach’d Wiite hands of farewell to my sire, who _ growl’d A answer which, half-muffled in his ' beard, I so much out as gave us leave to go. _ Then rode we with the old king across 4 the lawns Fieath huge trees, a thousand rings of | Spring - Tevery bole, a song on every spray C birds that piped their Valentines, and | woke sire in me to infuse my tale of love Bite old king’s ears, who promised help, ‘| and oozed # o'er with honey’d answer as we rode it blossom-fragrant slipt the heavy t dews Cther’d by night and peace, with each light air (. our mail’d heads: but other thoughts | than Peace Imt in us, when we saw the embattled | squares, Ad squadrons of the Prince, trampling the flowers ith clamour: for among them rose a cry 4 if to greet the king; they made a halt; } THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY. 199 The horses yell’d; they clash’d their arms ; the drum Beat; merrily-blowing shrill’d the martial fife ; And in the blast and bray of the long horn And serpent-throated bugle, undulated The banner: anon to meet us lightly pranced Three captains out ; nor ever had I seen Such thews of men: the midmost and the highest Was Arac: all about his motion clung. The shadow of his sister, as the beam Of the East, that play’d upon them, made them glance Like those three stars of the airy Giant’s zone, That glitter burnish’d by the frosty dark ; And as the fiery Sirius alters hue, And bickers into red and emerald, shone Their morions, wash’d with morning, as they came. And I that prated peace, when first I heard War-music, felt the blind wildbeast of force, Whose home is in the sinews of a man, Stir in me as to strike: then took the king His three broad sons; with nowa EE ing hand And now a pointed finger, told them all: A common light of smiles at our disguise Broke from their lips, and, ere the windy jest Had labour’d down within his amplelungs, The genial giant, Arac, roll’d himself Thrice in the saddle, then burst out in words. ‘Our land invaded, ’sdeath! and he himself Your captive, yet my father wills not war: And, ’sdeath! myself, what care I, war or noe But then this question of your troth re- mains : And there’s a downright honest meaning in her ; 200 THE PRINCESS ; “AWE Te She flies too high, she flies too high ! and __ yet She ask’d but space and fairplay for her scheme ; She prest and prest it on me—I myself, What know I of these things? but, life and soul ! I thought her half-right talking of her wrongs ; I say she flies too high, ’sdeath! what of that ? I take her for the flower of womankind, And so I often told her, right or wrong, And, Prince, she can be sweet to those she loves, And, right or wrong, I care not: this is all, I stand upon her side: she made me swear it— ’Sdeath—and with solemn rites by candle- light— Swear by St. something—TI forget her name— Her that talk’d down the fifty wisest men ; She was a princess too; and so I swore. Come, this is all; she will not: waive your claim : If not, the foughten field, what else, at once Decides it, ’sdeath! against my father’s will.’ I lagg’d in answer loth to render up My precontract, and loth by brainless war To cleave the rift of difference deeper yet; Till one of those two brothers, half aside And fingering at the hair about his lip, To prick us on to combat ‘ Like to like! The woman’s garment hid the woman’s heart.’ A taunt that clench’d his purpose like a blow ! For fiery-short was Cyril’s counter-scoff, And sharp I answer’d, touch’d upon the point Where idle boys are cowards to their shame, ‘Decide it here: why not? we are three to three.’ Then spake the third ‘ But three three ? no more? 4 No more, and in our noble sister’s cause More, more, for honour: every capta waits Hungry for honour, angry for his king, More, more, some fifty on a side, that eal May breathe himself, and quick! by ove throw . 4 Of these or those, the question settled o ‘Yea,’ answer’d I, ‘for this wild wre: 1 Of air, This flake of rainbow flying on the nia Foam of men’s deeds—this honour, if will. It needs must be for honour if at alam Since, what decision ? if we fail, we fai And if we win, we fail: she would n keep % Her compact.’ ‘’Sdeath! but we w send to her,’ iB Said Arac, ‘worthyreasons why she shou Bide by this issue: let our missive thre And you shall have her answer _ ql word.’ ‘Boys !’ shriek’d the old king, 5 vainlier than a hen To her false daughters in the pool ; j none Regarded ; Saat seem’d there more sa Back rode > we to my father’s camp, al found He thrice had sent a herald to the edie To learn if Ida yet would cede our clair Or by denial flush her babbling wells | With her own people’s life: three tim | he went: The first, he blew and blew, but no appear’d : He batter’d at the doors; none | the next, An awful voice within had warn’d hi thence: I f The third, and those eight daughters | the plough Came sallying thro’ the gates, and cag his hair, | 1 if if nd so belabour’d him on rib and cheek “hey made him wild : not less one glance he caught “hro? open doors of Ida station’d there Inshaken, clinging to her purpose, firm ‘ho’ compass’d by two armies and the k noise )farms ; and standing like astately Pine ‘et in a cataract on an island-crag, Vhen storm is on the heights, and right and left uck’d from the dark heart of the long . hills roll ' vhe torrents, dash’d to the vale: and yet her will _ 3red will in me to overcome it or fall. | _| But when I told the king that I was | pledged _ o fight in tourney for my bride, he P| -clash’d _ iis iron palms together with a cry ; dimself would tilt it out among the lads : _ 3ut overborne by all his bearded lords | Nith reasons drawn from age and state, fe perforce de yielded, wroth and red, with fierce demur : And manya bold knight started up in heat, And sware to combat for my claim till | death. | All on this side the palace ran the field Plat to the garden-wall: and likewise here, Above the garden’s glowing blossom-belts, A column’d entry shone and marble stairs, And great bronze valves, emboss’d with | Tomyris And what she did to Cyrus after fight, But now fast barr’d : so here upon the flat All that long morn the lists were hammer’d se! Ina all that morn the heralds to and fro, With message and defiance, went and came ; Last, Ida’s answer, in a royal hand, But shaken here and there, and rolling | words Oration- like. I kiss’d it and I read. PHE- PRINCESS ; “A MEDLEY. 201 ‘O brother, you have known the pangs we felt, What heats of indignation when we heard Of those that iron-cramp’d their women’s feet’; Of lands in which at the altar the poor bride Gives her harsh groom for bridal-gift a scourge ; Of living hearts that crack within the fire Where smoulder their dead despots ; and of those, — Mothers,—that, all prophetic pity, fling Their pretty maids in the running flood, and swoops The vulture, beak and talon, at the heart Made for all noble motion: and I saw That equal baseness lived in sleeker times With smoother men: the old leaven leaven’d all: Millions of throats would bawl for civil rights, No woman named: therefore I set my face Against all men, and lived but for mine own. Far off from men I built a fold for them: I stored it full of rich memorial : I fenced it round with gallant institutes, And biting laws to scare the beasts of prey And prosper’d ; till a rout of saucy boys Brake on us at our books, and marr’d our peace, Mask’d like our maids, blustering I know not what Of insolence and love, some pretext held Of baby troth, invalid, since my will Seal’d not the bond—the striplings !—for their sport !— I tamed my leopards : these ? Or you? or I? for since you think me touch’d In honour—what, I would not aught of false— Is not our cause pure? and whereas I know Your prowess, Arac, and what mother’s blood You draw from, fight; you failing, I abide shall I not tame 202 What end soever: fail you will not. Still Take not his life: he risk’d it for my own; His mother lives: yet whatsoe’er you do, Fight and fight well; strike and strike home. O dear Brothers, the woman’s Angel guards you, you The sole men to be mingled with our cause, The sole men we shall prize in the after- time, Your very armour hallow’d, and your statues Rear’d, sung to, when, this gad-fly brush’d aside, We plant a solid foot into the Time, ‘And mould a generation strong to move With claim on claim from right to right, till she Whose name is yoked with children’s, know herself ; And Knowledge in our own land make her free, And, ever following those two crowned twins, Commerce and conquest, shower the fiery grain Of freedom broadcast over all that orbs Between the Northern and the Southern morn,’ Then came a postscript dash’d across the rest. ‘See that there be no traitors in your camp : We seem a nest of traitors—none to trust Since our arms fail’d—this Egypt-plague of men ! Almost our maids were better at their homes, Than thus man-girdled here: indeed I think Our chiefest comfort is the little child Of one unworthy mother ; which she left: She shall not have it back: the child shall grow To prize the authentic mother of her mind. I took it for an hour in mine own bed This morning: there the tender orphan hands LHECPRINCLS SS. A MEDLEY. Felt at my heart, and seem’d to char n from thence The wrath I nursed against the world; farewell.’ é I ceased ; he said, ‘ Stubborn, but may sit Upon a king’s right hand in thunder- storms, And breed up warriors! See now, tho’ yourself Be dazzled by the wildfire Love to slo That swallow common sense, the spind- | ling king, This Gama swamp’d in lazy tolerance. — When the man wants weight, the woman takes it up, And topples down the scales ; fixt : As are the roots of earth and base of Man for the field and woman for hearth : . Man for the sword and for the needle Man with the head and woman with heart : Man to command and woman to obey All else confusion. Look you! the mare Is ill to live with, when her whinny shrills From tile to scullery, and her small good- but this is man Shrinks in his arm-chair while the of Hell a Mix with his hearth: but yo aa 4 a colt— ’ Take, break her: strongly groom’d ar } straitly curb’d She might not rank with those detestable That let the bantling scald at home, and brawl Their rights or wrongs like potherbal L the street. © They say she’s comely ; there’s the “? ‘ chance: d Z like her none the less for rating at her Besides, the woman wed is not as we, . But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace Of twins may weed her of her folly. Boy, The bearing and the training of a chil Is woman’s wisdom.’ — (ie ena THE PRINCESS ; A MEDLEY. 203 | Thus the hard old king: look my leave, for it was nearly noon: i don the little clause ‘take not his life :’ Jmused on that wild morning in the woods, 4d on the ‘ Follow, follow, thou shalt win :’ Jchought on all the wrathful king had i' said, id how the strange betrothment was to end: en I remember’d that burnt sorcerer’s . curse at one should fight with shadows and should fall ; uid like a flash the weird affection came: Jng, camp and college turn’d to hollow | shows ; Jeem’d to move in old memorial tilts, id doing battle with forgotten ghosts, » dream myself the shadow of a dream: id ere I woke it was the point of noon, ie lists were ready. Empanoplied and plumed ‘e enter’d in, and waited, fifty there posed to fifty, till the trumpet blared . the barrier like a wild horn in a land € echoes, and a moment, and once more “ie trumpet, and again: at which the storm © galloping hoofs bare on the ridge of ; spears _.id riders front to front, until they closed / conflict with the crash of shivering . | points, ad thunder. dream’d fighting. On his haunches rose the steed, ad into fiery splinters leapt the lance, _ id out of stricken helmets sprang the fire. ; ut sat like rocks: part reel’d but kept | their seats : irt roll’d on the earth and rose again ay Yet it seem’d a dream, I Oia = | and drew : ut stumbled mixt with floundering . horses. Down - om those two bulks at Arac’s side, and From Arac’s arm, as from a giant’s flail, The large blows rain’d, as here and every- where He rode the mellay, lord of the ringing lists, And all the plain,—brand, mace, and shaft, and. shield — Shock’d, like an iron-clanging anvil bang’d With hammers; till I thought, can this be he From Gama’s dwarfish loins? if this be so, The mother makes us most—and in my dream I glanced aside, and saw the palace-front Alive with fluttering scarfs and ladies’ eyes, And highest, among the statues, statue- like, Between a cymbal’d Miriam and a Jael, With Psyche’s babe, was Ida watching us, A single band of gold about her hair, Like a Saint’s glory up in heaven: she No saint—inexorable—no tenderness— Too hard, too cruel: yet she sees me fight, Yea, let her see me fall! with that I drave Among the thickest and bore down a but Prince, And Cyril, one. Yea, let me make my dream All that I would. But that large-moulded man, His visage all agrin as at a wake, Made at me thro’ the press, and, stagger- ing back With stroke on stroke the horse and horseman, came As comes a pillar of electric cloud, Flaying the roofs and sucking up the drains, And shadowing down the champaign till it strikes On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and cracks, and splits, And twists the grain with such a roar that Earth Reels, and the herdsmen cry ; for every- thing 204 THE PRINCESS ; A MEDLEY. Gave way before him: only Florian, he That loved me closer than his own right eye, Thrust in between; but Arac rode him down : And Cyril seeing it, puna against the Prince, With Psyche’s colour round his helmet, tough, Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms ; But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote And threw him: last I spurr’d; I felt my veins Stretch with fierce heat ; a moment hand to hand, And sword to sword and horse to ines we hung, Till I struck out and shouted; the blade glanced, I did but shear a feather, and dream and truth Flow’d from me; darkness closed me; and I fell. VI. Home they brought her warrior dead : She nor swoon’d, nor utter’d cry: All her maidens, watching, said, ‘She must weep or she will die.’ Then they praised him, soft and low, Call’d him worthy to be loved, Truest friend and noblest foe ; Yet she neither spoke nor moved. Stole a maiden from her place, Lightly to the warrior stept, Took the face-cloth from the face ; Yet she neither moved nor wept. Rose a nurse of ninety years, Set his child upon her knee— Like summer tempest came her tears— “Sweet my child, I live for thee.’ My dream had never died or lived again. As in some mystic middle state I lay ; Seeing I saw not, hearing not I heard : Tho’, if I saw not, yet they told me all So often that I speak as having seen. For so it seem’d, or so they said to That all things grew more tragic an more strange 5 That when our side was vanquish’d n my cause | For ever lost, there went up a great The Prince is slain. My father hea and ran . 3 In on the lists, and there on m casque And grovell’d on my body, and after hi Came Psyche, sorrowing for Aglaia. % But high upon the palace Ida stood { With Psyche’s babe in arm : there on th roofs 4 Like that great dame of Lapidoth sang. i ‘Our enemies have fall’n, have fall’n: the see: The little seed they laugh’d at in the dark, — Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk Of spanless girth, that lays on every side A thousand arms and rushes to the Sun. ‘Our enemies have fall’n, have fall’n: the came ; = The leaves:were wet with women’s tears: the heard Pi A noise of songs they would not understand: — They mark’d it with the red cross to the fall, And would have strown it, and are fall’n selves. ‘Our enemies have fall’n, have fall’n: came, . The woodmen with Ra axes: lo the tree! But we will make it faggots for the hearth, — And shape it plank and beam for roof and fic And boats and bridges for the use of men. ‘Our enemies have fall’n, have fall’n struck ; of With their own blows they hurt — knew Pid There dwelt an iron nature in the grain: = The glittering axe was broken in their arms, Their arms were shatter’d to the shoulder blaat ‘Our enemies have fall’n, but fis shall A night of Summer from the heat, a breadtll : Of Autumn, dropping fruits of power: and roll With music in the growing breeze of me | The tops shall strike from star to star, the i Shall move the stony bases of the world. THE PRINCESS ; A MEDLEY. 205 ‘And now, O maids, behold our sanctuary violate, our laws broken: fear we not break them more in their behoof, whose arms tampion’d our cause and won it with a . day anch’d inourannals, and perpetual feast, } year fall strip a hundred hollows bare of Spring, eir statues, borne aloft, the three: but | come, e will be liberal, since our rights are ; +t them not lie in the tents with coarse mankind, {nurses ; but descend, and proffer these there ie bruised and maim’d, the tender ministries hen dames and heroines of the golden » rain an April of ovation round won. ae brethren of our blood and cause, that f female hands and hospitality.’ j 7 _ She spoke, and with the babe yet in her arms, _ 'escending, burst the great bronze valves, and led hundred maids in train across the Park. ome cowl’d, and some bare-headed, on they came, heir feet in flowers, her loveliest: by them went he enamour’d air sighing, and on their | curls ‘rom the high tree the blossom wavering fell, nd over them the tremulous isles of light jided, they moving under shade: but | Blanche at distance follow’d: so they came: anon “hro’ open field into the lists they wound “‘imorously ; and as the leader of the | herd ~hat holds a stately fretwork to the Sun, And follow’d up by a hundred airy does, pteps with a tender foot, light as on air, “he lovely, lordly creature floated on To where her wounded brethren lay ; there stay’d ; Knelt on one knee,—the child on one,— and prest Their hands, and call’d them dear de- liverers, And happy warriors, and immortal names, And said ‘ You shall not lie in the tents but here, And nursed by those for whom you fought, and served With female hands and hospitality.’ Then, whether moved by this, or was it chance, She past my way. Up started from my side The old lion, glaring with his whelpless eye, Silent ; but when she saw me lying stark, Dishelm’d and mute, and motionlessly pale, Cold ev’n to her, she sigh’d ; and when she saw The haggard father’s face and reverend beard Of grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood Of his own son, shudder’d, a twitch of pain Tortured her mouth, and o’er her forehead past A shadow, and her hue changed, and she said : ‘He saved my life: my brother slew him for it.’ No more: at which the king in bitter scorn Drew from my neck the painting and the tress, And held them up: she saw them, and a day Rose from the distance on her memory, When the good Queen, her mother, shore the tress With kisses, ere the days of Lady Blanche: And then once more she look’d at my pale face : Till understanding all the foolish work Of Fancy, and the bitter close of all, Her iron will was broken in her mind ; Her noble heart was molten in her breast ; 206 She bow’d, she set the child on the earth ; she laid A feeling finger on my brows, and presently ‘O Sire,’ she said, ‘he lives: he is not dead : O let me have him with my brethren here In our own palace: we will tend on him Like one of these ; if so, by any means, To lighten this great clog of thanks, that make Our progress falter to the woman’s goal.’ She said: but at the happy word ‘he lives’ My father stoop’d, re-father’'d o’er my wounds. So those two foes above my fallen life, With brow to brow like night and evening mixt Their dark and gray, while ae ever stole A little nearer, till the babe that by us, Half-lapt in glowing gauze and golden brede, Lay like a new-fall’n meteor on the grass, Uncared for, spied its mother and began A blind and babbling laughter, and to dance Its body, and reach its fatling innocent arms And lazy lingering fingers. She the appeal Brook’d not, but clamouring out ‘ Mine— mine—not yours, It is not yours, but mine: child’ Ceased all on tremble: cry: So stood the unhappy mother open- mouth’d, And turn’d each face her way: wan was her cheek With hollow watch, her blooming mantle torn, Red grief and mother’s hunger in her eye, And down dead-heavy sank her curls, and half The sacred mother’s bosom, panting, burst The laces toward her babe ; but she nor cared give me the piteous was the THE PRINCESS 3 (“A MED ER Ys Nor knew it, clamouring on, till Ida hea Look’d up, and rising slowly from me, stood Erect and silent, striking with her gle : The mother, me, the child; but he la Beside us, Cyril, batter’d as he was, Trail’d himself up on one knee: then he drew Her robe to meet his lips, and down sh look’d | At the arm’d man sideways, i as it seem’d, Or self-involved ; but when she lem t his. face, Remembering his ill-omen’d song, arose Once more thro’ all her height, anes P) him grew Tall as a figure lengthen’d on the aa When the tide ebbs in sunshine, and said : ‘O fair and strong and terrible ! Lioness . That with your long locks play the Lio on mane ! But Love and Nature, these are two terrible And stronger. necks, We vanquish’d, you the Victor of your will. , A What would you more? give her child ! remain Orb’d in your isolation: he is dead, Or all as dead: henceforth we let yo Win you the hearts of women; See, your foot is on beware 4 Lest, where you seek the common Jove of these, » The common hate with the revolving wheel ; Should drag you down, and some gr al Nemesis : Break from a darken’d future, crown’ with fire, 4 And tread you out for ever: but ho 2 soe’er Fix’d in yourself, never in your own ar To hold your own, deny not hers to pega PRINCESS ; A MEDLEY. 207 (ve her the child! O/if, I say, you keep fie pulse that beats true woman, if you loved ‘ne breast that fed or arm that dandled you, own one port of sense not flint to | prayer, ve her the child! or if you scorn to lay it, ourself, in hands so lately claspt with | yours, \ speak to her, your dearest, her one 7 fault he tenderness, not yours, that could not ; pb : J will give it her.’ He said : ¢ first her eye with slow dilation roll’d ty flame, she listening ; after sank and ; san _ ad, into mournful twilight mellowing, Le dwelt - all on the child; she took it: ‘ Pretty | bud! i ily of the vale! half open’d bell of the | woods ! _ dle comfort of my dark hour, when a P| world _ f traitorous friend and broken system made o purple in the distance, mystery, ledge of a love not to be mine, farewell; hese men are hard upon us as of old, Je two must part: and yet how fain was I _ 0 dream thy cause embraced in mine, to think might be something to thee, when I felt hy helpless warmth about my barren breast a the dead prime: but may thy mother prove \s true to thee as false, false, false to me! .nd, if thou needs must bear the yoke, I wish it rentle as freedom ’—here she kiss’d it: then— All good go with thee! take it Sir,’ and so aid thesoft babein hishard-mailed hands, Who turn’d half-round to Psyche as she sprang To meet it, with an eye that swum in thanks ; Then felt it sound and whole from head to foot, And hugg’d and never hugg’d it close enough, And in her hunger mouth’d and mumbled it; And hid her bosom with it; after that Put on more calm and added suppliantly : ‘We two were friends : own land For ever: find some other: as for me I scarce am fit for your great plans: yet speak to me, Say one soft word and let me part for- given.’ I go to mine But Ida spoke not, rapt upon the child. Then Arac. ‘ Ida—’sdeath! you blame the man ; You wrong yourselves—the woman is so hard Upon the woman. Come, a grace to me! Iam your warrior: I and mine have fought Your battle: kiss her; take her hand, she weeps: *Sdeath ! I would sooner fight thrice o’er than see it.’ But Ida spoke not, gazing on theground, And reddening in the furrows of his chin, And moved beyond his custom, Gama said : ‘T’ve heard that there is iron in the blood, And I believe it. Not one word? not one? Whence drew you this steel temper? not from me, Not from your mother, now a saint with saints. She said you had a heart—I heard her say 1t— “‘Our Idahasa heart ’’—just ere she died — ** But see that some one with authority Be near her still” and I—I sought for one— ' 208 All people said she had authority— The Lady Blanche: much profit! Not one word ; ; No! tho’ your father sues: see how you stand Stiff as Lot’s wife, and all the good knights maim’d, I trust that there is no one hurt to death, For your wild whim: and was it then for this, Was it for this we gave our palace up, Where we withdrew from summer heats and state, And had our wine and chess beneath the planes, And many a pleasant hour with her that’s gone, Ere you were born to vex us? Is it kind? Speak to her I say: is this not she of whom, When first she came, all flush’d you said to me Now had you got a friend of your own age, Now could you share your thought ; should men see Two women faster welded in one love Than pairs of wedlock ; she you walk’d with, she You talk’d with, whole nights long, up in the tower, Of sine and arc, spheroid and azimuth, And right ascension, Heaven knows what ; and now A word, but one, one little kindly word, Not one to spare her: out upon you, flint ! You love nor her, nor me, nor any ; nay, You shame your mother’s judgment too. Not one? You will not ? well—no heart have you, or such As fancies like the vermin in a nut Have fretted all to dust and bitterness.’ So said the small king moved beyond his wont. now But Ida stood nor spoke, drain’d of her force By many a varying influence and so long. THE PRINCESS $ AMEDD Down thro’ her limbs a drooping — / we ts moon In a still water : Lifting his grim head from my wound: ‘i “O you, > Woman, whom we thought woman even | now, Cm And were half fool’dtolet you tendour son, — Because he might have wish’d it—but see The accomplice of your madness unfor given, i And think that you might mix his draught — with death, ' When your skies change again: rougher hand aL Is safer: on to the tents: take up the © Prince;* | 4 ; the | He rose, and while each ear was prick’ . to attend | A tempest, thro’ the cloud that diam { her broke : A genial warmth and light once more, ( and shone F Thro’ glittering drops on her sad friend. _ ‘Come hither. O Psyche,’ she cried out, ‘embrace me; iP come, Quick while I melt ; sure . With one that cannot keep her mind an | hour : : Come to the hollow heart they slanderso! — Kiss and be friends, like children being chid ! . 7 seem no more: J want forgiveness too: I should have had to do with none but © maids, . That have no links with men. but dear, Dear traitor, too much loved, why am | why ?—Yet see, Before these kings we embrace you yet | once more With all forgiveness, all oblivion, And trust, not love, you less, make reconciaaaaa Ah false i And now, O sire, ant me your son, to nurse, to wait upon him, Like mine own brother. him, {his nightmare weight of gratitude, I know it; faunt me no more: shall have Tree adit ; we will scatter all our maids Pill happier times each to her proper hearth : |What use to keep them here—now? grant my prayer. Help, father, brother, help ; speak to the _ For my debt to yourself and yours | king : Thaw this cele nature to some touch of that - Which kills me with myself, and drags ‘ me down From my fixt height to mob me up with all ‘The soft and milky rabble of momaniind, Poor weakling ev’n as they are.’ Passionate tears Follow: the king replied not: Cyril i said : i Your brother, Lady, —Florian, —ask for him Of your great head—for he is wounded | too— - That you may tend upon him with the prince.’ _ ‘Ay so,’ said Ida with a bitter smile, “Our laws are broken: let him enter ) too.’ Then Violet, she that sang the mournful song, And had a cousin tumbled on the plain, Petition’d too forhim. ‘ Ay so,’ she said, “I stagger in the stream: I cannot keep My heart an eddy from the brawling hour : We break our laws with ease, but let it be.’ _ “Ay so?’ said Blanche: ‘Amazed am I to hear Your Highness: but your breaks with ease The law your Highness did not make: twas I. Highness az THE PRINCESS’; A’ MEDLEY. 209 I had been wedded wife, I knew mankind, And block’d them out; but these men came to woo Your Highness—verily I think to win.’ So she, and turn’d askance a wintry eye: But Ida with a voice, that like a bell Toll’d by an earthquake in a trembling tower, Rang ruin, answer’ d full of grief and scorn. ‘Fling our doors wide! all, all, not one, but all, Not only he, but by my mother’s soul, Whatever man lies wounded, friend or foe, Shall enter, if he will. Let our girls flit, Till the storm die! but had you stood by us, The roar that breaks the Pharos from his base ; Had left us rock. She fain would sting us too, But shall not. Pass, and mingle with your likes. We brook no further insult but are gone.’ She turn’d ; neck Was rosed with indignation : Prince Her brother came; the king her father charm’d Her wounded soul with words: mine own Refuse her proffer, lastly gave his hand. the very nape of her white but the nor did Then us they lifted up, dead weights, and bare Straight to the doors : gave way Groaning, and in the Vestal entry shriek’d The virgin marble under iron heels : And on they moved and gain’d the hall, to them the doors and there Rested: but great the crush was, and each base, To left and right, of those tall columns drown’d In silken fluctuation and the swarm Of female whisperers: at the further end P 210 Was Ida by the throne, the two great cats Close by her, like supporters on a shield, Bow-back’d with fear: but in the centre stood The common men with rolling eyes; amazed They glared upon the women, and aghast The women stared at these, all silent, save When armour clash’d or jingled, while the day, Descending, struck athwart the ba and shot A flying splendour out of brass and steel, That o’er the statues leapt from head to head, Now fired an angry Pallas on the helm, Now set a wrathful Dian’s moon on flame, And now and then an echo started up, And shuddering fled from room to room, and died Of fright in far apartments. Then the voice Of Ida sounded, issuing ordinance : And me they bore up the broad stairs, and thro’ The long-laid galleries past a hundred doors To one deep chamber shut from sound, and due To languid limbs and sickness ; left me invits And others otherwhere they laid ; and all That afternoon a sound arose of hoof And chariot, many a maiden passing home Till happier times ; but some were left of those Heldsagest, and the great lords out and in, From those two hosts that lay beside the walls, Walk’d at their will, and everything was changed. VII. Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea} The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; But O too fond, when have I answer’d thee? Ask me no more, THE PRINCESS; A MEDIZ, q Ask me no more: what answer should I give? I love not hollow cheek or faded eye: Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die L Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live; — Ask me no more. Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal’d : j I strove against the stream and allin vain: Let the great river take me to the main: — No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield; Ask me no more. So was their sanctuary violated, = So their fair college turn’d to hospital . At first with all confusion: by and by — Sweet order lived again with other laws: A kindlier influence reign’d ; and evel ry- where Low vaices with the ministering hand Hung round the sick: the maidens cami they talk’d, They sang, they read : began To gather light, and she that was, became Her former beauty treble ; and to and fic With books, with flowers, with Ange| | offices, 7) Like creatures native unto gracious act, And in their own clear element, they moved. ae till she not fait But sadness on the soul of Ida fell, And hatred of her weakness, blent wit) shame. Old studies fail’d ; but oft Clomb to the roofs, and gazed alone fo hours eS On that disastrous leaguer, swarms of m me_ Darkening her female field: void was he: use, f And she as one that climbs a peak to gaz — O’er land and main, and sees a gree black cloud rt Drag inward from the deeps, a wall « I night, a Blot out the slope of sea from verge 1 shore, And suck the blinding splendour from ae sand, And quenching lake by lake and tarn 1 tarn seldom she spoke : ba the world: there ; jo blacken’d all her world in secret, blank ind waste it seem’d and vain ; she came, ind found fair peace once more among the sick. till down And twilight dawn’d; and morn by morn the lark hot up and shrill’d in flickering gyres, but I ay silent in the muffled cage of life : ind twilight gloom’d ; and broader-grown the bowers Jrew the great night into themselves, and Heaven, ‘tar after star, arose and fell; but I, Deeper than those weird doubts could reach me, lay )uite sunder’d from the moving Universe, ‘or knew what eye was on me, nor the hand hat nursed me, more than infants in their sleep. But Psyche tended Florian: with her oft, Telissa came ; for Blanche had gone, but left er child among us, willing she should ; keep Jourt-favour: here and there the small bright head, it light of healing, glanced about the 7 couch, if thro’ the parted silks the tender face eep’d, shining in upon the wounded man 3 Vith fash and smile, a medicine in themselves _ ‘owile the length from languorous hours, | and draw | ‘he sting from pain; nor seem’d it strange that soon _ le rose up whole, and those fair charities _ oim’d at her side; nor stranger seem’d that hearts | © gentle, so employ’d, should close in love, LHE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY. 211 —— — so fared she gazing | Than when two dewdrops on the petal shake To the same sweet air, and tremble deeper down, And slip at once all-fragrant into one. Less prosperously the second suit ob- tain’d At first with Psyche. had sworn That after that dark night among the fields She needs must wed him for her own good name ; Not tho’ he built upon the babe restored ; Nor tho’ she liked him, yielded she, but fear’d To incense the Head once more; till on a day When Cyril pleaded, Ida came behind Seen but of Psyche: on her foot she hung A moment, and she heard, at which her face A little flush’d, and she past on ; but each Assumed from thence a half-consent in- volved In stillness, plighted troth, and were at peace. Not tho’ Blanche Nor only these: Love in the sacred halls Held carnival at will, and flying struck With showers of random sweet on maid and man. Nor did her father cease to press my claim, Nor did mine own now reconciled; nor yet Did those twin brothers, risen again and whole ; Nor Arac, satiate with his aor. But I lay still, and with me oft she sat: Then came a change; for sometimes I would catch Her hand in wild delirium, gripe it hard, And fling it like a viper off, and shriek ‘You are not Ida ;’ clasp it once again, And call her Ida, tho’ I knew her not, And call her sweet, as if in irony, And call her hard and cold which seem’d a truth : And still she fear’d that I should lose my mind, 212 THECPRINCESSE: A MEDLEY. And often she believed that I should die: Till out of long frustration of her care, And pensive tendance in the all-weary noons, And watches in the dead, the dark, when “clocks Throbb’d thunder thro’ the palace floors, or call’d On flying Time from all their silver tongues — And out of memories of her kindlier days, And sidelong glances at my father’s grief, And at the happy lovers heart in heart— And out of hauntings of my spoken love, And lonely listenings to my mutter’d dream, And often feeling of the helpless hands, And wordless broodings on the wasted cheek— From all a closer interest flourish’d up, Tenderness touch by touch, and last, to these, Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears By some cold morning glacier ; frail at first And feeble, all unconscious of itself, But such as gather’d colour day by day. Last I woke sane, but well-nigh close to death For weakness: it was evening: silent light Slept on the painted walls, wherein were wrought Two grand designs ; for on one side arose The women up in wild revolt, and storm’d At the Oppian law. Titanic shapes, they cramm’d The forum, and half-crush’d among the rest A dwarf-like Cato cower’d. On the other side Hortensia spoke against the tax ; behind, A train of dames: by axe and eagle sat, With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls, And half the wolf’s-milk curdled in their veins, The fierce triumvirs ; paused Hortensia pleading : and before them angry was her face. I knew not wher I saw the forms: was : ; They did but look like hollow shows; nor more Sweet Ida: palm to palm she sat: the d Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape And rounder seem’d: I moved: I “a a touch Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand : Then all for languor and self-pity ran Mine down my face, and with what life I had, - And like a fone that cannot all unfold, So drench’d it is with tempest, to the sun, Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her Fixt my faint eyes, and utter’d whic ingly : a | ‘If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream, I would but ask you to fulfil yourself: " But if you be that Ida whom I knew, — I ask you nothing: only, ifa dream, Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night. Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere y die.’ I could no more, but lay like one it trance, That hears his burial talk’d of by hi friends, And cannot speak, nor move, nor mak one sign, But lies and dreads hisdoom. She tom’ she paused ; She stoop’d; and out of languor leapt: cry ; Leapt fiery Passion from the brinks 0 death ; Andd believed that in the living woul | My spirit closed with Ida’s at the lips; Till back I fell, and from mine arms a rose Glowing all over noble shame ; and all. Her falser self slipt from her like a robe And left her woman, lovelier in her moo: Than in her mould that other, when sh came rom barren deeps to conquer all with love ; And down the streaming crystal dropt ; and she \aiideeted by the purple island-sides, Yaked, a double light in air and wave, {fo meet her Graces, where they deck’d her out “or worship without end; nor end of mine, jtateliest, for thee ! but mute she glided | forth, Yor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept, il?d thro’ and thro’ with Love, a happy sleep. Deep in the night I woke: me, held \ volume of the Poets of her land : vhere to herself, all in low tones, she read, she, near ‘Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; ‘Yor waves the cypress in the palace walk ; or winks the gold fin in the porphyry font : vhe fire-fly wakens : waken thou with me. { er Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost, And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. _ Now lies the Earth all Danaé to the stars, And all thy heart lies open unto me, _ Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves ‘\ shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. _ Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, ‘And slips into the bosom of the lake : Jo fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip _nto my bosom and be lost in me.’ | _ Iheard her turn the page; she found a small Sweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read : _ ‘Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain | height : What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang) n height and cold, the splendour of the hills? But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease “o glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, “o sit a star upon the sparkling spire ; nd come, for Love is of the valley, come, Tor Love is of the valley, come thou down THE PRINCESS ; A MEDLEY. 213 And find him ; by the happy threshold, he, Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize, Or red with spirted purple of the vats, Or foxlike in the vine ; nor cares to walk With Death and Morning on the silver horns, Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice, That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls To roll the torrent out of dusky doors : But follow ; let the torrent dance thee down To find him in the valley ; let the wild Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, That like a broken purpose waste in air : So waste not thou ; but come; for all the vales Await thee ; azure pillars of the hearth Arise to thee ; the children call, and I Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet ; Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro’ the lawn, The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees.’ So she low-toned ; while with shut eyes I lay Listening ; then look’d. perfect face ; The bosom with long sighs labour’d ; and Pale was the meek Seem’d the full lips, and mild the lumi- nous eyes, And the voice trembled and the hand. She said Brokenly, that she knew it, she had fail’d In sweet humility ; had fail’d in all; That all her labour was but as a block Left in the quarry ; but she still were loth, She still were loth to yield herself to one That wholly scorn’d to help their equal rights Against the sons of men, and barbarous laws. She pray’d me not to judge their cause from her That wrong’d it, sought far less for truth than power In knowledge: something wild within her reacts A greater than all knowledge, beat er down. And she had nursed me there from week to week ; 214 THE PRINCESS 5° AVMEDIIe Much had she learnt in little time. In part It was ill counsel had misled the girl Tovextrue hearts: yet was she but a girl— ‘Ah fool, and made myself a Queen of farce ! When comes another such? never, I think, Till the Sun drop, dead, from the signs.’ Her voice Choked, and her forehead sank upon her hands, And her great heart thro’ all the faultful Past , Went sorrowing in a pause I dared not break ; Till notice of a change in the dark world Was lispt about the acacias, and a bird, That early woke to feed her little ones, Sent from a dewy breast a cry for light : She moved, and at her feet the volume fell. ‘Blame not thyself too much,’ I said, ‘nor blame Too much the sons of men and barbarous laws 3 These were the rough ways of the world till now. Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know The woman’s cause is man’s: they rise or sink Together, dwarfd or godlike, bond or free : For she that out of Lethe scales with man The shining steps of Nature, shares with man His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal, Stays all the fair young planet in her hands— If she be small, slight-natured, miserable, How shall men grow ? but work no more alone ! Our place is much: as far as in us lies We two will serve them both in aiding her— Will clear away the parasitic forms That seem to keep her up but drag her down— Will leave her space to burgeon out of al Within her—let her make herself her owr To give or keep, to live and learn and be All that not harms distinctive womanhood For woman is not undevelopt man, But diverse: could we make her as th man, } Sweet Love were slain: his dearest bon is this, Not like to like, but like in difference, Yet in the long years liker must they grow The man be more of woman, she of man He gain in sweetness and in moral height. Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world ; She mental breadth, nor fail in childwane care; Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind — Till at the last she set herself to man, — Like perfect music unto noble words; — And so these twain, upon the skirts oF Time, Sit side by side, full-summ/’d in all the powers, Dispensing harvest, sowing the To- be, , Self-reverent each and reverencing each, Distinct in individualities, | But like each other ev’n as those who love. Then comes the statelier Eden back tc men : Then reign the world’s great bridals, chaste and calm : Then springs the crowning race of human: kind. May these things be !” Sighing she spoke ‘I 4 They will not.’ : ‘ Dear, but let us type them now In our own lives, and this proud watch- word rest Of equal ; seeing either sex alone Is half itself, and in true marriage lies ~ Nor equal, nor unequal: each fulfils Defect in each, and always thought in thought, Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow, The single pure and perfect animal, The two-cell’d heart beating, with one full stroke, Life.’ ' 3 _ dream “hat once was mine! what woman taught -—_-you this ?’ _ f Alone,’ I said, ‘from earlier than I know, mmersed in rich foreshadowings of the world, loved the woman: he, that doth not, lives 1 drowning life, besotted in sweet self, Jr pines in sad experience worse than | death, ir keeps his wing’d affections clipt with crime : ‘et was there one thro’ whom I loved her, one ~ tot learned, save in gracious household | ways, hot perfect, nay, but full of tender wants, vo Angel, but a dearer being, all dipt n Angel instincts, breathing Paradise, nterpreter between the Gods and men, Vho look’d all native to her place, and yet )n tiptoe seem’d to touch upon a sphere 00 gross to tread, and all male minds perforce -way’d to her from their orbits as they moved, and girdled her with music. Happy he Vith such a mother! faith in woman- kind veats with his blood, and trust in all things high vomes easy to him, and tho’ he trip and ; fall fe shall not blind his soul with clay.’ ‘But I,’ vaid Ida, tremulously, ‘so all unlike— {seems you love to cheat yourself with words : “his mother is your model. I have heard f your strange doubts: they well might | be: I seem \ mockery to my own self. Never, Prince ; r > ou cannot love me. PAE THINGCLSS; Ai MEDLEY. And again sighing she spoke: ‘A 215 ‘Nay but thee’ I said ‘From yearlong poring on thy pictured eyes, Ere seen I loved, and loved thee seen, and saw Thee woman thro’ the crust of iron moods That mask’d thee from men’s reverence up, and forced Sweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood: now, Giv’n back to life, to life indeed, thro’ thee, Indeed I love: the new day comes, the light Dearer for night, as dearer thou for faults Lived over: lift thine eyes; my doubts are dead, My haunting sense of hollow shows: the change, This truthful change in thee has kill’d it. Dear, Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine, Like yonder morning on the blind half- world ; Approach and fear not; breathe upon my brows ; ‘In that fine air I tremble, all the past Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and this Is morn to more, and all the rich to-come Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels Athwart the smoke of burning weeds. Forgive me, I waste my heart in signs: let be. My bride, My wife, my life. O we will walk this world, Yoked in all exercise of noble end, And so thro’ those dark gates across the wild That no man knows. thee : come, Yield thyself up : my hopes and thine are one : Accomplish thou my manhood and thy- self ; Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me.’ Indeed I love 216 CONCLUSION, So closed our tale, of which I give you all The random scheme as wildly as it rose : The words are mostly mine; for when we ceased There came a minute’s pause, and Walter said, ‘T wish she had not yielded !’ then to me, ‘What, if you drest it up poetically !’ So pray’d the men, the women: I gave assent : Yet how to bind the scatter’d scheme of seven Together in one sheaf? What style could suit ? The men required that I should give throughout The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque, With which we banter’d little Lilia first : The women—and perhaps they felt their power, For something in the ballads which they sang, Or in their silent influence as they sat, Had ever seem’d to wrestle with burlesque, And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close— They hated banter, wish’d for something real, A gallant fight, a noble princess—why Not make her true-heroic—true-sublime ? Or all, they said, as earnest as the close ? Which yet with such a framework scarce could be. Then rose a little feud betwixt the two, Betwixt the mockers and the realists : And I, betwixt them both, to please them both, And yet to give the story as it rose, I moved as in a strange diagonal, And maybe neither pleased myself nor them. But Lilia pleased me, for she took no part In our dispute: the sequel of the tale Had touch’d her; and she sat, she pluck’d the grass, THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY. She flung it from her, Hilo: last, s fixt A showery glance upon her anit and saic ‘You—tell us what we are’ who migl have told, 8 For she was cramm’d with theories ou of books, % But that there rose a shout: the gate were closed ; At sunset, and the crowd were swarmin now, To take their leave, about the gone rails. So I and some went out to these: w climb’d The slopeto Vivian-place, and turning say The happy valleys, half in light, and hal Far-shadowing from the west, a land ¢ peace ; Gray halls alone among their massiy QYOVES ; Trim hamlets; here and there a rus tower Half-lost in belts of hop and breadths 0. wheat ; The shimmering glimpses of a stream the seas ; ~ | A red sail, or a white ; and far beyoum Imagined more than seen, the skirts o France. ‘Look there, a garden!’ said m college friend, The Tory member’s elder son, anc there! God bless the narrow sea which keep: her off, And keeps our Britain, whole withit herself, , A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled! Some sense of duty, something of a faith, Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made, Some patient force to change them wher we will, Some civic manhood firm against the crowd— But yonder, whiff! there comes a sudden heat, The gravest citizen seems to lose his head, The king is scared, the soldier will not fight, The little boys begin to shoot and stab, A kingdom topples over with a shriek Like an old woman, and down rolls the world in mock heroics stranger than our own ; Reyolts, republics, revolutions, most No graver than a schoolboys’ barring out ; Too comic for the solemn things they are, Too solemn for the comic touches in them, uike our wild Princess with as wise a dream As some of theirs—God bless the narrow seas ! ‘ wish they were a whole Atlantic broad.’ _ ‘Have patience,’ I replied, ‘ ourselves are full Of social wrong; and maybe wildest dreams \re but the needful preludes of the truth : ‘or me, the genial day, the happy crowd, (he sport half-science, fill me with a faith, This fine old world of ours is but a child Tet in the go-cart. Patience! Give it time ‘o learn its limbs : there is a hand that ; guides.’ _ Insuch discourse we gain’d the garden | rails, And there we saw Sir Walter where he stood, sefore a tower of crimson holly-oaks, ‘mong six boys, head under head, and look’d Jo little lily-handed Baronet he, » 4 great broad-shoulder’d genial English- man, 4 lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep, \ raiser of huge melons and of pine, 4 patron of some thirty charities, \ pamphleteer on guano and on grain, » . quarter-sessions chairman, abler none ; THE PRINCESS ; A MEDLEY. 257 Fair-hair’d and redder than a windy morn ; Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those That stood the nearest—now address’d to speech— Who spoke few words and pithy, such as closed Welcome, farewell, and welcome for the ear To follow : a shout rose again, and made The long line of the approaching rookery swerve From the elms, and shook the branches of the deer From slope to slope thro’ distant ferns, and rang Beyond the bourn of sunset ; O, a shout More joyful than the city-roar that hails Premier or king! Why should not these great Sirs Give up their parks some dozen times a year To let the people breathe? they cried, I likewise, and in groups they stream’d away. So thrice But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on, So much the gathering darkness charm’d: we sat But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie, Perchance upon the future man: the walls Blacken’d about us, bats wheel’d, and owls whoop’d, And gradually the powers of the night, That range above the region of the wind, Deepening the courts of twilight broke them up Thro’ all the silent spaces of the worlds, Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens. Last little Lilia, rising quietly, Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Ralph From those rich silks, and home well- pleased we went. 218 ODE ON THE DEAT ZIG ODE'ON THE DEATHAOF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON, PUBLISHED IN 1852. I. Bury the Great Duke With an empire’s lamentation, Let us bury the Great Duke To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation, Mourning when their leaders fall, Warriors carry the warrior’s pall, And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall. IGG Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore ? Here, in streaming London’s central roar, Let the sound of those he wrought for, And the feet of those he fought for, Echo round his bones for evermore. III. Lead out the pageant : sad and slow, As fits an universal woe, Let the long long procession go, And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, And let the mournful martial music blow ; The last great Englishman is low. Was Mourn, for to us he seems the last, Remembering all his greatness in the Past. No more in soldier fashion will he greet With lifted hand the gazer in the street. O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute: Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, The statesman-warrior, moderate, reso- lute, Whole in himself, a common good. Mourn for the man of amplest influence, Yet clearest of ambitious crime, Our greatest yet with least pretence, Great in council and great in war, Foremost captain of his time, Rich in saving common-sense, And, as the greatest only are, In his simplicity sublime. O good gray head which all men knew, O voice from which their omens all men drew, “y O iron nerve to true occasion true, O fall’n at length that tower of strength Which stood four-square to all the i that blew ! . Such was he whom we deplore. The long self-sacrifice of life is o’er. The great World-victor’s victor will 4 seen no more. 4 V. | All is over and done: ft Render thanks to the Giver, 4 England, for thy son. E | Let the bell be toll’d, a Render thanks to the Giver, And render him to the mouid. Under the cross of gold That shines over city and river, There he shall rest for ever yp Among the wise and the bold. a Let the bell be toll’d : 2 And a reverent people behold The towering car, the sable steeds: Bright let it be with its blazon’d deeds, Dark in its funeral fold. +2 Let the bell be toll’d: | And a deeper knell in the heart be knoll’d ; = | And the sounds of the sorrowing anthem roll’d q Thro’ the dome of the golden cross; And the volleying cannon thunder his loss ; 4 He knew their voices of old. ‘al For many a time in many a clime :e His captain’s-ear has heard them boom — | Bellowing victory, bellowing doom : 5 | When he with those deep voices wrought, Guarding realms and kings from shame} With those deep voices our dead oe taught The tyrant, and asserts his claim In that dread sound to the great name, — Which he has worn so pure of blame, | In praise and in dispraise the same, > ie | & > =. \ man of well-attemper’d frame. ) civic muse, to such a name, Co such a name for ages long, Co such a name, *reserve a broad approach of fame, \nd ever-echoing avenues of song. Vi. Nho is he that cometh, like an honour’d guest, Vith banner and with music, with soldier | and with priest, Vith a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest ? fighty Seaman, this is he Vas great by land as thou by sea. “hine island loves thee well, thou famous man, “he greatest sailor since our world began. tow, to the roll of muffled drums, o thee the greatest soldier comes ; ‘or this is he Vas great by land as thou by sea; Tis foes were thine; he kept us free ; ) give him welcome, this is he Vorthy of our gorgeous rites, and worthy to be laid by ines ; ‘or this is England’s greatest son, te that gain’d a hundred fights, Tor ever lost an English gun ; ‘his is he that far away gainst the myriads of Assaye lash’d with his fiery few and won ; ind underneath another sun, Varring on a later day, ound affrighted Lisbon drew “he treble works, the vast designs ‘f his labour’d rampart-lines, Vhere he greatly stood at bay, Vhence he issued forth anew, nd ever great and greater grew, eating from the wasted vines ack to France her banded swarms, ack to France with countless blows, ill o’er the hills her eagles flew eyond the Pyrenean pines, ollow’d up in valley and glen 7ith blare of bugle, clamour of men, oll of cannon and clash of arms, nd England pouring on her foes. i= THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 219 Such a war had such a close. Again their ravening eagle rose In anger, wheel’d on Europe-shadowing wings, And barking for the thrones of kings ; Till one that sought but Duty’s iron crown On that loud sabbath shook the spoiler down ; A day of onsets of despair ! Dash’d on every rocky square Their surging charges foam’d themselves away ; Last, the Prussian trumpet blew ; Thro’ the long-tormented air Heayen flash’d a sudden jubilant ray, And down we swept and charged and overthrew. So great a soldier taught us there, What long-enduring hearts could do In that world-earthquake, Waterloo! Mighty Seaman, tender and true, And pure as he from taint of craven guile, O saviour of the silver-coasted isle, O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile, If aught of things that here befall Touch a spirit among things divine, If love of country move thee there at all, Be glad, because his bones are laid by thine! And thro’ the centuries let a people’s voice In full acclaim, A people’s voice, The proof and echo of all human fame, A people’s voice, when they rejoice At civic revel and pomp and game, Attest their great commander’s claim With honour, honour, honour, honour to him, Eternal honour to his name. VII. A people’s voice ! we are a people yet. Tho’ all men else their nobler dreams forget, Confused by brainless mobs and lawless Powers ; Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set His Briton in blown seas and storming showers, 220 ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. We have a voice, with which to pay the debt Of boundless love and reverence and re- gret To those great men who fought, and kept it ours. And keep it ours, O God, from brute control ; O Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul Of Europe, keep our noble England whole, And save the one true seed of freedom sown Betwixt a people and their ancient throne, That sober freedom out of which there springs Our loyal passion for our temperate kings ; For, saving that, ye help to save mankind Till public wrong be crumbled into dust, And drill the raw world for the march of mind, Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just. But wink no more in slothful overtrust. Remember him who led your hosts ; He bad you guard the sacred coasts. Your cannons moulder on the seaward wall ; His voice is silent in your council-hall For ever ; and whatever tempests lour For ever silent ; even if they broke In thunder, silent ; yet remember all He spoke among you, and the Man who spoke ; Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, Nor palter’d with Eternal God for power ; Who let the turbid streams of rumour flow Thro’ either babbling world of high and low ; Whose life was work, whose language rife With rugged maxims hewn from life ; Who never spoke against a foe ; Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke All great self-seekers trampling on the right : Truth-teller was our England’s Alfred named ; Truth-lover was our English Duke ; Whatever record leap to light He never shall be shamed. VIII. Lo, the leader in these glorious wars — Now to glorious burial slowly borne, Follow’d by the brave of other lands, He, on whom from both her open hands Lavish Honour shower’d all her stars, And affluent Fortune emptied all her horn, Yea, let all good things await e Him who cares not to be great, te But as he saves or serves the state. ; Not once or twice in our rough island. story, The path of duty was the way to glory He that walks it, only thirsting For the right, and learns to deaden ) Love of self, before his journey closes, — He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting | Into glossy purples, which outredden All voluptuous garden-roses. | Not once or twice in our fair island-story, ‘ The path of duty was the way to glory: — He, that ever following her commands, | On with toil of heart and knees and hands, | Thro’ the long gorge to the far lights has i won His path upward, and prevail’d, = | Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled » Are close upon the shining table-lands To which our God Himself is moon and i sun. 7 Such was he: his work is done. But while the races of mankind endure, Let his great example stand | Colossal, seen of every land, a And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure: q Till in all lands and thro’ all human story — The path of duty be the way to glory: | And let the land whose hearths he <—_ 4 from shame 7 For many and many an age proclaim me. At civic revel and pomp and game, | And when the long- illumined cities | flame, Their ever-loyal iron leader’s fame, With honour, honour, honour, honour to m him, ternal honour to his name. IX. eace, his triumph will be sung 3y some yet unmoulded tongue fay on in summers that we shall not see : eace, it is a day of pain for one about whose patriarchal knee wate the little children clung : ) peace, it is a day of pain for one, upon whose hand and heart and brain Ince the weight and fate of Europe hung. Jurs the pain, be his the gain ! lore than is of man’s degree ‘Must be with us, watching here At this, our great solemnity. Nhom we see not we revere ; ‘Ne revere, and we refrain “rom talk of battles loud and vain, And brawling memories all too free or such a wise humility As befits a solemn fane : Ne revere, and while we hear Che tides of Music’s golden sea setting toward eternity, Jplifted high in heart and hope are we, J ntil we doubt not that for one so true “here must be other nobler work to do ‘Chan when he fought at Waterloo, And Victor he must ever be. or tho’ the Giant Ages heave the hill And break the shore, and evermore Make and break, and work their will ; tho’ world on world in myriad myriads ! roll Round us, each with different powers, And other forms of life than ours, Nhat know we greater than the soul? Jn God and Godlike men we build our trust. ‘Tush, the Dead March wails in the people’s ears : Uhe dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears : c he black earth yawns: disappears ; Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ; the mortal THE THIRD OF FEBRUARY, 1852. 221 He is gone who seem’d so great.— Gone ; but nothing can bereave him Of the force he made his own Being here, and we believe him Something far advanced in State, And that he wears a truer crown Than any wreath that man can weave him. Speak no more of his renown, Lay your earthly fancies down, And in the vast cathedral leave him God accept him, Christ receive him. 1852. Pee RDOeOF PEBRUAIKY, 1852. My Lords, we heard you speak: you told us all That England’s honest censure went too far ; That our free press should cease to brawl, Not sting the fiery Frenchman into war, It was our ancient privilege, my Lords, To fling whate’er we felt, not fearing, into words. We love not this French God, the child of Hell, Wild War, who breaks the converse of the wise ; But though we love kind Peace so well, We dare not ev’n by silence sanction les, It might be safe our censures to withdraw ; And yet, my Lords, not well: there is a higher law. As long as we remain, we must speak free, Tho’ all the storm of Europe on us break ; No little German state are we, But the one voice in Europe : we mzzest speak ; That if to-night our greatness were struck dead, There might be left some record of the things we said, 222 THE CHARGE OF THE SIGHT fiir: If you be fearful, then must we be bold. q Our Britain cannot salve a tyrant o’er. THE CHARGE OF THE LIGH™ Better the waste Atlantic roll’d On her and us and ours for evermore. What ! have we fought for Freedom from our prime, At last to dodge and palter with a public crime ? Shall we fear Az? our own we never fear’d. From our first Charles by force we wrung our claims, Prick’d by the Papal spur, we rear’d, We flung the burthen of the second James. I say, we zever feared ! and as for these, We broke them on the land, we drove them on the seas. And you, my Lords, you make the people muse In doubt if you be of our Barons’ breed— Were those your sires who fought at Lewes ? Is this the manly strain of Runnymede ? O fall’n nobility, that, overawed, Would lisp in honey’d whispers of this monstrous fraud |! We feel, at least, that silence here were sin, Not ours the fault if we have feeble hosts— If easy patrons of their kin Have left the last free race with naked BRIGADE. I HALF a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. ‘Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns !’ he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. Il. ‘Forward, the Light Brigade !’ Was there a man dismay’d? Not tho’ the soldier knew Some one had blunder’d : Their’s not to make reply, Their’s not to reason why, Their’s but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. Ill. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley’d and thunder’d ; Storm’d at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell coasts ! : ; They knew the precious things they had Rode the sty aen tae to guard : IV. For us, we will not spare the tyrant one hard word. Tho’ niggard throats of Manchester may Flash’d all their sabres bare, Flash’d as they turn’d in air Sabring the gunners there, bawl, Charging an army, while What England was, shall her true sons All the world wonder’d : forget ? Plunged in the battery-smoke We are not cotton-spinners all, But some love England and her honour yet. And these in our Thermopyle shall stand, And hold against the world this honour of the land. Right thro’ the line they broke ; Cossack and Russian Reel’d from the sabre-stroke Shatter’d and sunder’d. Then they rode back, but not Not the six hundred. Vv. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them Volley’d and thunder’d ; Storm’d at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell, They that had fought so well Came thro’ the jaws of Death, Back from the mouth of Hell, All that was left of them, Left of six hundred. Wile ¢ When can their glory fade ? O the wild charge they made ! All the world wonder’d. Honour the charge they made ! Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred! nea Bi _ DE SUNG AT THE OPENING _ OF THE INTERNATIONAL | EXHIBITION. I, _ [PLIFT a thousand voices full and sweet, _ In this wide hall with earth’s invention | stored, And praise the invisible universal Lord, _ /ho lets once more in peace the nations Fe | meet, _ Where Science, Art, and Labour have outpour’d _ heir myriad horns of plenty at our feet. 7 ! : | Il. i | silent father of our Kings to be _ lourn’d in this golden hour of jubilee, or this, for all, we weep our thanks to thee ! III, he world-compelling plan was thine, — nd, lo! the long laborious miles f Palace; lo! the giant aisles, ich in model and design ; arvest-tool and husbandry, oom and wheel and enginery, | | A WELCOME TO ALEXANDRA. 223 Secrets of the sullen mine, Steel and gold, and corn and wine, Fabric rough, or fairy-fine, Sunny tokens of the Line, Polar marvels, and a feast Of wonder, out of West and East, And shapes and hues of Art divine! All of beauty, all of use, That one fair planet can produce, Brought from under every star, Blown from over every main, And mixt, as life is mixt with pain, The works of peace with works of war. IV. Is the goal so far away? Far, how far no tongue can say, Let us dream our dream to-day. V. O ye, the wise who think, the wise who reign, From growing commerce loose her latest chain, And let the fair white-wing’d peacemaker fy To happy havens under all the sky, And mix the seasons and the golden hours ; Till each man find his own in all men’s good, And all men work in noble brotherhood, Breaking their mailed fleets and armed towers, And ruling by obeying Nature’s powers, And gathering all the fruits of earth and crown’d with all her flowers. A WELCOME TO ALEXANDRA. MARCH 7, 1863. SEA-KINGS’ daughter from over the sea, Alexandra ! Saxon and Norman and Dane are we, But all of us Danes in our welcome of thee, Alexandra ! Welcome her, thunders of fort and of fleet ! Welcome her, thundering cheer of the street ! 224 A WELCOME TO MARIE ALEXANDROVNA. a Welcome her, all things youthful and sweet, Scatter the blossom under her feet ! Break, happy land, into earlier flowers ! Make music, O bird, in the new-budded bowers ! Blazon your mottoes of blessing and prayer ! Welcome her, welcome her, all that is ours! Warble, O bugle, and trumpet, blare ! Flags, flutter out upon turrets and towers ! Flames, on the windy headland flare ! Utter your jubilee, steeple and spire ! Clash, ye bells, in the merry March air ! Flash, ye cities, in rivers of fire ! Rush to the roof, sudden rocket, higher -Melt into stars for the land’s desire ! Roll and rejoice, jubilant voice, Roll as a ground-swell dash’d on the strand, Roar as the sea when he welcomes the land, And welcome her, welcome the land’s desire, The sea-kings’ daughter as happy as fair, Blissful bride of a blissful heir, Bride of the heir of the kings of the sea— O joy to the people and joy to the throne, Come to us, love us and make us your own: For Saxon or Dane or Norman we, Teuton or Celt, or whatever we be, We are each all Dane in our welcome of thee, Alexandra ! and APWEECOMIT TO "HERS ROYAL HIGHNESS: (MARIE ALEX ANDROVNA, DUCHESS OF EDINBURGH. MARCH 7, 1874. 1 THE Son of him with whom we strove for power— Whose will is lord thro’ all his world- domain— Who made the serf a man, and bee his chain— Has given our Prince his own imperi Flower, Alexandrovna, And welcome, Russian flower, a people pride, To Britain, when her flowers begin blow ! From love to love, from home to hom you go, From mother unto mother, stately bale Marie Alexandrovna IT. The golden news along the ‘pe blown, And at thy name the Tartar tents 4 stirr’d ; Elburz a all the Caucasus hay heard ; . And all the sultry palms of India knowr Alexandrovna. The voices of our universal sea On capes of Afric as on cliffs of Ken The Maoris and that Isle of Continen And loyal pines of Canada murmt thee, Marie Alexandrovna III. Fair empires branching, both, in Tust life !— Yet Harold’s England fell to Norma swords ; | Yet thine own land has bow’d t Tartar hordes : Since English Harold gave its throne - wife, Alexandrovna ! For thrones and peoples are as waifs thi swing, : And float or fall, in endless ebb an flow ; But who love best have best the gra¢ . to know That Love by right divine is deathle king, | Marie Alexandroyna| THE GRANDMOTHER. 225 | aa <= i 3 IV. Vv. nd Love has led thee to the stranger | Shall fearsand jealoushatreds flame again? ee land, Or at thy coming, Princess, every- Where men are bold and strongly say where, their say ;— The blue heaven break, and some See, empire upon empire smiles to- diviner air day, Breathe thro’ the world and change the ‘'s thou with thy young lover hand in hearts of men, hand Alexandrovna ? | Alexandrovna ! But hearts that change not, love that > now thy fuller life is in the west, cannot cease, Whose hand at home was gracious to And peace be yours, the peace of soul thy poor : in soul ! Thy name was blest within the narrow And howsoever this wild world may roll, door ; Between your peoples truth and manful erealso, Marie, shall thy name be blest, peace, / Marie Alexandrovna ! Alfred—Alexandrovna ! THE GRANDMOTHER. I. | AND Willy, my eldest-born, is gone, you say, little Anne? | Ruddy and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like a man. | And Willy’s wife has written: she never was over-wise, | ' Never the wife for Willy: he wouldn’t take my advice. | 10% For, Annie, you see, her father was not the man to save, Hadn’t a head to manage, and drank himself into his grave. Pretty enough, very pretty ! but I was against it for one. Eh !—but he wouldn’t hear me—and Willy, you say, is gone. Willy, my beauty, my eldest-born, the flower of the flock ; Never a man could fling him: for Willy stood like a rock. ‘Here’s a leg for a babe of a week !’ says doctor ; and he would be bound, There was not his like that year in twenty parishes round. | | | 7 | III. | IV. Strong of his hands, and strong on his legs, but still of his tongue ! I ought to have gone before him: I wonder he went so young. I cannot cry for him, Annie: I have not long to stay ; , | Perhaps I shall see him the sooner, for he lived far away. Vv. Why do you look at me, Annie? you think I am hard and cold ; But all my children have gone before me, I am so old : I cannot weep for Willy, nor can I weep for the rest ; Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the best. THE GRANDMOTHER. Vie For I remember a quarrel I had with your father, my dear, All for a slanderous story, that cost me many a tear. I mean your grandfather, Annie: it cost me a world of woe, Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago. VII. For Jenny, my cousin, had come to the place, and I knew right well That Jenny had tript in her time: I knew, but I would not tell. And she to be coming and slandering me, the base little liar ! But the tongue is a fire as you know, my dear, the tongue is a fire. VIII. And the parson made it his text that week, and he said likewise, That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies, That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright. But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight. IX. And Willy had not been down to the farm for a week and a day ; And all things look’d half-dead, tho’ it was the middle of May. Jenny, to slander me, who knew what Jenny had been ! But soiling another, Annie, will never make oneself clean. X. And I cried myself well-nigh blind, and all of an evening late I climb’d to the top of the garth, and stood by the road at the gate. The moon like a rick on fire was rising over the dale, And whit, whit, whit, in the bush beside me chirrupt the nightingale. XI. All of a sudden he stopt : there past by the gate of the farm, Willy,—he didn’t see me,—and Jenny hung on his arm. Out into the road I started, and spoke I scarce knew how ; Ah, there’s no fool like the old one—it makes me angry now. XII. Willy stood up like a man, and look’d the thing that he meant ; Jenny, the viper, made me a mocking curtsey and went. And I said, ‘ Let us part: in a hundred years it’ll all be the same, You cannot love me at all, if you love not my good name.’ XIII. And he turn’d, and I saw his eyes all wet, in the sweet moonshine : ‘Sweetheart, I love you so well that your good name is mine. And what do I care for Jane, let her speak of you well or ill ; _ But marry me out of hand: we two shall be happy still.’ THE GRANDMOTHER. 227 XIV. _©Marry you, Willy !’ said I, ‘but I needs must speak my mind, And I fear you'll listen to tales, be jealous and hard and unkind.’ But he turn’d and claspt me in his arms, and answer’d, ‘ No, love, no ;’ Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago. XV. So Willy and I were wedded: I wore a lilac gown ; And the ringers rang with a will, and he gave the ringers a crown. But the first that ever I bare was dead before he was born, Shadow and shine is life, little Annie, flower and thorn. XVI. That was the first time, too, that ever I thought of death. There lay the sweet little body that never had drawn a breath. I had not wept, little Anne, not since I had been a wife ; But I wept like a child that day, for the babe had fought for his life. XVII. His dear little face was troubled, as if with anger or pain: I look’d at the still little body—his trouble had all been in vain. For Willy I cannot weep, I shall see him another morn : But I wept like a child for the child that was dead before he was born. XVIII. But he cheer’d me, my good man, for he seldom said me nay : Kind, like a man, was he; like a man, too, would have his way : Never jealous—not he: we had many a happy year ; And he died, and I could not weep—my own time seem’d so near. XIX. But I wish’d it had been God’s will that I, too, then could have died : I began to be tired a little, and fain had slept at his side. And that was ten years back, or more, if I don’t forget : But as to the children, Annie, they’re all about me yet. ne, 8% Pattering over the boards, my Annie who left me at two, Patter she goes, my own little Annie, an Annie like you : Pattering over the boards, she comes and goes at her will, While Harry is in the five-acre and Charlie ploughing the hill. XXII. And Harry and Charlie, I hear them too—they sing to their team: _ Often they come to the door in a pleasant kind of a dream. . _ They come and sit by my chair, they hover about my bed— _ Tam not always certain if they be alive or dead. 228 NORTHERN FARMER. XXII. And yet I know for a truth, there’s none of them left alive ; For Harry went at sixty, your father at sixty-five : And Willy, my eldest-born, at nigh threescore and ten ; I knew them all as babies, and now they’re elderly men. XXIII. For mine is a time of peace, it is not often I grieve ; I am oftener sitting at home in my father’s farm at eve: | And the neighbours come and laugh and gossip, and so do I; I find myself often laughing at things that have long gone by. XXIV. To be sure the preacher says, our sins should make us sad : But mine is a time of peace, and there is Grace to be had ; And God, not man, is the Judge of us all when life shall cease ; And in this Book, little Annie, the message is one of Peace. XXV. And age is a time of peace, so it be free from pain, And happy has been my life ; but I would not live it again. I seem to be tired a little, that’s all, and long for rest ; Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the best. XXVI. So Willy has gone, my beauty, my eldest-born, my flower ; But how can I weep for Willy, he has but gone for an hour,—. Gone for a minute, my son, from this room into the next ; I, too, shall go ina minute. What time have I to be vext ? XXVII. And Willy’s wife has written, she never was over-wise. Get me my glasses, Annie: thank God that I keep my eyes. There is but a trifle left you, when I shall have past away. But stay with the old woman now: you cannot have long to stay. NORTHERN FARMER. OLD STYLE. I. ' WHEER ’asta bein saw long and mea liggin’ ’ere aloan? Noorse ? thoort nowt o’ a noorse: whoy, Doctor’s abean an’ agoan: — Says that I moant ’a naw moor aale: but I beant a fool : Git ma my aale, fur I beant a-gawin’ to break my rule. (‘] NORTHERN FARMER. - 229 ii: Doctors, they knaws nowt, fur a says what’s nawways true: Naw soort 0’ koind o’ use to saiy the things that a do. I’ve ’ed my point o’ aale ivry noight sin’ I bean ’ere. An’ [I’ve ’ed my quart ivry market-noight for foorty year. TERS Parson’s a bean loikewoise, an’ a sittin’ e’re 0’ my bed. ‘The amoighty’s a taakin 0’ you! to ’issén, my friend,’ a said, An’ a towd ma my sins, an’s toithe were due, an’ I gied it in hond ; I done moy duty boy ’um, as I’a done boy the lond. IV. Larn’d a ma’ bed. I reckons I ’annot sa mooch to Jarn. But a cast oop, thot a did, ’bout Bessy Marris’s barne. Thaw a knaws I hallus voated wi’ Squoire an’ choorch an’ staite, An’ i’ the woost o’ toimes I wur niver agin the raiate. Vv. Ar’ I hallus coom’d to ’s choorch afoor moy Sally wur dead, An’ ’eard ’um a bummin’ awaay loike a buzzard-clock 2 ower my ’edd, Aw I niver knaw’d whot a mean’d but I thowt a ’ad summut to saay, An’ I thowt a said whot a owt to ’a said an’ I coom’d awaay. MAG Bessy Marris’s barne ! tha knaws she laaid it to mea. Mowt a bean, mayhap, for she wur a bad un, shea. ‘Siver, I kep ’um, I kep ’um, my lass, tha mun understond ; I done moy duty boy ’um as I’a done boy the lond. Vit. But Parson a cooms an’ a gods, an’ a says it easy an’ freea ‘The amoighty’s a taikin o’ you to ’issén, my friend,’ says ’ea. I weant saiiy men be loiars, thaw summun said it in ’aaste : But ’e reads wonn sarmin a weedk, an’ I ’a stubb’d Thurnaby waiaste. VIIl. D’ya moind the waiaste, my lass? naw, naw, tha was not born then ; Theer wur a boggle in it, I often ’eard ’um mysen ; Moist loike a butter-bump,? fur I ’eaird ’um about an’ about, But I stubb’d ’um oop wi’ the lot, an’ raaved an’ rembled ’um out. IK. Keaper’s it wur ; fo’ they fun ’um theer a-ladid of ’is faiice Down 7’ the woild ’enemies * afoor I coom’d to the plaice. Noaks or Thimbleby—toaner® ’ed shot ’um as dedad as a naiail.. Noaks wur ’ang’d for it oop at ’soize—but git ma my aale. ou as in hour. 2 Cockchafer. 3 Bittern. 4 Anemones. 5 One or other. 230 NORTHERN FARMER. X. Dubbut loodk at the wadste: theer warn’t not feead for a cow; Nowt at all but bracken an’ fuzz, an’ loodk at it now— Warnt worth nowt a haacre, an’ now theer’s lots o’ feead, Fourscoor! yows upon it an’ some on it down i’ seead.? XI. Nobbut a bit on it’s left, an’ I mean’d to ’a stubb’d it at fall, Done it ta-year I mean’d, an’ runn’d plow thruff it an’ all, If gedamoighty an’ parson ’ud nobbut let ma oe Mea, wi’ haate hoonderd haicre o’ Squoire’s, an’ lond o’ my « oan. XII. Do godamoighty knaw what a’s doing a-taakin’ o’ mea? I beant wonn as saws ’ere a bean an’ yonder a pea; An’ Squoire ’ull be sa mad an’ all—a’ dear a’ dear ! And I ’a managed for Squoire coom Michaelmas thutty year. XIII. A mowt ’a taden owd Jodnes, as ’ant not a “aapoth o’ sense, Or a mowt ’a taien young Robins—a niver mended a fence : But godamoighty a moost taake mea an’ taake ma now Wi?’ aaf the cows to cauve an’ Thurnaby hoalms to plow ! XIV. Loook ’ow quoloty smoiles when they seeds ma a passin’ boy, Says to thessén naw doubt ‘ what a man a bea sewer-loy !’ 4 Fur they knaws what I bean to Squoire sin fust a coom’d to the All; I done moy duty by Squoire an’ I done moy duty boy hall, XV. Squoire’s i’ Lunnon, an’ summun I reckons ’ull ’a to wroite, For whoa’s to howd the lond ater mea thot muddles ma quoit ; Sartin-sewer I bed, thot a weant niver give it to Joanes, Naw, nor a moant to Robins—a niver rembles the stoans. XVI. But summun ’ull come ater mea mayhap wi’ ’is kittle o’ stedm Huzzin’ an’ maiazin’ the blessed fealds wi’ the Divil’s oan team. Sin’ I mun doy I mun doy, thaw loife they says is sweet, But sin’ I mun doy I mun doy, for I couldn abear to see it. XVII. What atta stannin’ theer fur, an’ doesn bring ma the aale? Doctor’s a ’toattler, lass, an a’s hallus i’ the owd taale ; I weant break rules fur Doctor, a knaws naw moor nor a floy ; Git ma my aile I tell tha, an’ if I mun doy I mun doy. 1 ou as in hour. 2 Clover. NORTHERN FARMER. 231 NORTHERN FARMER, NEW STYLE. 1G Dosn’r thou ’ear my ’erse’s legs, as they canters awaay ? Proputty, proputty, proputty—that’s what I ’ears ’em saay. Proputty, proputty, proputty“—Sam, thou’s an ass for thy paains : Theer’s moor sense 7’ one 0’ ’is legs nor in all thy braains. II. Woi—theer’s a craw to pluck wi’ tha, Sam: yon’s parson’s ’ouse— Dosn’t thou knaw that a man mun be eather a man or a mouse? Time to think on it then; for thou’ll be twenty to weeak.! Proputty, proputty—woa then woa—let ma ’ear mysén speak. IFI, Me an’ thy muther, Sammy, ’as bean a-talkin’ o’ thee ; Thou’s bean talkin’ to muther, an’ she bean a tellin’ it me. Thow’ll not marry for munny—thou’s sweet upo’ parson’s lass— Noa—thou’ll marry for luvv—an’ we boath on us thinks tha an ass. IV. Seea’d her today goa’ by—Saaint’s-daay—they was ringing the bells. She’s a beauty thou thinks—an’ soa is scoors 0’ gells, Them as ’as munny an’ all—wot’s a beauty ?—the flower as blaws. But proputty, proputty sticks, an’ proputty, proputty graws. V. Do’ant be stunt :? taike time : I knaws what maikes tha sa mad. Warn’t I craazed fur the lasses mysén when I wur a lad? But I knaw’d a Quaiaker feller as often ’as towd ma this: ‘Doant thou marry for munny, but goa wheer munny is !’ VI. An’ I went wheer munny war: an’ thy muther coom to ’and, Wi?’ lots o’ munny laaid by, an’ a nicetish bit o’ land. Maaybe she warn’t a beauty :—I niver giv it a thowt— But warn’t she as good to cuddle an’ kiss as a lass as ’ant nowt? Vil. Parson’s lass ’ant nowt, an’ she weant ’a nowt when ’e’s dead, Mun be a guvness, lad, or summut, and addle® her bread : Why? fur ’e’s nobbut a curate, an’ weant niver git hissen clear, An’ ’e maade the bed as ’e ligs on afoor ’e coom’d to the shere. 1 This week. 2 Obstinate. 3 Earn. 232 NORTHERN FARMER. VIII. ’An thin ’e coom’d to the parish wi’ lots 0’ Varsity debt, Stook to his taail they did, an’ ’e ’ant got shut on ’em yet. An’ ’e ligs on ’is back i’ the grip, wi’ nodn to lend ’im a shuvv, Woorse nor a far-welter’d! yowe: fur, Sammy, ’e married fur luvv. IX. Luvv? what’s luvv? thou can luvy thy lass an’ ’er munny too, Maakin’ ’em goa togither as they’ve good right to do, Could’n I luvv thy muther by cause o’ ’er munny laaid by ? Naay—fur I luvv’d ’er a vast sight moor fur it : reason why. OF ORE ELLE EN ie aT WIR ferns Ve xe Ay an’ thy muther says thou wants to marry the lass, Cooms of a gentleman burn: an’ we boath on us thinks tha an ass. . Woi then, proputty, wiltha ?—an ass as near as mays nowt 2— 4 Woa then, wiltha? dangtha !—the bees is as fell as owt.? 7, XI. 7 ) Break me a bit o’ the esh for his ’ead, lad, out o’ the fence ! Gentleman burn ! what’s gentleman burn? is it shillins an’ pence? Proputty, proputty’s ivrything ’ere, an’, Sammy, I’m blest If it isn’t the saame oop yonder, fur them as ’as it’s the best. XII. Tis’n them as ’as munny as breiks into ’ouses an’ steals, Them as ’as coats to their backs an’ taakes their regular meals. Noa, but it’s them as niver knaws wheer a meal’s to be ’ad. Taake my word for it, Sammy, the poor in a loomp is bad. XIII. Them or thir feythers, tha sees, mun ’a bean a laazy lot, Fur work mun ’a gone to the gittin’ whiniver munny was got. Feyther ’ad ammost nowt ; ledstways ’is munny was ’id. But ’e tued an’ moil’d ’issén dead, an ’e died a good un, ’e did. XIV. Loook thou theer wheer Wrigglesby beck cooms out by the.’ill ! Feyther run oop to the farm, an’ I runs oop to the mill ; An’ [jl run oop to the brig, an’ that thow’ll live to see ; And if thou marries a good un I’ll leave the land to thee. XV. Thim’s my noations, Sammy, wheerby I means to stick ; - But if thou marries a bad un, I’ll leave the land to Dick.— Coom oop, proputty, proputty—that’s what I ’ears ’im saay— Proputty, proputty, proputty—canter an’ canter awaay. 1 Or fow-welter’d,—said of a sheep lying on its back. 2 Makes nothing. 3 The flies are as fierce as anything. THE DAISY. 233 THE DAISY. WRITTEN AT EDINBURGH. _) LOVE, what hours were thine and mine, a lands of palm and southern pine ; In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, )f olive, aloe, and maize and vine. Vhat Roman strength Turbia show’d aruin, by the mountain road ; _ How like a gem, beneath, the city ‘little Monaco, basking, glow’d. slime richly down the rocky dell he torrent vineyard streaming fell _ To meet the sun and sunny waters, ‘hat only heaved with a summer swell. Vhat slender campanili grew y bays, the peacock’s neck in hue ; Where, here and there, on sandy beaches . milky-bell’d amaryllis blew. low young Columbus seem’d to rove, et present in his natal grove, _ Now watching high on mountain cor- nice, _ nd steering, now, from a purple cove, ‘ow pacing mute by ocean’s rim ; il, in a narrow street and dim, _ Istay’d the wheels at Cogoletto, -nd drank, and loyally drank to him. ‘or knew we well what pleased us most, lot the clipt palm of which they boast ; _ But distant colour, happy hamlet, . moulder’d citadel on the coast, ‘r tower, or high hill-convent, seen . light amid its olives green ; _ Or olive-hoary cape in ocean ; ‘t rosy blossom in hot ravine, Vhere oleanders flush’d the bed /f silent torrents, gravel-spread ; And, crossing, oft we saw the glisten ‘fice, far up on a mountain head. We loved that hall, tho’ white and cold, Those niched shapes of noble mould, A princely people’s awful princes, The grave, severe Genovese of old. At Florence too what golden hours, In those long galleries, were ours ; What drives about the fresh Casciné, Or walks in Boboli’s ducal bowers. In bright vignettes, and each complete, Of tower or duomo, sunny-sweet, Or palace, how the city glitter’d, Thro’ cypress avenues, at our feet. But when we crost the Lombard plain Remember what a plague of rain ; Of rain at Reggio, rain at Parma ; At Lodi, rain, Piacenza, rain. And stern and sad (so rare the smiles Of sunlight) look’d the Lombard piles ; Porch-pillars on the lion resting, And sombre, old, colonnaded aisles. O Milan, O the chanting quires, The giant windows’ blazon’d fires, The height, the space, the gloom, the glory ! A mount of marble, a hundred spires ! I climb’d the roofs at break of day ; Sun-smitten Alps before me lay. I stood among the silent statues, And statued pinnacles, mute as they. How faintly-flush’d, how phantom-fair, ‘Was Monte Rosa, hanging there A thousand shadowy-pencill’d valleys And snowy dells in a golden air. Remember how we came at last To Como; shower and storm and blast Had blown the lake beyond his limit, And all was flooded ; and how we past From Como, when the light was gray, And in my head, for half the day, The rich Virgilian rustic measure Of Lari Maxume, all the way, 234 Like ballad-burthen music, kept, As on The Lariano crept To that fair port below the castle Of Queen Theodolind, where we slept ; Or hardly slept, but watch’d awake A cypress in the moonlight shake, The moonlight touching o’er a terrace One tall Agave above the lake. What more? we took our last adieu, And up the snowy Splugen drew, But ere we reach’d the highest summit I pluck’d a daisy, I gave it you. It told of England then to me, And now it tells of Italy. O love, we two shall go no longer To lands of summer across the sea ; So dear a life your arms enfold Whose crying is a cry for gold: Yet here to-night in this dark city, When ill and weary, alone and cold, I found, tho’ crush’d to hard and dry, This nurseling of another sky Still in the little book you lent me, And where you tenderly laid it by : And I forgot the clouded Forth, The gloom that saddens Heaven and Earth, The bitter east, the misty summer _ And gray metropolis of the North. Perchance, to lull the throbs of pain, Perchance, to charm a vacant brain, Perchance, to dream you still beside me, My fancy fled to the South again. TO “THE REV?.8. Do MAU RICE CoME, when no graver cares employ, Godfather, come and see your boy : Your presence will be sun in winter, Making the little one leap for joy. For, being of that honest few, Who give the Fiend himself his due, Should eighty-thousand college-councils Thunder ‘ Anathema,’ friend, at you ; LO THE REV. FDA MACRI OS Should all our churchmen foam in ait At you, so careful of the right, Yet one lay-hearth would give you og come (Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight Where, far from noise and smoke of toy I watch the twilight falling brown _ All round a careless-order’d garden Close to the ridge of a noble down. _ You'll have no scandal while you cial But honest talk and wholesome wings And only hear the magpie gossip | & Garrulous under a roof of pine : ry For groves of pine on either hand, To break the blast of winter, stand ; And further on, the hoary Channel Tumbles a billow on chalk and sand 5 Where, if below the milky steep Some ship of battle slowly creep, And on thro’ zones of light and shado Glimmer away to the lonely deep, 4, We might discuss the Northern sin Which made a selfish war begin ; | Dispute the claims, arrange the chances Emperor, Ottoman, which shall win: Or whether war’s avenging rod Shall lash all Europe into blood; Till you should turn to dearer matter Dear to the man that is dear to God :. How best to help the slender store, _ How mend the dwellings, of the poor; How gain in life, as life advances, © ; 4, Valour and charity more and more. — e Come, Maurice, come: the lawn as yet Is hoar with rime, or spongy-wet; But when the wreath of March 7 blossom’d, Crocus, anemone, violet, Or later, pay one visit here, For those are few we hold as dear ; Nor pay but one, but come for many; Many and many a happy year. January, 1854. WILL. I. WELL for him whose will is strong ! ‘e suffers, but he will not suffer long ; e suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong : or him nor moves the loud world’s random mock, yr all Calamity’s hugest waves confound, ‘ho seems a promontory of rock, | nae compass’d round with turbulent sound, _ middle ocean meets the surging shock, “mpest-buffeted, citadel-crown’d. | “ie _ till for him who, bettering not with time, _brrupts thestrength of heaven-descended Will, _ ad ever weaker grows thro’ acted crime, ( seeming-genial venial fault, _ scurring and suggesting still ! 2 seems as one whose footsteps halt, ‘iling in immeasurable sand, ad o’er a weary sultry land, _x beneath a blazing vault, }wn in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill, ‘ie city sparkles like a grain of salt. __IN THE VALLEY OF | CAUTERETZ. L along the valley, stream that flashest | white, »epening thy voice with the deepening of the night, .lalong the valley, where thy waters flow, ivalk’d with one I loved two and thirty | = years ago. al along the valley, while I walk’d to-day, ‘1e two and thirty years were a mist that rolls away ; ~rallalong the valley, down thy rocky bed, ‘y living voice to me was as the voice of the dead, ad all along the valley, by rock and cave and tree, “€ voice of the dead was a living voice to me. WALEALTHE FLOWER. 235 IN THE GARDEN AT SWAINSTON. NIGHTINGALES warbled without, Within was weeping for thee : Shadows of three dead men Walk’d in the walks with me, Shadows of three dead men and thou wast one of the three. Nightingales sang in his woods : The Master was far away : Nightingales warbled and sang Of a passion that lasts but a day ; Still in the house in his coffin the Prince of courtesy lay. Two dead men have I known In courtesy like to thee : Two dead men have I loved With a love that ever will be: Three dead men have I loved and thou art last of the three. THE FLOWER. ONCE in a golden hour I cast to earth a seed. Up there came_a flower, The people said, a weed. To and fro they went Thro’ my garden-bower, And muttering discontent Cursed me and my flower. Then it grew so tall It wore a crown of light, But thieves from o’er the wall Stole the seed by night. Sow’d it far and wide By every town and tower, Till all the people cried, ‘ Splendid is the flower.’ Read my little fable : He that runs may read. Most can raise the flowers now, For all have got the seed. 236 REQUIESCAT=-THE SAILOR SiGe LHI TSLET, And some are pretty enough, And some are poor indeed ; And now again the people Call it but a weed. REQUIESCAT. FAIR is her cottage in its place, Where yon broad water sweetly slowly glides. It sees itself from thatch to base Dream in the sliding tides, And fairer she, but ah how soon to die! Her quiet dream of life this hour may cease. Her peaceful being slowly passes by To some more perfect peace. gis Brevi RG Nhe 1 8 bbe HE rose at dawn and, fired with hope, Shot o’er the seething harbour-bar, And reach’d the ship and caught the rope, And whistled to the morning star. And while he whistled long and loud He heard a fierce mermaiden cry, ‘O boy, tho’ thou art young and proud, I see the place where thou wilt lie. ‘The sands and yeasty surges mix In caves about the dreary bay, And on thy ribs the limpet sticks, And in thy heart the scrawl shall play.’ ‘Fool,’ he answer’d, ‘ death is sure To those that stay and those that roam, But. I will nevermore endure To sit with empty hands at home. ‘My mother clings about my neck, My sisters crying, ‘‘ Stay for shame ;” My father raves of death and wreck, They are all to blame, they are all to blame. ‘God help me! save I take my part Of danger on the roaring sea, A devil rises in my heart, Far worse than any death to me.’ cam THE ISLET. | ‘ WHITHER, O whither, love. shall we & For a score of sweet little summers or s0' The sweet little wife of the singer said, On the day that follow’d the day shee wed, : Whither, O whither, love, shall we . And the singer shaking his curly head - Turn’d as he sat, and struck the keys” | There at his right with a sudden crash, Singing, ‘ And shall it be over the seas With a crew that is neither rude nor rast But a bevy of Eroses apple-cheek’d, : j In a shallop of crystal ivory-beak’d, __ With a satin sail of a ruby glow, ‘To a sweet little Eden on earth at know, A mountain islet pointed and peak’ | Waves on a diamond shingle dash, Cataract brooks to the ocean run, Fairily-delicate palaces shine ; Mixt with myrtle and clad with vine, And overstream’d and silvery-streak’d With many a rivulet high against th Sun | The facets of the glorious mountain flas Above the valleys of palm and pine.’ ‘Thither, O thither, love, let us go.” | ‘No, no, no! . For in all that exquisite isle, my deat, — There is but one bird with a music: throat, And his compass is but of a sine note | That it makes one weary to hear.’ ‘Mock me not! mock me not! love, li’ us go.’ ‘No, love, no. For the bud ever breaks into bloom | the tree, And a storm never wakes on the ie | sea, And a worm is there in the lonely woo That pierces the liver. and blackens a blood ; And makes it a sorrow to be.’ CHILD-SONGS. I. ane GCLTY CHILD. AINTY little maiden, whither would you wander ? Whither from this pretty home, the home where mother dwells ? ‘ar and far away,’ said the dainty little maiden, \ll among the gardens, anemones, Roses and lilies and Canterbury-bells.’ auriculas, uinty little maiden, whither would you wander ? Whither from this pretty house, this . city-house of ours? “ar and far away,’ said the dainty little maiden, All among the meadows, the clover and i the clematis, _ Daisies and kingcups and honeysuckle- flowers.’ | Il. ’| MINNIE AND WINNIE. ,) MINNIE and Winnie Slept in a shell. Sleep, little ladies ! And they slept well. Pink was the shell within, Silver without ; Sounds of the great sea Wander’d about. Sleep, little ladies ! Wake not soon ! Echo on echo Dies to the moon. | Two bright stars | Peep’d into the shell. ‘What are they dreaming of ? Who can tell ?’ Started a green linnet Out of the croft ; Wake, little ladies, The sun is aloft ! elo SONGS=SAE SPITEFUL LETTER. 237 Jie SPEER EU Lest TER; HERE, it is here, the close of the year, And with it a spiteful letter. My name in song has done him much wrong, For himself has done much better. O little bard, is your lot so hard, If men neglect your pages ? I think not much of yours or of mine, I hear the roll of the ages. Rhymes and rhymes in the range of the times ! Are mine for the moment stronger ? Yet hate me not, but abide your lot, I last but a moment longer. This faded leaf, our names are as brief ; What room is left for a hater ? Yet the yellow leaf hates the greener leaf, For it hangs one moment later. Greater than I—is that your cry ? And men will live to see it. Well—if it be so—so it is, you know ;_ And if it be so, so be it. Brief, brief is a summer leaf, But this is the time of hollies. O hollies and ivies and evergreens, How I hate the spites and the follies ! LITERARY SQUABBLES, AH God! the petty fools of rhyme That shriek and sweat in pigmy wars Before the stony face of Time, And look’d at by the silent stars : Who hate each other for a song, And do their little best to bite And pinch their brethren in the throng, And scratch the very dead for spite : And strain to make an inch of room For their sweet selves, and cannot hear The sullen Lethe rolling doom On them and theirs and all things here: 238 When one small touch of Charity Could lift them nearer God-like state Than if the crowded Orb should cry Like those who cried Diana great : And I too, talk, and lose the touch I talk of. Surely, after all, The noblest answer unto such Is perfect stillness when they brawl. THE VICTIM. I. A PLAGUE upon the people fell, A famine after laid them low, Then thorpe and byre arose in fire, For on them brake the sudden foe ; So thick they died the people cried, ‘The Gods are moved against the land.’ The Priest in horror about his altar To Thor and Odin lifted a hand : ‘ Help us from famine And plague and strife ! What would you have of us? Human life ? Were it our nearest, Were it our dearest, (Answer, O answer) We give you his life.’ II. But still the foeman spoil’d and burn’d, And cattle died, and deer in wood, And bird in air, and fishes turn’d And whiten’d all the rolling flood ; And dead men lay all over the way, Ordownin a furrow scathed with flame : And ever and aye the Priesthood moan’d, Till at last it seem’d that an answer came. ‘The King is happy In child and wife ; Take you his dearest, Give us a life.’ III. The Priest went out by heath and hill ; The King was hunting in the wild ; They found the mother sitting still ; She cast her arms about the child. THE VICTIM. The child was only eight summers old His beauty still with his years incre: His face was ruddy, his hair was gold, — He seem’d a victim due to the priest. The Priest beheld him, And cried with joy, f ‘The Gods have answer’d: — We give them the boy.’ a IV. The King return’d from out the wild, He bore but little game in hand ; The mother said, ‘ They have taken th child } To spill his blood and heal the land: The land is sick, the people diseased, And blight and famine on all the lea: The holy Gods, they must be appeased, So I pray you tell the truth to me, They have taken our son, They will have his life. Is he your dearest ? Or I, the wife ?’ V. The King bent low, with hand on brow, He stay’d his arms upon his knee: — ‘O wife, what use to answer now? — For now the Priest has judged for me. The King was shaken with holy fez ‘The Gods,’ he said, ‘ would chosen well ; Yet both are near, ae both are dealt And which the dearest I cannot tell!’ But the Priest was happy, __ His victim won : ‘We have his dearest, His only son !’ VI. The rites prepared, the victim bared The knife uprising toward the blow To the altar-stone she sprang alone, Ce ‘Me, not my darling, no !’ . He caught her away with a sudden cry; Suddenly from him brake his wife, — And shrieking ‘ Z am his dearest, I—_ Z am his dearest!’ rush’d on the knife. WAGES—THE HIGHER PANTHEISM. 239 _ And the Priest was happy, Which was his nearest ? ‘O, Father Odin, Who was his dearest ? We give you a life. The Gods have answer’d ; We give them the wife !’ WAGES. Gtory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song, Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an endless sea— Glory of Virtue, to fight, to struggle, to right the wrong— Nay, but she aim’d not at glory, no lover of glory she : Give her the glory of going on, and still to be. The wages of sin is death: if the wages of Virtue be dust, Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and the fly ? She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just, To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky : Give her the wages of going on, and not to die. THE HIGHER PANTHEISM. THE sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains— Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns? Ts not the Vision He? tho’ He be not that which He seems ? Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams ? Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb, Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him ? Dark is the world to thee: thyself art the reason why ; For is He not all but thou, that hast power to feel ‘I am I’? Glory about thee, without thee ; and thou fulfillest thy doom Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splendour and gloom. Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet— Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. God is law, say the wise ; O Soul, and let us rejoice, For if He thunder by law the thunder is yet His voice. Law is God, say some: no God at all, says the fool ; For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool ; And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see ; But if we could see and hear, this Vision—were it not He? 240 THE VOICE AND THE PEAK. i THE voice and the Peak Far over summit and lawn, The lone glow and long roar Green-rushing from the rosy thrones of dawn ! sie All night have I heard the voice Rave over the rocky bar, But thou wert silent in heaven, Above thee glided the star. Oil Hast thou no voice, O Peak, That standest high above all ? ‘IT am the voice of the Peak, I roar and rave for I fall. TV. “A thousand voices go To North, South, East, and West ; They leave the heights and are troubled, And moan and sink to their rest. Vie ‘The fields are fair beside them, The chestnut towers in his bloom ; But they—they feel the desire of the deep— Fall, and follow their doom. VI. Mm S wy NEN =e 53 Se Ww d& Ss » Ped sk SN Uae ss ~ ae SX a Es a a sw AES ps Le rey Ma a ae a A et a Re RE ie Lh AS SAY ee ew i me Se MILTON. Alcatcs. OMIGHTY-MOUTH’D inventor of har- monies, O«ill’d to sing of Time or Eternity, sod-gifted organ-voice of England, _ Milton, a name to resound for ages ; Wose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, 5) rd from Jehovah’s gorgeous armourties, “ower, as the deep-domed empyréan Rings to the roar of an angel onset— M rather all that bowery loneliness, T brooks of Eden mazily murmuring, snd bloom profuse and cedar arches _ Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean, Were some refulgent sunset of India Si:ams o’er a rich ambrosial ocean isle, ind crimson-hued the stately palm- woods _ Whisper in odorous heights of even. ffendecasyllabics. { ou chorus of indolent reviewers, sponsible, indolent reviewers, Ek, I come to the test, a tiny poem A composed in a metre of Catullus, Ain quantity, careful of my motion, e the skater on ice that hardly bears | him, Et I fall unawares before the people, ‘king laughter in indolent reviewers. 5 uld I flounder awhile without a tumble Zo’ this metrification of Catullus, Ty should speak to me not without a welcome, | | emcees IT Y—SRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD. 243 IN QUANTITY. ON TRANSLATIONS OF HOMER. Llexameters and Pentameters. THESE lame hexameters the strong-wing’d music of Homer ! No—but a most burlesque barbarous experiment. When was a harsher sound ever heard, ye Muses, in England ? When did a frog coarser croak upon our Helicon ? Hexameters no worse than daring Germany gave us, Barbarous experiment, barbarous hexameters. All that chorus of indolent reviewers. Hard, hard, hard is it, only not to tumble, So fantastical is the dainty metre. Wherefore slight me not. wholly, nor believe me Too presumptuous, indolent reviewers. O blatant Magazines, regard me rather— Since I blush to belaud myself a mo- ment— : As some rare little rose, a piece of inmost Horticultural art, or half coquette-like Maiden, not to be greeted unbenignly. SPECIMEN” OF A TRANSLA- AON COT CTE oer A Dy rN BLANK VERSE. So Hector spake; the Trojans roar’d applause ; Then loosed their sweating horses from the yoke, And each beside his chariot bound his Own ; And oxen from the city, and goodly sheep In haste they drove, and honey-hearted wine And bread from out the houses brought, and heap’d Their firewood, and the winds from off the plain Roll’d the rich vapour far into the heaven. And these all night upon the bridge?! of war Sat glorying; many a fire before them blazed : 1 Or, ridge. 244 As when in heaven the stars about the moon Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid, And every height comes out, and jutting peak And valley, and the immeasurable heavens Break open to their highest, and all the stars Shine, and the Shepherd gladdens in his heart : EE WV UN Da OR, THE SONG OF "THE WRENN Four years ago Mr. Sullivan requested me to write a little song-cycle, German fashion, for He had been very successful in setting such old songs as ‘ Orpheus w lute,’ and I drest up for him, partly in the old style, a puppet, whose almost only merit is, per I am sorry that my four-year- old puppet s nave to dance at all in the dark shadow of these days; but the music is now completed, and exercise his art upon. that it can dance to Mr. Sullivan’s instrument. bound by my promise. December, 1870. THE WINDOW. ON THE HILL. THE lights and shadows fly ! Yonder it brightens and darkens down on the plain. A jewel, a jewel dear to a lover’s eye ! Oh is it the brook, or a pool, or her window pane, When the winds are up in the morning ? Clouds that are racing above, And ‘winds and lights and shadows that cannot be still, All running on one way to the home of my love, You are all running on, and I stand on the slope of the hill, And the winds are up in the morning ! Follow, follow the chase ! And my thoughts are as quick and as quick, ever on, on, on. O lights, are you flying over her sweet little face ? THE WINDOW. ‘a So many a fire between the ships aD stream 4 Of Xanthus blazed before the towers | Troy, : A thousand on the plain; and close t each Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fre And eating hoary grain and pug sit steeds, Fixt by their cars, waited the gi dawn. Iliad Vil. 542 A. TEN And my heart is there before he come, and gone, : When the winds are wp in morning ! Follow them down the slope! And I follow them down to the windo ow pane of my dear, And it brightens and darken an brightens like my hope, And it darkens and brightens and dar like my fear, And the winds are up in- th morning. AT THE WINDOW. Vine, vine and eglantine, Clasp her window, trail and twin Rose, rose and clematis, Trail and twine and clasp and ki Kiss, kiss ; and make her a bo All of flowers, and drop me a fle Drop me a flower. | 3 Vine, vine and eglantine, Cannot a flower, a flower, be mine? Rose, rose and clematis, _ Drop me a flower, a flower, to kiss, Kiss, kiss—and out of her bower : _ All of flowers, a flower, a flower, ; Dropt, a flower. bs jpne! one, till the end of the year, one, and the light gone with her, and f left me in shadow here ! Gone—flitted away, “ken the stars from the night and the sun from the day ! one, and a cloud in my heart, and a 3 storm in the air! own to the east or the west, flitted I . know not where ! own in the south is a flash and a groan: she is there! she is there ! \ . GONE, WINTER. ‘ie frost is here, aid fuel is dear, uid woods are sear, ad fires burn clear, aid frost is here Ad has bitten the heel of the going year. le, frost, bite ! ‘u roll up away from the light te blue wood-louse, and the plump | dormouse, £d the bees are still’d, and the flies are | kill’d, 4d you bite far into the heart of the house, Tt not into mine. Te, frost, bite ! Je woods are all the searer, Te fuel is all the dearer, Te fires are all the clearer, ) spring is all the nearer, \u have bitten into the heart of the | @Searth, - F: not into mine. THE WINDOW. 245 SPRING. Birds’ love and birds’ song Flying here and there, Birds’ song and birds’ love, And you with gold for hair ! Birds’ song and birds’ love, Passing with the weather, Men’s song and men’s love, To love once and for ever. Men’s love and birds’ love, And women’s love and men’s ! And you my wren with a crown of gold, You my queen of the wrens ! You the queen of the wrens— We'll be birds of a feather, I'll be King of the Queen of the wrens, And all in a nest together. THE LETTER. Where is another sweet as my sweet, Fine of the fine, and shy of the shy ? Fine little hands, fine little feet— Dewy blue eye. Shall I write to her? shall I go? Ask her to marry me by and by? Somebody said that she’d say no ; Somebody knows that she’ll say ay ! Ay or no, if ask’d to her face ? Ay or no, from shy of the shy? Go, little letter, apace, apace, Fly ; Fly to the light in the valley below— Tell my wish to her dewy blue eye: Somebody said that she’d say no ; Somebody knows that she’ll say ay ! NO ANSWER. The mist and the rain, the mist and the rain ! Is it ay or no? is it ay or no? And never a glimpse of her window pane! And I may die but the grass will grow, And the grass will grow when I am gone, And the wet west wind and the world will go on. Ay is the song of the wedded spheres, No is trouble and cloud and storm, - 246 Ay is life for a hundred years, No will push me down to the worm, And when I am there and dead and gone, The wet west wind and the world will go on. The wind and the wet, the wind and the wet ! Wet west wind how you blow, you blow ! And never a line from my lady yet ! Is it ay or no? is it ay or noP Blow then, blow, and when I am gone, The wet west wind and the world may go on. NO ANSWER. Winds are loud and you are dumb, Take my love, for love will come, Love will come but once a life. Winds are loud and winds will pass ! Spring is here with leaf and grass : Take my love and be my wife. After-loves of maids and men Are but dainties drest again: Love me now, you'll love me then : Love can love but once a life. THE ANSWER. Two little hands that meet, Claspt on her seal, my sweet ! Must I take you and break you, Two little hands that meet ? I must take you, and break you, And loving hands must part— Take, take—break, break— Break—you may break my heart. Faint heart never won— Break, break, and all’s done. AY. Be merry, all birds, to-day, Be merry on earth as you never were merry before, Be merry in heaven, O larks, and far away, And merry for ever and ever, and one day more. Why ? For it’s easy to find a rhyme. THE WINDOW. Look, look, how he flits, a The fire-crown’d king of the wrens from out of the pine ! Look how they tumble the blossom, th. mad little tits ! ‘Cuck-oo! Cuck-oo !’ so fine ? was ever Why? For it’s easy to find a rhyme. — O merry the linnet and dove, And swallow and sparrow and throstle and have your desire ! O merry my heart, you have gottel wings of oe And flit like the king of the wrens ¥ a crown of fire, Why? For it’s ay ay, ay ay. WHEN. Sun comes, moon comes, Time slips away. © Sun sets, moon sets, Love, fix a day. ‘A year hence, a year hence.” ; ‘We shall both be gray.’ ‘A month hence, e month. how ‘Far, far away.’ , 54 ‘A week hence, a week hence.’ ‘Ah, the long delay.’ ‘Wait a little, wait a little, You shall fix a day.’ ‘To-morrow, love, to-morrow, And that’s an age away.’ Blaze upon her window, sun, — And honour all the day. MARRIAGE MORNING. q Light, so low upon earth, You send a flash to the sun. — Here is the golden close of love, All my wooing is done. . Oh, the woods and the meadows, Woods where we hid from the Stiles where we stay’d to be kin Meadows in which we met! — IN MEMORIAM. 247 ght, so low in the vale You flash and lighten afar, yr this is the golden morning of love, And you are his morning star. ash, I am coming, I come, By meadow and stile and wood, 44, lighten into my eyes and my heart, Into my heart and my blood ! Lec Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy . face, . By faith, and faith alone, embrace, ‘lieving where we cannot prove ; tine are these orbs of light and shade ; Thou madest Life in man and brute; Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot on the skull which thou hast made. 2 yn i Tl Hn Oe 1ou wilt not leave us in the dust : _ Thou madest man, he knows not why, _ He thinks he was not made to die ; id thou hast made him: thou art just. “‘1ou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood, thou: ' Our wills are ours, we know not how ; j ar wills are ours, to make them thine. ir little systems have their day ; _ They have their day and cease to be: _ They are but broken lights of thee, aid thou, O Lord, art more than they. ‘e have but faith: we cannot know ; For knowledge is of things we see ; And yet we trust it comes from thee, beam in darkness : let it grow. » S _.t knowledge grow from more to more, | But more of reverence in us dwell ; _ That mind and soul, according well, ay make one music as before, Heart, are you great enough For a love that never tires ? O heart, are you great enough for love? I have heard of thorns and briers. Over the thorns and briers, Over the meadows and stiles, Over the world to the end of it Flash for a million miles. : Peeve MORITA MM. A..H.-H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII. But vaster. We are fools and slight ; We mock thee when we do not fear : But help thy foolish ones to bear ; Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light. Forgive what seem’d my sin in me ; What seem’d my worth since I began ; For merit lives from man to man, And not from man, O Lord, to thee. Forgive my grief for one removed, Thy creature, whom I found so fair. I trust he lives in thee, and there I find him worthier to be loved. Forgive these wild and wandering cries, Confusions of a wasted youth ; Forgive them where they fail in truth, And in thy wisdom make me wise. 18409. hs I HELD it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things. But who shall so forecast the years And find in loss a gain to match ? Or reach a hand thro’ time to catch The far-off interest of tears ? Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown’d, Let darkness keep her raven gloss : Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with death, to beat the ground, 248 Than that the victor Hours should scorn The long result of love, and boast, ‘ Behold the man that loved and lost, But all he was is overworn.’ II. Old Yew, which graspest at the stones That name the under-lying dead, Thy fibres net the dreamless head, Thy roots are wrapt about the bones. The seasons bring the flower again, And bring the firstling to the flock ; And in the dusk of thee, the clock Beats out the little lives of men. O not for thee the glow, the bloom, Who changest not in any gale, Nor branding summer suns avail To touch thy thousand years of gloom : And gazing on thee, sullen tree, Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, I seem to fail from out my blood And grow incorporate into thee. Ill. O Sorrow, cruel fellowship, O Priestess in the vaults of Death, O sweet and bitter in a breath, What whispers from thy lying lip? ‘ The stars,’ she whispers, ‘ blindly run ; A web is wov’n across the sky ; From out waste places comes a cry, And murmurs from the dying sun: ‘And all the phantom, Nature, stands— With all the music in her tone, A hollow echo of my own,— A hollow form with empty hands.’ And shall I take a thing so blind, Embrace her as my natural good ; Or crush her, like a vice of blood, Upon the threshold of the mind ? IV. To Sleep I give my powers away ; My will is bondsman to the dark ; I sit within a helmless bark, And with my heart I muse and say : IN MEMORIAM. O heart, how fares it with thee now, _ That thou should’st fail from thy desire, Who scarcely darest to inquire, ‘What is it makes me beat so low ?” Something it is which thou hast lost, Some pleasure from thine early Break, thou deep vase of ch tears, ; That grief hath shaken into frost! — Such clouds of nameless trouble cross All night below the darken’d e With morning wakes the wil cries, ‘Thou shalt not be the fool of loss.’ Vv. I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I fee For words, like Nature, half r And half conceal the Soul within. a But, for the unquiet heart and brain, A use in measured language lies ; The sad mechanic exercise, a Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. — In words, like weeds, I’ll wrap me Like coarsest clothes against cold : But that large grief wie = enfold Is given in outline and no more. VI. One writes, that ‘ Other friends re: That ‘Loss is common to the rac And common is the commonpl And vacant chaff well meant for grain. That loss is common would not make My own less bitter, rather more: _ Too common ! Never morning’ | To evening, but some heart did break. — O father, wheresoe’er thou be, 4 Who pledgest now thy gallant : A shot, ere half thy draught be d Hath still’d the life that beat from f! LN MEMORIAM. 249 mother, praying God will save Thy sailor, —while thy head is bow’d, His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud ‘ops in his vast and wandering grave. : know no more than I who wrought At that last hour to please him well ; Who mused on all I had to tell, ad something written, something | thought ; And ever met him on his way With wishes, thinking, ‘here to-day,’ '- “here to-morrow will he come.’ somewhere, meek, unconscious dove, That sittest ranging golden hair ; And glad to find thyself so fair, vor child, that waitest for thy love ! i or now her father’s chimney glows _ In expectation of a guest ; _ And thinking ‘this will please him | best,’ ue takes a riband or a rose ; or he will see them on to-night ; _ And with the thought her colour burns ; _ And, having left the glass, she turns ‘nce more to set a ringlet right ; | id, even when she turn’d, the curse _ Had fallen, and her future Lord _ Was drown’d in passing thro’ the | ford, ( kill'd in falling from his horse. | what to her shall be the end? __ And what to me remains of good ? _ To her, perpetual maidenhood, ad unto me no second friend. | VI. ark house, by which once more I stand | Here in the long unlovely street, Doors, where my heart was used to ft beat i » quickly, waiting for a hand, | A hand that can be clasp’d no more— Behold me, for I cannot sleep, And like a guilty thing I creep At earliest morning to the door. He is not here; but far away The noise of life begins again, And ghastly thro’ the drizzling rain On the bald street breaks the blank day. VIII. A happy lover who has come To look on her that loves him well, Who ’lights and rings the gateway bell, And learns her gone and far from home ; He saddens, all the magic light Dies off at once from bower and hall, And all the place is dark, and all The chambers emptied of delight : So find I every pleasant spot In which we two were wont to meet, The field, the chamber and the street, For all is dark where thou art not. Yet as that other, wandering there In those deserted walks, may find A flower beat with rain and wind, Which once she foster’d up with care ; So seems it in my deep regret, O my forsaken heart, with thee And this poor flower of poesy Which little cared for fades not yet. But since it pleased a vanish’d eye, I go to plant it on his tomb, That if it can it there may bloom, Or dying, there at least may die. IX. Fair ship, that from the Italian shore Sailest the placid ocean-plains With my lost Arthur’s loved remains, Spread thy full wings, and waft him o’er. So draw him home to those that mourn In vain ; a favourable speed Ruffle thy mirror’d mast, and lead Thro’ prosperous floods his holy urn, IN MEMORIAM. All night no ruder air perplex Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright As our pure love, thro’ early light Shall glimmer on the dewy decks. Sphere all your lights around, above ; Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow ; Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now, My friend, the brother of my love ; My Arthur, whom I shall not see Till all my widow’d race be run ; Dear as the mother to the son, More than my brothers are to me. Xs I hear the noise about thy keel ; I hear the bell struck in the night : I see the cabin-window bright ; I see the sailor at the wheel. Thou bring’st the sailor to his wife, And travell’d men from foreign lands ; And letters unto trembling hands ; And, thy dark freight, a vanish’d life. So bring him: we have idle dreams: This look of quiet flatters thus Our home-bred fancies : O to us, The fools of habit, sweeter seems To rest beneath the clover sod, That takes the sunshineand the rains, Or where the kneeling hamlet drains The chalice of the grapes of God ; Than if with thee the roaring wells Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine; And hands so often clasp’d in mine, Should toss with tangle and with shells. XI. Calm is the morn without a sound, Calm as to suit a calmer grief, And only thro’ the faded leaf The chestnut pattering to the ground: Calm and deep peace on this high wold, And on these dews that drench the furze, And all the silvery gossamers That twinkle into green and gold : Calm and still light on yon great plai That sweeps with all its autumr bowers, And crowded farms and lesse towers, a To mingle with the bounding main: Calm and deep peace in this wide These leaves that redden to th And in my heart, if calm at all, If any calm, a calm despair: q Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, id ; And waves that sway themselve y rest, And dead calm in that noble Which heaves but with the heaving deep XII. Lo, as a dove when up she springs Ps To bear thro’ Heaven a tale of y Some dolorous message knit b The wild pulsation of her wings ; Like her I go; I cannot stay ; I leave this mortal ark behind, A weight of nerves without a And leave the cliffs, and haste away O’er ocean-mirrors rounded large, And reach the glow of southern sk And see the sails at distance r And linger weeping on the marge, And saying ; ‘ Comes he thus, my fri Is this the end of all my care?? And circle moaning in the air: ‘Is this the end? Is this the end?’ And forward dart again, and play — About the prow, and back ret To where the body sits, and | That I have been an hour away. XIII. Tears of the widower, when he sees’ A late-lost form that sleep re And moves his doubtful arms, 4 feels x Her at is empty, fall like these ; 4 | IN MEMORIAM. 251 hich weep a loss for ever new, A void where heart on heart reposed ; And, where warm hands have prest and closed, fence, till I be silent too. hich weep the comrade of my choice, An awful thought, a life removed, | The human-hearted man I loved, _ Spirit, not a breathing voice. (me Time, and teach me, many years, _ Ido not suffer in a dream ; ' For now so strange do these things | seem, ‘ine eyes have leisure for their tears ; ; y fancies time to rise on wing, And glance about the approaching | sails, As tho’ they brought but merchants’ bales, ad not the burthen that they bring. | XIV. one should bring me this report, _ That thou hadst touch’d the land to-day, And I went down unto the quay, nd found thee lying in the port ; | | | i \ if nd standing, muffled round with woe, Should see thy passengers in rank Come stepping lightly down the plank, nd beckoning unto those they know ; nd if along with these should come The man I held as half-divine ; Should strike a sudden hand in mine, nd ask a thousand things of home ; nd I should tell him all my pain, _ And how my life had droop’d of late, __ And he should sorrow o’er my state nd marvel what possess’d my brain ; nd I perceived no touch of change, | No hint of death in all his frame, But found him all in all the same, should not feel it to be strange. ] ef} XV. To-night the winds begin to rise And roar from yonder dropping day : The last red leaf is whirl’d away, The rooks are blown about the skies ; The forest crack’d, the waters curl’d, The cattle huddled on the lea ; And wildly dash’d on tower and tree The sunbeam strikes along the world: And but for fancies, which aver That all thy motions gently pass Athwart a plane of molten glass, I scarce could brook the strain and stir That makes the barren branches loud ; And but for fear it is not so, The wild unrest that lives in woe ’ Would dote and pore on yonder cloud That rises upward always higher, And onward dragsa labouring breast, And topples round the dreary west, A looming bastion fringed with fire. XVI. What words are these have fall’n from me? Can calm despair and wild unrest Be tenants of a single breast, Or sorrow such a changeling be ? Or doth she only seem to take The touch of change in calm orstorm ; But knows no more of transient form In her deep self, than some dead lake That holds the shadow of a lark Hung in the shadow of a heaven? Or has the shock, so harshly given, Confused me like the unhappy bark That strikes by night a craggy shelf, And staggers blindly ere she sink ? And stunn’d me from my power to think And all my knowledge of myself ; And made me that delirious man Whose fancy fuses old and new, And flashes into false and true, And mingles all without a plan ? 252 XVII. Thoucomest, much wept for: such a breeze Compell’d thy canvas, and my prayer Was as the whisper of an air To breathe thee over lonely seas. For I in spirit saw thee move Thro’ circles of the bounding sky, Week after week : the days go by: Come quick, thou bringest all I love. Henceforth, wherever thou may’st roam, My blessing, like a line of light, Is on the waters day and night, And like a beacon guards thee home. So may whatever tempest mars Mid-ocean, spare thee, sacred bark ; And balmy drops in summer dark Slide from the bosom of the stars. So kind an office hath been done, Such precious relics brought by thee ; The dust of him I shall not see Till all my widow’d race be run. XVIII. ’Tis well; ’tis something ; we may stand Where he in English earth is laid, And from his ashes may be made The violet of his native land. ’Tis little ; but it looks in truth As if the quiet bones were blest Among familiar names to rest And in the places of his youth. Come then, pure hands, and bear the head ’ _Thatsleeps or wears the mask of sleep, And come, whatever loves to weep, And hear the ritual of the dead. Ah yet, ev’n yet, if this might be, I, falling on his faithful heart, Would breathing thro’ his lips impart The life that almost dies in me ; That dies not, but endures with pain, And slowly forms the firmer mind, Treasuring the look it cannot find, The words that are not heard again. IN MEMORIAM. | The tide flows down, the wave noi XIX. The Danube to the Severn gave The darken’d heart that bea more ; They Jaid him by the pleased And in the hearing of the wave. a There twice a day the Severn fills; The salt sea-water passes by, — And hushes half the babbling Y And makes a silence in the hills. — The Wye is hush’d nor moved along, And hush’d my deepest grief o : When fill’d with tears that « cannot fall, I brim with sorrow drowning ona Is vocal in its wooded walls ; § My deeper anguish also falls, And I can speak a little then. XX. The lesser griefs that may be said, That breathe a thousand t vows, q Are but as servants in a house Where lies the master newly dead ; Who speak their feeling as it is, And weep the fulness from | mind: ‘It will be hard,’ they say, ‘to f Another service such as this.’ My lighter moods are like to thecal ) That out of words a comfort win; But there are other griefs with And tears that at their fountain free ej For by the hearth the children sit Cold in that atmosphere of Death, And scarce endure to draw breath, Or like to noiseless phantoms flit : But open converse is there none, So much the vital spirits sink To see the vacant chair, and t ‘How good! how kind! and he is go = e XXI. sing to him that rests below, And, since the grasses round me wave, I take the grasses of the grave, id make them pipes whereon to blow. ie traveller hears me now and then, Andsometimes harshly will he speak: ‘This fellow would make weakness | weak, id melt the waxen hearts of men.’ other answers, ‘ Let him be, He loves to make parade of pain, That with his piping he may gain \¢ praise that comes to constancy.’ a ee third is wroth: ‘Is this an hour For private sorrow’s barren song, When more and more the people throng ‘e chairs and thrones of civil power ? f | _‘. time to sicken and to swoon, _ When Science reaches forth her arms _ To feel from world to world, and charms ]sr secret from the latest moon ?’ Yhold, ye speak an idle thing: Ye never knew the sacred dust : _ Ido but sing because I must, id pipe but as the linnets sing: ad one is glad ; her note is gay, For now her little ones have ranged ; _. And one is sad; her note is changed, cause her brood is stol’n away. XXII. _~e path by which we twain did go, _ Which led by tracts that pleased us PY | well, _ Thro’ four sweet years arose and fell, _ Ibm flower to flower, from snow to snow: | id we with singing cheer’d the way, _| And, crown’d with all the season lent, _ From April on to April went, 4d glad at heart from May to May: q IN MEMORIAM. 253 But where the path we walk’d began To slant the fifth autumnal slope, As we descended following Hope, There sat the Shadow fear’d of man ; Who broke our fair companionship, And spread his mantle dark and cold, And wrapt thee formless in the fold, And dull’d the murmur on thy lip, And bore thee where I could not see Nor follow, tho’ I walk in haste, And think, that somewhere in the waste The Shadow sits and waits for me. XXIII. Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut, Or breaking into song by fits, Alone, alone, to where he sits, The Shadow cloak’d from head to foot, Who keeps the keys of all the creeds, I wander, often falling lame, And looking back to whence I came, Or on to where the pathway leads ; And crying, How changed from where it ran Thro’ lands where not a leaf was dumb ; But all the lavish hills would hum The murmur of a happy Pan: When each by turns was guide to each, And Fancy light from Fancy caught, And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought Ere Thought could weditself with Speech ; And all we met was fair and good, And all was good that Time could bring, And all the secret of the Spring Moved in the chambers of the blood; And many an old philosophy On Argive heights divinely sang, And round us all the thicket rang: To many a flute of Arcady. IN MEMORIAM. XXIV. And was the day of my delight As pure and perfect as I say? The very source and fount of Day Is dash’d with wandering isles of night. If all was good and fair we met, This earth had been the Paradise It never look’d to human eyes Since our first Sun arose and set. And is it that the haze of grief Makes former gladness loom so great ? The lowness of the present state, That sets the past in this relief? Or that the past will always win A glory from its being far ; And orb into the perfect star We saw not, when we moved therein? XXV. I know that this was Life,—the track Whereon with equal feet we fared ; And then, as now, the day prepared The daily burden for the back. But this it was that made me move As light as carrier-birds in air ; I loved the weight I had to bear, Because it needed help of Love: Nor could I weary, heart or limb, When mighty Love would cleave in twain The lading of a single pain, And part it, giving half to him. XXVI. Still onward winds the dreary way ; I with it ; for I long to prove No lapse of moons can canker Love, Whatever fickle tongues may say. And if that eye which watches guilt And goodness, and hath power to see Within the green the moulder’d tree, And towers fall’n as soon as built— Oh, if indeed that eye foresee Or see (in Him is no before) ; In more of life true life no more And Love the indifference to be, Then might I find, ere yet the morn Breaks hither over Indian seas, That Shadow waiting with the keys, ; To shroud me from my proper scorn. XXVIII. I envy not in any moods “i The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, — That never knew the summer woods: I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time, Unfetter’d by the sense of crime, To whom a conscience never wakes ; . Nor, what may count itself as blest, The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth; Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate’er befall ; I feel it, when I sorrow most ; ’Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. XXVIII. The time draws near the birth of Christ : The moon is hid ; the night is still; The Christmas bells from hill to hill _ Answer each other in the mist. Four voices of four hamlets round, From far and near, on mead and | moor, Swell out and fail, as if a door Were shut between me and the sound: _ Each voice four changes on the wind, That now dilate, and now decrease, Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace, Peace and goodwill, to all mankind. This year I slept and woke with pain, I almost wish’d no more to wake, 4 And that my hold on life would break Before I heard those bells again : But they my troubled spirit rule, For they controll’d me when a boy ; They bring me sorrow touch’d with joy, The merry merry bells of Yule. | ORIN: With such compelling cause to grieve As daily vexes household peace, | And chains regret to his decease, How dare we keep our Christmas-eve ; Which brings no more a welcome guest To enrich the threshold of the night With shower’d largess of delight In dance and song and game and jest ? : _ Yet go, and while the holly boughs | Entwine the cold baptismal font, Make one wreath more for Use and | Wont, That guard the portals of the house ; Old sisters of a day gone by, Gray nurses, loving nothing new ; Why should they miss their yearly due - Before their time? They too will die. KXX. ‘With trembling fingers did we weave The holly round the Christmas hearth ; A rainy cloud possess’d the earth, _And sadly fell our Christmas-eve. _At our old pastimes in the hall We gambol’d, making vain pretence Of gladness, with an awful sense Of one mute Shadow watching all. | We paused ; the winds were in the beech: We heard them sweep the winter land ; 7 And in | a circle hand-in-hand _ Sat silent, looking each at each. IN MEMORIAM. 255 Then echo-like our voices rang ; We sung, tho’ every eye was dim, A merry song we sang with him Last year: impetuously we sang : We ceased : a gentler feeling crept Upon us: surely rest is meet: *They rest,” we said, ¢ age sleep is sweet,’ And silence follow’d, and we wept. Our voices took a higher range ; Once more we sang: ‘ They do not die Nor lose their mortal sympathy, Nor change to us, although they change ; ‘Rapt from the fickle and the frail With gather’d power, yet the same, Pierces the keen seraphic flame From orb to orb, from veil to veil.’ Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn, Draw forth the cheerful day from night : O Father, touch the east, and light The light that shone when Hope was born. KXXI. When Lazarus left his charnel-cave, And home to Mary’s house return’d, Was this demanded—if he yearn’d To hear her weeping by his grave ? ‘Where wert thou, brother, those four days ?’ There lives no record of reply, Which telling what it is to die Had surely added praise to praise. From every house the neighbours met, The streets were fill’d with -joyful sound, A solemn gladness even crown’d The purple brows of Olivet. Behold a man raised up by Christ ! The rest remaineth unreveal’d ; He told it not ; or something seal’d The lips of that Evangelist. 256 IN MEMORIAM. XXXII. Her eyes are homes of silent prayer, Nor other thought her mind admits But, he was dead, and there he sits, And he that brought him back is there. Then one deep love doth supersede All other, when her ardent gaze Roves from the living brother’s face, And rests upon the Life indeed. All subtle thought, all curious fears, Borne down by gladness so complete, She bows, she bathes the Saviour’s feet With costly spikenard and with tears, Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, Whose loves in higher love endure ; What souls possess themselves so pure, Or is there blessedness like theirs ? XXXIII. O thou that after toil and storm Mayst seem to have reach’d a purer oar; Whose faith has centre everywhere, Nor cares to fix itself to form, Leave thou thy sister when she prays, Her early Heaven, her happy views ; Nor thou with shadow’d hint confuse A life that leads melodious days. Her faith thro’ form is pure as thine, Her hands are quicker unto good : Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood To which she links a truth divine ! See thou, that countest reason ripe In holding by the law within, Thou fail not in a world of sin, And ev’n for want of such a type. XXXIV. My own dim life should teach me this, That life shall live for evermore, Else earth is darkness at the core, And dust and ashes all that is ; This round of green, this orb of flame, Fantastic beauty ; such as lurks In some wild Poet, when he works Without a conscience or an aim. What then were God to such as I? ’Twere hardly worth my while t choose | Of things all mortal, or to use A little patience ere I die ; *T were best at once to sink to peace, Like birds the charming serpen draws, To drop head-foremost in the jaws Of vacant darkness and to cease. XXXV. Yet if some voice that man could trust Should murmur from the narroy house, i ‘ The cheeks drop in; the body bows Man dies: nor is there hope in dust :’ Might I not say? * Yet even here, But for one hour, O Love, I strive To keep so sweet a thing alive :’ But I should turn mine ears and hear The moanings of the homeless sea, The sound of streams that swift o slow Draw down AXonian hills, and sow The dust of continents to be ; And Love would answer with a sigh, ‘The sound of that forgetful shore Will change my sweetness more anc more, Half-dead to know that I shall die.’ O me, what profits it to put An idle case? If Death were seen At first as Death, Love had not been, Or been in narrowest working shut, Mere fellowship of sluggish moods, Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape Had bruised the herb and crush’d the grape, | And bask’d and batten’d in the woods, — XXXVI. #10’ truths in manhood darkly join, Deep-seated in our mystic frame, We yield all blessing to the name f Him that made them current coin ; jr Wisdom dealt with mortal powers, Where truth in closest words shall fail, When truth embodied in a tale qall enter in at lowly doors. nd so the Word had breath, and wrought With human hands the creed of creeds ___In loveliness of perfect deeds, ‘ore strong than all poetic thought ; 1 | Thich he may read that binds the sheaf, Or builds the house, or digs the grave, And those wild eyes that watch the wave 1 roarings round the coral reef. XXXVII. Jrania speaks with darken’d brow : ' *Thou pratest here where thou art least ; _ This faith has many a purer priest, and many an abler voice than thou. Go down beside thy native rill, On thy Parnassus set thy feet, _ And hear thy laurel whisper sweet bout the ledges of the hill.’ And my Melpomene replies, A touch of shame aon her cheek : ‘I am not worthy ev’n to speak . of thy prevailing mysteries ; | For I am but an earthly Muse, And owning but a little art To lull with song an aching heart, And render human love his dues ; But brooding on the dear one dead, And all he said of things divine, (And dear to me as sacred wine To dying lips is all he said), | a IN MEMORIAM. 257 ‘IT murmur’d, as I came along, Of comfort clasp’d in truth reveal’d ; And loiter’d in the master’s field, And darken’d sanctities with song.’ XXXVITII. With weary steps I loiter on, Tho’ always under alter’d skies The purple from the distance dies, My prospect and horizon gone. No joy the blowing season gives, The herald melodies of spring, But in the songs I love to sing A doubtful gleam of solace lives. If any care for what is here Survive in spirits render’d free, Then are these songs I sing of thee Not all ungrateful to thine ear. XXXIX. Old warder of these buried bones, And answering now my random stroke With fruitful cloud and living smoke, Dark yew, that graspest at the stones And dippest toward the dreamless head, To thee too comes the golden hour When flower is feeling after flower ; But Sorrow—fixt upon the dead, And darkening the dark graves of men,— What whisper’d from her lying lips? Thy gloom is kindled at the tips, And passes into gloom again. XL. Could we forget the widow’d hour And look on Spirits breathed away, As on a maiden in the day When first she wears her orange-flower ! When crown’d with blessing she doth rise To take her latest leave of home, And hopes and light regrets that come Make April of her tender eyes ; Ss 258 IN MEMORIAM. And doubtful joys the father move, And tears are on the mother’s face, As parting with a long embrace She enters other realms of love ; Her office there to rear, to teach, Becoming as is meet and fit A link among the days, to knit The generations each with each ; And, doubtless, unto thee is given A life that bears immortal fruit In those great offices that suit The full-grown energies of heaven. Ay me, the difference I discern ! How often shall her old fireside Be cheer’d with tidings of the bride, How often she herself return, And tell them all they would have told, And bring her babe, and make her boast, Till even those that miss’d her most Shall count new things as dear as old: But thou and I have shaken hands, Till growing winters lay me low ; My paths are in the fields I know, And thine in undiscover’d lands. XLI. Thy spirit ere our fatal loss Did ever rise from high to higher ; As mounts the heavenward altar-fire, As flies the lighter thro’ the gross. But thou art turn’d to something strange, And I have lost the links that bound Thy changes; here upon the ground, No more partaker of thy change. Deep folly ! yet that this could be— That I could wing my will with might To leap the grades of life and light, And flash at once, my friend, to thee. For tho’ my nature rarely yields To that vague fear implied in death ; Nor shudders at the gulfs beneath, The howlings from forgotten fields ; Yet oft when sundown skirts the modi An inner trouble I behold, § A spectral doubt which makes m cold, That I shall be thy mate no more, ; Tho’ following with an upward mind _ The wonders that have come 1 thee, : Thro’ all the secular to-be, But evermore a life behind. XLII. I vex my heart with fancies dim: He still outstript me in the race ; It was but unity of place That made me dream I rank’d with hin And so may Place retain us still, And he the much-beloved again, A lord of large experience, train To riper growth the mind and will: And what delights can equal those That stir the spirit’s inner deeps, When one that loves but knows no reaps A truth from one that loves and knows XLITI. If Sleep and Death be truly one, And every spirit’s folded bloom Thro’ all its intervital gloom In some long trance should slumber on Unconscious of the sliding hour, Bare of the body, might it last, And silent traces of the past Be all the colour of the flower : So then were nothing lost to man ; So that still garden of the souls In many a figured leaf enrolls The total world since life began ; And love will last as pure and whole | As when he loved me here in Time, And at the spiritual prime Rewaken with the dawning soul. XLIV. ow fares it with the happy dead ? _ For here the man is more and more; But he forgets the days before od shut the doorways of his head. he days have vanish’d, tone and tint, And yet perhaps the hoarding sense Gives out at times (he knows not whence) little flash, a mystic hint ; nd in the long harmonious years (If Death so taste Lethean springs), May some dim touch of earthly things urprise thee ranging with thy peers. _ such a dreamy touch should fall, O turn thee round, resolve the doubt ; ___My guardian angel will speak out a that high place, and tell thee all. XLV. he baby new to earth and sky, _ What time his tender palm is prest Against the circle of the breast, ‘as never thought that ‘this is I :’ ut as he grows he gathers much, | And learns the use of ‘I,’ and ‘ me,’ '. And finds ‘I am not what I see, nd other than the things I touch.’ 9 rounds he to a separate mind From whence clear memory may begin, As thro’ the frame that binds him in Lis isolation grows defined. | | /his use may lie in blood and breath, Which else were fruitless of their due, _ Had man to learn himself anew seyond the second birth of Death. XLVI. Ve ranging down this lower track, _ The path we came by, thorn and flower, _ Is shadow’d by the growing hour, est life should fail in looking back. IN MEMORIAM. 259 So be it: there no shade can last In that deep dawn behind the fone But clear from marge to marge shall bloom The eternal landscape of the past ; A lifelong tract of time reveal’d ; The fruitful hours of still increase ; Days order’d in a wealthy peace, And those five years its richest field. O Love, thy province were not large, A bounded field, nor stretching far ; Look also, Love, a brooding star, A rosy warmth from marge to marge. XLVII. That each, who seems a separate whole, Should move his rounds, and fusing all The skirts of self again, should fall Remerging in the general Soul, Is faith as vague as all unsweet : Eternal form shall still divide- The eternal soul from all beside ; And I shall know him when we meet : And we shall sit at endless feast, Enjoying each the other’s good : What vaster dream can hit the mood Of Love on earth? He seeks at least ‘Upon the last and sharpest height, Before the spirits fade away, Some landing-place, to clasp and say, ‘Farewell! We lose ourselves in light.’ XLVITI. If these brief lays, of Sorrow born, Were taken to be such as closed Grave doubts and answers here pro- posed, Then these were such as men might scorn : Her care is not to part and prove ; She takes, when harsher moods remit, What slender shade of doubt may flit, And makes it vassal unto love: 260 IN MEMORIAM. And hence, indeed, she sports with words, But better serves a wholesome law, And holds it sin and shame to draw The deepest measure from the chords : Nor dare she trust a larger lay, But rather loosens from the lip Short swallow-flights of song, that dip Their wings in tears, and skim away. XLIX. From art, from nature, from the schools, Let random influences glance, Like light in many a shiver’d lance That breaks about the dappled pools : The lightest wave of thought shall lisp, The fancy’s tenderest eddy wreathe, The slightest air of song shall breathe To make the sullen surface crisp. And look thy look, and go thy way, But blame not thou the winds that make The seeming-wanton ripple break, The tender-pencil’d shadow play. Beneath all fancied hopes and fears Ay me, the sorrow deepens down, Whose muffled motions blindly drown The bases of my life in tears. L. Be near me when my light is low, When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick And tingle ; and the heart is sick, And all the wheels of Being slow. Be near me when the sensuous frame Is rack’d with pangs that conquer trust ; And ines a maniac scattering dust, And Life, a Fury slinging flame. Be near me when my faith is dry, And men the flies of latter spring, That lay their eggs, and sting and sing And weave their petty cells and die. Be near me when I fade away, To point the term of human strife, And_on the low dark verge of life The twilight of eternal day. LI. Do we indeed desire the dead Should still be near us at our side? Is there no baseness we would hide. No inner vileness that we dread ? { Shall he for whose applause I strove, I had such reverence for his blame, See with clear eye some hidde shame 7 And I be lessen’d in his love ? z I wrong the grave with fears untrue : ¢ Shall love be blamed for wan faith ? There must be wisdor with oe Death : The dead shall look me thro’ and thro’. Be near us when we climb or fall: Ye watch, like God, the rolling hour With larger other eyes than oun To make allowance for us all. Lil. I cannot love thee as I ought, ss For love reflects the thing beloved My words are only words, and moye Upon the topmost froth of thought. — | ‘Yet blame not thou thy plaintive song, The Spirit of true love replied; ‘Thou canst not move me from a) side, Nor human frailty do me wrong. ‘What keeps a spirit wholly true —_ To that ideal which he bears? What record? not the sinless year’ That breathed beneath the Syrian blue | : ‘So fret not, like an idle girl, That life is dash’d with flecks of si’ Abide: thy wealth is gather’d in, When Time hath sunder’d shell | r pearl.’ | LEI. ow many a father have I seen, A sober man, among his boys, Whose youth was full of foolish noise, Vho wears his manhood hale and green: nd dare we to this fancy give, That had the wild oat not been sown, The soil, grown “he grain by which a man may live? left barren, scarce had j Jr, if we held the doctrine sound For life outliving heats of youth, | Yet who would preach it as a truth ‘o those that eddy round and round? Told thou the good : define it well : For fear divine Philosophy Should push beyond her mark, and be ~rocuress to the Lords of Hell. | LIV. Jh yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, __ To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood ; hat nothing walks with aimless feet ; That not one life shall be destroy’d, Or cast as rubbish to the void, N hen God hath made the pile complete ; That not a worm is cloven in vain ; _ That not a moth with vain desire ____Is shrivell’d in a fruitless fire, ox but subserves another’s gain. Behold, we know not anything ; I can but trust that good shall fall At last—far off—at last, to all, And every winter change to spring. So runs my dream: but what am I? An infant crying in the night : | An infant crying for the light : And with no language but a cry. { IN MEMORIAM. 261 LV. The wish, that of the living whole No life may fail beyond the grave, Derives it not from what we have The likest God within the soul? Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life ; That I, considering everywhere Her secret meaning in her deeds, And finding that of fifty seeds She often brings but one to bear, I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world’s altar-stairs That slope thro’ darkness up to God, I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope. IONS ‘So careful of the type?’ but no. From scarped cliffand quarried stone Shecries, ‘A thousand types are gone: I care for nothing, all shall go. ‘Thou makest thine appeal to me: I bring to life, I bring to death : The spirit does but mean the breath: I know no more.’ And he, shall he, Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation’s final law— Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek’d against his creed— Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills, Who battled for the True, the Just, Be blown about the desert dust, Or seal’d within the iron hills ? 262 IN MEMORIAM. No more? Nor landmark breathes of other days, Sut all is new unhallow’d ground. CV. F f nigh ungather’d let us leave This laurel, let this holly stand : ; We live within the stranger’s land, And strangely falls our Christmas-eve. | IN MEMORIAM. 277 Our father’s dust is left alone And silent under other snows : There in due time the woodbine blows, The violet comes, but we are gone. No more shall wayward grief abuse The genial hour with mask and mime; For change of place, like growth of time, Has broke the bond of dying use. Let cares that petty shadows cast, By which our lives are chiefly proved, A little spare the night I loved, And hold it solemn to the past. But let no footstep beat the floor, Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm ; For who would keep an ancient form Thro’ which the spirit breathes no more? Be neither song, nor game, nor feast ; Nor harp be touch’d, nor flute be blown ; No dance, no motion, save alone What lightens in the lucid east Of rising worlds by yonder wood. Long sleeps the summer in the seed ; Run out your measured arcs, and lead The closing cycle rich in good. CVI. Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light : The year is dying in the night ; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go ; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more ; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. 278 Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife ; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws, Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times ; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite ; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease ; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand ; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be. CVIilI. It is the day when he was born, A bitter day that early sank Behind a purple-frosty bank Of vapour, leaving night forlorn. The time admits not flowers or leaves To deck the banquet. Makes daggers at the sharpen’d eaves, And bristles all the brakes and thorns To yon hard crescent, as she hangs Above the wood which grides and clangs Its leafless ribs and iron horns Together, in the drifts that pass To darken on the rolling brine That breaks the coast. the wine, Arrange the board and brim the glass ; Bring in great logs and let them lie, To make a solid core of heat ; Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat Of all things ev’n as he were by ; Fiercely flies The blast of North and East, and ice But fetch IN MEMORIAM. We keep the day. With festal chee 1, With books and music, surely we — Will drink to him, whate’er he be, And sing the songs he loved to hear. CVITII. I will not shut me from my kind, And, lest I stiffen into stone, I will not eat my heart alone, Nor feed with sighs a passing wind : What profit lies in barren faith, And vacant yearning, tho’ with To scale the heaven’s highest heigh Or dive below the wells of Death ? What find I in the highest place, But mine own phantom cham hymns ? And on the depths of death oe swims The reflex of a human face. astieeainlal i? V’ll rather take what fruit may be Of sorrow under human skies: °Tis held that sorrow makes — “aoe rs wise, oe Whatever wisdom sleep with thee. a | * Cik: 3 Heart-affluence in discursive talk 2 From household fountains nevi dry ; & S The critic clearness of an eye, | That saw thro’ all the Muses’ walk; Seraphic intellect and force To seize and throw the doubts _ man ; | Impassion’d logic, which outran- The hearer in its fiery course ; High nature amorous of the good, But touch’d with no ascetic gloom | And passion pure in snowy bloom) Thro’ all the years of April blood; | A love of freedom rarely felt, Of freedom in her regal seat | Of England ; not the schoolboy he The blind hysterics of the Celt ; | ls iN MEMORIAM. 279 ad manhood fused with female grace In such a sort, the child would twine A trustful hand, unask’d, in thine, ad find his comfort in thy face ; 1 these have been, and thee mine eyes Have look’d on: if they look’d in vain, My shame is greater who remain, or let thy wisdom make me wise. CX. hy converse drew us with delight, The men of rathe and riper years : The feeble soul, a haunt of fears, orgot his weakness in thy sight. In thee the loyal-hearted hung, The proud was half disarm’d of pride, Nor cared the serpent at thy side 0 flicker with his double tongue. “he stern were mild when thou wert by, The flippant put himself to school And heard thee, and the brazen fool Yas soften’d, and he knew not why ; Vhile I, thy nearest, sat apart, And felt thy triumph was as mine ; And loved them more, that they were thine, The graceful tact, the Christian art ; Nor mine the sweetness or the skill, _ __ But mine the love that will not tire, And, born of love, the vague desire Chat spurs an imitative will. } Cx, The churl in spirit, up or down | Along the scale of ranks, thro’ all, To him who grasps a golden ball, By blood a king, at heart a clown ; The churl in spirit, howe’er he veil His want in forms for fashion’s sake, _ -Will let his coltish nature break At seasons thro’ the gilded pale : For who can always act? but he, To whom a thousand memories call, Not being less but more than all The gentleness he seem’d to be, Best seem’d the thing he was, and join’d Each office of the social hour To noble manners, as the flower And native growth of noble mind ; Nor ever narrowness or spite, Or villain fancy fleeting by, Drew in the expression of an eye, Where God and Nature met in light ; And thus he bore without abuse The grand old name of gentleman, Defamed by every charlatan, And soil’d with all ignoble use. CXfFI. High wisdom holds my wisdom less, That I, who gaze with temperate eyes On glorious insufficiencies, Set light by narrower perfectness. But thou, that fillest all the room Of all my love, art reason why I seem to cast a careless eye On souls, the lesser lords of doom. For what wert thou? some novel power Sprang up for ever at a touch, And hope could never hope too much, In watching thee from hour to hour, Large elements in order brought, And tracts of calm from tempest made, And world-wide fluctuation sway’d In vassal tides that follow’d thought. CXIII. Tis held that sorrow makes us wise ; Yet how much wisdom sleeps with thee Which not alone had guided me, But served the seasons that may rise ; 280 For can I doubt, who knew thee keen In intellect, with force and skill To strive, to fashion, to fulfil— I doubt not what thou wouldst have been : A life in civic action warm, . A soul on highest mission sent, A potent voice of Parliament, A pillar steadfast in the storm, Should licensed boldness gather force, Becoming, when the time has birth, A lever to uplift the earth And roll it in another course, With thousand shocks that come and go, With agonies, with energies, With overthrowings, and with cries, And undulations to and fro. CXIV. Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail Against her beauty? May she mix With men and prosper! Who shall fix Her pillars? Let her work prevail. But on her forehead sits a fire : She sets her forward countenance And leaps into the future chance, Submitting all things to desire. Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain— She cannot fight the fear of death. What is she, cut from love and faith, But some wild Pallas from the brain Of Demons? fiery-hot to burst All barriers in her onward race For power. Let her know her place ; She is the second, not the first. A higher hand must make her mild, If all be not in vain; and guide Her footsteps, moving side by side With wisdom, like the younger child : For she is earthly of the mind, But Wisdom heavenly of the soul. O, friend, who camest to thy goal So early, leaving me behind, IN MEMORIAM. I would the great world grew like thee Who grewest not alone in po And knowledge, but by year nd hour ¥ In reverence and in charity. CXV. Now fades the last long streak of sn Now burgeons every maze of qt About the tlowering ‘qui \ thick ; By ashen roots the violets blow. Now rings the woodland loud and long The distance takes a lovelier hu And drown’d in yonder living blue The lark becomes a sightless song. _ Now dance the lights on lawn and lea, The flocks are whiter down the vale, And milkier every milky sail On winding stream or distant sea ; Where now the seamew pipes, or dives. | In yonder greening gleam, and fly — The happy birds, that change their sky To build and brood ; that live their From land to land; and in my breast Spring wakens too ; and my reg ret . Becomes an April violet, a And buds and blossoms like the rest. CXVI. i to ‘4 Is it, then, regret for buried time That keenlier in sweet April wakes, | And meets the year, and gives am takes The colours of the crescent prime? Not all: the songs, the stirring air, The life re-orient out of dust, Cry thro’ the sense to hearten trust In that which made the world so fair. Not all regret : the face will shine Upon me, while I muse alone ; And that dear voice, I once have known, Still speak to me of me and mine: ciiacaatiaams ih a 2t less of sorrow lives in me _ For days of happy commune dead ; Less yearning for the friendship fled, han some strong bond which is to be. CXVII. days and hours, your work is this To hold me from my proper place, A little while from his embrace, or fuller gain of after bliss : hat out of distance might ensue Desire of nearness doubly sweet ; And unto meeting when we meet, relight a hundredfold accrue, or every grain of sand that runs, And_ every peo of shade steals, And every kiss of toothed wheels, ind all the courses of the suns. that CXVIII. ontemplate all this work of Time, The giant labouring in his youth ; Nor dream of human love and truth, As dying Nature’s earth and lime ; ! bat trust that those we call the dead __ Are breathers of an ampler day | For ever nobler ends. They say, The solid earth whereon we tread tn tracts of fluent heat began, And grew to seeming-random forms, The seeming prey of cyclic storms, ‘Till at the last arose the man ; i Who throve and branch’d from clime to | clime, The herald of a higher race, And of himself in higher place, Ifso he type this work of time - Within himself, from more to more ; Or, crown’d with attributes of woe Like glories, move his course, and | show That life is not as idle ore, 7 j LIN MEMORIAM. 281 But iron dug from central gloom, And heated hot with burning fears, And dipt in baths of hissing tears, And batter’d with the shocks of doom To shape and use. Arise and fly The reeling Faun, the sensual feast ; Move upward, working out the beast, And let the ape and tiger die. CXIX. Doors, where my heart was used to beat So quickly, not as one that weeps I come once more; the city sleeps :; I smell the meadow in the street ; I hear a chirp of birds ; I see Betwixt the black fronts long-with- drawn A light-blue lane of early dawn, And think of early days and thee, And bless thee, for thy lips are bland, And bright the friendship of thine eye ; And in mythoughts with scarce a sigh I take the pressure of thine hand. CXX: I trust I have not wasted breath : I think we are not wholly brain, Magnetic mockeries ; not in vain, Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death ; Not only cunning casts in clay : Let Science prove we are, and then What matters Science unto men, At least to me? I would not stay. Let him, the wiser man who springs Hereafter, up from childhood shape His action like the greater ape, But I was éorz to other things. CXXI. Sad Hesper o’er the buried sun And ready, thou, to die with him, Thou watchest all things ever dim And dimmer, and a glory done : 282 IN MEMORIAM. The team is loosen’d from the wain, The boat is drawn upon the shore ; Thou listenest to the closing door, And life is darken’d in the brain. Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night, By thee the world’s great work is heard Beginning, and the wakeful bird ; Behind thee comes the greater light : The market boat is on the stream, . And voices hail it from the brink ; Thou hear’st the village hammer clink, And see’st the moving of the team. Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name For what is one, the first, the last, Thou, like my present and my past, Thy place is changed ; same. thou art the CXXII. Oh, wast thou with me, dearest, then, While I rose up against my doom, And yearn’d to burst the folded gloom, To bare the eternal Heavens again, To feel once more, in placid awe, The strong imagination roll A sphere of stars about my soul, In all her motion one with law ; If thou wert with me, and the grave Divide us not, be with me now, And enter in at breast and brow, Till all my blood, a fuller wave, Be quicken’d with a livelier breath, And like an inconsiderate boy, As in the former flash of joy, I slip the thoughts of life and death ; And all the breeze of Fancy blows, And every dew-drop paints a bow, The wizard lightnings deeply glow, And every thought breaks out a rose. CXXIII,. There rolls the deep where grew the 1 ree O earth, what changes hast — the seen ! There where the long street roars, hath been The stillness of the central sea. The hills are shadows, and they flow — From form to form, and nothi ng stands ; They melt like mist, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves go. But in my spirit will I dwell, And dream my dream, and hold it true ; For tho’ my lips may breathe adieu, I cannot think the thing farewell. Nol CXXIV. That which we dare invoke to bless = Our dearest faith; our ghastli doubt ; He, They, One, All; out ; The Power i in darkness whom we GUESS ; within, wi th- I found Him not in world or sun, Or eagle’s wing, or insect’s eye ; Nor thro’ the questions men try, 2 The petty cobwebs we have spun : If e’er when faith had fall’n asleep, I heard a voice ‘ believe no more”_ And heard an ever-breaking shore | That tumbled in the Godless deep; A warmth within the breast would , The freezing reason’s colder part, And like a man in wrath the heart Stood up and answer’d ‘I have felt.” | No, like a child in doubt and fear : But that blind clamour made wise ; Then ps I as achild that cries, — But, crying, knows his father near ; nd what I am beheld again What is, and no man understands ; And out of darkness came the hands hat reach thro’ nature, moulding men. CXXV. Vhatever I have said or sung, Some bitter notes my harp would give, Yea, tho’ there often seem’d to live . contradiction on the tongue, ‘et Hope had never lost her youth ; She did but look through dimmer eyes ; Or Love but play’d with gracious lies, secause he felt so fix’d in truth: ind if the song were full of care, He breathed the spirit of the song ; And if the words were sweet and strong Re set his royal signet there ; To seek thee on the mystic deeps, And this electric force, that keeps thousand pulses dancing, fail. ee with me till I sail A | ExXvi. ~ove is and was my Lord and King, ___ And in his presence I attend To hear the tidings of my friend, Which every hour his couriers bring. ie i is and was my King and Lord, And will be, tho’ as yet I keep : Within his court on earth, and sleep Encompass’d by his faithful guard, i i i And hear at times a sentinel : i Who moves about from placeto place, And whispers to the worlds of space, Ha the deep night, that all is well. | CXXVIT. And all is well, tho’ faith and form Be sunder’d in the night of fear ; Well roars the storm to those that hear A deeper voice across the storm, IN MEMORIAM. 283 Proclaiming social truth shall spread, And justice, ev’n tho’ thrice again The red fool-fury of the Seine Should pile her barricades with dead. But ill for him that wears a crown, _And him, the lazar, in his rags : They tremble, the sustaining crags ; The spires of ice are toppled down, And molten up, and roar in flood ; The fortress crashes from on high, The brute earth lightens to the sky, And the great A‘on sinks in blood, And compass’d by the fires of Hell ; While thou, dear spirit, happy star, O’erlook’st the tumult from afar, And smilest, knowing all is well. CXXVITI. The love that rose on stronger wings, Unpalsied when he met with Death, Is comrade of the lesser faith That sees the course of human things. No doubt vast eddies in the flood Of onward time shall yet be made, And throned races may degrade ; Yet O ye mysteries of good, Wild Hours that fly with Hope and Fear, If all your office had to do With old results that look like new; If this were all your mission here, To draw, to sheathe a useless sword, To fool the crowd with glorious lies, To cleave a creed in sects and cries, To change the bearing of'a word, To shift an arbitrary power, To cramp the student at his desk, To make old bareness picturesque And tuft with grass a feudal tower ; Why then my scorn might well descend On you and yours. I see in part That all, as in some piece of art, Is toil cooperant to an end. 284 CXXIX. Dear friend, far off, my lost desire, So far, so near in woe and weal ; O loved the most, when most I feel There is a lower and a higher ; Known and unknown ; human, divine ; Sweet human hand and lips and eye; Dear heavenly friend that canst not die, Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine ; Strange friend, past, present, and to be; Loved deeplier, darklier understood ; Behold, I dream a dream of good, And mingle all the world with thee. CXXX. Thy voice is on the rolling air ; I hear thee where the waters run ; Thou standest in the rising sun, And in the setting thou art fair. What art thou then? I cannot guess ; But tho’ I seem in star and flower To feel thee some diffusive power, I do not therefore love thee less : My love involves the love before ; My love is vaster passion now ; Tho’ mix’d with God and Nature thou, I seem to love thee more and more. Far off thou art, but ever nigh ; I have thee still, and I rejoice ; I prosper, circled with thy voice ; I shall not lose thee tho’. I die. CXXXI. O living will that shalt endure When all that seems shall suffer shock, Rise in the spiritual rock, Flow thro’ our deeds and make them pure, That we may lift from out of dust A voice as unto him that hears, A cry above the conquer’d years To one that with us works, and trust, IN MEMORIAM. With faith that comes of self-control, The truths that never can be proved Until we close with all we loved, And all we flow from, soul in soul. _ O true and tried, so well and oe . In that it is thy marriage day Is music more than any song. Nor have I felt so much of bliss A daughter of our house; nor prove l ; Since that. dark day a day like this; ~ Tho’ I since then have number’d o’er | Some thrice three years: they went and came, : Remade the blood and changed the frame, a And yet is love not less, but more ; No longer caring to embalm In dying songs a dead regret, But like a statue solid-set, And moulded in colossal calm. Regret is dead, but love is more Than in the summers that are flown, For I myself with these have grown To something greater than before; Which makes appear the songs I made — As echoes out of weaker times, As half but idle brawling rhymes, — The sport of random sun and shade. But where is she, the bridal flower, ¢ She enters, glowing like the moot Of Eden on its bridal bower : On me she bends her blissful eyes i And then on thee; they meet thylook And brighten like the star that shook Betwixt the palms of paradise. O when her life was yet in bud, - | He too foretold the perfect rose. For thee she grew, for thee she gree For ever, and as fair as good. nd thou art worthy; full of power ; As gentle ; liberal-minded, great, Consistent ; wearing all that weight f learning lightly like a flower. ut now set out: the noon is near, And I must give away the bride ; She fears not, or with thee beside nd me behind her, will not fear. or I that danced her on my knee, That watch’d her on her nurse’s arm, That shielded all her life from harm t last must part with her to thee ; low waiting to be made a wife, Her feet, my darling, on the dead ; Their pensive tablets round her head, ind the most living words of life sreathed in her ear. ‘The ring is on, The ‘ wilt thou’ answer’d, and again The ‘wilt thou’ ask’d, till out of twain der sweet ‘I will’ has made you one. Now sign your names, which shall be read, Mute symbols of a joyful morn, By village eyes as yet unborn ; The names are sign’d, and overhead Begins the clash and clang that tells The joy to every wandering breeze ; The blind wallrocks, and on the trees The dead leaf trembles to the bells. O happy hour, and happier hours . Await them. Many a merry face Salutes them—maidens of the place, That pelt us in the porch with flowers. O happy hour, behold the bride With him to whom her hand I gave. j They leave the porch, they pass the grave ‘That has to-day its sunny sides lTeeday the grave is bright for me, | For them the light of life increased, Who stay to share the morning feast, Who rest to-night beside the sea. IN MEMORIAM. 285 Let all my genial spirits advance To meet and greet a whiter sun ; My drooping memory will not shun The foaming grape of eastern France. It circles round, and fancy plays, And hearts are warm’d and faces bloom, As drinking health to bride and. groom We wish them store of happy days. Nor count me all to blame if I Conjecture of a stiller guest, Perchance, perchance, among the rest, And, tho’ in silence, wishing joy. But they must go, the time draws on, And those white-favour’d horses: wait ; They rise, but linger ; it is late ; Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone. A shade falls on us like the dark From little cloudlets on the grass, But sweeps away as out we pass To range the woods, to roam the park, Discussing how their courtship grew, And talk of others that are wed, And how she look’d, and what he said, And back we come at fall of dew. Again the feast, the speech, the glee, The shade of passing thought, the wealth Of words and wit, the double health, The crowning cup, the three-times-three, And last the dance ;—+ill I retire: Dumb is that tower which spake so- loud, And high in heaven the streaming cloud, And on the downs a rising fire : And rise, O moon, from yonder down, Till over down and over dale All night the shining vapour sail And pass the silent-lighted town, Of those that, eye to eye, shall look On haGwledaae 3 under whos con The white-faced halls, the glancing rills, And catch at every mountain head, And o’er the friths that branch and mand spread Is Earth and Earth’s, and in thi Their sleeping silver thro’ the hills ; hand Is Nature like an open book ; And touch with shade the bridal doors, With tender gloom the roof, the wall; And breaking let the splendour fall To spangle all the happy shores No longer half-akin to brute, 4 For all we thought and loved and dic And hoped, and suffer’d, is but seed Of what in them is flower ae fruit 5 Whereof the man, that with me trod — This planet, was a noble type Appearing ere the times were ripe That friend of mine who lives in God, By which they rest, and ocean sounds, And, star and system rolling past, A soul shall draw from out the vast And strike his being into bounds, That God, which ever lives and loves, Result in man, be born and think, One God, one law, one element, And act and love, a closer link And one far-off divine event, Betwixt us and the crowning race | To which the whole creation moves. And, moved thro’ life of lower phase, MAUD; A MONODRAMA. PARTE dE. I. I HATE the dreadful hollow behind the little wood, Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath, The red-ribb’d ledges drip with a silent horror of blood, And Echo there, whatever is ask’d her, answers ‘ Death.’ Et; For there in the ghastly pit long since a body was found, His who had given me life—O father ! O God! was it well ?— Mangled, and flatten’d, and crush’d, and dinted into the ground : There yet lies the rock that fell with him when he fell. Abe Did he fling himself down ? who knows? for a vast speculation had fila And ever he mutter’d and madden’d, and ever wann’d with despair, t And out he walk’d when the wind like a broken worldling wail’d, And the flying gold of the ruin’d woodlands drove thro’ the air. IV. I remember the time, for the roots of my hair were stirr’d By a shuffled step, by a dead weight trail’d, by a whisper’d fright, And my pulses closed their gates with a shock on my heart as I heard The shrill-edged shriek of a mother divide the shuddering night. MAUD. 287 Vv. Villainy somewhere! whose? One says, we are villains all. Not he: his honest fame should at least by me be maintained : But that old man, now lord of the broad estate and the Hall, Dropt off gorged from a scheme that had left us flaccid and drain’d. Vi. Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace ? we have made them a curse, Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own ; And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own hearthstone ? VII. But these are the days of advance, the works of the men of mind, When who but a fool would have faith in a tradesman’s ware or his word? Is it peace or war? Civil war, as I think, and that of a kind - The viler, as underhand, not openly bearing the sword. VIII. Sooner or later I too may passively take the print Of the golden age—why not? I have neither hope nor trust ; May make my heart as a millstone, set my face as a flint, Cheat and be cheated, and die: who knows? we are ashes and dust. IX. Peace sitting under her olive, and slurring the days gone by, When the poor are hovell’d and hustled together, each sex, like swine, When only the ledger lives, and when only not all men lie; Peace in her vineyard—yes !—but a company forges the wine. 1S And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian’s head, Till the filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the trampled wife, _ And chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor for bread, And the spirit of murder works in the very means of life, XI. And Sleep must lie down arm’d, for the villainous centre-bits Grind on the wakeful ear in the hush of the moonless nights, While another is cheating the sick of a few last gasps, as he sits To pestle a poison’d poison behind his crimson lights. XII. When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee, And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of children’s bones, Is it peace or war? better, war! loud war by land and by sea, War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred thrones. 288 MAUD. XIII. For I trust if an enemy’s fleet came yonder round by the hill, And the rushing battle-bolt sang from the three-decker out of the foam, That the smooth-faced snubnosed rogue would leap from-his counter and till And strike, if he could, were it but with his cheating yardwand, home. XIV. What ! am I raging alone as my father raged in his mood ? Must 7 too creep to the hollow and dash myself down and die Rather than hold by the law that I made, nevermore to brood On a horror of shatter’d limbs and a wretched swindler’s lie ? XV. Would there be sorrow for me? there was /ove in the passionate shriek, Love for the silent thing that had made false haste to the grave— Wrapt in a cloak, as I saw him, and thought he would rise and speak And rave at the lie and the liar, ah God, as he used to rave. XVI. I am sick of the Hall and the hill, I am sick of the moor and the main. Why should I stay ? can a sweeter chance ever come to me here? O, having the nerves of motion as well as the nerves of pain, Were it not wise if I fled from the place and the pit and the fear ? XVII. Workmen up at the Hall !—they are coming back from abroad ; The dark old place will be gilt by the touch of a millionaire : I have heard, I know not whence, of the singular beauty of Maud ; I play’d with the girl when a child ; she promised then to be fair. XVIII, Maud with her venturous climbings and tumbles and childish escapes, Maud the delight of the village, the ringing joy of the Hall, Maud with her sweet purse-mouth when my father dangled the grapes, Maud the beloved of my mother, the moon-faced darling of all, XIX. What is she now? My dreams are bad. She may bring me a curse. No, there is fatter game on the moor ; she will let me alone. Thanks, for the fiend best knows whether woman or man be the worse. I will bury myself in myself, and the Devil may pipe to his own. veh 4 Long have I sigh’d for a calm: God grant I may find it at last ! It will never be broken by Maud, she has neither savour nor salt, But a cold and clear-cut face, as I found when her carriage past, Perfectly beautiful : let it be granted her: where is the fault ? MAUD. 289 All that I saw (for her eyes were downcast, not'to be seen) Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, : Dead perfection, no more ; nothing more, if it had not been For a chance of travel, a paleness, an hour’s defect of the rose, Or an underlip, you may call it a little too ripe, too full, Or the least little delicate aquiline curve in a sensitive nose, From which I escaped heart-free, with the least little touch of spleen. TET: Cold and clear-cut face, why come you so cruelly meek, Breaking a slumber in which all spleenful folly was drown’d, Pale with the golden beam of an eyelash dead on the cheek, Passionless, pale, cold face, star-sweet on a gloom profound ; Womanlike, taking revenge too deep for a transient wrong Done but in thought to your beauty, and ever as pale as before Growing and fading and growing upon me without a sound, Luminous, gemlike, ghostlike, deathlike, half the night long Growing and fading and growing, till I could bear it no more, But arose, and all by myself in my own dark garden ground, Listening now to the tide in its broad-flung shipwrecking roar, Now to the scream of a madden’d beach dragg’d down by the wave, Walk’d in a wintry wind by a ghastly glimmer, and found The shining daffodil dead, and Orion low in his grave. TVs 1. A million emeralds break from the ruby-budded lime In the little grove where I sit—ah, wherefore cannot I be Like things of the season gay, like the bountiful season bland, When the far-off sail is blown by the breeze of a softer clime, Half-lost in the liquid azure bloom of a crescent of sea, The silent sapphire-spangled marriage ring of the land ? II. Below me, there, is the village, and looks how quiet and small ! And yet bubbles o’er like a city, with gossip, scandal, and spite ; And Jack on his ale-house bench has as many lies as a Czar ; And here on the landward side, by a red rock, glimmers the Hall : And up in the high Hall-garden I see her pass like a light ; But sorrow seize me if ever that light be my leading star ! II. When have I bow’d to her father, the wrinkled head of the race? I met her to-day with her brother, but not to her brother I bow’d : I bow’d to his lady-sister as she rode by on the moor ; But the fire of a foolish pride flash’d over her beautiful face. O child, you wrong your beauty, believe it, in being so proud ; Your father has wealth well-gotten, and I am nameless and poor. U 290 MAUD. = | " IV. I keep but a man and a maid, ever ready to slander and steal ; I know it, and smile a hard-set smile, like a stoic, or like _ A wiser epicurean, and let the world have its way : : For nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal ; - The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear’d by the shrike, And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey. _ V. _ We are puppets, Man in his pride, and Beauty fair in her flower ; Do we move ourselves, or are moved by an unseen hand at a game That pushes us off from the board, and others ever succeed? . Ah yet, we cannot be kind to each other here for an hour ; We whisper, and hint, and chuckle, and grin at a brother’s shame ; However we brave it out, we men are a little breed. VI. A monstrous eft was of old the Lord and Master of Earth, For him did his high sun flame, and his river billowing ran, And he felt himself in his force to be Nature’s crowning race. As nine months go to the shaping an infant ripe for his birth, So many a million of ages have gone to the making of man: He now is first, but is he the last ? is he not too base ? VI The man of science himself is fonder of glory, and vain, An eye well-practised in nature, a spirit bounded and poor ; The passionate heart of the poet is whirl’d into folly and vice. I would not marvel at either, but keep a temperate brain ; For not to desire or admire, if a man could learn it, were more Than to walk all day like the sultan of old in a garden of spice. VIIl. For the drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis hid by the veil. Who knows the ways of the world, how God will bring them about ? Our planet is one, the suns are many, the world is wide. Shall I weep if a Poland fall? shall I shriek if a Hungary fail ? Or an infant civilisation be ruled with rod or with knout ? Z have not made the world, and He that made it will guide. IX. Be mine a philosopher’s life in the quiet woodland ways, Where if I cannot be gay let a passionless peace be my lot, Far-off from the clamour of liars belied in the hubbub of lies ; “i From the long-neck’d geese of the world that are ever hissing dispraise Because their natures are little, and, whether he heed it or not, Where each man walks with his head i in a cloud of poisonous flies. MAUD. 201 And most of all would I flee from the cruel madness of love, The honey of poison-flowers and all the measureless ill. Ah Maud, you milkwhite fawn, you are all unmeet for a wife. Your mother is mute in her grave as her image in marble above ; Your father is ever in London, you wander about at your will ; You have but fed on the roses and lain in the lilies of life. V. ie A voice by the cedar tree In the meadow under the Hall ! ‘She is singing an air that is known to me, A passionate ballad gallant and gay, A martial song like a trumpet’s call ! Singing alone in the morning of life, — If ever I should forget, May God make me more wretched Than ever I have been yet! X. So now I have sworn to bury All this dead body of hate, I feel so free and so clear By the loss of that dead weight, That I should grow light-headed, I fear, Fantastically merry ; But that her brother comes, like a blight On my fresh hope, to the Hall to-night. BOG I Strange, that I felt so gay, Strange, that 7 tried to-day 300 To beguile her melancholy ; The Sultan, as we name him,— She did not wish to blame him— But he vext her and perplext her With his worldly talk and folly : Was it gentle to reprove her For stealing out of view From a little lazy lover Who but claims her as his due ? Or for chilling his caresses By the coldness of her manners, Nay, the plainness of her dresses ? Now I know her but in two, Nor can pronounce upon it If one should ask me whether The habit, hat, and feather, Or the frock and gipsy bonnet Be the neater and completer ; For nothing can be sweeter Than maiden Maud in either, it, But to-morrow, if we live, Our ponderous squire will give A grand political dinner To half the squirelings near ; And Maud will wear her jewels, And the bird of prey will hover, And the titmouse hope to win her With his chirrup at her ear. ILI. A grand political dinner To the men of many acres, A gathering of the Tory, A dinner and then a dance For the maids and marriage-makers, And every eye but mine will glance At Maud in all her glory. IV. For I am not invited, But, with the Sultan’s pardon, I am all as well delighted, For I know her own rose-garden, And mean to linger in it Till the dancing will be over ; And then, oh then, come out to me For a minute, but for a minute, MAUD. Come out to your own true lover, — That your true lover may see Your glory also, and render All homage to his own darling, Queen Maud in all her splendour, XXI. Rivulet crossing my ground, And bringing me down from the Hall This garden-rose that I found, Forgetful of Maud and me, And lost in trouble and moving round Here at the head of a tinkling fall, _ And trying to pass to the sea ; O Rivulet, born at the Hall, My Maud has sent it by thee (If I read her sweet will right) Ona blushing mission to me Saying in odour and colour, ‘ Ah, hell Among the roses to-night.’ is XXII. fe af Come into the garden, Maud, a 4 For the black bat, Tene has flown,” Come into the wae Maud, I am here at the gate alonan 3 - And the woodbine spices are waft ed abroad, ; And the Sane of the rose is blown, IT. For a breeze of morning moves, And the planet of Love is on a Beginning to faint in the light that s loves On a bed of daffodil sky, To faint in the light of the sun she love To faint in his light, and to die. _ : iil, All night have the roses heard 4 The flute, violin, bassoon ; — - All night has the casement jessamine stirr’d ; To the dancers dancing in tune ; Till a silence fell with the waking bird, And a hush with the setting moon. Pat) q BV [ said to the lily, ‘ There is but one _ With whom she has heart to be gay. _ When will the dancers leave her alone? _ She is weary of dance and play.’ Now half to the setting moon are gone, _ And half to the rising day ; Low on the sand and loud on the stone The last wheel echoes away. Ve _ I said to the rose, ‘ The brief night goes In babble and revel and wine. 'O young lord-lover, what sighs are those, For one that will never be thine? But mine, but mine,’ so I sware to the rose, ‘For ever and ever, mine.’ MES And the soul of the rose went into my blood, | As the music clash’d in the hall ; And long by the garden lake I stood, | For I heard your rivulet fall From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood, Our wood, that is dearer than all ; WIT. From the meadow your walks have left So Sweet That whenever a March-wind sighs He sets the jewel-print of your feet _ In violets blue as your eyes, _To the woody hollows in which we meet And the valleys of Paradise. VIII. _The slender acacia would not shake | One long milk-bloom on the tree ; _ The white lake-blossom fell into the lake __ As the pimpernel dozed on the lea ; But the rose was awake all night for your sake, Knowing your promise to me ; _ The lilies and roses were all oe They sigh’d for the dawn and thee. MAUD. 301 IX. Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, Come hither, the dances are done, In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, Queen lily and rose in one ; Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, To the flowers, and be their sun. X. There has fallen a splendid tear From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear ; She is coming, my life, my fate ; The red: rose cries, ‘She is near, she is near 37 And the white rose weeps, ‘She is late ;’ The larkspur listens, ‘I hear, I hear ;’ And the lily whispers, ‘I wait.’ AD. She is coming, my own, my sweet ; Were it ever so airy a tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthy bed ; My dust would hear her and beat, Had I lain for a century dead ; Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red. Po Roba if I; ‘THE fault was mine, the fault was mine ’— Why am I sitting here so stunn’d and still, Plucking the harmless wild-flower on the hill 2>— It is this guilty hand !— And there rises ever a passionate cry From underneath in the darkening land— What is it, that has been done ? O dawn of Eden bright over earth and sky, The fires of Hell brake out of thy rising sun, The fires of Hell and of Hate ; 302 For she, sweet soul, had hardly spoken a word, When her brother ran in his rage to the gate, He came with the babe-faced lord ; Heap’d on her terms of disgrace, And while she wept, and I strove to be cool, He fiercely gave me the lie, Till I with as fierce an anger spoke, And he struck me, madman, over the face, Struck me before the languid fool, Who was gaping and grinning by : Struck for himself an evil stroke ; Wrought for his house an irredeemable woe; For front to front in an hour we stood, And a million horrible bellowing echoes broke From the red-ribb’d hollow behind the wood, And thunder’d up into Heaven the Christ- less code, That must have life for a blow. Ever and ever afresh they seem’d to grow. Was it he lay there with a fading eye? ‘The fault was mine,’ he whisper’d, ‘fly !’ Then glided out of the joyous wood The ghastly Wraith of one that I know ; And there rang on a sudden a passionate cry, A cry for a brother’s blood : It will ring in my heart and my ears, till I die, till I die. II, Is it gone? my pulses beat— What was it ? a lying trick of the brain ? Yet I thought I saw her stand, A shadow there at my feet, High over the shadowy land. It is gone; and the heavens fall in a gentle rain, When they should burst and drown with deluging storms The feeble vassals of wine and anger and lust, The little hearts that know not how to forgive : MAUD. Arise, my God, and strike, for w Thee just, — Strike dead the whole weak race of veno mous worms, ~ oat That sting each other here in the dus We are not worthy to live. pb I. See what a lovely shell, Small and pure as a pearl, Lying close to my foot, Frail, but a work divine, Made so fairily well With delicate spire and whorl, How exquisitely minute, A miracle of design ! Ine What is it? a learned man Could give it a clumsy name. Let him name it who can, The beauty would be the same. III. The tiny cell is forlorn, Void of the little living will That made it stir on the shore. Did he stand at the diamond door Of his house in a rainbow frill ? Did he push, when he was uncurl’d, A golden foot or a fairy horn : Thro’ his dim water-world ? IVa Slight, to be crush’d with a tap Of my finger-nail on the sand, Small, but a work divine, Frail, but of force to withstand, — Year upon year, the shock Of cataract seas that snap The three decker’s oaken spine Athwart the ledges of rock, Here on the Breton strand ! Vv. Breton, not Briton; here —_— Like a shipwreck’d man on acoast = Of ancient fable and fear— Nor ever arose from below, But only moves with the moving eye, Flying along the land and the main— Why should it look like Maud ? Am I to be overawed By what I cannot but know Isa juggle born of the brain ? .| { VI. ‘Back from the Breton coast, Sick of a nameless fear, _' Back to the dark sea-line Looking, thinking of all I have lost ; _ An old song vexes my ear ; But that of Lamech is mine. VII. For years, a measureless ill, For years, for ever, to part— But she, she would love me still ; And as long, O God, as she Have a grain of love for me, So long, no doubt, no doubt, - Shall I nurse in my dark heart, _However weary, a spark of will Not to be trampled out. VIil. ‘Strange, that the mind, when fraught With a passion so intense One would think that it well Might drown all life in the eye,—— That it should, by being so overwrought, Suddenly strike on a sharper sense For a shell, or a flower, little things Which else would have been past by ! And now I remember, I, When he lay dying there, iI noticed one of his many rings (For he had many, poor worm) and thought It is his mother’s hair. IDE Who knows if he be dead ? Whether I need have fled ? MAUD. 303 Plagued with a flitting to and fro, Am I guilty of blood ? A disease, a hard mechanic ghost However this may be, ‘That never came from on high Comfort her, comfort her, all things good, While I am over the sea ! Let me and my passionate love go by, But speak to her all things holy and high, Whatever happen to me! Me and my harmful love go by ; But come to her waking, find her asleep, Powers of the height, Powers of the deep, And comfort her tho’ I die. ETT: Courage, poor heart of stone ! I will not ask thee why Thou canst not understand That thou art left for ever alone : Courage, poor stupid heart of stone. — Or if I ask thee why, Care not thou to reply : She is but dead, and the time is at hand When thou shalt more than die. IV. iG O that ’twere possible After long grief and pain To find the arms of my true love Round me once again ! II. When I was wont to meet her In the silent woody places By the home that gave me birth, We stood tranced in long embraces Mixt with kisses sweeter sweeter Than anything on earth. TLTs A shadow flits before me, Not thou, but like to thee: Ah Christ, that it were possible For one short hour to see The souls we loved, that they might tell us What and where they be. 304 IV. It leads me forth at evening, It lightly winds and steals In a cold white robe before me, When all my spirit reels At the shouts, the leagues of lights, And the roaring of the wheels. Vv. Half the night I waste in sighs, Half in dreams I sorrow after The delight of early skies ; In a wakeful doze I sorrow For the hand, the lips, the eyes, For the meeting of the morrow, The delight of happy laughter, The delight of low replies. Vi. ’Tis a morning pure and sweet, And a dewy splendour falls On the little flower that clings To the turrets and the walls ; ’Tis a morning pure and sweet, And the light and shadow fleet ; She is walking in the meadow, And the woodland echo rings ; In a moment we shall meet ; She is singing in the meadow And the rivulet at her feet Ripples on in light and shadow To the ballad that she sings. VII. Do I hear her sing as of old, My bird with the shining head, My own dove with the tender eye? But there rings on a sudden a passionate cry, There is some one dying or dead, And a sullen thunder is roll’d ; For a tumult shakes the city, And I wake, my dream is fled ; In the shuddering dawn, behold, Without knowledge, without pity, By the curtains of my bed That abiding phantom cold. MAUD. VIII. Get thee hence, nor come again, Mix not memory with doubt, Pass, thou deathlike type of pain, Pass and cease to move about ! *Tis the blot upon the brain That z2z// show itself without. ae ten =e Then I rise, the eavedrops fall, And the yellow vapours choke The great city sounding wide ; The day comes, a dull red ball Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke On the misty river-tide. dee Thro’ the hubbub of the market I steal, a wasted frame, It crosses here, it crosses there, Thro’ all that crowd confused and loud, | The shadow still the same ; And on my heavy eyelids My anguish hangs like shame. ee ee a . i bs eS NLR eit i a 9e XI. Alas for her that met me, That heard me softly call, a ac Came glimmering thro’ the laurels 7 | At the quiet evenfall, a In the garden by the turrets Of the old manorial hall. XI. Would the happy spirit descend, From the realms of light and song, In the chamber or the street, os | As she looks among the blest, | Should I fear to greet my friend Or to say ‘ Forgive the wrong,’ Or to ask her, ‘ Take me, sweet, To the regions of thy rest’? XIII. But the broad light glares and beats, And the shadow flits and fleets And will not let me be ; ; And I loathe the squares and streets, — And the faces that one meets, Hearts with no love for me: | \lways I long to creep nto some still cavern deep, “here to weep, and weep, and weep Ay whole soul out to thee. Ae | 7 Jead, long dead, .ong dead ! \nd my heart is a handful of dust, {nd the wheels go over my head, ind my bones are shaken with pain, ‘or into a shallow grave they are thrust, Jnly a yard beneath the street, And the hoofs of the horses beat, beat, che hoofs of the horses beat, eat into my scalp and my brain, With never an end to the stream of passing feet, Jriving, hurrying, marrying, burying, Jlamour and rumble, and ringing and clatter, ' \nd here beneath it is all as bad, ‘or I thought the dead ‘had peace, but it i is not so; _ Yo have no peace in the grave, is that not sad? 3ut up and down and to and fro, iver about me the dead men go ; And then to hear a dead man chatter -s enough to drive one mad. HT. Wretchedest age, since Time began, Uhey cannot even bury a man ; And tho’ we paid our tithes in the days that are gone, Not a bell was rung, not a prayer was . read ; t is that which makes us loud in the | world of the dead ; There is none that does his work, not one ; A touch of their office might have sufficed, But the Beychmnen fain would kill their church, As the Eiarche’ have kill’d their Christ. MAUD. 395 III. See, there is one of us sobbing, No limit to his distress ; And another, a lord of all things, praying To his own great self, as I guess ; And another, a statesman there, betraying His party-secret, fool, to the press ; And yonder a vile physician, blabbing The case of his patient—all for what ? To tickle the maggot born in an empty head, And wheedle a world that loves him not, For it is but a world of the dead. IV. Nothing but idiot gabble ! For the prophecy given of old And then not understood, Has come to pass as foretold ; Not let any man think for the public good, But babble, merely for babble. For I never whisper’d a private affair Within the hearing of cat or mouse, No, not to myself in the closet alone, But I heard it shouted at once from the top of the house ; Everything came to be known. Who told zm we were there ? Vv. Not that gray old wolf, for he came not back From the wilderness, full of wolves, where he used to lie ; He has gather’d the bones for his o’er- grown whelp to crack ; Crack them now for yourself, and how], and die. Vi. Prophet, curse me the blabbing lip, And curse me the British vermin, the rat ; I know not whether he came in the Hanover ship, But I know that he lies and listens mute In an ancient mansion’s crannies and holes : x 306 Arsenic, arsenic, sure, would do it, Except that now we poison our babes, poor souls ! It is all used up for that. WIT; Tell him now : head ; Not beautiful now, not even kind ; He may take her now; for she never speaks her mind, But is ever the one thing silent here. She is not of us, as I divine ; She comes from another stiller world of the dead, Stiller, not fairer than mine. she is standing here at my WLLL, But I know where a garden grows, Fairer than aught in the world beside, All made up of the lily and rose That blow by night, when the season is good, To the sound of dancing music and flutes: It is only flowers, they had no fruits, And I almost fear they are not roses, but blood ; For the keeper was one, so full of pride, He linkt a dead man there to a spectral bride ; For he, if he had not been a Sultan of brutes, Would he have that hole in his side ? PART fii Viv My life has crept so long on a broken wing Thro’ cells of madness, haunts of horror and fear, That I come to be grateful at last for a little thing : My mood is changed, for it fell at a time of year When the face of night is fair on the dewy downs, > And the shining daffodil dies, and the Charioteer . —_ And starry Gemini hang like glorious crowns ; Over Orion’s grave low down in the west, That like a silent lightning under the stars She seem’d to divide in a dream from a band of the blest, MAUD. LOSS But what will the old man say? He laid a cruel snare in a pit To catch a friend of mine one stormy day ; Yet now I could even weep to thi of It $ For what val the old man say When he comes to the second corpse in the pit? X. Friend, to be struck by the public foe, Then to strike him and lay him low, That were a public merit, far, Whatever the Quaker holds, from sin; But the red life spilt for a private blow _— I swear to you, lawful and lawless war Are scarcely even akin. “a XI. O me, why have they not buried me enough? d Is it kind to have made me a grav re rough, Me, that was never a quiet sleeper? — Maybe still I am but half-dead ; Then I cannot be wholly dumb ; I will cry to the steps above my head And somebody, surely, some ling b will come . To bury me, bury me Deeper, ever so little deeper. MAUD. 307 ” And spoke of a hope for the world in the coming wars— ‘ And in that hope, dear soul, let trouble have rest, Knowing I tarry for thee,’ and pointed to Mars As he glow’d like a ruddy shield on the Lion’s breast. It, And it was but a dream, yet it yielded a dear delight To have look’d, tho’ but in a dream, upon eyes so fair, That had been in a weary world my one thing bright ; And it was but a dream, yet it lighten’d my despair When I thought that a war would arise in defence of the right, That an iron tyranny now should bend or cease, The glory of manhood stand on his ancient height, Nor Britain’s one sole God be the millionaire : No more shall commerce be all in all, and Peace Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note, And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase, Nor the cannon-bullet rust on a slothful shore, And the cobweb woven across the cannon’s throat Shall shake its threaded tears in the wind no more. ! Til: And as months ran on and rumour of battle grew, ‘It is time, it is time, O passionate heart,’ said I (For I cleaved to a cause that I felt to be pure and true), “Tt is time, O passionate heart and morbid eye, That old hysterical mock-disease should die.’ And I stood on a giant deck and mix’d my breath With a loyal people shouting a battle cry, Till I saw the dreary phantom arise and fly Far into the North, and battle, and seas of death. IV. Let it go or stay, so I wake to the higher aims Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of gold, And love of a peace that was full of wrongs and shames, Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told ; And hail once more to the banner of battle unroll’d ! Tho’ many a light shall darken, and many shall weep For those that are crush’d in the clash of jarring claims, Yet God’s just wrath shall be wreak’d on a giant liar ; And many a darkness into the light shall leap, And shine in the sudden making of splendid names, And noble thought be freér under the sun, And the heart of a people beat with one desire ; For the peace, that I deem’d no peace, is over and done, And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep, And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress, flames The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire. 308 LDYILS OF LHL AING, 4 as » (Vis Let it flame or fade, and the war roll down like a wind, We have proved we have hearts in a cause, we are noble still, And myself have awaked, as it seems, to the better mind ; It is better to fight for the good than to rail at the ill ; I have felt with my native land, I am one with my kind, I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom assign’d. DANG lee DEDICATION. THESE to His Memory—since he held them dear, Perchance as finding there unconsciously Some image of himself—I dedicate, I dedicate, I consecrate with tears— These Idylls. And indeed He seems to me Scarce other than my king’s ideal knight, ‘Who reverenced his conscience as his king ; Whose glory was, redressing human wrong ; Who spake no slander, no, nor listen’d tonite Who loved one only and whoclave to her—’ Her—over all whose realms to their last isle, Commingled with the gloom of imminent war, The shadow of His loss drew like eclipse, Darkening the world. We have lost him: he is gone: We know him now: all narrow jealousies Are silent ; and we see him as he moved, How modest, kindly, all-accomplish’d, wise, With what sublime repression of himself, And in what limits, and how tenderly ; Not swaying to this faction or to that ; Not making his high place the lawless perch Of wing’d ambitions, nor a vantage-ground For pleasure ; but thro’ all this tract of years Wearing the white flower of a blameless life, OF |. LEE aisles ‘Flos Regum Arthurus.’ JOSEPH OF EXETER. Before a thousand peering littlenesses, In that fierce light which beats upon a throne, And blackens every blot : for where is he, Who dares foreshadow for an only son A lovelier life, a more unstain’d, than his?! Or how should England dreaming of A245 sons Hope more for these than some inheritance. Of such a life, a heart, a mind as thine, Thou noble Father of her Kings to be, _ Laborious for her people and her poor—| Voice in the rich dawn of an ampler day—' Far-sighted summoner of War and Waste To fruitful strifes and rivalries of peace— Sweet nature gilded by the gracious gleam Of letters, dear to Science, dear to Art, © Dear to thy land and ours, a Prince indeed, Beyond all titles, and a household name, Hereafter, thro’ all times, Albert the Good. t 7 Break not, O woman’s-heart, but still 7 endure ; i Break not, for thou art Royal, but endure, | Remembering all the beauty of that star Which shone so close beside Thee that ye made One light together, but has past and leaves The Crown a lonely splendour. May all love, His love, unseen but felt, o’ershadow Thee, - The love of all Thy sons encompass Thee, - The love of all Thy daughters cherish Thee, The love of all Thy people comfort Thee, Till God’s love set Thee at his side aga) | I { UEODOGRAN, the King of Cameliard,. dad one fair daughter, and none other child ; {nd she was fairest of all flesh on earth, Guinevere, and in her his one delight. | For many a petty king ere Arthur came AXuled in this isle, and ever waging war Zach upon other, wasted all the land ; ’ And still from time to time the heathen host swarm’d overseas, and harried what was left. . \nd so there grew great tracts of wilder- ness, Wherein the beast was ever more and | more, 3ut man was less and less, till Arthur came. ‘or first Aurelius lived and fought and 7 died, _ And after him King Uther fought and died, , But either fail’d to make the kingdom one. i And after these King Arthur for a space, And thro’ the puissance of his Table q Round, Drew all their petty princedoms under him, cheir king and head, and made a realm, and reign’d. _ And thus the land of Cameliard was . | waste, “hick with wet woods, and many a beast therein, and none or few to scare or chase the beast ; o that wild dog, and wolf and boar and | bear vame night and day, and rooted in the fields, and wallow’d in the gardens of the King. and ever and anon the wolf would steal “he children and devour, but now and then, Ter own ifood lost or dead, fierce teat lent her tHE COMING OF ARTHUR: Poe COMING 399 ORPARS ELOIRS To human sucklings; and the children, housed In her foul den, there at their meat would growl, And mock their foster-mother on four feet, Till, straighten’d, they grew up to wolf- like men, Worse than the wolves. Leodogran Groan’d for the Roman legions here again, And Ceesar’s eagle: then his brother king, Urien, assail’d him: last a heathen horde, Reddening the sun with smoke and earth with blood, And on the spike that split the mother’s And King heart Spitting the child, brake on him, till, amazed, He knew not whither he should turn for aid. But—for he heard of Arthur newly crown’d, Tho’ not without an uproar made by those Who cried, ‘ He is not Uther’s son ’—the King Sent to him, saying, ‘ Arise, and help us thou ! For here between the man and beast we die.’ And Arthur yet had done no deed of arms, But heard the call, and came: and Guinevere Stood by the castle walls to watch him Pass ; But since he neither wore on helm or shield The golden symbol of his kinglihood, But rode a simple knight among his knights, And many of these in richer arms than he, She saw him not, or mark’d not, if she saw, One among many, tho’ his face was bare. But Arthur, looking downward as he past, Felt the light of her eyes into his life 310 Smite on the sudden, yet rode on, and pitch’d His tents beside the forest. Then he drave The heathen; after, slew the beast, and fell’d The forest, letting in the sun, and made Broad pathways for the hunter and the knight And so return’d. For while he linger’d there, A doubt that ever smoulder’d in the hearts Of those great Lords and Barons of his realm Flash’d forth and into war : these, Colleaguing with a score of petty kings, Made head against him, crying, ‘ Who is he That he should rule us? who hath proven him King Uther’s son? for lo! we look at him, And find nor face nor bearing, limbs nor voice, Are like to those of Uther whom we knew. This is the son of Gorlois, not the King; This is the son of Anton, not the King.’ for most of And Arthur, passing thence to battle, felt Travail, and throes and agonies of the life, Desiring to be join’d with Guinevere ; And thinking as he rode, ‘ Her father said That there between the man and beast they die. Shall I not lift her from this land of beasts Up to my throne, and side by side with me ? What happiness to reign a lonely king, Vext—O ye stars that shudder over me, O earth that soundest hollow under me, Vext with waste dreams? for saving I be join’d To her that is the fairest under heaven, I seem as nothing in the mighty world, And cannot will my will, nor work my work Wholly, nor make myself in mine own realm THE COMING OF ARTHUR. Victor and lord. But were I join’d her, ; Then might we live together as one life, And reigning with one will in every Have power on this dark land to li it, : And power on this dead world to make — it live.’ 7 Thereafter—as he speaks who tells ie : tale— When Arthur reach’d a field-of- bat tle bright With pitch’d pavilions of his foe, the world Was all so clear about him, that he saw The smallest rock far on the faintest And even in high day the morning st So when the King had set his ba broad, At once from either side, with trumpel [- blast, 4 And shouts, and clarions shrilling into blood, a | The long-lanced battle let their | horses run. And now the Barons and the kings vail’d, . And now the King, as here and that war Went swaying ; but the Powers who wall the world Made lightnings and great thunders o him, And dazed all eyes, till Arthur by m might, And mightier of his hands with ev blow, And leading all his knighthood threw ‘kings Carados, Urien, Cradlemont of Wales Claudias, and Clariance of Northumb land, ey The King Brandagoras of Latangor, — With Anguisant of Erin, Morganore, And Lot of Orkney. Then, before a vo As dreadful as the shout of one who s To one who sins, and deems himself alone _ And all the world asleep, they sven | and brake “lying, and Arthur call’d to stay the brands That hack’d among the flyers, ‘ Ho ! they yield !’ 30 like a painted battle the war stood Silenced, the living quiet as the dead, _ And in the heart of Arthur joy was lord, Helaugh’d upon his warrior whom he loved And honour’d most. ‘Thou dost not doubt me King, 5o well thine arm hath wrought for me to-day.’ ) ‘Sir and my liege,’ he cried, ‘the fire of God ‘Descends upon thee in the battle-field : I know thee for my King!’ Whereat the two, Fo each had warded either in the fight, 'Sware on the field of death a deathless love. And Arthur said, ‘ Man’s word is God in 7 man: Let chance what will, I trust thee to the death.’ Then quickly from. the foughten field q he sent Ulfius, and Brastias, and Bedivere, pa new-made knights, to King Leodo- gran, Sagine, cab L- IT) aught have served thee well, Give me thy daughter Guinevere to wife.’ Whom when he heard, Leodogran in heart Debating—‘ How should I that am a king, However much he holp me at my need, Give my one daughter saving to a Sing And a king’s son ?’—lifted his voice, and call’d A hoary man, his chamberlain, to whom He trusted all things, and of him required His counsel: ‘Knowest thou aught of Arthur’s birth ?’ Then spake the hoary chamberlain and said, “Sir King, there be but two old men that know : | | | I THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 311 And each is twice as old as I; and one Is Merlin, the wise man that ever served King Uther thro’ his magic art ; and one Is Merlin’s master (so they call him) Bleys, Who taught him magic; but the scholar ran Before the master, and so far, that Bleys Laid magic by, and sat him down, and wrote All things and whatsoever Merlin did In one great annal-book, where after-years Will learn the secret of our Arthur’s birth.’ To whom the King Leodogran replied, ‘O friend, had I been holpen half as well By this King Arthur as by thee to-day, Then beast and man had had their share of me.; But summon here before us yet once more Ulfius, and Brastias, and Bedivere.’ Then, when they came before him, the King said, ‘TI have seen the cuckoo chased by lesser fowl, And reason in the chase: but wherefore now Do these your lords stir up the heat of war, Some calling Arthur born of Gorlois, Others of Anton? Tell me, ye your- selves, Holdyethis Arthur for King Uther’s son?’ And Ulfius and Brastias answer’d, ‘Ay.’ Then Bedivere, the first of all his knights Knighted by Arthur at his crowning, spake— For bold in heart and act and word was he, Whenever slander breathed against the King— ‘Sir, there be many rumours on this head : For there be those who hate him in their hearts, Call him baseborn, and since his ways are sweet, And theirs are bestial, hold him less than man : 412 THE COMING OF ARTHUR. And there be those who deem him more than man, And dream he dropt from heaven: but my belief In all this matter—so ye care to learn— Sir, for ye know that in King Uther’s time The prince and warrior Gorlois, he that held Tintagil castle by the Cornish sea, Was wedded witha winsome wife, Ygerne: And daughters had she borne him,—one ~ whereof, Lot’s wife, the Queen of Orkney, Belli- cent, Hath ever like a loyal sister cleaved To Arthur,—but a son she had not borne. And Uther cast upon her eyes of love : But she, a stainless wife to Gorlois, So loathed the bright dishonour of his love, That Gorloisand King Uther went to war : And overthrown was Gorlois and slain. Then Uther in his wrath and heat besieged Ygerne within Tintagil, where her men, Seeing the mighty swarm about their walls, Left her and fled, and Uther enter’d in, And there was none to call to but himself. So, compass’d by the power of the King, Enforced she was to wed him in her tears, And with a shameful swiftness: after- ward, Not many moons, King Uther died him- self, Moaning and wailing for an heir to rule After him, lest the realm should go to wrack. And that same night, the night of the new year, By reason of the bitterness and grief That vext his mother, all before his time Was Arthur born, and all as soon as born Deliver’d at a secret postern-gate To Merlin, to be holden far apart Until his hour should come ; because the lords Of that fierce day were as the lords of this, Wild beasts, and surely would have torn the child Piecemeal among them, had they knowt 1s for each * But sought to rule for his own self and hand, And many hated Uther for the sake ; Of Gorlois. child, f. And gave him to Sir Anton, an old knight And ancient friend of Uther; and his wife Nursed the young prince, and rear’d i. with her own ; And no man knew. lords A Have foughten like wild beasts among themselves, Wherefore Merlin took the tind ever since the a | So that the realm has gone to wrack: but now, This year, when Merlin (for his hour had come) Brought Arthur forth, and set him in the | hall, Proclaiming, ‘* Here is Uther’s heir, your king,” A hundred voices cried, ‘‘ Away with him! No king of ours! a son of Gorlois he, Or else the child of Anton, and no king, Or else baseborn.” éraft, Vet Merlin thro’ his And while the people clamour’d fora king, Had Arthur crown’d; but after, the greg lords Banded, and so brake out in open war.’ f Then while the King debated with — himself If Arthur were the child of shamefulness, — Or born the son of Gorlois, after death, Or time, Uther’s son, and born before his Or whether there were truth in anything _ Said by these three, there came to Came- liard, With Gawain and young Modred, her two sons, , Lot’s wife, the Queen of Orkney, Belli- | cents Whom as he could, not as he would, the — King Made feast for, saying, as — sat at meat, ‘A doubtful throne is ice on summer seas. Ye come from Arthur’s court. Victor his men Report him! Yea, but ye—think ye this king— 50 many those that hate him, and so strong, 50 few his knights, however brave they | be— Hath body enow to hold his foemen down ?’ . *O King,’ she cried, ‘and I will tell thee: few, Few, but all brave, all of one mind with ia him; For I was near him when the savage yells Of Uther’s peerage died, and Arthur sat Crown’d on the dais, and his warriors cried, i ‘*Be thou the king, and we will work thy will j Who love thee.” deep tones, ‘ And simple words of great authority, A Gannd them by so strait vows to his own | self, That when they rose, kneeling, some Were pale as at the passing of a ghost, Some flush’d, and others dazed, as one who wakes Halt. blinded at the coming of a light. Then the King in low knighted from _ *But when he spake and cheer’d his Table Round With large, divine, and comfortable words, Beyond my tongue to tell thee—I beheld trom eye to eye thro’ all their Order flash A momentary likeness of the King : And ere it left their faces, thro’ the cross And those around it and the Crucified, Down from the casement over Arthur, smote Flame-colour, vert and azure, in three rays, bas falling upon each of three fair queens, Who stood in silence near his throne, the friends THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 313 Of Arthur, gazing on him, tall, with bright Sweet faces, who will help him at his need. ‘And there I saw mage Merlin, whose vast wit And hundred winters are but as the hands Of loyal vassals toiling for their liege. ‘And near him stood the Lady of the Lake, Who knows a subtler magic than his own— Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonder- ful. She gave the King his huge cross-hilted sword, Whereby to drive the heathen out: a mist Of incense curl’d about her, and her face Wellnigh was hidden in the minster gloom ; But there was heard among the holy hymns A voice as of the waters, for she dwells Down in a deep; calm, whatsoever storms May shake the world, and when the surface rolls, Hath power to walk the waters like our Lord. ‘ There likewise I beheld Excalibur Before him at his crowning borne, the sword That rose from out the bosom of the lake, And Arthur row’d across and took it—rich With jewels, elfin Urim, on the hilt, Bewildering heart and eye—the blade so bright That men are blinded by it—on one side, Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world, ‘Take me,” but turn the blade and ye shall see, And written in the speech ye speak your- self, ‘¢Cast me away!” And sad was Arthur’s face Taking it, but old Merlin counsell’d hin, ‘¢Take thou and strike! the time to cast away 314 Is yet far-off.” So this great brand the king Took, and by this will beat his foemen down.’ Thereat Leodogran rejoiced, but thought To sift his doubtings to the last, and ask’d, Fixing full eyes of question on her face, ‘ The swallow and the swift are near akin, But thou art closer to this noble prince, Being his own dear sister ;’ and she said, ‘Daughter of Gorlois and Ygerne am I ;’ ‘And therefore Arthur’s sister?’ ask’d the King. She answer’d, ‘These be secret things,’ and sign’d To those two sons to pass, and let them be. And Gawain went, and breaking into song Sprang out, and follow’d by his flying hair Ran like a colt, and leapt at all he saw: But Modred laid his ear beside the doors, And there half-heard ; the same that afterward Struck for the throne, and striking found his doom. And then the Queen made answer, ‘What know I ? For dark my mother was in eyes and hair, And dark in hair and eyesam I; and dark Was Gorlois, yea and dark was Uther too, Wellnigh to blackness ; but this King is fair Beyond the race of Britons and of men. Moreover, always in my mind I hear A cry from out the dawning of my life, A mother weeping, and I hear her say, “‘O that ye had some brother, pretty one, To guard thee on the rough ways of the world.”’’ ‘Ay,’ said the King, such a cry? But when did Arthur chance upon thee first ?’ ‘and hear ye ‘O King!’ she cried, ‘and I will tell thee true : 1 He found me first when yet a little maid : Beaten I had been for a little fault THE COMING OF ARTHUR. Whereof I was not guilty ; and out And flung myself down on a bank heath, zi And hated this fair world and all ther And wept, and wish’d that I were de and he— I know not whether of himself he ca Or brought by Merlin, who, they can walk Unseen at pleasure—he was at my si And spake sweet words, and comfo: my heart, And dried my tears, being a child with mi And many a time he came, and everm As I grew greater grew with me; and At times he seem’d, and sad with him was I, Stern too at times, and then I loved him not, But sweet again, and then I loved him well. And now of late I see him less and ié s But those first days had golden hour me, For then I surely thought he would king. ‘ But let me tell thee now another t For Bleys, our Merlin’s master, as say, Died but of late, and sent his cry to To hear him speak before he left his Shrunk lke a fairy changeling lay mage ; And when I enter’d told me that him And Merlin ever served about the Kin Uther, before he died ; and on the nig! When Uther in Tintagil past away Moaning and wailing for an heir, the tw Left the still King, and passing forth to breathe, : Then from the castle gateway by tt chasm Descending thro’ the dismal night night ; . In which the bounds of heaven and earth _ were lost— thereof THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 315 \ dragon wing’d, and all from stem to stern 3right with a shining people on the decks, And gone as soon as seen. And then the two sea fall, Wave after wave, each mightier than the | last, Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the dee ‘and full of voices, slowly rose and plunged Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame: And down the wave and in the flame was borne A naked babe, and rode to Merlin’s feet, Who stoopt and caught the babe, and i; cried ‘‘ The King ! _ Here is an heir for Uther!” And the 7 | fringe _ Of that great breaker, sweeping up the strand, Lash’d at the wizard as he spake the word, And all at once all round him rose in fire: Sothat thechildand he were clothed in fire. _ And presently thereafter follow’d calm, Free sky and stars: ‘‘And this same child,” he said, is Is he who reigns ; nor could I part in eace Till this were told.” And saying this the seer Went thro’ the strait and dreadful pass of death, ‘Not ever to be question’d any more Save on the further side ; but when I met ‘Merlin, and ask’d him if these things were | truth— ‘The shining dragon and the naked child Descending i in the glory of the seas— ‘He laugh’d as is his wont, and answer’d me In riddling triplets of old time, and said: _ ** Rain, rain, and sun ! a rainbow in | the sky ! A young man will be wiser by and by ; An old man’s wit may wander ere he die. _ Kain, rain, and sun ! a rainbow on the lea ! ‘And truth is this to me, and that to thee; | \ p , a: Jropt to the cove, and watch’d the great And truth or clothed or naked let it be. Rain, sun, and rain! and the free blossom blows : Sun, rain, and sun! and where is he who knows? : From the great deep to the great deep he goes.” ‘So Merlin riddling anger’d me; but thou Fear not to give this King thine only child, Guinevere: so great bards of him will sing Hereafter ; and dark sayings from of old Ranging and ringing thro’ the minds of men, And echo’d by old folk beside their fires For comfort after their wage-work is done, Speak of the King; and Merlin in our time Hath spoken also, not in jest, and sworn Tho’ men may wound him that he will not die, But pass, again to come; and then or now Utterly smite the heathen underfoot, Till these and all men hail him for their king.’ Shespakeand King Leodogran rejoiced, But musing ‘Shall I answer yea or nay?’ Doubted, and drowsed, nodded and slept, and saw, Dreaming, a slope of land that ever grew, Field after field, up to a height, the peak Haze-hidden, and thereon a phantom king, Now looming, and now lost ; and on the slope The sword rose, the hind fell, the herd was driven, Fire glimpsed; and all the land from roof and rick, In drifts of smoke before a rolling wind, Stream’d to the peak, and mingled with the haze And made it thicker ; while the phantom king Sent out at times a voice; and here or there Stood one who pointed toward the voice, the rest Slew on and burnt, crying, ‘No king of ours, 316 No son of Uther, and no king of ours ;’ Till with a wink his dream was changed, the haze Descended, and the solid earth became As nothing, but the King stood out in heaven, Crown’d. And Leodogran awoke, and sent Ulfius, and Brastias and Bedivere, Back to the court of Arthur answering yea. Then Arthur charged his warrior whom he loved And honour’d most, Sir Lancelot, to ride forth And bring the Queen ;—and watch’d him from the gates : And Lancelot past away among the flowers, (For then was latter April) and return’d Among the flowers, in May, with Guine- vere. To whom arrived, by Dubric the high saint, Chief of the church in Britain, and before The stateliest of her altar- sliines, the King That morn was married, while in stainless white, The fair beginners of a nobler time, And glorying in their vows and _ him, his knights Stood round him, and rejoicing in his joy. Far shone the fields of May thro’ open door, Thesacred altar blossom’d white with May, The Sun of May descended on their King, They gazed on all earth’s beauty in their Queen, Roll’d incense, and there past along the hymns A voice as of the waters, while the two Sware at the shrine of Christ a deathless love : And Arthur said, ‘Behold, thy doom is mine. Let chance what will, I love thee to the death !’ To whom the Queen replied with drooping eyes, THE COMING OF ARTHUR. death !’ And holy Dubric spread his hands spake, | ‘Reign ye, and live and love, and make the world : Fulfil the boundless purpose off their — King !’ " So Dubric said ; but when they left the — shrine ! Great Lords from Rome before the port tal stood, =. In scornful stillness gazing as they past 5 Then while they paced a city all on fire” With sun and cloth-of gold, the trumpets blew, heat And Arthur’s knighthood sang bie th King :— ‘ Blow trumpet, for the world is whit with May ; Pcie Blow trumpet, the long night hath voll away ! oe Blow thro’ the living world—‘* Let th a King reign.’ | ‘Shall Rome or Heathen rule is Arthur’s realm ? ¥ Flash: brand and lance, fall battleaxe — 2 helm, a Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign. ae | ‘Strike for the King and live! his . knights have heard if That God hath told the King a <—_ | word. Pal i Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the _ King reign. te a im | ‘Blow trumpet! he will lift us from _ the dust. i a ! Blow trumpet ! live the strength and - | the lust ! Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let ; the King reign. = * | | . Fall battleaxe, and flash brand ! Clang battleaxe, and clash brand ! GARETH AND LYNETTE. ‘Strike for the King and die! and if thou diest, The King is King, and ever wills the highest. Let the King reign ‘Blow, for our Sun is mighty in his May ! Blow, for our Sun is mightier day by day! Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign. ‘The King will follow Christ, and we the King _ In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing. Let the King reign.’ So sang the knighthood, moving to their hall. _ There at the banquet those great Lords from Rome, | _ The slowly-fading mistress of the world, _ Strode in, and claim’d their tribute as of yore. 317 But Arthur spake, ‘ Behold, for these have sworn To wage my wars, and worship me their King ; The old order changeth, yielding place to new ; And we that fight for our fair father Christ, Seeing that ye be grown too weak and old To drive the heathen from your Roman wall, No tribute will we pay :’ so those great lords Drew back in wrath, and Arthur strove with Rome. And Arthur and his knighthood for a space Were all one will, and thro’ that strength the King Drew in the petty princedoms under him, Fought, and in twelve great battles over- came The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reign’d. THE ROUND: TABLE, GARETH AND LYNETTE. THE MARRIAGE OF GERAINT. GERAINT AND ENID. BALIN AND BALAN. MERLIN AND VIVIEN, GARETH AND LYNETTE. _ THE last tall son of Lot and Bellicent, And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring Stared at the spate. A slender-shafted Pine Lost footing, fell, and sowaswhirl’d away. * How he went down,’ said Gareth, ‘as a false knight Or evil king before my lance if lance Were mine to use—O senseless cataract, Bearing all down in thy precipitancy— And yet thou art but swollen with cold _ snows ‘And mine is living blood : will, thou dost His LANCELOT AND ELAINE. THE HOLY GRAIL. PELLEAS AND ETTARRE. THE LAST TOURNAMENT. GUINEVERE. The Maker’s, and not knowest, and I that know, Have strength and wit, in my good mother’s hall Linger with vacillating obedience, Prison’d, and kept and _ coax’d whistled to— Since the good mother holds me still a child ! Good mother is bad mother unto me! A worse were better; yet no worse would I. Heaven yield her for it, but in me put force To weary her ears with one continuous prayer, and 318 Until she let me fly discaged to sweep In ever-highering eagle-circles up To the great Sun of Glory, and thence swoop Down upon all things base, and dash them dead, A knight of Arthur, working out his will, To cleanse the world. Why, Gawain, when he came With Modred hither in the summertime, Ask’d me to tilt with him, the proven knight. Modred for want of worthier was the judge. Then I so shook him in the saddle, he said, ‘¢Thou hast half prevail’d against me,” said so—he— Tho’ Modred biting his thin lips was mute, For he is alway sullen: what care I?’ And Gareth went, and hovering round her chair Ask’d, ‘Mother, tho’ ye count me still the child, Sweet mother, do ye love the child?’ She laugh’d, ‘Thou art but a wild-goose to question it,’ ‘Then, mother, an ye love the child,’ he _said, ‘ Being a goose and rather tame than wild, Hear the child’s story.’ ‘ Yea, my well- beloved, An ’twere Be of the goose and golden eggs.’ And Gareth answer’d her with kindling eyes, ‘Nay, nay, good mother, but this egg of mine Was finer gold than any goose can lay ; For this an Eagle, a royal Eagle, laid Almost beyond eye-reach, on such a palm As glitters gilded in thy Book of Hours. And there was ever haunting round the palm A lusty youth, but poor, who often saw The splendour sparkling from aloft, and thought GARETH AND LYNETTE. *¢ An I could climb and lay my hand it, i Then were I wealthier than a ian h of kings.” But ever when he reach’d a hand to cli One, that had loved him from his ch hood, caught And stay’d him, “Climb not lest thou break thy neck, I charge thee by my love,” and so the bo} Sweet mother, neither clomb, nor brak his neck, 3 But brake his very heart in pining fori And past anys To whom the mother s ‘ True love, sweet son, had risk’d himself and climb’d, And handed down the golden treasure to him,’ . © And Gareth answer’d her with kind eyes, ‘Gold? said I gold ?’—ay then, why ae or she, ee Or whosoe’er it was, or half the world — Had ventured—Aad the thing I spake of of been a Mere gold—but this was all of that tru steel, Whereof they forged the brand val And lightnings play’d about it in the storm, And all the little fowl were flurried at it And there were cries and clashings in - nest, a : That sent him from his senses : let me go.’ [ i | Then Bellicent bemoan’d herself and ) said, , ‘Hast thou no pity upon my lonelineme f Lo, where thy father Lot beside the hearth Lies like a log, and all but smoulder rd out ! For ever since when traitor to the King a He fought against him in the Barons’ war, if And Arthur gave him back his territory, | His age hath slowly droopt, and now LG HY there i A yet-warm corpse, and yet unbusiabla | | : | -.. GARETH AND LYNETTE. 319 Yo more ; nor sees, nor hears, nor speaks, nor knows. .nd both thy brethren are in Arthur’s hall, beit neither loved with that full love feel for thee, nor worthy such a love: tay therefore thou; red berries charm the bird, ind thee, mine innocent, the jousts, the wars, ho never knewest finger-ache, nor pang of wrench’d or broken limb—an often chance n those brain-stunning shocks, and tourney-falls, ‘rights to my heart ; the deer By these tall firs and our fast-falling burns ; »o make thy manhood mightier day by day ; sweet is the chase : out some comfortable bride and fair, to grace ae climbing life, and cherish my prone year, ; “ull falling into Lot’s forgetfulness _ know not thee, myself, nor anything. f but stay: follow and I will seek thee stay, my best uel ! ye are yet more boy than man.’ | _ Then Gareth, ‘An ye hold me yet for i child, _ Tear yet once more the story of the child. i _ ‘or, mother, there was once a King, like ours. che prince his heir, when tall and | marriageable, Ask’d for a bride; and thereupon the King jet two before him. strong, arm’d—. 3ut to be won by force—and many men One was fair, Desired her; one, good lack, no man | desired. And these were the conditions of the King : That save he won the first by force, he needs Must wed that other, whom no man desired, - A red-faced aide who knew herself so vile, | ; 4 " That evermore she long’d to hide herself, Nor fronted man or woman, eye to eye— Yea—some she cleaved to, but they died of her. And one—they call’d her Fame ; one,—O Mother, How can ye keep me tether’d to you— Shame. Man am I grown, a man’s work must I do. Follow the deer? follow the Christ, the King, Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King— Else, wherefore born ?’ and To whom the mother said, ‘Sweet son, for there be many who deem him not, : Or will not deem him, wholly proven King— Albeit in mine own heart I knew him King, When I was frequent with him in my youth, And heard him Kingly speak, and doubted him No more than he, himself; but felt him mine, Of closest a tome: yet—wilt thou leave Thine easeful biding here, and risk thine all, Life, limbs, for one that is not proven King? Stay, till the cloud that settles round his birth Hath lifted but a little. Stay, sweet son.’ And Gareth answer’d quickly, ‘ Not an hour, So that ye yield me—I will walk thro’ fire, Mother, to gain it—your full leave to go. Not proven, who swept the dust of ruin’d Rome From off the threshold of the realm, and crush’d The Idolaters, and made the people free ? Who should be King save him who makes us free ?’ 320 GARETH AND LYNETTE. So when the Queen, who long had sought in vain To break him from the intent to which he grew, Found her son’s will unwaveringly one, She answer’d craftily, ‘Will ye walk thro’ fire ? Who walks thro’ fire will hardly heed the smoke. Ay, go then, an ye must : only one proof, Before thou ask the King to make thee knight, Of thine obedience and thy love to me, Thy mother,—I demand.’ And Gareth cried, ‘A hard one, or a hundred, so I go. Nay—dquick ! .the proof to prove me to the quick !’ But slowly spake the mother looking at him, ‘Prince, thou shalt go disguised to Arthur’s hall, And hire thyself to serve for meats and drinks Among the scullions and the kitchen- knaves, And those that hand the dish across the bar. Nor shalt thou tell thy name to anyone. And thou shalt serve a twelvemonth and a day.’ For so the Queen believed that when her son Beheld his only way to glory lead Low down thro’ villain kitchen-vassalage, Her own true Gareth was too princely- proud To pass thereby ; so should he rest with her, Closed in her castle from the sound of arms. Silent awhile was Gareth, then replied, ‘ The thrall in person may be free in soul, And I shall see the jousts. Thysonam I, And since thou art my mother, must obey. I therefore yield me freely to thy will ; For hence will I, disguised, and hire my- self S To serve with scullions and with kitchen knaves ; Nor tell my name to any—no, not King.) ; Gareth awhile linger’d. The mother’s - eye Full of the wistful fear that he would go, And turning toward him wheresoe’e turn’d, ‘J Perplext his outward purpose, till an hot When waken’d by the wind which full voice Swept bellowing thro’ the darkness on t dawn, He rose, and out of slumber calling two That still had tended on him fromm his — birth, a. Before the wakeful mother heard him, went. The three were clad like tillers of the soil. Southward they set their faces. made Melody on branch, and melody in mid ¢ air. The damp hill-slopes were quicken’d into The bids green, And the live green had kindled into ! flowers, a For it was past the time of Easterday. a. So, when their feet were planted on 4 the plain l That broaden’d toward the base of Came- lot, a || Far off they saw the silver-misty morn Rolling her smoke about the Royal 5 mount, That rose. between the fores sauna field. At times the summit of the hight city I) i flash’d ; At times the spires and turrets half- : down \" Prick’d thro’ the mist ; at times the gre at | gate shone | Only, that open’d on the field below ¢ Anon, the whole fair city had disappear’d 4, | Then those who went with Gareth were amazed, ‘ne crying, ‘ Let us go no further, lord. ‘ere is a city of Enchanters, built _ y fairy Kings.’ The second echo’d him, Lord, we have heard from our wise man | at home ° Northward, that this King is not the | King, ut only changeling out of Fairyland, Tho drave the heathen hence by sorcery nd Merlin’s glamour.’ Then the first | again, Lord, there is no such city anywhere, i ut all a vision.’ 2 } | Gareth answer’d them _ Jith laughter, swearing he had glamour m | enow 1 his own blood, his princedom, youth and hopes, ‘o plunge old Merlin in the Arabian sea ; 0 push’d them all unwilling toward the gate. nd there was no gate like it under | heaven. or barefoot on the keystone, which was lined _\nd rippled like an ever-fleeting wave, ‘he Lady of the Lake stood: all her dress Vept from hersides as water flowing away; ut like the cross her great and goodly arms tretch’d under all the cornice and upheld : and drops of water fell from either hand ; ind down from one a sword was hung, from one 4 censer, either worn with wind and storm ; and o’er her Breast floated the sacred fish ; and in the space to left of her, and right, Vere Arthur’s wars in weird Bay ines done, New things and old co-twisted, as if Time Vere nothing, so inveterately, that men Vere giddy gazing there; and over all igh on the top were Hues three Queens, | the friends of Arthur, who should help him at his need. GARETH AND LYNETTE. aon Then those with Gareth for so long a space Stared at the figures, that at last it seem’d The dragon-boughts and elvish emblem- ings Began to move, seethe, twine and curl : they call’d To Gareth, ‘Lord, the gateway is alive.’ And Gareth likewise on them fixt his eyes So long, that ev’n to him they seem’d ta move. Out of the city a blast of music peal’d. Back from the gate started the three, to whom From out thereunder came an ancient man, Long-bearded, saying, ‘Who be ye, my sons ?’ Then Gareth, ‘ We be tillers of the soil, Who leaving share in furrow come to see The glories of our King: but these, my men, (Your city moved so weirdly in the mist) Doubt if the King be King at all, or come From Fairyland ; and whether this be built By magic, and by fairy Kings and Queens ; Or whether there be any city at all, Or all a vision: and this music now Hath scared them both, but tell thou these the truth.’ Then that old Seer made answer play- ing on him And saying, ‘Son, I have seen the good ship sail Keel upward, and mast downward, in the heavens, Amd solid turrets topsy-turvy in air: And here is truth; but an it please thee not, Take thou the truth as thou hast told it me. For truly as thou sayest, a Fairy King And Fairy Queens have built the city, son ; They came from out a sacred mountain- cleft Toward the sunrise, hand, each with harp in Y 322 GARETH AND LYNETTE. And built it to the music of their harps. And, as thou sayest, it is enchanted, son, For there is nothing in it as it seems Saving the King; tho’ some there be that hold The King a shadow, and the city real : Yet take thou heed of him, for, so thou pass Beneath this archway, then wilt thou become A thrall to his enchantments, for the King Will bind thee by such vows, as is a shame A man should not be bound by, yet the which No man can keep ; but, so thou dread to swear, Pass not beneath this gateway, but abide Without, among the cattle of the field. For an ye heard a music, like enow They are building still, seeing the city is built To music, therefore never built at all, And therefore built for ever.’ Gareth spake Anger’d, ‘Old Master, reverence thine own beard That looks as white as utter truth, and seems Wellnigh as long as thou art statured tall! Why mockest thou the stranger that hath been To thee fair-spoken ?’ But the Seer replied, ‘Know ye not then the Riddling of the Bards ? “* Confusion, and illusion, and relation, Elusion, and occasion, and evasion ” ? I mock thee not but as thou mockest me, And all that see thee, for thou art not sae Thou seemest, but I know thee who thou art. And now thou goest up to mock the King, Who cannot brook the shadow of any lie.’ Unmockingly the mocker ending here Turn’d to the right, and past along the plain ; Whom Gareth looking after said, ‘My men, And out of bower and casement shy Our one white lie sits like a little rm Here on the threshold of our enterprise, Let love be blamed for it, not she, nor I Well, we will make amends.’ # With all good R He spake and laugh’d, then enter’d wit his twain Camelot, a city of shadowy palaces 4 And stately, rich in emblem and the wor Of ancient kings who did their days i stone ; 8 Which Merlin’ s hand, the Mages 4 Arthur’s court, Knowing all arts, had touch’d, and even where At Arthur’s ordinance, tipt with lessenin peak q And pinnacle, and had made it spire heaven. And ever and anon a knight would pai Outward, or inward to the hall : his arn Clash’d ; and the sound was good { Gareth’s ear. glanced ~ Eyes of pure women, wholesome stars love ; And all about a healthful people stell As in the presence of a gracious king. Then into hall Gareth ascending hear A voice, the voice of Arthur, and behel: Far over heads in that long-vaulted hal The splendour of the presence of tl King . Throned, and delivering doom —ar look? d no more— But felt his young heart hammering inh ears, And thought, ‘ For this half-shadow of lie The truthful King will doom me when speak. : Yet pressing on, tho’ all in fear ie find Sir Gawain or Sir Modred, saw nor on. Nor other, but in all the listening eyes | Of those tall knights, that ranged | the throne, Clear honour shining like the dewy sa f dawn, and faith in their great King, with pure ffection, and the light of victory, nd glory gain’d, and evermore to gain. —— Then came a widow crying to the King, A boon, Sir King! Thy father, Uther, reft com my dead lord a field with violence : or howsoe’er at first he proffer’d gold, et, for the field was pleasant in our eyes, ‘e yielded not ; and then he reft us of it erforce, and left us neither gold nor field.’ | Said Arthur, gold or field ?’ P whom the woman weeping, ‘ Nay, my ‘Whether would ye? lord, he a: was pleasant in my husband’s "And Arthur, ‘ Have thy pleasant field : again, nd thrice the gold for Uther’s use . thereof, ccording to the years. No boon is here, it justice, so thy say be proven true. ‘coursed, who from the wrongs his father did | “ould shape himself a right !’ - And while she past, " ume yet another widow crying to him, \ boon, Sir King! Thine enemy, King, | am I. ith thine own hand thou slewest my | dear lord, knight of Uther in the Barons’ war, _ hen Lot and many another rose and fought gainst thee, saying thou wert basely i born. held with these, and loathe to ask thee if aught. Het lo! my husband’s brother had my } son _uall’d in his castle, and hath starved L} him dead ; fi) ed standeth Razed of that inheritance _ hich thou that slewest the sire hast left | the son. | ‘| } bi | GARETH AND LYNETTE. 323 So tho’ I scarce can ask it thee for hate, Grant me some knight to do the battle for me, Kill the foul thief, and wreak me for my son.’ Then strode a good knight forward, crying to him, ‘A boon, Sir King ! I am her kinsman, I. Give me to right her wrong, and slay the man.’ Then came Sir Kay, the seneschal, and cried, ‘A boon, Sir King ! ev’n that thou grant her none, This railer, that hath mock’d thee in full hall— None; or the wholesome boon of gyve and gag.’ But Arthur, ‘ We sit King, to help the wrong’d Thro’ all our realm. The woman loves her lord. ; Peace to thee, woman, with thy loves and hates ! The kings of old had doom’d thee to the flames, Aurelius Emrys would have scourged thee dead, And Uther slit thy tongue: but get thee hence— Lest that rough humour of the kings of old Return upon me! Thou that art her kin, Go likewise; lay him low and slay him not, But bring him here, that I may judge the right, According to the justice of the King : Then, be he guilty, by that deathless King Who lived and died for men, the man shall die.’ Then came in hall the messenger of Mark, A name of evil savour in the land, The Cornish king. In either hand he bore What *dazzled all, shines and shone far-off as 324 GARETH AND LYNETTE. 7 A field of charlock in the sudden sun Between two showers, a cloth of palest gold, Which down he laid before the throne, and knelt, Delivering, that his lord, the vassal king, Was ev’n upon his way to Camelot ; For having heard that Arthur of his grace Had made his goodly cousin, Tristram, knight, And, for himself was of the greater state, Being a king, he trusted his liege-lord Would yield him this large honour all the more ; So pray’d him well to accept this cloth of gold, In token of true heart and fealty. Then Arthur cried to rend the cloth, to rend In pieces, and so cast it on the hearth. An oak-tree smoulder’d there. ‘The goodly knight ! What! shall the shield of Mark stand among these ?’ For, midway down the side of that long hall A stately pile,—whereof along the front, Some blazon’d, some but carven, and some blank, There ran a treble range of stony shields, — Rose, and high-arching overbrow’d the hearth. And under every shield a knight was named : For this was Arthur’s custom in his hall ; When some good knight had done one noble deed, His arms were carven only ; but if twain His arms were blazon’d also ;_ but if none, The shield was blank and bare without a sign Saving the name beneath; and Gareth saw The shield of Gawain blazon’d rich and bright, And Modred’s blank as death ; and Arthur cried To rend the cloth and cast it on the hearth. ‘More like are we to reave him q his crown Than make him knight because men cal him king. q The kings we found, ye know we stay< their hands | From war among themselves, but J lef them kings ; ? Of whom were any bounteous, merciful, Truth-speaking, brave, good livers, then we enroll’d 4 Among us, and they sit within our hall But Mark hath tarnish’d the great of king, As Mark would sully the lowstate of c And, seeing he hath sent us cloth of oa d Return, and meet, and hold him fro our eyes, Lest we should lap him up in cloth of le ead Silenced for ever—craven—a man ¢ plots, a Craft, poisonous counsels, wayside am bushings— iz No fault of thine: let Kay the senesche Look to thy wants, and send thee satis fied— y Accursed, who strikes nor lets the han be seen!’ A ¢ | Andi many another suppliant | came With noise of ravage wrought by bea and man, And evermore a knight would ride 4 - Last, Gareth leaning both hands heavil. Down on the shoulders of the ‘wale h men, Approach’d between them toward t King, and ask’d, « ‘A boon, Sir King (his voice was a ashamed), is For see ye not how weak and hungerwo! I seem—leaning on these? grant me | serve For meat and drink among thy kitehe: knaves A twelvemonth and a day, nor secien| name. Hereafter I will fight.’ To him the King, A goodly youth and worth a goodlier boon ! at so thou wilt no goodlier, then must Kay, he master of the meats and drinks, be thine.’ i . | ustier than any, and whom they could but love, -ounted in arms, threw up their caps and cried, God bless the King, and all his fellow- ship !’ ‘nd on thro’ lanes of shouting Gareth rode own the slope street, and past without the gate. So Gareth past with joy ; but as the cur luckt from the cur he fights with, ere his cause te cool’d by fighting, follows, being named, is owner, but remembers all, and growls Xemembering, so Sir Kay beside the door ‘{utter’d in scorn of Gareth whom he used Yo harry and hustle. F ‘Bound upon a quest Vith horse and arms—the King hath past his time— My scullion knave ! | again, ’ or an your fire be low ye kindle mine ! Nill there be dawn in West and eve in Thralls to your work East? 3egone !—my knave !—belike and like f enow Some old head-blow not heeded in his } youth 30 shook his wits they wander in his prime— -razed! How the villain lifted up his voice, Nor shamed to bawl himself a kitchen- knave. Tut: was tame and meek enow with T ill Bicockea up with Lancelot’s noticing. Well—I will after my loud knave, and learn Whether he know me for his master yet. Out of the smoke he came, and so my f lance Hold, by God’s grace, he shall into the mire— Thence, if the King awaken from his craze, Into the smoke again.’ GARETH AND LYNETTE. 329 : But Lancelot said, ‘ Kay, wherefore wilt thou go against the King, For that did never he whereon ye rail, But ever meekly served the King in thee? Abide: take counsel; for this lad is great And lusty, and knowing both of lance and sword.’ “Tut, tell not me,’ said Kay, ‘ye are overfine To mar stout knaves with foolish courte- sles :” Then mounted, on thro’ silent faces rode Down the slope city, and out beyond the gate. But by the field of tourney lingering yet Mutter’d the damsel, ‘ Wherefore did the King Scorn me? for, were Sir Lancelot lackt, at least He might have yielded to me one of those Who tilt for lady’s love and glory here, Rather than—O sweet heaven! O fie upon him— His kitchen-knave.’ To whom Sir Gareth drew (And there were none but few goodlier than he) Shining inarms, ‘Damsel, the quest is mine, Lead, and I follow.’ She thereat, as one That smells a foul-flesh’d agaric in the holt, And deems it carrion of some woodland thing, Or shrew, or weasel, nipt her slender nose With petulant thumb and finger, shrilling, rence: Avoid, thou smellest all of kitchen-grease. And look who comes behind,’ for there was Kay. ‘“Knowest thou not me? thy master? I am Kay. We lack thee by the hearth.’ And Gareth to him, ‘Master no more ! too well I know thee, a —_ The most ungentle knight in Arthur’s hall.’ 339 GARETH AND LYNETTE. ‘Have at thee then,’ said Kay: shock’d, and Kay Fellshoulder-slipt, and Gareth cried again, ‘Lead, and I follow,’ and fast away she fled. they But after sod and shingle ceased to fly Behind her, and the heart of her good horse Was nigh to burst with violence of the beat, Perforce she stay’d, and overtaken spoke. ‘What doest thou, scullion, in my fellowship ? Deem’st thou that I accept thee aught the more Or love thee better, that by some device Full cowardly, or by mere unhappiness, Thou hast overthrown and slain thy master—thou !— Dish-washer and broach-turner, loon !— to me Thou smellest all of kitchen as before.’ ‘Damsel,’ Sir Gareth answer’d gently, ‘say Whate’er ye will, but whatsoe’er ye say, I leave not till I finish this fair quest, Or die therefore.’ ‘ Ay, wilt thou finish it ? Sweet lord, how like a noble knight he talks ! The listening rogue hath caught the man- ner of it. But, knave, anon thou shalt be‘met with, knave, And then by such a one that thou for all The kitchen brewis that was ever supt Shalt not once dare to look him in the face.’ ‘I shall assay,’ said Gareth with a smile That madden’d her, and away she flash’d again Down the long avenues of a boundless wood, And Gareth following was again beknaved. ‘Sir Kitchen-knave, I have miss’d the only way Where Arthur’s men are set along the wood ; The wood is nigh as full of thieves as leaves : If both be slain, I am rid of thee ; but ye Sir Scullion, canst thou use that spit of thine ? 4 Fight, an thou canst: I have miss’d ~ only way.’ So till the dusk that follow’d evensong Rode on the two, reviler and reviled ; — Then after one long slope was moun saw, 4 Bowl- shaped, thro’ tops of many thousa pines . A gloomy-gladed hollow slowly sink To westward—in the deeps whereof a mere, SY Round as the red eye of an Eagle-owl, | Under the half-dead sunset glared ; an¢ shouts Ascended, and there brake a servingman Flying from out of the black wood, and crying, ‘They have bound my lord to cast him the mere.’ Then Gareth, ‘ Bound am I to niga wrong’d, But straitlier bound am I to bide thee.’ € And when the damsel spake contempt uously, : ‘Lead, and I follow,’ Gareth cried age in ‘Follow, I lead!’ so down among pines He plunged; and there, blacks ay wid nigh the mere, q And mid-thigh-deep in bulrushes and reed, Saw six tall men haling a seventh along, | A stone about his neck to drown him in it. - Three with good blows he quictel bi three _ Fled thro’ the pines ; and Gareth loosed the stone a From off his neck, then in the mere beside Tumbled it ; oilily bubbled up the m Last, Gar eth loosed his bonds and on ee feet Set him, a stalwart Baron, Arthur’s fiend ‘Well that ye came, or else these caitiff rogues ad wreak’d themselves on. me ; good ! cause is theirs > hate me, for my wont hath ever been > catch my thief, and then like vermin | here rown him, and with a stone about his neck ; ad under this wan water many of them e rotting, but at night let go the stone, aod rise, and flickering in a grimly light ance on the mere. Good now, ye have saved a life ‘orth somewhat as the cleanser of this wood. nd fain would I reward thee worship- fully. BA guerdon will ye?’ | Gareth sharply spake, Nene ! for the deed’s sake have I done the deed, n uttermost peedience to the King. ut wilt thou yield this damsel harbour- \ age?’ Whereat the Baron saying, ‘I well believe ou be of Arthur’s Table,’ a light laugh toke from Lynette, ‘ Ay, truly of a truth, ‘nd in a sort, being Arthur’s kitchen- | knave !— ut deem not I accept thee aught the more, cullion, for running sharply with thy spit ‘Jown on a rout of craven foresters. _thresher with his flail had scatter’d them. lay—for thou smellest of the kitchen still. wut an this lord will yield us harbourage, Vell.’ So she spake. wood, dl in a full-fair manor and a rich, Tis towers where that day a feast had been Teld in high hall, and many a viand left, ind many a costly cate, received the three. A league beyond the GARETH AND LYNETTE. " ‘334 And there they placed a peacock in his pride Before the damsel, and the Baron set Gareth beside her, but at once she rose. ‘Meseems, that here is much dis- courtesy, Setting this knave, Lord Baron, at myside. Hear me—this morn I stood in Arthur’s hall, And pray’d the King would grant me Lancelot To fight the brotherhood of Day and Night— The last a monster unsubduable Of any save of him for whom I call’d— Suddenly bawls this frontless kitchen- knave, “‘The quest is mine; thy kitchen-knave am I, And mighty thro’ thy meats and drinks am I.” Then Arthur all at once gone mad replies, ‘Go therefore,” and so gives the quest to him— Him—here—a villain fitter to stick swine Than ride abroad redressing women’s wrong, Or sit beside a noble gentlewoman.’ Then half-ashamed and part-amazed, the lord Now look’d at one and now at other, left The damsel by the peacock in his pride, And, seating Gareth at another board, Sat down beside him, ate and then began. ‘Friend, whether thou be kitchen- knave, or not, Or whether it be the maiden’s fantasy, And whether she be mad, or else the King, Or both or neither, or thyself be mad, I ask not: but thou strikest a strong stroke, For strong thou art and goodly there- withal, And saver of my life ; and therefore now, For here be mighty men to joust with, weigh 332 Whether thou wilt not with thy damsel back To crave again Sir Lancelot of the King. Thy pardon ; I but speak for thine avail, The saver of my life.’ And Gareth said, ‘Full pardon, but I follow up the quest, Despite of Day and Night and Death and Hell.’ So when, next morn, the lord whose life he saved Had, some brief space, convey’d them on their way And left them with God-speed, Sir Gareth spake, ‘Lead, and I follow.’ Haughtily she replied, ‘I fly no more: I allow thee for an hour. Lion and stoat have isled together, knave, In time of flood. Nay, furthermore, methinks Some ruth is mine for thee. thou, fool ? For hard by here is one will overthrow And slay thee: then will I to court again, And shame the King for only yielding me My champion from the ashes of his hearth.’ Back wilt To whom Sir Gareth answer’d cour- teously, ‘Say thou thy say, and I will do my deed. Allow me for mine hour, and thou wilt find My fortunes all as fair as hers who lay Among the ashes and wedded the King’s son.’ Then to the shore of one of those long loops Wherethro’ the serpent river coil’d, they came. Rough-thicketed were the banks and steep ; the stream Full, narrow ; this a bridge of single arc Took at a leap; and on the further side Arose a silk pavilion, gay with gold GARETH AND LYNETTE. In streaks and rays, and all Lent-lil hue, Save that the dome was purple, and abo Crimson, a slender banneret flutteri And therebefore the lawless warrior pas Unarm’d, and calling, ‘ Damsel, is | he, The champion thou hast brought rr Arthur’s hall ? For whom we let thee pass.’ ‘Nay, na: she said, a ‘Sir Morning-Star. The King in ut scorn Of thee and thy much folly hath sent dl here His kitchen-knave: and look thow to thyself : See that he fall not on thee suddenly, And slay thee unarm’d : he is not kaa aI but knave.’ a Then at his call, — Ox ’— ‘Mors,’ beneath five figures, armed men, © MERIDIES ’— GARETH AND LYNETTE. 337 Slab after slab, their faces forward all, And running down the Soul, a Shape that fled With broken wings, torn raiment and loose hair, For help and shelter to the hermit’s cave. ‘ Follow the faces, and we find it. Look, Who comes behind ?’ For one—delay’d at first Thro’ helping back the dislocated Kay To Camelot, then by what thereafter chanced, The damsel’s headlong error thro’ the wood— Sir Lancelot, having swum the river- loops— His blue shield-lions cover’d—softly drew Behind the twain, and when he saw the star Gleam, on Sir Gareth’s turning to him, cried, ‘Stay, felon knight, I avenge me for my friend.’ And Gareth crying prick’d against the cry; But when they closed—in a moment—at one touch Of that skill’d spear, the wonder of the world— Went sliding down so easily, and fell, That when he found the grass within his hands He laugh’d; the: Jaughter jarr’d upon Lynette : Harshly she ask’d him, ‘Shamed and overthrown, And tumbled back into the kitchen-knave, Why laugh ye? that ye blew your boast in vain ?” ‘Nay, noble damsel, but that I, the son Of old King Lot and good Queen Belli- cent, And victor of the bridges and the ford, And knight of Arthur, here lie thrown by whom I know not, all thro’ mere unhappiness— Device and sorcery and unhappiness— Out, sword; we are thrown!’ And Lancelot answer’d, ‘ Prince, O Gareth—thro’ the mere unhappiness Z 338 Of one who came to help thee, not to harm, Lancelot, and all as glad to find thee whole, As on the day when Arthur knighted him.’ Then Gareth, ‘ Thou— Lancelot !— thine the hand That threw me? An somechance to mar the boast Thy brethren of thee make—which could not chance— Had sent thee down before a lesser spear, Shamed had.I been, and sad—O Lancelot —thou !’ Whereat the maiden, petulant, ‘ Lance- lot, Why came ye not, wherefore now Come ye, not call’d? when call’d? and I gloried in my knave, Who being still rebuked, would answer still Courteous as any knight—but now, if knight, The marvel dies, and leaves me fool’d and trick’d, And only wondering wherefore play’d upon : And doubtful whether I and mine be scorn’d. Where should be truth if not in Arthur’s hall, In Arthur’s presence ? prince and fool, I hate thee and for ever.’ And Lancelot said, ‘Blessed be thou, Sir Gareth! knight art thou Knight, knave, To the King’s best wish. O damsel, be you wise To call him shamed, who is but over- thrown ? Thrown have I been, nor once, but many a time. Victor from vanquish’d issues at the last, And overthrower from being overthrown. With sword we have not striven; and thy good horse GARETH AND LYNETTE. h And thou are weary ; yet not less I felt Thy manhood thro’ that wearied lowes of thine. Well hast thou done; for all the stream is freed, And thou hast wreak’d his justice on his foes, And when reviled, hast answer’d graci: ously, And makest merry when overthrown. Prince, Knight, Knight and Prince, and of ae Table Round !” Hail, < And then when turning to Lynette he told The tale of Gareth, petulantly she said, ‘ Ay well—ay well—for worse than bee fool’d Of others, is to feol one’s self. these my lists with him whom best | you loved ; ad there, poor cousin, with your meek | blue eyes, “+hetruest eyes that everanswer’d Heaven, hold me overturn and trample on him. He, perceiving, said: 1 | i t Then, had you cried, or knelt, or pray’d to me, I should not less have kill’d him. And you came,— But once you came,—and with your own true eyes Beheld the man you loved (I speak as one Speaks of a service done him) overthrow My proud self, and my purpose three years old, And set his foot upon me, and give me life. There was I broken down; there was I saved : Tho’ thence I rode all-shamed, hating the life He gave me, meaning to be rid of it. And all the penance the Queen laid upon me Was but to rest awhile within her court ; Where first as sullen as a beast new-caged, And waiting to be treated like a wolf, Because I knew my deeds were known, I found, Instead of scornful pity or pure scorn, Such fine reserve and noble reticence, Manners so kind, yet stately, such a grace Of tenderest courtesy, that I began To glance behind me at my former life, And find that it had been the wolf’s in- deed : And oft I talk’d with Dubric, the high saint, Who, with mild heat of holy oratory, Subdued me somewhat to that gentleness, Which, when it weds with manhood, makes a man. And you were often there about the Queen, But saw me not, or mark’d not if you saw ; Nor did I care or dare to speak with you, But kept myself aloof till I was changed ; And fear not, cousin; I am changed indeed.’ He spoke, and Enid easily believed, Like simple noble natures, credulous Of what they long for, good in friend or foe, There most in those who most have done them ill. 368 And when they reach’d the camp the King himself Advanced to greet them, and beholding her Tho’ pale, yet happy, ask’d her not a word, But went apart with Edyrn, whom he held In converse for a little, and return’d, And, gravely smiling, lifted her from horse, And kiss’d her with all pureness, brother- like, And show’d an empty tent allotted her, And glancing for a minute, till he saw her Pass into it, turn’d to the Prince, and said : ‘Prince, when of late ye pray’d me for my leave To move to your own land, and there defend Your marches, I was prick’d with some reproof, As one that let foul wrong stagnate and be, By having look’d too much thro’ alien eyes, And wrought too long with delegated hands, Not used mine own: but now behold me come To cleanse this common sewer of all my realm, With Edyrn and with others: have ye look’d At Edyrn? have ye seen how nobly changed ? This work of his is great and wonderful. His very face with change of heart is changed. The world will not believe a man repents : And this wise world of ours is mainly right. Full seldom doth a man repent, or use Both grace and will to pick the vicious quitch Of blood and custom wholly out of him, And make all clean, and plant himself afresh. Edyrn has done it, weeding all his heart GERAINT AND ENID. As I will weed this land before I go. — I, therefore, made him of our Tabli Round, Not rashly, but have proved him every. way One of our noblest, our most valoroual Sanest and most obedient : and indeed This work of Edyrn wrought upon himse] After a life of violence, seems to me > A thousand-fold more great and wonderfu Than if some knight of mine, co hi life; iY My subject with my subjects under ha | Should make an onslaught single on i realm | Of robbers, tho’ he slew them one by one And were himself nigh wounded to | death.’ : 4 So spake the King; low bow’d th Prince, and felt } His work was neither great nor wondelal And past to Enid’s tent; and thither cam The King’s own leech to look into hi hurt ; . And Enid tended on him there; and ther i Her constant motion round hing and thy breath’ Of her sweet tendance hovering over him Fill’d all the genial courses of his blood. With deeper and with ever deeper love, As the south-west that blowing Bala lak! Fills all the sacred Dee. So past the oat But while Geraint lay healing of a hurt, The blameless King went forth and ca! his eyes On each of all whom Uther left in cleo Long since, to guard the justice of th ! King : ¥ He look’d and found them wanting ; an as Now Men weed the white horse on the Berl shire hills To keep him bright and clean as heret: fore, - | He rooted out the slothful officer Or guilty, which for bribe had win 4 wrong, - > ell BALIN AND BALAN. {nd in their chairs set up a stronger race With hearts and hands, and sent a thou- sand men fo till the wastes, and moving everywhere Slear’d the dark places and let in the law, \nd broke the bandit holds and cleansed the land. > Then, when Geraint was whole again, they past Vith Arthur to Caerleon upon Usk. ‘here the great Queen once more em- braced her friend, \nd clothed her in apparel like the day. ind tho’ Geraint could never take again ‘hat comfort from their converse which : he took jefore the Queen’s fair name was breathed | upon, ie rested well content that all was well. “hence after tarrying fora space theyrode, wnd fifty knights rode with them to the b shores ’f Severn, and they past to their own - land. _nd there he kept the justice of the King 0 vigorously yet mildly, that all hearts pplauded, and the spiteful whisper died: nd being ever foremost in the chase, _nd victor at the tilt and tournament, hey call’d him the great Prince and man of men. ut Enid, whom her ladies loved to call nid the Fair, a grateful people named nid the Good ; and in their halls arose he ery of children, Enids and Geraints 'ftimes to be ; nordid he doubther more, it rested in her féalty, till he crown’d happy life with a fair death, and fell gainst the heathen of the Northern Sea battle, fighting for the blameless King. | | BALIN AND BALAN. ‘LLAM the King, who held and lost with t Lot _ that first war, and had hisrealm restored it render’d tributary, fail’d of late » send his tribute; wherefore Arthur call’d 369 His treasurer, one of many years, and spake, ‘Go thou with him and him and bring it to us, Lest we should set one truer on his throne. Man’s word is God in man.’ His Baron said ‘We go but harken : there be two strange knights Who sit near Camelot at a fountain side, A mile beneath the forest, challenging And overthrowing every knight who comes. Wilt thou I undertake them as we pass, And send them to thee?’ Arthur laugh’d upon him. ‘Old friend, too old to be so young, depart, Delay not thou for ought, but let them sit, Until they find a lustier than themselves.’ So these departed. Early, one fair dawn, The light-wing’d spirit of his youth return’d On Arthur’s heart ; he arm’d himself and went, So coming to the fountain-side beheld Balin and Balan sitting statuelike, Brethren, to right and left the spring, that down, From underneath a plume of lady-fern, Sang, and the sand danced at the bottom of it. And on the right of Balin Balin’s horse Was fast beside an alder, on the left Of Balan Balan’s near a poplartree. ‘Fair Sirs,’ said Arthur, ‘wherefore sit ye here?’ Balin and Balan answer’d ‘ For the sake Of glory ; we be mightier men than all In Arthur’s court; that also have we proved ; For whatsoever knight against us came Or I or he have easily overthrown.’ ‘I too,’ said Arthur, ‘am of Arthur’s hall, 28 370 But rather proven in his Paynim wars Than famous jousts ; but see, or proven or not, Whether me likewise ye can overthrow.’ And Arthur lightly smote the brethren down, — And lightly so return’d, and no man knew. Then Balin rose, and Balan, and beside The carolling water set themselves again, And spake no word until the shadow turn’d ; When from the fringe of coppice round them burst A spangled pursuivant, and crying ‘ Sirs, Rise, follow! ye be sent for by the King,’ They follow’d; whom when Arthur seeing ask’d ‘Tell me your names ; why sat ye by the well ?’ Balin the stillness of a minute broke Saying ‘ An unmelodious name to thee, Balin, ‘‘the Savage”—that addition thine— My brother and my better, this man here, Balan. I smote upon the naked skull A thrall of thine in open hall, my hand Was gauntleted, half slew him; for I heard He had spoken evil of me ; thy just wrath Sent me a three-years’ exile from thine eyes. I have not lived my life delightsomely : For I that did that violence to thy thrall, Had often wrought some fury on myself, Saving for Balan: those three kingless years Have past— were wormwood-bitter to me. King, -Methought that if we sat beside the well, And hurl’d to ground what knight soever spurr’d Against us, thou would’st take me gladlier back, And make, as ten-times worthier to be thine Than twenty Balins, Balan knight. I have said. Not so—not all. BALIN AND BALAN. Abash’d us both, and brake my boas’ Horse against horse; but seeing that t) A man of thine to-day | ¥ Thy will?’ Said Arthur ‘Thouhast everspoken truth Thy too fierce manhood would not k thee lie. . Rise, my true knight. As children leart be thou . Wiser for falling! walk with me, an move To music with thine Order and the Kin, Thy chair, a grief to all the brethre stands Vacant, but thou retake it, mine again Thereafter, when Sir Balin enter’d hal The Lost one Found was greeted as _ Heaven With joy that blazed itself in woodlar wealth Of leaf, and gayest garlandage of flower Along the walls and down the boarc they sat, q And cup clash’d cup; they drank at some one sang, : Sweet-voiced, a song of welcome, whe upon | Their common shout in chorus, mou ing, made Those banners of twelve battles overhe: Stir, as they stirr’d of old, when Arthu | host | Pioclaim’d him Victor, and the day w — won. - Z| Then Balan added to their Order liv | A wealthier life than heretofore with the And Balin, till their embassage return ‘Sir King’ they brought report 7 hardly found, So bush’d about it is with gloom, the h) Of him to whom ye sent us, Pellam, on A Christless foe of thine as ever dash’c realm Hath prosper’d in the name of Chrisa i King Took, as in rival heat, to holy things ; And finds himself descended from t Saint | = BALIN AND BALAN. Arimathzean Joseph ; him who first Brought the great faith to Britain over seas ; He boasts his life as purer than thine own ; Eats scarce enow to keep his pulse abeat ; Hath push’d aside his faithful wife, nor lets Or dame or damsel enter at his gates Lest he should be polluted. This gray ‘King Show’d us a shrine wherein were wonders Rich arks with priceless bones of martyr- dom, Thorns of the crown and shivers of the cross, And therewithal (for thus he told us) brought By holy Joseph hither, that same spear Wherewith the Roman pierced the side of Christ. ‘He much amazed us; after, when we sought The tribute, answer’d ‘‘I have quite fore- gone All matters of this world: Garlon, mine | heir, fhimdemand it,” which this Garlon gave } Nith much ado, railing at thine and thee. ; bow when we left, in those deep woods we found N knight of thine spear-stricken from behind, ead, whom we buried; more than one ; of us ‘ed out on Garlon, but a woodman there ‘eported of some demon in the woods Vas once a man, who driven by evil tongues tom all his fellows, lived alone, and came kind vith such a hate, that when he died, his soul ecame a Fiend, which, as the man in life _ Jas wounded by blind tongues he saw not whence, \ ' learn black magic, and to hate his 371 Strikes from behind. show’d the cave From which he sallies, and wherein he dwelt. We saw the hoof-print of a horse, no more.’ This woodman Then Arthur, ‘Let who goes before me, see He do not fall-behind me : foully slain And villainously ! who will hunt for me This demon of the woods?’ Said Balan, one So claim’d the quest and rode away, but first, Embracing Balin, ‘Good my _ brother, hear ! Let not thy moods prevail, when I am gone Who used to lay them ! hold them outer fiends, Who leap at thee to tear thee; shake them aside, Dreams ruling when wit sleeps ! yea, but to dream That any of these would wrong thee, wrongs thyself. Witness their flowery welcome. are they To speak no evil. Truly save for fears, My fears for thee,.so rich a fellowship Would make me wholly blest : thou one of them, Be one indeed : consider them, and all Their bearing in their common bond of love, No more of hatred than in Heaven itself, No more of jealousy than in Paradise.’ Bound So Balan warn’d, and went; Balin remain’d : Who—for but three brief moons had glanced away From being knighted till he smote the thrall, And faded from the presence into years Of exile—now would strictlier set himself To learn what Arthur meant by courtesy, Manhood, and knighthood; wherefore hover’d round 372 Lancelot, but when he mark’d his high sweet smile In passing, and a transitory word Make knight or churl or child or damsel seem From being smiled at happier in them- selves— Sigh’d, as a boy lame-born beneath a height, That glooms his valley, sighs to see the peak Sun-flush’d, or touch at night the northern star ; For one from out his village lately climb’d And brought report of azure lands and fair, Far seen to left and right ; and he him- self Hath hardly scaled with help a hundred feet Up from the base: so Balin marvelling oft How far beyond him Lancelot seem’d to move, Groan’d, and at times would mutter, ‘ These be gifts, Born with the blood, not learnable, divine, Beyond my reach. Well had I foughten —well— In those fierce wars, -struck hard—and had I crown’d With my slain self the heaps of whom I slew— So—better !—But this worship of the Queen, That honour too wherein she holds him —this, This was the sunshine that hath given the man A growth, a name that branches o’er the rest, And strength against all odds, and what the King So prizes—overprizes—gentleness. Her likewise would I worship an I might. I never can be close with her, as he That brought her hither. Shall I pray the King To let me bear some token of his Queen BALIN AND BALAN. Whereon to gaze, remembering ie forget My heats and violences? live afresh? = | What, if the Queen disdain’d to grant it! nay Being so stately-gentle, would she nie My darkness blackness? and with how sweet grace She greeted my return! be— Some goodly cognizance of Guinevermi In heu of this rough beast upon iy shield, { Langued gules, — tooth’d with grinning savagery.’ Bold will I a | And Arthur, when Sir Balin sought him, said . ‘ What wilt thou bear?’ and ask’d To bear her own crown-royal upon shite, Whereat she smiled and turn’d her to the King, i Who answer’d ‘ Thou shalt put the crowr to use. The crown is but the shadow of the King, And this a shadow’s shadow, let him have it, 1 So this will Help him of his violences 1” ‘No shadow’ said Sir Balin ‘O y Queen, @ But light to me! no shadow, O my King’ But golden earnest of a gentler life!” — Balin was bold . So Balin bare the crown, ie all the 5 knights i Approved him, and the Queen, and al ; the world Made music, and he felt his being move In music with his Order, and the King. The nightingale, full-toned in middle | May, Hath ever and anon a note so thin © It seems another voice in other groves; Thus, after some quick burst of sudder wrath, The music in him seem’d to change, anc grow Fl Faint and far-off. And once he saw the thrall lis passion half had gauntleted to death, ‘hat causer of his banishment and shame, mile at him, as he deem’d, presump- tuously : lis arm half rose to strike again, but . fell : ‘he memory of that cognizance on shield Veighted it down, but in himself he moan’d: *Too high this mount of Camelot for me: ‘hese high-set courtesies are not for me. hall I not rather prove the worse for these ? ierier and stormier from restraining, | break ato some madness ev’n before the | Queen ?’ | Thus, as a hearth lit in a mountain Lf home, ag glancing on the window, when the gloom f twilight deepens round it, seems a 4 flame at rages in the woodland far below, | i » when his moods were darken’d, court and King ‘nd all the kindly warmth of Arthur’s } hall adow'd an angry distance: yet he strove 9 learn the graces of their Table, fought ard with himself, and seem’d at length | | jo ' | in peace. | | Then chanced, one morning, that Sir _ Balin sat ose-bower’d in that garden nigh the hall. walk of roses ran from door to door ; walk of lilies crost it to the bower : ad down that range of roses the great Queen ume with slow steps, the morning on her face ; jad all in shadow from the counter door r Lancelot as to meet her, then at once, BALIN AND BALAN. 373 As if he saw not, glanced aside, and paced The long white walk of lilies toward the bower. Follow’d the Queen; Sir Balin heard her ‘ Prince, Art thou so little loyal to thy Queen, As pass without good morrow to thy Queen ?’ To whom Sir Lancelot with his eyes on earth, ‘Fain would I still be loyal to the Queen.’ ‘Yea so’ she said ‘but so to pass me by— So loyal scarce is loyal to thyself, Whom all men rate the king of courtesy. Let be: ye stand, fair lord,.as m 4 dream.’ Then Lancelot with his hand among the flowers ‘Yea—for a dream. Last night me- thought I saw That maiden Saint who stands with lily in hand In yonder shrine. All round her prest the dark, And all the light upon her silver face Flow’d from the spiritual lily that she held. Lo! these her emblems drew mine eyes —away : For see, how perfect-pure! As light a flush As hardly tints the blossom of the quince Would mar their charm of stainless maidenhood.’ ‘Sweeter to me’ she said ‘this garden rose Deep-hued and many-folded ! sweeter still The wild-wood hyacinth and the bloom of May. Prince, we have ridd’n before among the flowers In those fair days—not all as cool as these, Tho’ season-earlier. Art thou sad? or sick ? 374 Our noble King will send thee his own leech— Sick ? or for any matter anger’d at me?’ Then Lancelot lifted his large eyes ; they dwelt Deep-tranced on hers, and could not fall : her hue Changed at his gaze: so turning side by side They past, and Balin started from his bower. ‘Queen? subject ? but I see not what I see. Damsel and lover? hear not what I hear. My father hath begotten me in his wrath. I suffer from the things before me, know, Learn nothing; am not worthy to be knight ; A churl, a clown !’ and in him gloom on gloom Deepen’d: he sharply caught his lance and shield, Nor stay’d to crave permission of the king, But, mad for strange adventure, dash’d away. He took the selfsame track as Balan, saw The fountain where they sat together, sigh’d ‘Was I not better there with him ?’ and rode The skyless woods, but under open blue Came on the hoarhead woodman at a bough Wearily hewing. he cried, Descended, and disjointed it at a blow : To whom the woodman utter’d wonder- ingly thou couldst lay the Devil of these woods. ‘Churl, thine axe!’ “1S0ra, If arm of flesh could lay him.’ Balin cried ‘Him, or the viler devil who plays his part, BALIN AND BALAN. _ To lay that devil would lay the Devil in me.’ ; . ‘Nay’ said the churl, ‘our devil is a truth, a e I saw the flash of him but yestereven. And some do say that our Sir Garlon Hath learn’d black magic, and to ri unseen. = Look to the cave.’ him 3 ‘Old fabler, these be fancies of the cha Look to thy woodcraft,’ and so leaving him, Now with slack rein and careless of self, “a Now with dug spur and raving at him- self, | Now with droopt brow down the glades he rode ; So mark’d not on his right a cavern-ch Yawn over darkness, where, nor far But Balin answe rd . ban * nat within, The whole day died, but, dying, lea on rocks 4 Roof-pendent, sharp; and others from the floor, es Tusklike, arising, made that mouth of night Whereout the Demon issued up from Hell. He mark’d not this, but blind and @ ‘ to all Save that chain’d rage, which ever yelp’ within, 7 | Past eastward from the falling sun. — once He felt the hollow-beaten mosses th d And tremble, and then the shadow spear, = Shot from behind him, ran 1 lon the ground. = | Sideways he started from the path, ne saw, With pointed lance as if to pierce shape, A light of armour by him flash, and pass a. And vanish in the woods; and follga this, But all so blind in rage that unawar S| BALIN AND BALAN. 375 Te burst his lance against a forest bough, Jishorsed himself, and rose again, and fled ‘ar, till the castle of a King, the hall Mf Pellam, lichen-bearded, grayly draped Vith streaming grass, appear’d, low-built but strong ; ‘he ruinous donjon as a knoll of moss, ‘he battlement overtopt with ivytods, \ home of bats, in every tower an owl. Then spake the men of Pellam crying ‘Lord, Vhy wear ye this crown-royal upon shield ?’ aid Balin ‘ For the fairest and the best Mf ladies living gave me this to bear.’ 0 stall’d his horse, and strode across the court, ut found the greetings both of knight | and King ‘aint in the low dark hall of banquet : | leaves aid their green faces flat against the panes, pays grated, and the canker’d boughs without Vhined in the wood ; for all was hush’d , within, ill when at feast Sir Garlon likewise . ask’d Why wear ye that crown-royal?’ Balin | said The Queen we worship, Lancelot, I, and all, s fairest, best and purest, granted me 0 bear it!’ Such a sound (for Arthur’s knights Tere hated strangers in the hall) as makes he white swan-mother, sitting, when she hears strange knee rustle thro’ her secret | reeds, “ade Garlon, hissing; then he sourly } smiled. Pairest I grant her: I have seen; but | best, est, purest ? thou from Arthur’s hall, | and yet . So simple ! hast thou eyes, or if, are these So far besotted that they fail to see This fair wife- worship cloaks a secret shame ? Truly, ye men of Arthur be but babes.’ A goblet on the board by Balin, boss’d With holy Joseph’s legend, on his right Stood, all of massiest bronze: one side had sea And ship and sail and angels blowing on ie And one was rough with wattling, and the walls Of that low church he built at Glaston- bury. This Balin graspt, but while in act to hurl, Thro’ memory of that token on the shield Relax’d his hold: ‘I will be gentle’ he thought ‘And passing gentle’ caught his hand awa Then fiercely to Sir Garlon ‘ eyes have I That saw to-day the shadow of a spear, Shot from behind me, run along the ground ; Eyes too that long have watch’d how Lancelot draws From homage to the best and purest, might, Name, manhood, and a grace, but scantly thine, Who, sitting in thine own hall, canst endure To mouth so huge a foulness—to thy guest, Me, me of Arthur’s Table. Let be! no more!’ Felon talk ! But not the less by night The scorn of Garlon, poisoning all his rest, Stung him in dreams. dim thro’ leaves Blinkt the white morn, sprays grated, and old boughs Whined in the wood. scended, met At length, and He rose, de- 376 BALIN AND BA LAN. 4 The scorner in the castle court, and fain, For hate and loathing, would have past him by ; But when Sir -Garlon utter’d mocking- wise ; . ‘What, wear ye still that same crown- scandalous ?’ His countenance blacken’d, forehead veins Bloated, and branch’d; and tearing out of sheath The brand, Sir Balin with a fiery ‘ Ha ! So thou be shadow, here I make thee ghost,’ Hard upon helm smote him, and the blade flew Splintering in six, and clinkt upon the stones. Then Garlon, reeling slowly backward, fell, : And Balin by the banneret of his helm Dragg’d him, and struck, but from the castle a cry Sounded across the court, and—men-at- arms, A score with pointed lances, making at him— He dash’d the pummel at the foremost face, Beneath a low door dipt, and made his feet Wings thro’ a glimmering gallery, till he mark’d The portal of King Pellam’s chapel wide And inward to the wall; he stept behind; Thence in a moment heard them pass like wolves Howling ; but while he stared about the shrine, In which he scarce could spy the Christ for Saints, Beheld before a golden altar lie The longest lance his eyes had ever seen, Point-painted red ; and seizing thereupon Push’d thro’ an open casement down, lean’d on it, Leapt in a semicircle, and lit on earth ; Then hand at ear, and harkening from what side The blindfold rummage buried in the walls and _his Might echo, ran the counter path, and found His charger, mounted on him and awe An arrow whizz'd to the right, one to the left, One overhead ; and Pellam’s feeble cry | ‘Stay, stay him! he defileth heave things With earthly uses’— made him quickly dive Beneath the boughs, and race thro’ many a mile Of dense and open, till his goodly howe, Arising wearily at a fallen oak, Stumbled headlong, and cast bigs face to ground. | Half-wroth he had not ended, but al glad, § Knightlike, to find his charger yet 2 un- lamed, Sir Balin drew the shield from off his neck, | Stared at the priceless cognizance, and thought | ‘I have shamed thee so that now thou shamest me, Thee will I bear no more,’ high on La branch Hung it, and turn’d aside into the | And there in gloom cast himself all along, Moaning ‘ My violences, my violences!’ But now the wholesome music of the wood [| Was dumb’d by one from out the hall of! Mark, = | A damsel-errant, warbling, as she rode © The woodland alleys, Vivien, with her Squire. ‘The fire of Heaven has kill’d the bavren cold, And kindled all the plain and all the wold. The new leaf ever pushes off the old. 7 & The fire of Heaven is not the flame of Hell. . Old priest, who mumble word in | your quire— | Yid monk and nun, ye scorn the world’s desire, fet in your frosty cells ye feel the fire ! ‘he fire of Heaven is not the flame of Hell. The fire of Heaven is on the dusty ways. “he wayside blossoms open to the blaze. “he whole wood-world is one full peal of praise. “he fire of Heaven is not the flame of Hell. The fire of Heaven is lord of all things good, ind starve not thou this fire within thy blood, jut follow Vivien thro’ the fiery flood ! “he fire of Heaven is not the flame of aielt 1 : | : Then turning to her Squire ‘ This fire of Heaven, ‘his old sun-worship, boy, will rise again, and beat the cross to earth, and break | the King ‘ and all his Table.’ | Then they reach’d a glade, Vhere under one long lane of cloudless i alr ‘efore another wood, the royal crown parkled, and swaying upon a restless elm rew the vague glance of Vivien, and her Squire ; amazed were these; ‘Lo there’ cried—‘ a crown— ‘ore by some high lord-prince of Arthur’s hall, nd there a horse! the rider? where is he? ee, yonder lies one dead within the wood. lot dead; he stirs !—but sleeping. I will speak. fail, royal knight, we break on thy sweet | rest, ot, doubtless, all unearn’d by noble deeds. she BALIN AND BALAN. 377 But bounden art thou, if from Arthur’s hall, To help the weak. shame, A lustful King, who sought to win my love Thro’ evil ways: the knight, with whom I rode, Hath suffer’>d misadventure, squire Hath in him small defence; but thou, Sir Prince, Wilt surely guide me to the warrior King, Arthur the blameless, pure as any maid, To get me shelter for my maidenhood. I charge thee by that crown upon thy shield, And by the great Queen’s name, arise and hence.’ Behold, I fly from and my ~ And Balin rose, ‘ Thither no more! nor Prince Nor knight am I, but one that hath defamed The cognizance she gave me: here I dwell Savage among the savage woods, here die— Die: let the wolves’ black maws en- sepulchre Their brother beast, whose anger was his lord. O me, that such a name as Guinevere’s, Which our high Lancelot hath so lifted up, And been thereby uplifted, should thro’ me, My violence, and my villainy, come to shame.’ Thereat she suddenly laugh’d and shrill, anon Sigh’d all as suddenly. Said Balin to her ‘Is this thy courtesy—to mock me, ha ? Hence, for I will not with thee.’ Again she sigh’d ‘Pardon, sweet lord! we maidens often laugh When sick at heart, when rather we should weep. 378 BALIN AND BALAN. I knew thee wrong’d. rest, And now full loth am I to break thy dream, But thou art man, and canst abide a truth, Tho’ bitter. Hither, boy—and mark me well. Dost thou remember at Caerleon once— A year ago—nay, then I love thee not— Ay, thou rememberest well—one summer dawn— By the great tower—Caerleon upon Usk— Nay, truly we were hidden : lord, The flower of all their vestal knighthood, knelt In amorous homage—knelt—what else? —O ay and drew down from out his night-black hair And mumbled that white hand whose ring’d caress Had wander’d from her own King’s golden head, And lost itself in darkness, till cried— I thought the great tower would crash down on both— ‘Rise, my sweet King, and kiss me on the lips, Thou art my King.” lightest word Is mere white truth in simple nakedness, Saw them embrace: he reddens, cannot speak, So bashful, he ! but all the maiden Saints, I brake upon thy this fair Knelt, she This lad, whose The deathless mother-maidenhood of Heaven Cry out upon her. Up then, ride with me ! Talk not of shame! thou canst not, an thou would’st, Do these more shame than these have done themselves.’ She lied with ease; but horror-stricken he, Remembering that dark tower at Camelot, Breathed in a dismal whisper ‘It is truth.’ Sunnily she smiled ‘And even in this lone wood, Sweet lord, ye ae right well to whisper this. Fools prate, and perish traitors. have tongues, As walls have ears: with me, And we will speak at first exceeding low. Meet is it the good King be not deceived, See now, I set thee high on vant ground, From whence to watch the time, | eagle-like = Stoop at thy will on Lancelot and the Queen.’ Woods ! but thou shalt go She ceased ; his evil spirit upon him leapt, He ground his teeth together, sprang with a yell, | Tore from the branch, and cast on earth the shield, Drove his mail’d heel athwart the road | crown, Stampt all into defacement, hurl’d it from him : Among the forest weeds, and cursed the | tale, = 4 The told-of, and the teller. oS That weird yell, | Unearthlier than all shriek of bird = | beast, Thrill’d thro’ the woods ; lurking there ‘ ¢@ (His quest was unaccomplish’ d) hea | and thought ‘The scream of that Wood-devil I came to quell 1 1 | Then nearing ‘Lo! he hath slain some brother-knight, And tramples on the goodly shield a show His loathing of our Order and the Ouell and | is B My quest, meseems, is here. Or devil or man | Guard thou thine head.’ Sir Balin sake not word, ' BALIN AND BALAN. 379 3ut snatch’d a sudden buckler from the Squire, (nd vaulted on his horse, and so they crash’d n onset, and King Pellam’s holy spear, Xeputed to be red with sinless blood, Xedden’d at once with sinful, for the point \eross the maiden shield of Balan prick’d ‘he hauberk to the flesh; and Balin’s horse Vas wearied to the death, and, when they clash’d, Xolling back upon Balin, crush’d the man nward, and either fell, and swoon’d away. Then to her Squire mutter’d the damsel ‘ Fools! ‘his fellow hath wrought some foulness with his Queen : tise never had he borne her crown, nor : raved snd thus foam’d over at a rival name : ut thou, Sir Chick, that scarce hast broken shell, at yet half-yolk, not even come to down— Vho never sawest Caerleon upon Usk— md yet hast often pleaded for my love— ‘ee what I see, be thou where I have been, Jr else Sir Chick—dismount and loose | their casques fain would know what manner of men i they be.’ .nd when the Squire had loosed them, ‘Goodly !—look ! hey might have cropt the myriad flower . of May, nd butt each other here, like brainless bulls, ead for one heifer!’ | | Then the gentle Squire I hold them happy, so they died for | love : nd, Vivien, tho’ ye beat me like your { dog, | too could die, as now I live, for thee.’ ‘Live on, Sir Boy,’ she cried. ‘I better prize The living dog than the dead lion: away! I cannot brook to gaze upon the dead.’ Then leapt her palfrey o’er the fallen oak, And bounding forward ‘ Leave them to the wolves.’ But when their foreheads felt the cool- ing air, Balin first woke, and seeing that true face, Familiar up from cradle-time, so wan, Crawl’d slowly with low moans to where he lay, And on his dying brother cast himself Dying ; and fe lifted faint eyes ; he felt One near him ; all at once they found the world, Staring wild-wide ; then with a childlike wail, And drawing down the dim disastrous brow That o’er him hung, he kiss’d it, moan’d and spake ; ‘O Balin, Balin, I that fain had died To save thy life, have brought thee to thy death. Why had ye not the shield I knew? and why Trampled ye thus on that which bare the Crown ?’ Then Balin told him brokenly, and in gasps, All that had chanced, and Balan moan’d again. ‘Brother, I dwelt a day in Pellam’s hall : This Garlon mock’d me, but I heeded not. And one said ‘‘ Eat in peace ! a liar is he, And hates thee for the tribute!” this good knight Told me, that twice a wanton damsel came, And sought for Garlon at the castle-gates, Whom Pellam drove away with holy heat. 380 I well believe this damsel, and the one Who stood beside thee even now, the same. ‘¢She dwells among the woods” he said ‘“¢and meets And dallies with- him in the Mouth of Hell. Foul are their lives ; foul are their lips ; they lied. Pure as our own true Mother is our Queen.’ ‘O brother’ answer’d Balin ‘ woe is me ! My madness all thy life has been thy ’ doom, Thy curse, and darken’d all thy day ; and now The night has come. thee now. Goodnight ! for we shall never bid again Goodmorrow—Dark my doom was here, I scarce can see and dark It will be there. I see thee now no more. I would not mine again should darken thine, Goodnight, true brother.’ Balan answer’d low ‘Goodnight, true brother here! good- morrow there ! We two were born together, and we die Together by one doom:’ and while he spoke Closed his death-drowsing eyes, and slept the sleep With Balin, either lock’d in either’s arm. MERLIN AND VIVIEN. A STORM was coming, but the winds were still, And in the wild woods of Broceliande, Before an oak, so hollow, huge and old It look’d a tower of ivied masonwork, At Merlin’s feet the wily Vivien lay. MERLIN AND VIVIEN. For he that always bare in bitte grudge ee | The slights of Arthur and his Table, Mark The Cornish King, had heard a wandering voice, ¥ A minstrel of Caerleon by strong storm — Blown into shelter at Tintagil, say = That out of naked knightlike purity Sir Lancelot worshipt no unmarried girl But the great Queen herself, fought 1 in her name, Sware by her—vows like theirs, that hi in heaven | Love most, but neither marry, nor are? given ce ee said (She sat beside the banquet nearest Mar ; i ‘ And is the fair example follow’d, Sit, - In Arthur’s household ?’—-answer’d 1 cently : ‘Ay, by some few—ay, truly—youths © that hold | It more beseems the perfect virgin kn To worship woman as true wife bey All hopes of gaining, than as maiden ‘They place their pride in Lancelot the Queen. So passionate for an utter purity 4 Beyond the limit of their bond, are these For Arthur bound them not to single Brave hearts and clean! and yet—Gé guide them—young.’ = Then Mark was half in heart to hurl his cup Straight at the speaker, but forbore : rose To leave the hall, and, Vivien follown him, Turn’d to her: ‘Here are snakes within the grass ; 4 And you methinks, O Vivien, save ye feat The monkish manhood, and the mask of pure 4 Worn by this court, can stir them till they sting.’ Ede MERLIN AND VIVIEN. 381 And Vivien answer’d, smiling scorn- fully, Why fear? because that foster’d at ¢hy , court savour of thy—virtues ? fear them? no. \s Love, if Love be perfect, casts out fear, 30 Hate, if Hate be perfect, casts out fear. (ly father died in battle against the King, Ay mother on his corpse in open field ; yhe bore me there, for born from death was I Among the dead and sown upon the wind— ind then on thee! and shown the truth betimes, “hat old true filth, and bottom of the well, Vhere Truthis hidden. Gracious lessons thine ind maxims of the mud! ‘‘ This Arthur | pure! meat Nature thro’ the flesh herself hath made tives him the lie! There is no being pure, 5 cherub; saith not Holy Writ the same ? ”— “Iwere Arthur, I would have thy blood. hy blessing, stainless King! I bring thee back, /hen I have ferreted out their burrow- | ings, he hearts of all this Order in mine hand— y—so that fate and craft and folly close, erchance, one curl of Arthur’s golden | beard. 'o me this narrow grizzled fork of thine cleaner-fashion’d—Well, I loved thee { first, hat warps the wit.’ Loud laugh’d the graceless Mark. at Vivien, into Camelot stealing, lodged ow in the city, and on a festal day ‘hen Guinevere was crossing the great ie hall ast herself down, knelt to the Queen, { and wail’d. ‘Why kneel ye there? What evil have ye wrought ? Rise!’ and the damsel bidden rise arose And stood with folded hands and down- ward eyes Of glancing corner, and all meekly said, ‘None wrought, but suffer’d much, an orphan maid ! My father died in battle for thy King, My mother on his corpse—in open field, The sad sea-sounding wastes of Lyonesse— Poor wretch—no friend !—and now by Mark the King For that small charm of feature mine, pursued— -If any such be mine—I fly to thee. Save, save me thou—Woman of women— thine The wreath of beauty, thine the crown of power, Be thine the balm of pity, O Heaven’s own white Earth-angel, stainless bride of stainless King— Help, for he follows ! take me to thyself! O yield me shelter for mine innocency Among thy maidens !’ Here her slow sweet eyes Fear-tremulous, but humbly hopeful, rose Fixt on her hearer’s, while the’ Queen who stood All glittering like May sunshine on May leaves In green and gold, and plumed with green replied, ‘Peace, child! of overpraise and over- blame We choose the last. Our noble Arthur, him Ye scarce can overpraise, will hear and know. Well, we shall test thee farther ; but this hour We ride a-hawking with Sir Lancelot. He hath given us a fair falcon which he train’d ; We go to prove it. while.’ Bide ye here the 382 MERLIN AND VIVIEN. She past ; and Vivien murmur’d after ‘Go! I bide the while.’ ‘Then thro’ the portal- arch Peering askance, and muttering broken- wise, As one that labours with an evil dream, Beheld the Queen and Lancelot get to horse. ‘Is that the Lancelot? goodly—ay, but gaunt : Courteous—amends for gauntness—takes her hand— That glance of theirs, but for the street, had been A clinging kiss—how hand lingers in hand ! Let go at last !—they ride away—to hawk For waterfowl. Royaller game is mine. For such a supersensual sensual bond As that gray cricket chirpt of at our hearth— Touch flax with flame—a glance will serve —the liars ! Ah little rat that borest in the dyke Thy hole by night to let the boundless deep Down upon far-off cities while they dance— Or dream—of thee they dream’d not— nor of me These—ay, but each of either: ride, and dream The mortal dream that never yet was mine— Ride, ride and dream until ye wake—to me ! Then, narrow court and lubber King, farewell ! For Lancelot will be gracious to the rat, And our wise Queen, if knowing that I know, Will hate, loathe, fear—but honour me the more.’ Yet while they rode together down the lain, Their talk was all of training, terms of art, Diet and seeling, jesses, leash and lure. ‘She is too noble’ he said ‘to check at pies, ° Nor will she rake: there is no baseness in hers Here when the Queen demanded as by chance 4 ‘Know ye the stranger woman ?’ ‘Let her be,’ Said Lancelot and unhooded casting off The goodly falcon free; she tower her bells, Tone under tone, shrill’d ; and they lifted up Their eager faces, wondering at the strength, -| Boldness and royal knighthood of the bird Who pounced her quarry and slew it. Many a time £ As once—of old—among the flowers— they rode. But Vivien half-forgotten of the Olle Among her damsels broidering sat, heard, watch’d And whisper’d : she crept: And whisper’d: then as Arthur in the highest < Leaven’d the world, so Vivien in the lowest, . Arriving at a time of golden rest, And sowing one ill hint from ear to ear, While all the heathen lay at Arthur’s feet, And no quest came, but all was joust and play, | Leaven’d his hall. her be. thro’ the peaceful court They heard and let Thereafter as an enemy that has left Death in the living waters, and with- drawn, The wily Vivien stole from Arthur’s court She hated all the knights, and heard in thought Their lavish comment when her name | was named. For once, when Arthur walking all alae Vext at a rumour issued from herself Of some corruption crept among his knights, a MERLIN AND VIVIEN. Jad met her, Vivien, being greeted fair 383 i : ir, Tho’ doubtful, felt the flattery, and at Vould fain have wrought upon his cloudy mood Nith reverent eyes mock-loyal, shaken voice, \nd flutter’d adoration, and at last Vith dark sweet hints of some who prized him more ‘han who should prize him most; at | which the King lad gazed upon her blankly and gone by: jut one had watch’d, and had not held his peace : t made the laughter of an afternoon “hat Vivien should attempt the blameless : King. ind after that, she set herself to gain | ip, the most famous man of all those times, fertin, who knew the range of all their | arts, Tad built the King his havens, ships, | and halls, ka also Bard, and knew the starry heavens ; | ‘he people call’d him Wizard ; whom at first | he play’d about with slight and sprightly talk, and vivid smiles, and faintly-venom’d points Mf slander, glancing here and grazing there ; nd yielding to his kindlier moods, the Seer Vould watch her. at her petulance, and play, vn when they seem’d unloveable, and laugh .S those. that watch a kitten; thus he i grew “olerant of what he half disdain’d, and she, /erceiving that she was but half disdain’d, egan to break her sports with graver fits, ‘um red or pale, would often when they ; met igh fully, or all-silent gaze upon him 'Vith such a fixt devotion, that the old j man, times Would flatter his own wish in age for love, And half believe her true: for thus at times He waver’d ; but that other clung to him, Fixt in her will, and so the seasons went. Then fell on Merlin a great melancholy ; He walk’d with dreams and darkness, and he found A doom that ever poised itself to fall, An ever-moaning battle in the mist, World-war of dying flesh against the life, Death in all life and lying in all love, The meanest having power upon the highest, And the high purpose broken by the worm. So leaving Arthur’s court he gain’d the beach ; There found a little boat, and stept into atrs And Vivien follow’d, but he mark’d her not. She took the helm and he the sail; the boat Drave with a sudden wind across the deeps, And touching Breton sands, they dis- embark’d. And then she follow’d Merlin all the way, Ev’n to the wild woods of Broceliande. For Merlin once had told her of a charm, The which if any wrought on anyone With woven paces and with waving arms, The man so wrought on ever seem’d to lie Closed in the four walls of a hollow tower, From which was no escape for evermore ; And none could find that man for ever- more, Nor could he see but him who wrought the charm Coming and going, and he lay as dead And lost to life and use and name and fame. And Vivien ever sought to work the charm Upon the great Enchanter of the Time, 384 MERLIN AND VIVIEN. As fancying that her glory would be great According to his greatness whom she quench’d. There lay she all her length and kiss’d his feet, As if in deepest reverence and in love. A twist of gold was round her hair; a robe Of samite without price, that more exprest Than hid her, clung about her lissome limbs, In colour like the satin-shining palm On sallows in the windy gleams of March: And while she kiss’d them, crying, ‘Trample me, Dear feet, that I have follow’d thro’ the world, . And I will pay you worship; tread me down And I will kiss you for it ;’ he was mute : So dark a forethought roll’d about his brain, As on a dull day in an Ocean cave The blind wave feeling round his long sea-hall . In silence : wherefore, when she lifted up A face of sad appeal, and spake and said, ‘O Merlin, do ye love me?’ and again, *O Merlin, do ye love me?’ and once more, ‘Great Master, do ye love me?’ he was mute. And lissome Vivien, holding by his heel, Writhed toward him, slided up his knee and sat, Behind his ankle twined her hollow feet Together, curved an arm about his neck, Clung like a snake ; and letting her left hand Droop from his mighty shoulder, as a leaf, Made with her right a comb of pearl to part The lists of such a beard as youth gone out Had left in ashes: then he spoke and said, Not looking at her, ‘Who are wise in love Love most, say least,’ and Vivien an- swer’d quick, ‘I saw the little elf-god eyeless once In Arthur’s arras hall at Camelot : But neither eyes nor tongue—O saa child ! Yet you are wise who say it; let me think Silence is wisdom: I am dilent then, — And ask no kiss ;’ then adding all at once ‘And lo, I clothe myself with wisi drew The vast and shaggy mantle of his beste Across her neck and bosom to her knee, And call’d herself a gilded summer fly Caught in a great old tyrant spider’ s web Who meant to eat her up in that = wood | Without one word. So Vivien call herself, x | But rather seem’d a lovely baleful star | Veil’d in gray vapour; till he | smiled : ‘To what request for what strange boon, he said, ‘ Are these your pretty tricks and fooleries O Vivien, the preamble? yet my thanks For these have broken up my melancholy. And Vivien answer’d smiling saucily, ‘What, O my Master, have ye founc your voice ? I bid the stranger welcome. last ! But yesterday you never open’d lip, Except indeed to drink: no cup had we In mine own lady palms I cull’d Cg spring That gather’d trickling dropwise from the cleft, And made a pretty cup of both my | And offer’d you it kneeling: then you drank And knew no more, nor gave me ont poor word ; O no more thanks than might a goat hav given With no more sign of reverence than ‘| beard. And when we halted at that other well, And I was faint to swooning, and you la} Foot-gilt with all the blossom-dust 0 those Deep meadows we had traversed, dic you know ; Thank a a * ¥ MERLIN AND VIVIEN. 385 hat Vivien bathed your feet before her own ? nd yet no thanks: and all thro’ this wild wood nd all this morning when I fondled you: oon, ay, there was a boon, one not so strange— low had I wrong’d you? surely ye are wise, ut such a silence is more wise than kind.’ And Merlin lock’d his hand in hers and said : J did ye never lie upon the shore, nd watch the curl’d white of the coming __ +wave lass'd in the slippery sand before it breaks ? vn such a wave, but not so pleasurable, ark in the glass of some presageful mood, ad I for three days seen, ready to fall. id then I rose and fled from Arthur’s court )» break the mood. You follow’d me im ounask’d ; . id when I look’d, and saw you follow- ing still, y mind involved yourself the nearest thing that mind-mist: for shall I tell you truth ? su seem’d that wave about to break upon me d sweep me from my hold upon the | world, ruse and name and fame. Yourpardon, child. ur pretty sports have brighten’d all |= again. d ask your boon, for boon I owe you thrice, ce for wrong done you by confusion, . next t thanks it seems till now neglected, last these your dainty gambols: wherefore = asks d take this boon so strange and not so strange.’ And Vivien answer’d smiling mourn- fully : ‘O not so strange as my long asking it, Not yet so strange as you yourself are strange, Nor half so strange as that dark mood of yours, I ever fear’d ye were not wholly mine ; And see, yourself have own’d ye did me wrong. The people call you prophet : let it be: But not of those that can expound them- selves. Take Vivien for expounder ; she will call That three-days-long presageful gloom of yours No presage, but the same mistrustful mood That makes you seem less noble than yourself, Whenever I have ask’d this very boon, Now ask’d again: for see you not, dear love, That such a mood as that, which lately gloom’d Your fancy when ye saw me following you, Must make me fear still more you are not mine, Must make me yearn still more to prove you mine, And make me wish still more to learn this charm Of woven paces and of waving hands, As proof of trust. O Merlin, teach it me. The charm so taught will charm us both to rest. For, grant me some slight power upon your fate, I, feeling that you felt me worthy trust, Should rest and let you rest, knowing you mine. And therefore be as great as ye are named, Not muffled round with selfish reticence. How hard you look and how denyingly ! O, if you think this wickedness in me, That I should prove it on you unawares, That makes me passing wrathful; then our bond Had best be loosed for ever: but think or not, N Qa 386 MERLIN AND VIVIEN. By Heaven that hears I tell you the clean truth, As clean as blood of babes, as white as milk : O Merlin, may this earth, if ever I, If these unwitty wandering wits of mine, Ev’n in the jumbled rubbish of a dream, Have tript onsuch conjectural treachery— May this hard earth cleave to the Nadir hell Down, down, and close again, and nip me flat, If I be such a traitress. Yield my boon, Till which I scarce can yield you all I am ; And grant my re-reiterated wish, The great proof of your love: because I think, ITowever wise, ye hardly know me yet.’ And Merlin loosed his hand from hers and said, ‘TI never was less wise, however wise, Too curious Vivien, tho’ you talk of trust, Than when I told you first of such a charm. Yea, if ye talk of trust I tell you this, Too much I trusted when I told you that, And stirr’d this vice in you which ruin’d man Thro’ woman the first hour; for howsoe’er In children a great curiousness be well, Who have to learn themselves and all the world, In you, that are no child, for still I find Your face is practised when I spell the lines, I call it,—well, I will not call it vice: But since you name yourself the summer fly, I well could wish a cobweb for the gnat, That settles, beaten back, and beaten back Settles, till one could yield for weariness : But since I will not yield to give you power Upon my life and use and name and fame, Why will ye never ask some other boon ? Yea, by God’s rood, I trusted you too much.’ And Vivien, like the tenderest-hearted maid That ever bided tryst at village stile, : Made answer, either eyelid wet with tea: ‘Nay, Master, be not wrathful with your maid ; Caress her : let her feel herself forgiven : Who feels no heart to ask another boon, I think ye hardly know the tender rhyme Of ‘trust me not at all or all in all.” I heard the great Sir Lancelot sing it once, And it shall answer for me. Listen to it, 4 ‘In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours, Faith and unfaith can ne’er be equa powers : Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all ‘Tt is the little rift within the lutea ; That by and by will make the music mute, And ever widening slowly silence all. 2 | “The little rift within the lover’s late Or little pitted speck in garner’d fruit, — That rotting inward slowly moulders = ‘« It is not worth the keeping: let it go. But shall it ? answer, darling, answer, no And trust me not at all or all in all.” — . O Master, do ye love my tender rhyme? And Merlin look’d and half believer her true, a So tender was her voice, so fair her face So sweetly gleam’d her eyes behind he tears \ Like sunlight on the plain pehial shower : = And yet he answer’d half indignantly + ; ‘Far other was the song that once | - heard By this huge oak, sung nearly where we 4 For here we met, some ten or twelve of us To chase a creature that was current the In these wild woods, the hart with golde horns. ‘2 It was the time when first the va rose About the founding of a Table Rout That was to be, for love of God and me And noble deeds, the flower of all th world. MERLIN AND VIVIEN. And each incited each to noble deeds. And while we waited, one, the youngest of us, We could not keep him silent, out he flash’d, And into such a song, such fire for fame, Such trumpet-blowings in it, coming down To such a stern and iron-clashing close, That when he stopt we long’d to hurl together, And should have done it ; teous beast Seared by the noise upstarted at our feet, And like a silver shadow slipt away Thro’ the dim land ; and all day long we but the beau- rode ‘Thro’ the dim land against a rushing | wind, ‘That glorious roundel echoing in our ears, ‘And chased the flashes of his golden horns ‘Until they vanish’d by the fairy well That laughs at iron—as our warriors did— Where children cast their pins and nails, and cry, “ “Laugh, little well !” but touch it with a sword, Tt buzzes fiercely round the point; and . there We lost him: sucha noble song was that. But, Vivien, when you sang me that sweet rhyme, ~ felt as tho’ you knew this cursed charm, Were proving it on me, and that I lay And felt them slowly ebbing, name and fame.’ _ And Vivien answer’d smiling mourn- fully : O mine have ebb’d away for evermore, “and all thro’ following you to this wild wood, bei: I saw you sad, to comfort you. _.0 now, what hearts have men! they never mount _.s high as woman in her selfless mood. nd touching fame, howe’er ye scorn my song, _ ake one verse more—the lady speaks it | —this : 387 «<“ My name, once mine, now thine, is closelier mine, For fame, could fame be mine, that fame were thine, And shame, could shame be thine, that shame were mine. So trust me not at all or all in all.” ‘Says she not well? and there is more —this rhyme Is like the fair pearl-necklace of the Queen, That burst in dancing, and the pearls were spilt ; Some lost, some stolen, some as relics kept. But nevermore the same two sister pearls Ran down the silken thread to kiss each other On her white neck—so is it with this rhyme: It lives dispersedly in many hands, And every minstrel sings it differently ; Yet is there one true line, the pearl of pearls : ‘“*Man dreams of Fame while woman wakes to love.” Yea! Love, tho’ Love were of the gross- est, carves A portion from the solid present, eats And uses, careless of the rest ; but Fame, The Fame that follows death is nothing to us 5 And what is Fame in life but half-disfame, And counterchanged with darkness? ye yourself Know well that Envy calls you Devil’s son, And since ye seem the Master of all Art, They fain would make you Master of all vice.’ And Merlin lock’d his hand in hers and said, ‘I once was looking for a magic weed, And found a fair young squire who sat alone, Had carved himself a knightly shield of wood, And then was painting on it fancied arms, 388 Azure, an Eagle rising or, the Sun In dexter chief; the scroll ‘‘I follow “fame.” And speaking not, but leaning over him, I took his brush and blotted out the bird, And made a Gardener putting in a graff, With this for motto, “ Rather use than fame.” You should have seen him blush; but afterwards He made a stalwart knight. O Vivien, For you, methinks you think you love me well; For me, I love you somewhat ; Love Should have some rest and pleasure in himself, Not ever be too curious for a boon, Too prurient for a proof against the grain Of him ye say ye love: but Fame with rest : and men, Being but ampler means to serve man- kind, Should have small rest or pleasure in herself, But work as vassal to the larger love, That dwarfs the petty love of one to one. Use gave me Fame at first, and Fame again Increasing gave me use. boon ! What other? for men sought to prove me vile, Because I fain had given them greater wits : And then did Envy call me Devil’s son: The sick weak beast seeking to help her- Lo, there my self By striking at her better, miss’d, and brought Her own claw back, and wounded her own heart. Sweet were the days when I was all un- known, But when my name was lifted up, the storm Brake on the mountain and I cared not for it. Right well know I that Fame is half- disfame, MERLIN AND VIVIEN. That you might play me falsely, havi ng Yet needs must work my work. That t other fame, To one at least, who hath not childrer n, vague, e The cackle of the unborn about the gray re, I cared not for it: a single misty star, Which is the second in a line of stars — That seem a sword beneath a belt of three, I never gazed upon it but I dreamt Of some vast charm concluded in that sta To make fame nothing. Whetefoiaa if I fear, Giving you power upon me thro’ charm, power, However well ye think ye love me now (As sons of kings loving in pupilage ‘ Have turn’d to tyrants when they cai to power) : 2 I rather dread the loss of use than fais Of overstrain’d affection, it may be, 4 To keep me all to your own self,—or els A sudden spurt aie woman’s jealousy,— a4 wrath: ‘Have I not sworn? Good ! Well, hide it, hide it ; I shall find it And being found take heed of Vivien. A woman and not trusted, doubtless I Might feel some sudden turn of anger b a Of your misfaith ; and your fine epith Is accurate too, for this full love of Without the full heart back may merit Your term of overstrain’d. So used My daily wonder is, I love at all. — And as to woman’s jealousy, O why O to what end, except a jealous one, And one to make me jealous if I love, | Was this fair charm invented by your I well believe that all about this wo Ye cage a buxom captive here and t Closed in the four walls of a hollow t From which is no escape for evermo I am not alle Then the great Master merrily answer’d her: ‘Full many a love in loving youth was ; mine ; I needed then no charm to keep them mine MERLIN AND VIVIEN. 389 Unbidden, and the brutes of mountain back That carry kings in castles, bow’d black knees Of homage, ringing with their serpent hands, But youth and love ; and that full heart of yours Whereof ye prattle, may now assure you mine ; So live uncharm’d. wrought it first, The wrist is parted from the hand that waved, The feet unmortised from their ankle- bones Who paced it, ages back: but will ye hear The legend as in guerdon for your rhyme? For those who © There lived a king in the most Eastern | East, Less old than I, yet older, for my blood Hath earnest in it of far springs to be. ‘A tawny pirate anchor’d in his port, Whose bark had plunder’d twenty name- | less isles ; And passing one, at the high peep of dawn, Ae saw two cities in a thousand boats All fighting for a woman on the sea. ‘And pushing his black craft among them all, de lightly scatter’d theirs and brought | her off, With loss of half his people arrow-slain ; maid so smooth, so white, so wonderful, They said a light came from her when she moved : And a the pirate would not yield her The a impaled him for his piracy ; hen made her Queen: but those isle- ii nurtured eyes Yaged such unwilling tho’ successful war Jn all the youth, they sicken’d ; councils thinn’d, and armies waned, for magnet -like she |: drew vhe rustiest iron of old fighters’ hearts ; and beasts themselves would worship ; | camels knelt To make her smile, her golden ankle-bells. What wonder, being jealous, that he sent His horns of proclamation out thro’ all The hundred under-kingdoms that he sway’d To find a wizard who might teach the King Some charm, which being wrought upon the Queen Might keep her all his own : to such a one He promised more than ever king has given, A league of mountain full of golden mines, A province with a hundred miles of coast, A palace and a princess, all for him : But on all those who tried and fail’d, the King Pronounced a dismal sentence, meaning by it To keep the list low and pretenders back, Or like a king, not to be trifled with— Their heads should moulder on the city gates, And many tried and fail’d, because the charm Of nature in her overbore their own : And many a wizard brow bleach’d on the walls : And many weeks a troop of carrion crows Hung like a cloud above the gateway towers.’ And Vivien breaking inupon him, said: ‘I sit and gather honey ; yet, methinks, Thy tongue has tripta little: ask thyself. The lady never made zzewe/iing war With those fine eyes: she had her pleasure eataie: And made her good man jealous with good cause. And lived there neither dame nor damsel then Wroth at a lover’s loss? were all as tame, I mean, as noble, as their Queen was fair? Not one to flirt a venom at her eyes, 398 Or pinch a murderous dust into her drink, Or make her paler with a poison’d rose? Well, those were not our days: but did they find A wizard? Tell me, was he like to thee?’ She ceased, and made her lithe arm round his neck Tighten, and then drew back, and let her eyes Speak for her, glowing on him, like a bride’s On her new lord, her own, the first of men. He answer’d laughing, ‘ Nay, not like to me. At last they found—his foragers for charms— A little glassy-headed hairless man, Who lived alone in a great wild on grass ; Read but one book, and ever reading grew So grated down and filed away with thought, So lean his eyes were monstrous ; while the skin Clung but to crate and basket, ribs and spine. And since he kept his mind on one sole aim, Nor ever touch’d fierce wine, nor tasted flesh, Nor own’d asensual wish, to him the wall That sunders ghosts and shadow-casting men Became a crystal, and he saw them thro’ it, And heard their voices talk behind the wall, And learnt their elemental secrets, powers And forces ; often o’er the sun’s bright eye Drew the vast eyelid of an inky cloud, And lash’d it at the base with slanting storm ; Or in the noon of mist and driving rain, When the lake whiten’d and the pinewood roar’d, And the cairn’d mountain was a shadow, sunn’d The world to peace again: here was the man, MERLIN AND VIVIEN. And then he taught the King to cha m And so by force they dragg’d him to_ the King. the Queen | In such-wise, that no man could see her more, 2 Nor saw she save the King, who wroug ght the charm, . Coming and going, and she lay as deat And lost all use of life: but when the King Made proffer of the league of golden mines, The province witha hundred miles of coas The palace and the princess, that old Went back to his old wild, and live grass, a And vanish’ d, and his book came dow mn to me.’ | And Vivien answer’d smiling saucily; ‘Ye have the book: the charm is writt eI in it: a take my counsel : let me know i it at once: For keep it like a puzzle chest in chest a With each chest lock’d and padlock d thirty-fold, And whelm all this beneath as vast mound a As after furious battle turfs the slain On some wild down above the windy deep, — I yet should strike upon a sudden means To dig, pick, open, find and read tl he | charm : 4 Then, if I tried it, who should blame me then ?? | Good : “a * And smiling as a master smiles at one That is not of his school, nor any school — But that where blind and naked Ignorance | Delivers brawling judgments, unasham On all things all day long, he answer’d he ‘ Thou read the book, my pretty Vivien! O ay, it is but twenty pages long, ‘ But every page having an ample marge, And every marge enclosing in the midst A square of text that looks a little blot, The text no larger than the limbs of fle And every square of text an awful cha Writ in a language that has long gone So long, that mountains have arisen simce MERLIN AND VIVIEN. With cities on their flanks—thou read the book ! And every margin scribbled, crost, and cramm’d With comment, densest condensation, hard To mind and eye ; but the long sleepless nights ; If my long life have made it easy to me. And none can read the text, not even I; And none can read the comment but myself ; And in the comment did I find the charm. J, the results are simple ; a mere child Might use it to the harm of anyone, {nd never could undo it: ask no more: for tho’ you should not prove it upon me, jut keep that oath ye sware, ye might, perchance, \ssay it on some one of the Table Round, And all Beaause ye dream they babble of you.’ _ And Vivien, frowning in true anger, | said : What dare the full-fed liars say of me? ‘hey vide abroad redressing human wrongs ! “hey sit with knife in meat and wine in . horn ! hey bound to holy vows of chastity ! Vere I not woman, I could tell a tale. “ut you are man, you well can understand “he shame that cannot be explain’d for shame. “ot one of all the drove should touch me: | swine !” _ Then answer’d Merlin careless of her words: You breathe but accusation vast and ; vague, dleen-born, I think, and proofless. If . ye know, st up the charge ye know, to stand or fall!’ “And Vivien answer’d frowning wrath- | fully : y ay, what say ye to Sir Valence, him ‘hose kinsman left him watcher o’er his wife | ' | i ' 391 And two fair babes, and went to distant lands ; Wasone year gone, and on returning found Not two but three ? there lay the reckling, one But one hour old! What said the happy sire ? Aseven-months’ babe had beena truer gift. Those twelve sweet moons confused his fatherhood.’ Then answer’d Merlin, the tale. Sir Valence wedded with an outland dame: Some cause had kept him sunder’d from his wife : One child they had: she died : His kinsman travelling on his own affair Was charged by Valence to bring home the child. He brought, not found it therefore : the truth,’ ‘Nay, I know it lived with her: take ‘O ay,’ said Vivien, ‘ overtrue a tale. What say ye then to sweet Sir Sagramore, That ardent man? ‘‘to pluck the flower in season,” So says the song, ‘‘I trowit is no treason.” O Master, shall we call him overquick To crop his own sweet rose before the hour ?’ And Merlin answer’d, ‘ Overquick art thou To catch a loathly plume fall’n from the win Of that foul bird of rapine whose whole Brey, Is man’s good name: his bride. I know the tale. An angry gust of wind Puff’d out his torch among the myriad- he never wrong’d room’d And many-corridor’d complexities Of Arthur’s palace : then he found a door, And darkling felt the sculptured ornament That wreathen round it made it seem his own ; And wearied out made for the couch and slept, 392 MERLIN AND VIVIEN. A stainless man beside a stainless maid ; And either slept, nor knew of other there ; Till the high dawn piercing the royal rose In Arthur’s casement glimmer’d chastely down, Blushing upon them blushing, and at once He rose without a word and parted from hers But when the thing was blazed about the court, The brute world howling forced them into bonds, And as it chanced they are happy, being pure. ‘O ay,’ said Vivien, ‘that were likely too. What say ye then to fair Sir Percivale And of the horrid foulness that he wrought, The saintly youth, the spotless lamb of Christ, Or some black wether of St. Satan’s fold. What, in the precincts of the chapel-yard, Among the knightly brasses of the graves, And by the cold Hic Jacets of the dead !’ -And Merlin answer’d careless of her charge, ‘A sober rian is Percivale and pure ; But once in life was fluster’d with new wine, Then paced for coolness in the chapel- yard ; Where one of Satan’s shepherdesses caught And meant to stamp him with her master’s mark ; And that he sinn’d is not believable ; For, look upon his face !—but ifhe sinn’d, The sin that practice burns into the blood, And not the one dark hour which brings remorse, Will brand us, after, of whose fold we be : . Or else were he, the holy king, whose hymns Are chanted in the minster, worse than all. But is your spleen froth’d out, or have ye more ?’ And Vivien answer’d frowning yet in wrath : ‘O ay; what say ye to Sir Lancelot, friend. Traitor or true? that commerce with th Queen, = I ask you, is it clamour’d by the child, _ Or whisper’d in the corner? do ye know reRe e her walls. A rumour runs, she took him for the Ki So fixt her fancy on him: let them b But have ye no one word of loyal pra For Arthur, blameless King and stainle man ?’ She answer’d with a low and chuckling laugh : q ‘Man! is he man at all, who knows and winks ? be Sees what his fair bride is and does, and winks ? By which the good King means to blind himself, J And blinds himself andallthe Table Round To all the foulness that they work, Mys lt Could call him (were it not for womanho¢ The pretty, popular name such manh 001 earns, 4 Could call him the main cause of all crime ; a Yea, were he not crown’d King, cowl and fool.’ Then Merlin to his own heart, loathing, said : ‘O true and tender ! King ! O selfless man and stainless gentlem Who wouldst against thine own eye-wit ness fain O my liege and pure ; , How, in the mouths of base interpreters, From over-fineness not intelligible 4 To things with every sense as false and fou! As the poach’d filth that floods the m street, oe Is thy white blamelessness accou ho id blame !’ . 7 q But Vivien, deeming Merlin overborne By instance, recommenced, and let her tongue Rage like a fire among the noblest names, Polluting, and imputing her whole self, Defaming and defacing, till she left Not even Lancelot brave, nor Galahad clean. : Her words had issue other than she will’d. de dragg’d his eyebrow bushes down, and made \ snowy penthouse for his hollow eyes, And mutter’d in himself, ‘Tell Zer the charm ! 5o, if she had it, would she rail on me Yo snare the next, and if she have it not yowill she rail. What did the wanton say? ‘Not mount as high; ” we scarce can sink as low: for men at most differ as Heaven and | earth, 3ut women, worst and best, as Heaven | and Hell. | know the Table Round, my friends of old ; ll brave, and many generous, and some chaste. he cloaks the scar of some repulse with lies ; well believe she tempted them and fail’d, eing so bitter: for fine plots may fail, ho’ harlots paint their talk as well as face /ith colours of the heart that are not theirs, will not let her know: nine tithes of times ace-flatterer and backbiter are the same. nd they, sweet soul, that most impute a crime re pronest to it, and impute themselves, Janting the mental range ; or low desire ot to feel lowest makes them level all ; ea, they would pare the mountain to the plain, 9 leave an equal baseness ; and in this re harlots like the crowd, that if they find ome stain or blemish in a name of note, ot grieving that their greatest are so small, MERLIN AND VIVIEN. 393 themselves with some insane delight, And judge all nature from her feet of clay, Without the will to lift their eyes, and see Her godlike head crown’d with spiritual fire, And touching other worlds. of her.’ Inflate I am weary He spoke in words part heard, in whispers part, Half-suffocated in the hoary fell And many-winter’d fleece of throat and chin. But Vivien, gathering somewhat of his mood, And hearing ‘harlot’ mutter’d twice or thrice, Leapt from her session on his lap, and stood Stiff as a viper frozen ; loathsome sight, How from the rosy lips of life and love, Flash’d the bare-grinning skeleton of death ! White was her cheek; sharp breaths of anger puff'd Her fairy nostril out; her hand _ half- clench’d Went faltering sideways downward to her belt, And feeling; had she found a dagger there (For in a wink the false love turns to hate) She would have stabb’d him; but she found it not : His eye was calm, and suddenly she took To bitter weeping like a beaten child, A long, long weeping, not consolable. Then her false voice made way, broken with sobs : ‘O crueller than was ever told in tale, Or sung in song! O vainly lavish’d love ! O cruel, there was nothing wild or strange, Or seeming shameful—for what shame in love, So love be true, and not as yours is— nothing Poor Vivien had not done to win his trust 394 Who call’d her what he call’d her—all her crime, All—all—the wish to prove him wholly hers.’ She mused a little, and then clapt her hands Together with a wailing shriek, and said: ‘Stabb’d through the heart’s affections to the heart ! Seethed like the kid in its own mother’s milk ! Kall’d with a word worse than a life of blows ! I thought that he was gentle, being great: O God, that I had loved a smaller man ! I should have found in him a greater heart. _O, I, that flattering my true passion, saw The knights, the court, the King, dark in your light, Who loved to make men darker than they are, Because of that high pleasure which I had To seat you sole upon my pedestal Of worship—I am answer’d, and hence- forth The course of life that seem’d so flowery to me With you for guide and master, only you, Becomes the sea-cliff pathway broken short, And ending in a ruin—nothing left, But into some low cave to crawl, and there, If the wolf spare me, weep my life away, Kall’d with inutterable unkindliness.’ She paused, she turn’d away, she hung her head, The snake of gold slid from her hair, the braid Slipt and uncoil’d itself, she wept afresh, And the dark wood grew darker toward the storm In silence, while his anger slowly died Within him, till he let his wisdom go For ease of heart, and half believed her trues MERLIN AND VIVIEN. : Upright and flush’d before him: Call’d her to shelter in the hollow oak, ‘Come from the storm,’ and having 1 4 reply, Gazed at the heaving shoulder, and the face 2 Hand-hidden, as for utmost grief or shame ; Then thrice essay’d, by tenderest- -touchilie terms, A To sleek her ruffled peace of mind, in vain. At last she let herself be conquer’d by | And as the cageling newly flown returns, The seeming-injured simple-hearted thing Came to her old perch back, and settled there. 4 There while she sat, half-falling from his knees, Half-nestled at his heart, and since he sz The slow tear creep from her closed eye lid yet, ee: About her, more in kindness than in love, The gentle wizard cast a shielding arm, But she dislink’d herself at once and rose, Her arms upon her breast across, and. stood, A virtuous gentlewoman deeply wrong then she said : | - ‘There must be now no passages of love Betwixt us twain henceforward evermore; Since, if I be what I am grossly call’d, What should be granted which your own gross heart | Would reckon worth the taking? I will go. i In truth, but one thing now—better have died ca Thrice than have ask’d it once—could make me stay— That proof of trust—so often askid in vain ! “AY, How justly, after that vile term of yours, I find with grief! I might believe - then, Who knows? once more. Lo! what ws once to me : 3 Mere matter of the fancy, now hath ie The vast necessity of heart and life. i I farewell ; think gently of me, for I fear ily fate or folly, passing gayer youth ‘or one so old, must be to love thee still. gut ere I leave thee let me swear once more “hat if I schemed against thy peace in | this, fay yon just heaven, that darkens o’er . me, send ’ne flash, that, missing all things else, may make ily scheming brain a cinder, if I lie.’ Scarce had she ceased, when out of heaven a bolt ‘or now the storm was close above them) struck, arrowing a giant oak, and javelining ‘ith darted spikes and splinters of the wood ae dark earth round. He raised his | eyes and saw ie tree that shone white-listed thro’ the gloom. tt Vivien, fearing heaven had heard her jam §©6oath, ad dazzled by the livid-flickering fork, ad deafen’d with the stammering cracks and claps iat follow’d, flying back and crying out, ) Merlin, tho’ you do not love me, save, )t save me!’ clung to him and hugg’d | him close ; id call’d him dear protector in her fright, w yet forgot her practice in her fright, %t wrought upon his mood and hugg’d | him close. 7 e pale blood of the wizard at her touch 7 ok gayer colours, like an opal warm’d. Ye blamed herself for telling hearsay . tales : ¥e shook from fear, and for her fault [= she wept petulancy ; she call’d him lord and + siiege, Bs seer, her bard, her silver star of eve, ix God, her Merlin, the one passionate love ‘her whole life ; and ever overhead LANCELOT AND ELAINE. 325 Bellow’d the tempest, and the rotten branch Snapt in the rushing of the river-rain Above them ; and in change of glare and gloom Her eyes and neck glittering went and came ; Till now the storm, its burst of passion spent, Moaning and calling out of other lands, Had left the ravaged woodland yet once more To peace; and what should not have been had been, For Merlin, overtalk’d and overworn, Had yielded, told her all the charm, and slept. Then, in one moment, she put forth the charm Of woven paces and of waving hands, And in the hollow oak he lay as dead, And lost to life and use and name and fame. Then crying ‘I have made his glory mine,’ And shrieking out ‘O fool!’ the harlot leapt Adown the forest, and the thicket closed Behind her, and the forest echo’d ‘ fool.’ LANCELOT AND ELAINE. ELAINE the fair, Elaine the loveable, Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat, High in her chamber up a tower to the east Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot ; Which first she placed where morning’s earliest ray Might strike it, and awake her with the gleam ; Then fearing rust or soilure fashion’d for it A case of silk, and braided thereupon All the devices blazon’d on the shield In their own tinct, and added, of her wit, A border fantasy of branch and flower, And yellow-throated nestling in the nest. Nor rested thus content, but day by day, 396 Leaving her household and good father, climb’d | That eastern tower, and entering barr’d her door, Stript off the case, and read the naked shield, Now guess’d a hidden meaning in his arms, Now made a pretty history to herself Of every dint a sword had beaten in it, And every scratch a lance had made upon it, Conjecturing when and where: this cut is fresh ; That ten years back; this dealt him at Caerlyle ; That at Caerleon ; this at Camelot : And ah God’s mercy, what a stroke was there ! And here a thrust that might have kill’d, but God Broke the strong lance, and roll’d his enemy down, And saved him: so she lived in fantasy. How came the lily maid by that good shield Of Lancelot, she that knew not ev’n his name ? He left it with her, when he rode to tilt For the great diamond in the diamond jousts, Which Arthur had ordain’d, and by that name Had named them, since a diamond was the prize. For Arthur, long before they crown’d him King, Roving the trackless realms of Lyonnesse, Had found a glen, gray boulder and black tarn. A horror lived about the tarn, and clave Like its own mists to all the mountain side : For here two brothers, one a king, had met And fought together; but their names were lost ; And each had slain his brother at a blow; LANCELOT AND ELAINE. And down they fell and made the ¢ abhorr’d : And there they lay till all their bal were bleach’d, a And lichen’d into Soloute with the cra And he, that once was king, had o crown Of diamonds, one in front, and four asi And Arthur came, and labouring up t pass, All in a misty moonshine, unawares Had trodden that crown’d skeleton, and the skull Brake from the nape, and from the the crown Roll’d into light, and turning on its ri Fled like a glittering rivulet to the tarn: And down the shingly scaur he plungs : and caught, And set it on his head, and in his hea Heard murmurs, ‘Lo, thou likewise cal Ut be King.’ Thereafter, when a King, he had the gems . ye Pluck’d from the crown, and show’d th to his knights, 4 ‘These jewels, whereupon 1 chanced 4 Divinely, are the kingdom’s, not the King’s— 4 For public use: henceforward let there Once every year, a joust for one of t For so by nine years’ proof we nk must learn Which is our mightiest, and ourselves shall grow a In use of arms and manhood, till we dri The heathen, who, some say, shall mu the land Hereafter, which God hinder.’ spoke : eo And eight years past, eight jousts been, and still Had Lancelot won the diamond of Saying, year, With purpose to present them to Queen, When all were won; but meaning a once ° snare her royal fancy with a boon Torth half her realm, had never spoken word. ‘Now for the central diamond and the last nd largest, Arthur, holding then his court ard on the river nigh the place which now this world’s hugest, let proclaim a joust t Camelot, and when the time drew nigh jake (for she had been sick) to Guine- vere, \re you so sick, my Queen, you cannot : move » these fair jousts?’ ‘ Yea, lord,’ she said, ‘ye know it.’ “hen will ye miss,’ he answer’d, ‘the : great deeds * Lancelot, and his prowess in the lists, ‘sight ye love to look on.’ And the Queen fted her eyes, and they dwelt languidly a Lancelot, where he stood beside the King. e thinking that he read her meaning there, itay with me, I am sick; my love is more jan many diamonds,’ yielded; and a heart »ve-loyal to the least wish of the Queen ‘owever much he yearn’d to make | complete ie tale of diamonds for his destined boon) ‘ged him to speak against the truth, | and say, ir King, mine ancient wound is hardly whole, id lets me from the saddle;’ and the King anced first at him, then her, and went his way. ) sooner gone than suddenly she began: ‘ To blame, my lord Sir Lancelot, much to blame ! dy go ye not to these fair jousts? the knights LANCELOT AND ELAINE. 397 Are half of them our enemies, and the crowd Will murmur, ‘‘ Lo the shameless ones, who take Their pastime now the trustful King is gone!” ’ Then Lancelot vext at having lied in vain: ‘Are yesowise? ye were not once so wise, My Queen, that summer, when ye loved me first. Then of the crowd ye took nomore account Than of the myriad cricket of the mead, When its own voice clings to each blade of grass, And every voice is nothing, As to knights, Them surely can I silence with all ease. But now my loyal worship is allow’d Of all men: many a bard, without offence, Has link’d our names together in his lay, Lancelot, the flower of bravery, Guine- vere, The pearl of beauty: and our knights at feast Have pledged us in this union, while the King Would listen smiling. there more? Has Arthur spoken aught? or would yourself, Now weary of my service and devoir, Henceforth be truer to your faultless lord?’ How then? is She broke into a little scornful laugh : ‘Arthur, my lord, Arthur, the faultless King, That passionate perfection, my good lord— But who can gaze upon the Sun in heaven? He never spake word of reproach to me, He never had a glimpse of mine untruth, He cares not for me: only here to-day There gleam’d a vague suspicion in his eyes: Some meddling rogue has tamper’d with him—else Rapt in this fancy of his Table Round, And swearing men to vows impossible, To make them like himself: but, friend, to me 398 He is all fault who hath no fault at all: For who loves me must have a touch of earth ; The lowsun makes thecolour: I am yours, Not Arthur’s, as ye know, save by the bond. And therefore hear my words : jousts : The tiny-trumpeting gnat can break our dream When sweetest ; and the vermin voices here May buzz so loud—we scorn them, but they sting.’ go to the Then answer’d Lancelot, the chief of knights : ‘And with what face, after my pretext made, Shall I appear, O Queen, at Camelot, I Before a King who honours his own word, As if it were his God’s ?’ © Yea,’ said the Queen, ‘A moral child without the craft to rule, Else had he not lost me: but listen to me, If I must find you wit : we hear it said That men go down before your spear at a touch, But knowing you are Lancelot; your great name, This conquers : unknown : Win! by this kiss you will: King Will then allow your pretext, knight, As all for glory ; for to speak him true, Ye know right well, how meek soe’er he seem, No keener hunter after glory breathes. He loves it in his knights more than himself : They prove to him his work: win and return.’ hide it therefore; go and our true O my Then got Sir Lancelot suddenly to horse, Wroth at himself. Not willing to be known, He left the barren-beaten thoroughfare, LANCELOT AND ELAINE. Chose the green path that show’d the | rarer foot, a And there among the solitary downs, — Full often lost in fancy, lost his way ; Till as he traced a faintly-shadow’d track, That all in loops and links a the dales Ran to the Castle of Astolat, he saw Fired from the west, far on a hill, the — towers. i" Thither he made, and blew the gateway horn. Then came an old, dumb, myriad wrinkled man, Who let him into lodging and disarm’d. And Lancelot marvell’d at the wordless MW man ; And issuing found the Lord of Astolatme | With two strong sons, Sir Torre and Sir Lavaine, Moving to meet him in the castle court ;_ And close behind them stept the lily maid | Elaine, his daughter: mother of the house — There was not: some light jest —_ them rose With laughter dying down as the great knight Approach’d them : Astolat : ‘Whence comest thou, my guest, and a what name Livest between the lips? for by thy shite | And presence I might guess thee chief a those, After the King, who eat in Arthur’s halls. Him have I seen: the rest, his Table Round, | Known as they are, to me they are un-— known.’ ' | v4 4 then the Lord |. Then answer’d Lancelot, the chief of — knights : ‘Known am I, and of Arthur's hall, = | nome What I by mere mischance have brought, my shield. But since I go to joust as one unknown At Camelot for the diamond, ask me not, Hereafter ye shall know me—and the shield — ’ ; i it = LANCELOT AND ELAINE. 229 I pray you lend me one, if such you have, Blank, or at least with some device not ‘ mine.’ Then said the Lord of Astolat, ‘ Here is Torre’s: Hart in his first tilt was my son, Sir Torre. And so, God wot, his shield is blank enough. ‘His ye can have.’ Torre, ‘Yea, since I cannot use it, ye may have it. Here laugh’d the father saying, ‘Fie, Sir Churl, Ts that an answer for a noble knight? Allow him! but Lavaine, my younger here, He is so full of lustihood, he will ride, Joust for it, and win, and bring it in an hour, And set it in this damsel’s golden hair, To make her thrice as wilful as before.’ Then added plain Sir ‘Nay, father, nay good father, shame me not Before this noble knight,’ said young Lavaine, ‘For nothing. PPOrre Heseem’d so sullen, vext he could not go: A jest, no more! for, knight, the maiden dreamt That some one put this diamond in her hand, And that it was too slippery to be held, And slipt and fell intosome pool orstream, The castle-well, belike ; and then I said That 7f I went and z/I fought and won it (But all was jest and joke among ourselves) Then must she keep it safelier. All was jest. Surely I but play’d on But, father, give me leave, an if he will, - To ride to Camelot with this noble knight : Win shall I not, but do my best to win: Young as I am, yet would I do my best.’ ‘So ye will grace me,’ answer’d Lancelot, Smiling a moment, ‘ with your fellowship O’er these waste downs whereon I lost myself, Then were I glad of you as guide and friend : And you shall win this diamond,—as I hear It is a fair large diamond,—if ye may, And yield it to this maiden, if ye will.’ ‘A fair large diamond,’ added plain Sir arte; ‘Such be for queens, and not for simple maids.’ Then she, who held her eyes upon the ground, Elaine, and heard her name so tost about, Flush’d slightly at theslight disparagement Before the stranger knight, who, looking at her, Full courtly, yet not falsely, thus return’d: ‘If what is fair be but for what is fair, And only queens are to be counted so, Rash were my judgment then, who deem this maid Might wear as fair a jewel as is on earth, Not violating the bond of like to like.’ He spoke and ceased: the lily maid Elaine, Won bythe mellow voice before she look’d, Lifted her eyes, and read his lineaments. The great and guilty love he bare the Queen, In battle with the love he bare his lord, Had marr’d his face, and mark’d it ere his time. Another sinning on such heights with one, The flower of all the west and all the world, Had been the sleeker for it: but in him His mood was often like a fiend, and rose And drove him into wastes and solitudes For agony, who was yet a living soul. Marr’d as he was, he seem’d the goodliest man That ever among ladies ate in hall, And noblest, when she lifted up her eyes. However marr’d, of more than twice her years, Seam’d with an ancient swordcut on the cheek, 400 And bruised and bronzed, she lifted up her eyes And loved him, with that love which was her doom. Then the great knight, the darling of the court, Loved of the loveliest, into that rude hall Stept with all grace, and not with half disdain Hid under grace, as in a smaller time, But kindly man moving among his kind: Whom they with meats and vintage of their best And talk and minstrel melody entertain’d. And much they ask’d of court and Table Round, And ever well and readily answer’d he : But Lancelot, when they glanced at Guinevere, Suddenly speaking of the wordless man, Heard from the Baron that, ten years before, The heathen caught and reft him of his tongue. ‘He learnt and warn’d me of their fierce design Against my house, and him they caught and maim/’d ; But I, my sons, and little daughter fled From bonds or death, and dwelt among the woods By the great river in a boatman’s hut. Dull days were those, till our good Arthur broke The Pagan yet once more on Badon hill.’ ‘ Othere, great lord, doubtless,’ Lavaine said, rapt By all the sweet and sudden passion of youth Toward greatness in its elder, ‘you have fought. O tell us—for we live apart—you know Of Arthur’s glorious wars.’ And Lancelot spoke And answer’d him at full, as having been With Arthur in the fight which all daylong Rang by the white mouth of the violent Glem ; LANCELOT AND ELAINE, Low to her own heart said the lily maid, And in the four loud battles by the sl Of Duglas ; that on Bassa; then the That thunder’d in and out the gicg i} skirts Of Celidon the forest ; and again By castle Gurnion, where the olor King ; Had on his cuirass worn our Lady’ S Head, Carved of one emerald center’d in a sun Of silver rays, that lighten’d as he breathed ; 7 And at Caerleon had he help’d his lorc When the strong neighings of the wi white Horse Set every gilded parapet shuddering ;- : And up in Agned-Cathregonion too, __ And down the waste sand-shores of Trath Treroit, . Where many a heathen fell ; mount Of Badon I myself beheld the King — Charge at the head ofall his Table Round, And all his legions crying Christ and him, And break them ; and I saw him, after, stand 4 | High on a heap of slain, from spur plume = Red as the rising sun with heathen blood, And seeing me, with a great voice hecrie ‘‘ They are broken, they are broken ! yr for the King, However mild he seems at home, nor cares For triumph in our mimic wars, the jousts— For if his own knight cast him down, he | laughs £ ia Saying, his knights are better men ] he— Yet in this heathen war the fire of God _ Fills him: I never saw his like: there lives No gresics leader.’ > | me | While he utter’d this, ‘and on the ‘Save your great self, fair lord ;’ and when he fell ey ' From talk of war to traits of pleasantry—-| Being mirthful he, but in a stately kind— She still took note that when the living smile ; Died from his lips, across him came acloud f melancholy severe, from which again, Vhenever in her hovering to and fro ‘he lily maid had striven to make him cheer, “here brake a sudden-beaming tenderness Yf manners and of nature: and she i thought hat all was nature, all, perchance, for her. nd all night long his face before her lived, s when a painter, poring on a face, livinely thro’ all hindrance finds the man ehind it, and so paints him that his face, he shape and colour of a mind and life, ives for his children, ever at its best nd fullest ; so the face before her lived, vark-splendid, speaking in the silence, full f noble things, and held her from her | sleep. $ | ill rathe she rose, half-cheated in the thought he needs must bid farewell to sweet Lavaine. irst as in fear, step after step, she stole own the long tower-stairs, hesitating : “non, she heard Sir Lancelot cry in the court, This shield, my friend, where is it?’ and Lavaine ast inward, as she came from out the k tower. here to his proud horse Lancelot turn’d, i and smooth’d ; he glossy shoulder, humming to himself. } alf-envious of the flattering hand, she ' drew earer and stood. amazed han if seven men had set upon him, saw he maiden standing in the dewy light. ehad not dream’d she was so beautiful. hen came on him a sort of sacred fear, or silent, tho’ he greeted her, she stood ‘apt on his face as if it were a God’s. addenly flash’d on her a wild desire, hat he should wear her favour at the tilt. te brayed a riotous heart in asking for it. fair lord, whose name I know not— noble it is, : i | He look’d, and more LANCELOT AND ELAINE. 401 I well believe, the noblest—will you wear My favour at this tourney?’ ‘ Nay,’ said he, ‘Fair lady, since I never yet have worn Favour of any lady in the lists. Such is my wont, as those, who know me, know.’ ‘Yea, so,’ she answer’d; ‘then in wearing mine Needs must be lesser likelihood, noble lord, That those who know should know you.’ And he turn’d Her counsel up and down within his mind, And found it true, and answer’d, ‘ True, my child. Well, I will wear it: fetch it out to me: What is it?’ and she told him ‘A red sleeve Broider’d with pearls,’ and brought it: then he bound Her token on his helmet, with a smile Saying, ‘I never yet have done so much For any maiden living,’ and the blood Sprang to her face and fill’d her with delight ; But left her all the paler, when Lavaine Returning brought the yet-unblazon’d shield, His brother’s ; which he gave to Lancelot, Who parted with his own to fair Elaine : ‘Do me this grace, my child, to have my shield In keeping till come.’ ‘A grace to me,’ She answer’d, ‘twice to-day. Iam your squire ! Whereat Lavaine said, laughing, ‘ Lily maid, For fear our people call you lily maid In earnest, let me bring your colour back ; Once, twice, and thrice: now get you hence to bed :’ So kiss’d her, and Sir Lancelot his own hand, And thus they moved away: a minute, Then made a sudden step to the gate, and there— Her bright hair blown about the serious face she stay’d 2D 402 Yet rosy-kindled with her brother’s kiss— Paused by the gateway, standing eel the shield In silence, while she watch’d their arms far-off Sparkle, until they dipt below the downs. Then to her tower she climb’d, and took the shield, There kept it, and so lived in fantasy. Meanwhile the new companions past away Far o’er the long backs of the bushless downs, To where Sir Lancelot knew there lived a knight Not far from Camelot, now for forty years A hermit, who had pray’d, labour’d and pray’d, And ever labouring had scoop’d himself In the white rock a chapel and a hall On massive columns, like a shorecliff cave, And cells and chambers: all were fair and dry ; The green light from the meadows under- neath Struck up and lived along the milky roofs ; And in the meadows tremulous aspen-trees And poplars made a noise of falling showers. And thither wending there that night they bode. But when the next day broke from underground, And shot red fire and shadows thro’ the cave, They rose, heard mass, broke fast, and rode away : Then Lancelot saying, ‘Hear, but hold my name Hidden, you ride with Lancelot of the Lake,’ Abash’d Lavaine, whose instant rever- ence, Dearer to true young hearts than their own praise, But left him leave to stammer, indeed ?” And after muttering ‘ The great Lancelot,’ tics LANCELOT AND ELAINE. At last he got his breath and answerd, ‘One, One have I seen—that other, our lord, The dread ‘Pendragon, Britain’s i 0! kings, Of whom the people talk mysterio He will be there—then were I stri blind 4 That minute, I might say that I had see So spake Lavaine, and when they reach’d the lists d By Camelot in the meadow, let his Run thro’ the peopled gallery which h round Lay like a rainbow fall’n upon the g Until they found the clear-faced sie sat Since to his crown the eal dra clung, And down his robe the dragon writ in gold, And from the carven-work behind J hi . crept ¥ | Two dragons gilded, sloping dowil t make = | Arms for his chair, while all the re st ¢ them Thro’ knots and ree and folds i merable Fled ever thro’ the woodwork, till t ne found The new design wherein they lost then selves, Yet with all ease, so tender was the EA And, in the costly canopy o’er him set, Blazed the last diamond of the namele: king. = | Then Lancelot answer’d young Lawait and said, 2 ‘Me you call great: seat, The truer lance: but there is many ayou Now crescent, who will come to all Ia! And overcome it ; and in me there dwe No greatness, save it be some far-off tow Of greatness to know well I am not grea, mine is the firm “here i is the man.’ upon him 4s on a thing miraculous, and anon | “he trumpets blew ; and then did either side, “hey that assail’d, and they that held the lists, ‘et lance in rest, strike spur, suddenly move, feet in the midst, and there so furiously hock, that a man far-off might well perceive, fany man that day were left afield, he hard earth shake, and a low thunder of arms. and Lancelot bode a little, till he saw Vhich were the weaker ; then he hurl’d into it gainst the stronger : little need to speak i Lancelot in his glory! King, duke, earl, ‘ount, baron—whom he smote, he over- threw. And Lavaine gaped hould do and almost overdo the deeds But in the field were Lancelot’s kith . and kin, ' anged with the Table Round that held j the lists, | aac men, and wrathful that a stranger | knight { | DE Lancelot ; and one said to the other, ‘Loi! | ‘Vhat is he? I do not mean the force | alone— “he grace and versatility of the man ! 3it not Lancelot?’ ‘ When has Lance- lot worn ‘ayour of any lady in the lists? lot such his wont, as we, that know him, ) know.’ ou then? who then?’ a fury seized them all, «fiery family passion for the name f Lancelot, and a glory one with theirs. “hey couch’d their spears and prick’d their steeds, and thus, “heir plumes driv’n a aiwatd by the wind | they made ‘ moying, all together down upon him a ———eEEOEEOEEeEeEeEEEeEeEE———eEeEeEEeE—E——EEEE es lc eee Sr mr LANCELOT AND ELAINE. 403 Bare, as a wild wave inthe wide North-sea, Green-glimmering toward the summit, bears, with all Its stormy crests that smoke against the skies, Down on a bark, and overbears the bark, And him that helms it, so they overbore Sir Lancelot and his charger, and a spear Down-glancing lamed the charger, and a spear Prick’d sharply his own cuirass, and the head Pierced thro’ his side, and there snapt, and remain’d. Then Sir Lavaine did well and wor- shipfully ; He bore a knight of old repute to the earth, And brought his horse to Lancelot where he lay. He up the side, sweating with agony, got, But thought to do while he might yet endure, And being lustily holpen by the rest, His party,—tho’ it seem’d half-miracle To those he fought with,—drave his kith and kin, And all the Table Round that held the lists, Back to the barrier; then the trumpets blew Proclaiming his the prize, who wore the sleeve Of scarlet, and the pearls; and all the knights, His party, cried ‘ Advance and take thy rize Thediamond;’ but heanswer’d, ‘ Diamond me No diamonds ! for God’s love, a little air ! Prize me no prizes, for my prize is death ! Hence will I, and I charge you, follow me not.’ He spoke, and vanish’d suddenly from the field With young Layaine into the poplar grove. There from his charger down he slid, and sat, 4o4 Gasping to Sir Lavaine, ‘ Draw the lance- head :’ ‘Ah my sweet lord Sir Lancelot,’ said Lavaine, ‘I dread me, if I draw it, you will die.’ But he, ‘I die already with it: draw— Draw,’—and Lavaine drew, and Sir Lancelot gave A marvellous great shriek and ghastly groan, And half his blood burst forth, and down he sank For the pure pain, and wholly swoon’d away. Then came the hermit out and bare him in, There stanch’d his wound ; and there, in daily doubt Whether to live or die, for many a week Hid from the wide world’s rumour by the grove Of, poplars with their noise of ORE showers, And ever-tremulous aspen-trees, he lay. But on that day when Lancelot fled the lists, His party, knights of utmost North and West, Lords of waste marches, kings of desolate isles, Came round their great Pendragon, saying to him, ‘Lo, Sire, our knight, thro? whom we won the day, Hath gone sore wounded, and hath left his prize Untaken, crying that his prize is death.’ ‘Heaven hinder,’ said the King, ‘that such an one, So great a knight as we have seen to-day— He seem’d to me another Lancelot— Yea, twenty times I thought him Lance- lot— He must not pass uncared for. fore, rise, O Gawain, and ride forth and find the knight. Wounded and wearied needs must he be near. Where- LANCELOT AND ELAINE. I charge you that you get at once to a And, knights and kings, there breatl es not one of you Will deem this prize of ours is rashly given : His prowess was too wondrous. We ¥ since the knight do him No customary honour: Came not to us, of us to claim the prize Ourselves will send it after. Rise and tak: This diamond, and deliver it, and return And bring us where he is, and how hi fares, 4 And cease not from your quest until - yi find.’ So saying, from thecarven flower above To which it made a restless heart, he took And gave, the diamond : then from wher he sat At Arthur’s right, with smiling face arose With smiling face and frowning heart, Prince In the mid might and flourish of his May Gawain, surnamed The Courteous, fai and strong, And after Lancelot, Tristram, an Geraint And Gareth, a good knight, but there withal Sir Modred’s brother, and the child of Loi Nor often loyal to his word, and now Wroth that the King’s command to sal] forth # In quest of whom he knew not, made hii leave The banquet, and concourse of knigh and kings. So all in wrath he got to horse q went ; While Arthur to the banquet, dark } mood, Past, thinking ‘Is it Lancelot who 7 come - Despite the wound he spake of, all fi gain Of glory, and hath added wound to wouD: And ridd’n away to die?’ So fear’d t) King, { And, after two days’ tarriance there, return’d., Chen when he saw the Queen, embrac- ing ask’d, ‘Love, are you yet so sick?’ ‘Nay, lord,’ she said. And where is Lancelot?’ Then the Queen amazed, | Was he not with you? won he not your prize ?’ | Nay, but one like him.’ ‘Why that like was he.’ \nd when the King demanded how she knew, said, ‘Lord, no sooner had ye parted i from us, ‘Than Lancelot told me of a common talk ‘That men went down before his spear at a touch, 3ut knowing he was Lancelot ; his great name / Sonquer’d ; ; and therefore would he hide | his name From all men, ev’n the King, and to this | end : iaad made the pretext of a hindering ie wound, : hat he might joust unknown of all, and learn {fhis old prowess were in aught decay’d ; And added, ‘‘ Our true Arthur, when he : Ee, win well allow my pretext, as for gain Of purer glory.”’ Then replied the King : I Far lovelier in our Lancelot had it been, In lieu of idly dallying with the truth, To have trusted me as he hath trusted | thee. Surely his King and most familiar friend Might well have kept his secret. True, | indeed, ‘Albeit I know my knights fantastical, 5o fine a fear in our large Lancelot “Must needs have moved my laughter : now remains But little cause for laughter : kin— his own LANCELOT AND ELAINE. a 405 Ill news, my Queen, for all who love him, this !— His kith and kin, not knowing, set upon him ; So that he went sore wounded from the field : Yet good news too: for goodly hopes are mine That Lancelot is no more a lonely heart. He wore, against his wont, upon his helm A sleeve of scarlet, broider’d with great pearls, Some gentle maiden’s gift.’ ‘Yea, lord,’ she said, ‘Thy hopes are mine,’ and saying that, she choked, And sharply turn’d about to hide her face, Past to her chamber, and there flung herself Down on the great King’s couch, and writhed upon it, And clench’d her fingers till they bit the palm, And shriek’d out ‘Traitor’ to the un- hearing wall, Then flash’d into ld tears, and rose again, And moved about her palace, proud and pale. Gawain the while thro’ all the region round Rode with his diamond, wearied of the quest, Touch’d at all points, except the poplar grove, And came at last, tho’ late, to Astolat : Whom glittering in enamell’d arms the maid Glanced at, and cried, Camelot, lord ? What of the knight with the red sleeve ?’ ‘He won.’ ‘T knew it,’ she said. the jousts Hurt in the side,’ whereat she caught her breath ; Thro’ her own side she felt the sharp lance go ; ‘What news from ‘But parted from 406 Thereon she smote her hand: wellnigh she swoon’d : And, while he gazed wonderingly at her, came The Lord of Astolat out, to whom the Prince Reported who he was, and on what quest Sent, that he bore the prize and could not find The victor, but had ridd’n a random round To seek him, and had wearied of the search. To whom the Lord of Astolat, ‘ Bide with us, And ride no more at random, noble Prince ! Here was the knight, and here he left a shield ; This will he send or come for: further- more Our son is with him ; we shall hear anon, Needs must we hear.’ ‘To this the cour- teous Prince Accorded with his wonted courtesy, Courtesy with a touch of traitor in it, And stay’d; and cast his eyes on fair Elaine : Where could be found face daintier ? then her shape From forehead down to foot, perfect— again From foot to forehead exquisitely turn’d : ‘Well—if I bide, lo! this wild flower for me !’ And oft they met among the garden yews, And there he set himself to play upon her With sallying wit, free flashes from a height Above her, graces of the court, and songs, Sighs, and slow smiles, and golden elo- quence And amorous adulation, till the maid Rebell’d against it, saying to him, ‘ Prince, O loyal nephew of our noble King, Why ask you not to see the shield he left, Whence you might learn his name? Why slight your King, And lose the quest he sent you on, and prove LANCELOT AND ELAINE. No surer than our falcon yesterday, _ Who lost the hern we slipt her at, and went To all the winds?’ head,’ said he, ‘I lose it, as we lose the lark in heaven, O damsel, in the light of your blue eyes ; ; But an ye will it let me see the shield.” And when the shield was brought, and Gawain saw Sir Lancelot’s azure lions, crown’d with gold, Ramp in the field, he smote his thi and mock’d: *» ‘Right was the King! our Lancelo that true man!’ ‘And right was I,’ she answer’d merrily, ¢ I, ~~ Who dream’d my knight the create knight of all.’ ‘And if 7 dream’d,’ said Gawain, that ‘Nay, by rife you love This greatest knight, your pardon ! wy ye know it ! Speak therefore: shall I waste myself in vain ?’ Full simple was her answer, ‘ What ‘ene I? My brethren have been all my fell ship ; And I, when often they have talk’d oO love, Wish’d it had been my mother, for the talk’d, Meseem’d, of what they knew nota sc myself— IT know not if I know what true lovell is, But if I know, then, if I love not him, | I know there is none other I can love.’ ‘Yea, by God’s death,’ said he, ‘ye lov. him well, But would not, knew ye what all oie know, 4 And whom he loves.’ ‘So be it,’ crie: Elaine, And lifted her fair face and moved away But he pursued her, calling, ‘ ae little ! One golden minute’s grace! he wor your sleeve : | deula he break faith with one I may not er if you love, it will be sweet to give it ; And if he love, it will be sweet to have it from your own hand; and whether he love or not, A diamond isa diamond. Fare you well . thousand times !—a thousand times farewell ! Tet, if he love, and his love hold, we two fay meet at court hereafter: there, I | think, 50 ye will learn the courtesies of the | court, } Ne two shall know each other.’ | Then he gave, And slightly kiss’d the hand to which he gave, The diamond, and all wearied of the quest : Ra on his horse, and carolling as he went N true-love ballad, lightly rode away. | | Thence to the court he past ; there told the King | What the King knew, ‘Sir Lancelot is the knight.’ ‘ And added, ‘Sire, my liege, so much I learnt ; "But fail'd to’ find him, tho’ I rode all round 7 tr The region: but I lighted on the maid _ Whose sleeve he wore; she loves him; and to her, : Deeming our courtesy is the truest law, \ 1 \ | i LANCELOT AND ELAINE: _name ? {ust our true man change like a leaf at last ? lay—like enow: why then, far be it from me ‘o cross our mighty Lancelot in his | loves ! ind, damsel, for I deem you know full well Vhere your great knight is hidden, let me leave | Ty quest with you; the diamond also: here ! 407 I gave the diamond : she will render it ; For by mine head she knows his hiding- place.’ The seldom-frowning King frown’d, and replied, ‘Too courteous truly! ye shall go no more On quest of mine, seeing that ye forget Obedience is the courtesy due to kings.’ He spake and parted. Wroth, but all in awe, For twenty strokes of the blood, without a word, Linger’d that other, staring after him ; Then shook his hair, strode off, and buzz’d abroad | About the inaid of Astolat, and her love. All ears were prick’d at once, all tongues were loosed: ‘The maid of Astolat loves Sir Lance- lot, Sir Lancelot loves the maid of Astolat.’ Some read the King’s face, some the Queen’s, and all Had marvel what the maid might be, but most Predoom’d her as unworthy. One old dame Came suddenly on the Queen with the sharp news. She, that had heard the noise of it before, But sorrowing Lancelot stoop’d so low, Marr’d her friend’s aim with pale tran- quillity. So ran the tale like fire about the court, Fire in dry stubble a nine-days’ wonder flared : Till ev’n the knights at banquet twice or thrice Forgot to drink to Lancelot and the Queen, And pledging Lancelot and the lily maid Smiled at each other, while the Queen, who sat With lips severely placid, felt the knot Climb in her throat, and with her feet unseen should have 408 LANCELOT AND ELAINE. Crush’d the wild passion out against the floor Beneath the banquet, where the meats became As wormwood, and she hated all who pledged. But far away the maid in Astolat, Her guiltless rival, she that ever kept The one-day-seen Sir Lancelot in her heart, Crept to her father, while he mused alone, Sat on his knee, stroked his gray face and said, ‘Father, you call me wilful, and the fault Is yours who let me have my will, and now, Sweet father, will you let me lose my wits ?’ ‘Nay,’ said he, ‘surely.’ let me hence,’ She answer’d, ‘and find out our dear Lavaine.’ ‘Ye will not lose your wits for dear Lavaine : Bide,’ answer’d he : anon Of him, and of that other.’ said, ‘ And of that other, for I needs must hence And find that other, wheresoe’er he be, And with mine own hand give his diamond to him, Lest I be found as faithless in the quest As yon proud Prince who left the quest to me. Sweet father, I behold him in my dreams Gaunt as it were the skeleton of himself, Death-pale, for lack of gentle maiden’s aid. The gentler-born the maiden, the more bound, My father, to be sweet and serviceable To noble knights in sickness, as ye know When these have worn their tokens: let ‘ Wherefore, ‘we needs must hear * Ay,” she me hence I pray you.’ Then her father nodding said, ‘Ay, ay, the diamond: wit ye well, my child, Right fain were I to learn this kni were whole, Being our greatest : yea, and you mus ao give it— ‘ And sure I think this fruit is hung too high * For any mouth to gape for save a queen’s— Nay, I mean nothing: so then, get you gone, 4 Being so very wilful you must go.’ Lightly, her suit allow’d, she slipt away, And while she made her ready for her ride, te Her father’s latest word humm/’d in her ear, \ ‘ Being so very wilful you must go,’ And changed itself and echo’d in her heart, ‘ Being so very wilful you must die.” But she was happy enough and shook it ou, te As we shake off the bee that buzzes at us; And in her heart she answer’d it and said, ‘ What matter, so I help him back to life?’ Then far away with good Sir Torre for guide Rode o’er the long backs of the bushes downs To Camelot, and before the city-gates Came on her brother with a happy face - Making a roan horse caper and curvet | For pleasure all about a field of flowers» Whom when she saw, ‘ Lavaine,’ she cried, ‘ Lavaine, How fares my lord Sir Lancelot ?” He amazed, . ‘Torre and Elaine! why here? si Lancelot ! How know ye my lord’s name is Laur) lot ?’ But when the maid had told him all he : tale, Then turn’d Sir Torre, and being in bi 7 moods Left them, and under the strange- tale gate, ; Where Arthur’s wars were render’ mystically, Past up the still rich city to his kin, dis own far blood, which dwelt at Camelot ; \nd her, Lavaine across the poplar grove ued to the caves: there first she saw the . casque If Lancelot on the wall: her scarlet sleeve, Cho’ carved and cut, and half the pearls | away, ‘5tream’d from it still; and in her heart she laugh’d, 3ecause he had not loosed it from his helm, 3ut meant once more perchance to tour- ney in it. \nd when they gain’d the cell wherein he slept, dis battle-writhen arms and mighty hands ay naked on the wolfskin, and a dream Of dragging down his enemy made them move. Chen she that saw him lying unsleek, | unshorn, zaunt as it were the skeleton of himself, Jtter’d a little tender dolorous cry. The sound not wonted in a place so still Woke the sick knight, and while he roll’d his eyes le et blank from sleep, she started to him, saying, _ Your prize the diamond sent you by the | King :’ is eyes glisten’d: she fancied ‘Is it for me ?’ And when the maid had told him all the tale of King and Prince, the diamond sent, the quest Assign’d to her not worthy of it, she knelt “ull lowly by the corners of his bed, And laid the diamond in his open hand. der face was near, and as we kiss the child | Uhat does the task assign’d, he kiss’d her face. _ \t once she slipt like water 6 the floor. | Alas,’ he said, ‘your ride hath wearied you. Rest must you have.’ she said ; ‘No rest for me,’ i | | i) | | LANCELOT AND ELAINE. 409 ‘Nay, for near you, fair lord, I am at rest.’ What might she mean by that ? his large black eyes, — Yet larger thro’ his leanness, dwelt upon her, Till all her heart’s sad secret blazed itself In the heart’s colours on her simple face ; And Lancelot look’d and was perplext in- mind, And being weak in body said no more ; But did not love the colour; woman’s love, Save one, he not regarded, and so turn’d Sighing, and feign’d a sleep until he slept. Then rose Elaine and glided thro’ the fields, And past beneath the weirdly-sculptured gates Far up the dim rich city to her kin ; There bode the night: but woke with dawn, and past Down thro’ the dim rich city to the fields, Thence to the cave: so day by day she ast In either twilight ghost-like to and fro Gliding, and every day she tended him, And likewise many a night: and Lancelot Would, tho’ he call’d his wound a little hurt Whereof he should be quickly whole, at times Brain-feverous in his heat and agony, seem Uncourteous, even he: maid Sweetly forbore him ever, being to him Meeker than any child to a rough nurse, Milder than any mother to a sick child, And never woman yet, since man’s first fall, Did kindlier unto man, but her deep love Upbore her ; till the hermit, skill’d in alk The simples and the science of that time, Told him that her fine care had saved his life. And the sick man forgot her simple blush, Would call her friend and sister, sweet Elaine, Would listen for her coming and regret but the meek AIO LANCELOT AND ELAINE. Her parting step, and held her tenderly, And loved her with all love except the love Of man and woman when they love their best, Closest and sweetest, and had died the death In any knightly fashion for her sake. And peradventure had he seen her first She might have made this and that other world Another world for the sick man; but now The shackles of an old love straiten’d him, His honour rooted in dishonour stood, And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. Yet the great knight in his mid-sick- ness made Full many a holy vow and pure resolve. These, as but born of sickness, could not live : For when the blood ran lustier in him again, Full often the bright image of one face, Making a treacherous quiet in his heart, Dispersed his resolution like a cloud. Then if the maiden, while that ghostly grace Beam’d on his fancy, spoke, he answer’d not, Or short and coldly, and she knew right well What the rough sickness meant, but what this meant She knew not, and the sorrow dimm’d her sight, And drave her ere her time across the fields Far into the rich city, where alone She murmur’d, ‘ Vain, in vain: it cannot be. He will not love me: how then? must I die?’ Then as a little helpless innocent bird, That has but one plain passage of few notes, Will sing the simple passage o’er and o’er For all an April morning, till the ear Wearies to hear it, so the simple maid Went half the night repeating, ‘ Must I die?’ . And now to right she turn’d, and now left, . And found no ease in turning or in ra And ‘Him or death,’ ‘death or him,’ Again and like a burthen, ‘ Him or death she mutter qd, was whole, To Astolat returning rode the three. But when Sir Lancelot’s deadly 7 There morn by morn, arraying her a self F In that wherein she deem’d she look’d her best, She came Helate Sir Lancelot, for s e thought ‘If I be loved, these are my festal robes, If not, the victim’s flowers before he fall And Lancelot ever prest upon the maid That she should ask some goodly gift of him | For her own self or hers; ‘and do not shun : To speak the wish most near to your te heart ; Such service have ye done me, that I rate My will of yours, and Prince and cy am I In mine own land, and what I will I can.’ Then like a ghost she lifted up her face, But like a ghost without the powsl ge speak. And Lancelot saw that she withheld her wish, : | And bode among them yet a little space | Till he should learn it ; and one mom ii chanced | He found her in among the garden yews And said, ‘Delay no longer, speak yl wish, Seeing I go to-day :’ then out she bralie | ‘Going ? and we shall never see you more And I must die for want of one bold word. ‘Speak : that I live to hear,’ he said, ei yours.’ Then suddenly and passionately she = | ‘I have gone mad. I love you: let m die.” : LANCELOT AND ELAINE. AII | Ah, sister,’ answer’d Lancelot, ‘ what is this ?” .nd innocently extending her white arms, Your love,’ she said, ‘ your love—to be your wife.’ ind Lancelot answer’d, to wed, had been eeided earlier, sweet Elaine : sut now sere never will be wife of mine.’ No, no,’ she cried, ‘I care not to be wife, tut to be with you still, to see your face, “o serve you, and to follow you thro’ the world.’ ind Lancelot answer’d, ‘ Nay, the world, the world, ill ear and eye, with such a stupid heart ‘o interpret ear and eye, and such a tongue ’o blare its own interpretation—nay, “ull ill then should I quit your brother’s love, and your good father’s kindness.’ she said, ‘Had I chosen And Not to be withyou, not to see your face— las for me then, my good days are done.’ Nay, noble maid,’ he answer’d, ‘ten | times nay ! vhis is not love: but love’s first flash in youth, Aost common: yea, I know it of mine own self: _ ind you yourself will smile at your own ; self Tereafter, when you yield your flower of life “o one more fitly yours, not thrice your | age : ind then will I, for true you are and sweet : Beyond mine old belief in womanhood, “ore specially should your good knight be poor, | | indow you with broad land and territory e to the half my realm beyond the seas, 30 that would make you happy : further- 7 more, ‘vn to the death, as tho’ ye were my | blood, 2. ay av In all your quarrels will I be your knight. This will I do, dear damsel, for your sake, And more than this I cannot.’ While he spoke She neither blush’d nor shook, but deathly-pale Stood grasping what was nearest, then replied : ‘Of all this will I nothing ;’ and so fell, And thus they bore her swooning to her tower. Then spake, to whom thro’ those black walls of yew Their talk had pierced, her father : a flash, I fear me, that will strike my blossom dead. Too courteous are ye, fair Lord Lancelot. I pray you, use some rough discourtesy To blunt or break her passion.’ ‘¢ Ay, Lancelot said, ‘That were against me: what I can I will ;’ And there that day remain’d, and toward even Sent for his shield: full meekly rose the maid, Stript off the case, and gave the naked shield ; Then, when she heard his horse upon the stones, Unclasping flung the casement back, and look’d Down on his helm, from which her sleeve had gone. And Lancelot knew the little clinking sound ; And she by tact of love was well aware That Lancelot knew that she was looking at him. And yet he glanced not up, nor waved his hand, Nor bad farewell, but sadly rode away. This was the one discourtesy that he used. So in her tower alone the maiden sat : His very shield was gone; only the case, Her own poor work, her empty labour, left. AI2 ‘LANCELOT AND ELAINE. But still she heard him, still his picture form’d And grew between her and the pictured wall. Then came her father, saying in low tones, ‘Have comfort,’ whom she greeted quietly. Then came her brethren saying, ‘ Peace to thee, Sweet sister,” whom she answer *d with all calm. But when they left her to herself again, Death, like a friend’s voice from a distant field Approaching thro’ the darkness, call’d ; the owls Wailing had power upon her, and she mixt Her fancies with the sallow-rifted glooms Of evening, and the moanings of the wind. And in those days she made a little song, And call’d her song ‘The Song of Love and Death,’ And sang it: sweetly could she make and sing. ‘Sweet is true love tho’ given in vain, in vain ; And sweet is death who puts an end to pain : T know not which is sweeter, no, not I. ‘Love, art thou sweet? then bitter death must be: Love, thou art bitter; sweet is death to me. © Love, if death be sweeter, let me die. ‘Sweet love, that seems not made to fade away, Sweet death, that seems to make us love- less clay, I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. ‘T fain would follow love, if that could be ; I needs must follow death, who calls for me ; Call and I follow, 1 follow ! let me die.’ _ High with the last line scaled her v: oi e, and this, All in a fiery dawning wild with wind That shook her tower, the brothers he and thought ; With shuddering, ‘ Hark the Phantom o the house & That ever shrieks before a death,’ anc call’d ¥ The father, and all three in hurry and fea Ran to her, and lo! the blood-red ligh of dawn 2 Flared on her face, she shrilling, ‘Le me die!’ a rs As when we dwell upon a word wi know, Repeating, till the word we know so - Becomes a wonder, and we know not why So dwelt the father on her face, an thought ‘Ts this Elaine ?’ till back the maiden fell Then gave a languid hand to each, an lay, Speaking a still good-morrow with he eyes. At last she said, ‘Sweet brothers, yeste night I seem’d a curious little maid again, — As happy as when we dwelt among th woods, And when ye used to take me with th flood Up the great river in the boatman’s boa Only ye would not pass beyond the capi That has the poplar on it: there ye fixt| Your limit, oft returning with the tide. And yet I cried because ye would not pa: Beyond it, and far up the shining flood Until we found the palace of the King. | And yet ye would not; but this niet | dream’d. That I was all alone upon the flood, And then I said, ‘‘ Now shall I have m will :” And there I woke, but still the wis remain’d. So let me hence that I may pass at last Beyond the poplar and far up the flood,’ Until I find the palace of the King. | _ ~here will I enter in among them all, And no man there will dare to mock at me ; ‘But there the fine Gawain will wonder at 7 | me, ' \nd there the great Sir Lancelot muse i at me ; _ zawain, who bad a thousand farewells to ; me, ' Lancelot, who coldly went, nor bad me i one : _\nd there the King will know me and my love, ~ \nd there the Queen herself will pity me, \nd all the gentle court will welcome me, ' And after my long voyage I shall rest !’ ‘Peace,’ said her father, ‘O my child, z ye seem vight- -headed, for what force is yours to go _ 30 far, being sick? and wherefore would | ye look j Jn this proud fellow again, who scorns | us all?’ i | Then the rough Torre began to heave | and move, “And bluster into stormy sobs and say, t never loved him: an I meet with him, . care not Rowsoever great he be, Then will I strike at him and strike him down, sive me good fortune, I will strike him dead, For this Giscomfort he hath done the I house.’ py To whom the gentle sister made reply, ‘Fret not yourself, dear brother, nor be wroth, i seting itis no more Sir Lancelot’s fault Not to love me, than it is mine to love Him of all men who seems to me the highest.’ ‘Highest ?’ the father answer’d, echoing ‘highest ?’ (He meant to break the passion in her) “nay, | ’ i} L PANCELOL AND ELAINE. 413 Daughter, I know not what you call the highest ; But this I know, for all the people know it, He lovesthe Queen, and inanopen shame: And she returns his love in open shame; If this be high, what is it to be low?’ Then spake the lily maid of Astolat : ‘ Sweet father, all too faint and sick am I For anger: these are slanders: never yet Was noble man but made ignoble talk. He makes no friend who never made a foe. But now it is my glory to have loved One peerless, without stain: so let me pass, My father, howsoe’er I seem to you, Not all unhappy, having loved God’s best And greatest, tho’ my love had no return : Yet, seeing you desire your child to live, Thanks, but you work against your own desire ; For if I could believe the things you say I should but die the sooner; wherefore cease, Sweet father, and bid call the ghostly man Hither, and let me shrive me clean, and die.’ So when the ghostly man had come and gone, She with a face, bright as for sin forgiven, Besought Lavaine to write as she devised A letter, word for word; and when he ask’d ‘Is it for Lancelot, is it for my dear lord? Then will I bear it gladly ;’ she replied, ‘For Lancelot and the Queen and all the world, But I myself must bear it.’ Then he wrote The letter she devised; which being writ And folded, ‘O sweet father, tender and true, Deny me not,’ she said—‘ ye never yet Denied my fancies—this, however strange, My latest: lay the letter in my hand A little ere I die, and close the hand Upon it; I shall guard it even in death. And when the heat is gone from out my heart, Then take the little bed on which I died 414 For Lancelot’s love, and deck it like the Queen’s For richness, and me also like the Queen In all I have of rich, and lay me on it. And let there be prepared a chariot-bier To take me to the river, and a barge Be ready on the river, clothed in black. I go in state to court, to meet the Queen. There surely I shall speak for mine own self, And none of you can speak for me so well. And therefore let our dumb old man alone Go with me, he can steer and row, and he Will guide me to that palace, to the doors.’ She ceased : whereupon She grew so cheerful that they deem’d her death Was rather in the fantasy than the blood. But ten slow mornings past, and on the eleventh Her father laid the letter in her hand, And closed the hand upon it, and she died. So that day there was dole in Astolat. her father promised ; But when the next sun brake from underground, Then, those two brethren slowly with bent brows Accompanying, the sad chariot-bier Past like a shadow thro’ the field, that shone Full-summer, to that stream whereon the barge, Pall’d all its length in blackest samite, lay. There sat the lifelong creature of the house, Loyal, the dumb old servitor, on deck, Winking his eyes, and twisted all his face. ° Sothose two brethren from the chariot took And on the black decks laid her in her bed, Set in her hand a lily, o’er her hung The silken case with braided blazonings, And kiss’d her quiet brows, and saying to o her ‘Sister, farewell for ever,’ and again ‘Farewell, sweet sister,’ parted all in tears. Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the dead, LANCELOT AND ELAINE. Oar’d by the dumb, went upward the flood— In her right hand the lily, in her lef | The letter—all her bright hair strea, ming down— And all the coverlid was cloth of gold Drawn to her waist, and she ho in white All but her face, and that clear- feat red face Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead But fast asleep, and lay as tho’ she sm That day Sir Lancelot at the pal : craved Audience of Guinevere, to give at last t. The price of half a realm, his costly Hard-won and hardly won with bruise blow, With deaths of others, and almost |] own, The nine-years-fought-for diamonds : vi for he saw One of her house, and sent him to ., Queen i Bearing his wish, whereto the Queen agreed ; With such and so unmoved a majesty She might have seem’d her starr . that he, 4 Low-drooping till he wellnigh kiss’d feet ‘¢ For loyal awe, saw with a sidelong e ; The shadow of some piece of pointed lace, | In the Queen’s shadow, vibrate on the walls, a And parted, laughing in his court hear i » | All in an oriel on the summer ste Vine-clad, of Arthur’s palace toward stream, They met, and Lancelot kneeling utte ‘Queen, Lady, my liege, in whom I have | Take, what I had not won except for you,| These jewels, and make me happy, maki them e An armlet for the roundest arm on earth, Or necklace for a neck to which the swan’s words : ‘our beauty is your beauty, and I sin a speaking, yet O grant my worship of it Vords, as we grant grieftears. Such sin in words ‘erchance, we both can pardon: but, my Queen, hear of rumours flying thro’ your court. Jur bond, as not the bond of man and wife, should have in it an absoluter trust “o make up that defect: let rumours be: Vhen did not rumours fly? these, as I trust “hat you trust me in your own nobleness, may not well believe that you believe.’ While thus he spoke, half turn’d away, the Queen drake from the vast oriel-embowering vine _eaf after leaf, and tore, and cast them off, [ill all the place whereon she stood was green ; hen, when he ceased, in one cold passive hand Xeceived at once and laid aside the gems There on a table near her, and replied : ' ‘It may be, I am quicker of belief Than you believe me, Lancelot of the Lake. Jur bond is not the bond of man and wife. This good is in it, whatsoe’er of ill, {t can be broken easier. I for you ‘This many a year have done despite and | wrong To one whom ever in my heart of hearts I did acknowledge nobler. What are | these ? Diamonds for me! they had been thrice their worth Being your gift, had you not lost your own. To loyal hearts the value of all gifts Must vary as the giver’s. Not for me! For her! for your new fancy. Only this ‘Grant me, I pray you: have your joys apart. a LANCELOT AND ELAINE, 41s 5 tawnier than her cygnet’s: these are | I doubt not that however changed, you keep So much of what is graceful: and myself Would shun to break those bounds of courtesy In which as Arthur’s Queen I move and rule : So cannot speak my mind. An end to this ! A strange one! yet I take it with Amen. So pray you, add my diamonds to her pearls ; Deck her with these ; tell her, she shines me down : An armlet for an arm to which the Queen’s Is haggard, or a necklace for a neck- O as much fairer—as a faith once fair Was richer than these diamonds—hers not mine— Nay, by the mother of our Lord himself, Or hers or mine, mine now to work my will— She shall not have them.’ Saying which she seized, And, thro’ the casement standing wide for heat, Flung them, and down they flash’d, and smote the stream. Then from the smitten surface flash’d, as it were, Diamonds to meet them, and they past away. Then while Sir Lancelot leant, in half disdain At love, life, all things, on the window ledge, Close underneath his eyes, and right across Where these had fallen, slowly past the barge Whereon the lily maid of Astolat Lay smiling, like a star in blackest night. But the wild Queen, who saw not, burst away To weep and wail in secret ; and the barge, On to the palace-doorway sliding, paused. 416 LANCELOT AND ELAINE, — - | There two stood arm’d, and kept the door; to whom, All up the marble stair, tier over tier, Were added mouths that gaped, and eyes that ask’d ‘ What is it ?’ but that oarsman’s haggard face, As hard and still as is the face that men Shape to their fancy’s eye from broken rocks On some cliff-side, appall’d them, and they said, ‘ He is enchanted, cannot speak—and she, Look how she sleeps—the Fairy Queen, so fair ! Yea, but how pale ! what are they? flesh and blood ? Or come to take the King to Fairyland ? For some do hold our Arthur cannot die, But that he passes into Fairyland.’ While thus they babbled of the King, the King Came girt with knights : tongueless man From the half-face to the full eye, and rose And pointed to the damsel, and the doors. So Arthur bad the meek Sir Percivale And pure Sir Galahad to uplift the maid ; And reverently they bore her into hall. Then came the fine Gawain and wonder’d then turn’d the at her, And Lancelot later came and mused at her, And last the Queen herself, and pitied her: But Arthur spied the letter in her hand, Stoopt, took, brake seal, and read it; this was all: ‘Most noble lord, Sir Lancelot of the Lake, I, sometime call’d the maid of Astolat, Come, for you left me taking no farewell, Hither, to take my last farewell of you. I loved you, and my love had no return, And therefore my true love has been my death. And therefore to our Lady Guinevere, Pray for my soul, and yield me burial, Pray for my soul thou too, Sir Lancelot, As thou art a knight peerless.’ Thus he And ever in the reading, lords and d Wept, looking often from his face read To hers which lay so silent, and at tim So touch’d were they, half-thinking t her lips, | Who had devised the letter, moved again. death a Right heavy am 1; for good she was ; an true, But loved me with a love beyond all e | In women, whomsoever I have known, Yet to be loved makes not to love agai Not at my years, however it hold in youth.) I swear by truth and knighthood oy gave No cause, not willingly, for such a la : To this I call my friends in testimony, _ Her brethren, and her father, who himsel . Besought me to be plain and blunt, anc use, Fi | To break her passion, some discourtesy Against my nature: what I could, I Ge I left her and I bad her no farewell | Tho’, had I dreamt the damsel woul have died, I might have put my wits to some roug) use, | And help’d her from herself.’ Then said the Quee’! (Sea was her wrath, yet working afte . storm) . ‘Ye might at least have done her 4 much grace, \ Fair lord, as would have help’d her a f her death.’ He raised his head, their eyes met an hers fell, ‘Queen, she would not be content we that I wedded her, which could not | be. ten might she follow me thro’ the world, she ask’d ; ‘could not be. I told her that her love ‘as but the flash of youth, would darken . down > rise hereafter in a stiller flame ward one more worthy of her—then would I, ore specially were he, she wedded, poor, state them with large land and territory | mine own realm beyond the narrow seas, > keep them in all joyance: more than | this He pausing, Arthur answer’d, ‘O my fee knight, | will be to thy worship, as my knight, ad mine, as head of all our Table Round, » see that she be buried worshipfully.’ i} So toward that shrine which then in all the realm as richest, Arthur leading, slowly went pe marshall’d Order of their Table Round, ad Lancelot sad beyond his wont, to see ne maiden buried, not as one unknown, " or meanly, but with gorgeous obsequies, ad mass, and rolling music, like a queen. ad when the knights had laid her comely | head | ow in the dust of half-forgotten kings, aen Arthur spake among them, ‘Let | her tomb > costly, and her image thereupon, ad let the shield of Lancelot at her feet 2 carven, and her lily in her hand. ad let the story of her dolorous voyage or all true hearts be blazon’d on her tomb . letters gold and azure!’ which was iW wrought. hereafter ; but when now the lords and dames LANCELOT AND ELAINE. AI7 And people, from the high door stream- ing, brake Disorderly, as homeward each, the Queen, Who mark’d Sir Lancelot where he moved apart, Drew near, and ‘ Lancelot, Forgive me; mine was jealousy in love.’ Heanswer’d with his eyes upon theground, ‘ That is love’s curse; pass on, my Queen, forgiven.’ But Arthur, who beheld his cloudy brows, Approach’d him, and with full affection said, sigh’d in passing, ‘Lancelot, my Lancelot, thou in whom I have Most joy and most affiance, for I know What thou hast been in battle by my side, And many a time have watch’d thee at the tilt Strike down the lusty and long practised knight, And let the younger and unskill’d go by To win his honour and to make his name, And loved thy courtesies and thee, a man Made to be loved; but now I would to God, Seeing the homeless trouble in thine eyes, Thou couldst have loved this maiden, shaped, it seems, By God for thee alone, and from her face, If one may judge the living by the dead, Delicately pure and marvellously fair, Who might have brought thee, now a lonely man Wifeless and heirless, noble issue, sons Born to the glory of thy name and fame, My knight, the great Sir Lancelot of the Lake.’ Then answer’d Lancelot, ‘ Fair she was, my King, Pure, as you ever wish your knights to be. To doubt her fairness were to want an eye, To doubt her pureness were to want a heart— Yea, to be loved, if what is worthy love Could bind him, but free love will not be bound.’ 2E 418 THE. HOLY GRATE ‘ Free love, so bound, were freést,’ said the King. ‘Let love be free; free love is for the best : And, after heaven, on our dull one of death, What should be best, if not so pure a love Clothed in so pure a loveliness ? yet thee She fail’d to bind, tho’ being, as I think, Unbound as yet, and gentle, as I know.’ And Lancelot answer’d nothing, but he went, And at the inrunning of a little brook Sat by the river in a cove, and watch’d The high reed wave, and lifted up his eyes And saw the barge that brought her moving down, Far-off, a blot upon the stream, and said Low in himself, ‘Ah simple heart and sweet, Ye loved me, damsel, surely with a love Far tenderer than my Queen’s. Pray for thy soul ? Ay, that will I. Farewell too—now at last— Farewell, fair lily. ‘‘ Jealousy in love?” Not rather dead love’s harsh heir, jealous pride ? Queen, if I grant the jealousy as of love, May not your crescent fear for name and fame Speak, as it waxes, of a love that wanes? Why did the King dwell on my name to me? Mine own name shames me, seeming a reproach, Lancelot, wnom the Lady of the Lake Caught from his mother’s arms—the wondrous one Who passes thro’ the vision of the night— She chanted snatches of mysterious hymns Heard on the winding waters, eve and morn She kiss’d me saying, ‘‘ Thou art fair, my child, As a king’s son,” and often in her arms She bare me, pacing on the dusky mere. Would she had drown’d me in it, where’er it be! For what am I? what profits me myn Of greatest knight? I fought for i > have it : it ? . To make men worse by making oa sin known ? c* Or sin seem less, the sinner seeming great! Alas for Arthur’s greatest knight, a man Not after Arthur’s heart! I needs musi break These bonds that so defame me: no: without , She wills it: would I, if she will’d it? nay Who knows? but if I would not, ther may God, a I pray him, send a sudden Angel dame To seize me by the hair and bear me far And fling me deep in that forgotte mere, Among the tumbled fragments of th hills.’ % So groan’d Sir Lancelot in remorsefu. pain, i | Not knowing he should die a holy man. : | THE HOLY GRAIL. , FRoM noiseful arms, and acts of prowes done In tournament or tilt, Sir Percivale, he | Whom Arthur and his knighthood call’ The Pure, Had pass’d into the silent life of prayer Praise, fast, and alms; and leaving | the cowl The helmet in an abbey far away From Camelot, there, and not long afte died. , And one, a fellow-monk among the ves Ambrosius, loved him much beyond | { rest, And Honoued him, and wrought into b heart A way by love that waken’d love withi To answer that which came: and as thi sat Beneath a world-old yew-tree, darkening half Che cloisters, on a gustful April morn When first thou camest—such a courtesy ; spake thro’ the limbs and in the voice— i I knew _ ‘or one of those who eat in Arthur’s hall ; _ for good ye are and bad, and like to coins, vome true, some light, but every one of you ars with the image of the King; and now f “ell me, what drove thee from the Table Round, _ ly brother? was it earthly passion crost ?’ ‘Nay,’ said the knight ; ‘for no such passion mine. jut the sweet vision of the Holy Grail Jrove me from all vainglories, rivalries, _ ind earthly heats that spring and sparkle out Among us in the jousts, while women | watch Vho wins, who falls ; spiritual strength Vithin us, better offer’d up to Heaven.’ ‘The Holy and waste the To whom the monk: Grail !—TI trust Ve are green in Heaven’s eyes ; but here too much Ve moulder—as to things without I | mean— et one of your own knights, a guest of ours, | “old us of this.i in our refectory, Tet OL VOGRATL. Chat puff'd the swaying branches into smoke \bove them, ere the summer when he died, fhe monk Ambrosius question’d Per- civale : 0 brother, I have seen this yew-tree smoke, spring after spring, for half a hundred years : ‘or never have I known the world with- out, Nor ever stray’d beyond the pale: but thee, 419 But spake with such a sadness and so low We heard not half of what he said. What is it? The phantom of a cup that comes and goes 2” ‘Nay, monk ! what phantom?’ answer’d Percivale. : ‘The cup, the cup itself, from which our Lord Drank at the last sad. supper with his own. This, After the day of darkness, when the dead Went wandering o’er Moriah—the good saint Arimathzean Joseph, journeying brought To Glastonbury, where the winter thorn Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of our Lord. And there awhile it bode; and if a man Could touch or see it, he was heal’d at once, By faith, ofall hisills. But then the times Grew to such evil that the holy cup Was caught away to Heaven, and dis- appear’d.’ To whom the monk: ‘From our old books I know That Joseph came of old to Glastonbury, And there the heathen Prince, Arviragus, Gave him an isle of marsh whereon to build ; And there he built with wattles from the marsh A little lonely church in days of yore, l’or so they say, these books of ours, but seem Mute of this miracle, far as I have read. But who first saw the holy thing to-day ?’ ‘A woman,’ answer’d Percivale, ‘a nun, And one no further off in blood from me Than sister ; and if ever holy maid With knees of adoration wore the stone, A holy maid; tho’ never maiden glow’d, But that was in her earlier maidenhood, With such a fervent flame of human love, 420 THE HOLY GRAIL. Which being rudely blunted, glanced and shot Only to holy things ; She gave herself, to fast and alms. el; Nun as ni was, the scandal of the Court, Sin against Arthur and the Table Round, And the strange sound of an adulterous race, Across the iron grating of her cell Beat, and she pray’d and fasted all the more. to prayer and praise And ‘And he to whom she told her sins, or what Her all but utter whiteness held for sin, A man wellnigh a hundred winters old, Spake often with her of the Holy Grail, A legend handed down thro’ five or six, And each of these a hundred winters old, From our Lord’s time. And when King Arthur made His Table Round, and all men’s hearts became Clean for a season, surely he had thought That now the Holy Grail would come again ; But sin. broke out. would come, And heal the world ofall their wickedness ! “‘O Father!” ask’d the maiden, ‘‘ might Ah, Christ, that it it come To me by prayer and fasting?” ‘* Nay,” said he, ‘‘T know not, for thy heart is pure as snow.” And so she pray’d and fasted, till the sun Shone, and the wind blew, thro’ her, and I thought She might have risen and floated when I saw her. ‘For on a day she sent to speak with me. And when she came to speak, behold her eyes Beyond my knowing of them, beautiful, Beyond all knowing of them, wonderful, Beautiful in the light of holiness. And ‘‘O my brother Percivale,” she said, “Sweet brother, I have seen the | Grail : For, waked at dead of i I heard a sound As of a silver horn from o’er the hills Blown, and I thought, ‘It is not Arthur's use To hunt by moonlight ;’ and the sl sound As from a distance beyond distance Coming uponme—O never harp nor Nor aught we blow with breath, or t with hand, Was like that music as it came ; and th Stream’d thro’ my cell a cold and beam, ‘ And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail, g Rose-red with beatings in it, as if aliv Till all the white walls of my cell w ayed With rosy colours leaping on the wall; And then the music faded, and the Grai Past, and the beam decay’d, and {com walls The rosy quiverings died into the nigh So now the Holy Thing is here again Among us, brother, fast thou loam pray, And tell thy brother knights to fast pray; That so perchance the vision may bes ‘see By thee and those, and all the world b heal’d.” ‘Then leaving the pale nun, I spk of this To all men; and myself fasted an pray’d Always, and many among us many a W \ Fasted and pray’d even to the uttermos: Expectant of the wonder that would Be: ‘And one there was among US 5 ow moved Among us in white armour, Galahad, — . ‘God make thee good as thou art _ tiful,”’ Said Arthur, when he dubb’d him knii and none. THE HOLY GRATL. 421 m so young youth, was ever made a knight ‘ll Galahad ; and this Galahad, when he heard ly sister’s vision, fill’d me with amaze ; ‘is eyes Pens so like her own, they seem’d iers, and himself her brother more than I. ‘Sister or brother none had he; but some vall’d him a son of Lancelot, and some said degotten by enchantment—chatterers they, ike birds of passage piping up and down, “hat gape for flies—we know not whence they come ; or when was Lancelot wanderingly | lewd ? _ ‘But she, the wan sweet maiden, shore : away _ clean from her forehead all that wealth | of hair _Nhich made a silken mat-work for her 7 | feet ; _ And out of this she plaited broad and long _ \ strong sword-belt, and wove with silver | thread And crimson in the belt a strange device, _\ crimson grail within a silver beam ; And saw the bright boy-knight, and | bound it on him, paying: ** My knight, my love, my knight of heaven, D thou, my love, whose love is one with mine, 4 Maiden, round thee, maiden, bind my t belt. 30 forth, for thou shalt see what I have | seen, And break thro’ all, till one will crown thee king Sar in the spiritual city:” and as she . spake She sent the deathless passion in her eyes Thro’ him, and made him hers, and laid her mind Jn him, and he believed in her belief. ‘Then came a year of miracle: O brother, ‘In our great hall there stood a vacant chair, Fashion’d by Merlin ere he past away, And carven with strange figures ; and in and out The figures, like a serpent, ran a scroll Of letters in a tongue no man could read. And Merlin call’d it ‘*The Siege peril- ous,’ Perilous for good and ill; ‘‘for there,” he said, ‘*No man could sit but he should lose himself :” And once by misadvertence Merlin sat In his own chair, and so was lost; but he, Galahad, when he heard of Merlin’s doom, Cried, ‘‘If I lose myself, I save myself!” ‘Then on a summer night it came to pass, While the great banquet lay along the hall, That Galahad would sit down in Merlin’s chair. ‘ And all at once, as there we sat, we heard A cracking and a riving of the roofs, And rending, and a biast, and overhead Thunder, and in the thunder was a cry. And in the blast there smote along the hall A beam of light seven times more clear than day: And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail All over cover’d with a luminous cloud, And none might see who bare it, and it past. But every knight beheld his fellow’s face As in a glory, and all the knights arose, And staring each at other like dumb men Stood, till I found a voice and sware a vow. ‘I sware a vow before them all, that I, Because I had not seen the Gru would ride A twelvemonth and a day in quest of it, Until I found and saw it, as the nun 422 My sister saw it ; and Galahad sware the vow, And good Sir Bors, our Lancelot’s cousin, sware, And Lancelot sware, and many among the knights, And Gawain sware, and louder than the rest.’ Then spake the monk Ambrosius, ask- ing him, ‘What said the King? the vow ?’ Did Arthur take ‘Nay, for my lord,’ said Percivale, ‘the King, Was not in hall: for early that same day, Scaped thro’ a cavern from a bandit hold, An outraged maiden sprang into the hall Crying on help: for all her shining hair Was smear’d with earth, and either milky arm Red-rent with hooks of bramble, and all she wore Torn as a sail that leaves the rope is torn In tempest: so the King arose and went To smoke the scandalous hive of those wild bees That made such honey in his realm. Howbeit Some little of this marvel he too saw, Returning o’er the plain that then began To darken under Camelot ; whence the King Look’d up, calling aloud, the roofs Of our great hall are roll’d in thunder- smoke ! Pray Heaven, they be not smitten by the bolt.” For dear to Arthur was that hall of ours, As having there so oft with all his knights Feasted, and as the stateliest under heaven. «¢1o; there | ‘O brother, had you known our mighty hall, Which Merlin built for Arthur long ago ! For all the sacred mount of Camelot, And all the dim rich city, roof by roof, Tower after tower, spire beyond spire, THE HOLY “GhATE By grove, and garden-lawn, and rushing brook, 4 Climbs to the mighty hall that Merli n built. And four great zones of sculpture, se betwixt . With many a mystic symbol, gird the And in the lowest beasts are slaying And in the second men are slaying b ‘And on the third are warriors, perfect And on the fourth are men with gro wings, And overall one statue in the mould Of Arthur, made by Merlin, with a crown, And peak’d wings pointed to the Northe em Star. And eastward fronts the statue, and the crown And both the wings are made of gold d. and flame At sunrise till the people in far fields , Wasted so often by the heathen hordes, Behold it, crying, ‘‘ We have still a King? | 4 | ‘ And, brother, had you known our hall nithan Broader and higher than any in alll lands ! 4 Where twelve great windows blazon Arthur’s wars, | And all the light that falls upon the boare: Streams thro’ the twelve great battles: a our King. Nay, one there is, and at the eastern end, Wealthy with wandering lines of i. | and mere, Where Arthur finds the brand Excalibpr And also one to the west, and counter to it| And blank: and who shall blazon - it when and how ?— A O there, perchance, when all our wars ar’ done, The brand Excalibur will be cast away ‘So to this hall full quickly rode oh King, In horror lest the work by Merlin wrod Dreamlike, should on the sudden vanish wrapt S| In unremorseful folds of rolling fire. nd in he rode, and up I glanced, and saw he golden dragon sparkling over all: nd many of those who burnt the hold, | their arms {ack’d, and their foreheads grimed with smoke, and sear’d, ollow’d, and in among bright faces, ours, ull of the vision, prest: and then the | King pake to me, being nearest, “ Percivale,”’ ecause the hall was all in tumult—some owing, and some protesting); ‘¢ what is this ?” *O brother, when I told him what had ' chanced, ly sister’s vision, and the rest, his face varken’d, as I have seen it more than once, ‘hen some brave deed seem’d to be done in vain, larken ; and ‘‘ Woe is me, my knights,” he cried, | Had I been pete, ye had not sworn the vow.’ ‘old was mine answer, ‘‘ Had thyself been here, ‘ly King, thou wouldst have sworn.” evea, yea,” said he, | Art thou so bold and hast not seen the Grail ?” Nay, lord, I heard the sound, I saw the light, ~ ut since I did not see the Holy Thing, _sware a vow to follow it till I saw.’ . | ‘Then when he ask’d us, saphes by ‘| knight, if any : fad seen it, all their answers were as | one: Nay, lord, and therefore have we sworn | our vows.” | To now,” said Arthur, | seen a cloud ? _ Vhat go ye into the wilderness to see ?” ‘“‘have ye a |i _ *Then Galahad on the sudden, and in a voice . hrilling along the hall to Arthur, call’d, AEE HOLY GRAIL. 423 ‘* But I, Sir Arthur, saw the Holy Grail, I saw the Holy Grail and heard a cry— ‘O Galahad, and O Galahad, follow me.’” «*¢ Ah, Galahad, Galahad,” said the King, ‘‘ for such As thou art is the vision, not for these. Thy holy nun and thou have seen a sign— Holier is none, my Percivale, than she— A sign to maim this Order which I made. But ye, that follow but the leader’s bell” (Brother, the King was hard upon his knights) ‘¢ Taliessin is our fullest throat of song, And one hath sung and all the dumb will sing. Lancelot is Lancelot, and hath overborne Five knights at once, and every younger knight, Unproven, holds himself as Lancelot, Till overborne by one, he learns—and ye, What are ye? Galahads ?—no, nor Per- civales ” (For thus it pleased the King to range me close After Sir Galahad); ‘‘nay,” said he, ‘*but men With strength and will to right the wrong’d, of power To lay the sudden heads of violence flat, Knights that in twelve great battles splash’d and dyed The strong White Horse in his own heathen blood— But one hath seen, and all the blind will see. Go, since your vows are sacred, being made: Yet—for ye know the cries of all my realm Pass thro’ this hall—how often, O my knights, Your places being vacant at my side, This chance of noble deeds will come and go Unchallenged, while ye follow wandering fires Lost in the quagmire! Many of you, yea most, Return no more: ye think I show myself THE HOLY GihaAdie Too dark a prophet: come now, let us meet The morrow morn once more in one full field Of gracious pastime, that once more the King, Before ye leave him for this Quest, may count The yet-unbroken strength of all his knights, Rejoicing in that Order which he made.” ‘So when the sun broke next from under ground, All the great table of our Arthur closed And clash’d in such a tourney and so full, So many lances broken—never yet Had Camelot seen the like, since Arthur came ; And I myself and Galahad, for a strength Was in us from the vision, overthrew So many knights that all the people cried, And almost burst the barriers in their heat, Shouting, ‘‘Sir Galahad and Sir Perci- vale !” ‘But when the next day brake from under ground— O brother, had you known our Camelot, Built by old kings, age after age, so old The King himself had fears that it would fall, So strange, and rich, and dim ; for where the roofs Totter’d toward each other in the sky, Met foreheads all along the street of those Who watch’d us pass; and lower, and where the long Rich galleries, lady-laden, weigh’d the necks Of dragons clinging to the crazy walls, Thicker than drops from thunder, showers of flowers Fell as we past; and men and boys astride On wyvern, lion, dragon, griffin, swan, At all the corners, named us each by name, Calling ‘‘God speed!” but in the ways below The knights and ladies wept, andi Ti and poor Wept, and the King himself could ha rdly speak For grief, and all in middle street the Queen, Who rode by Lancelot, wail’d and sh aloud, $6 Ths madness has come on us for. sins.’ ; So to the Gate of the three Queena came, Where Arthur’s wars are render’d tically, And thence departed every one his » say ‘And I was lifted up in heart, am thought Of all my late-shown prowess in the li sts How my strong lance had beaten dow the knights, = So many and famous names; and ne yet S Had heaven appear’d so blue, nor eartl sO green, a For all my blood danced in me, | knew | That I should light upon the Holy Grail ‘Thereafter, the dark warning of ou King, That most of us would follow wanderin fires, Came like a driving gloom | mind, + | Then every evil word I had spoken once And every evil thought I had thought ic old, And every evil deed I ever did, i Awoke and cried, ‘‘ This Quest is not fe thee:"’ And lifting up mine eyes, I found oi Alone, and i in a land of sand and thom: And I was thirsty even unto death; And I, too, cried, ‘‘ This Quest is not f theese A ‘And on I rode, and when I thong my thirst Would slay me, saw deep lawns, and ae a br ook, were Sin : Vith one sharp rapid, where the crisping white »lay’d ever back upon the sloping wave, ind took both ear and eye; and o’er the | brook Vere apple-trees, and apples by the brook allen, and on the lawns. ‘I will rest here,” said, ‘‘ 1 am not worthy of the Quest ;” Sut even while I drank the brook, and ate ‘he goodly apples, all these things at once ‘ell into dust, and I was left alone, ind thirsting, ina land of sand and thorns. * And then behold a woman at a door pinning ; and fair the house whereby she sat, ind kind the woman’s eyes and innocent, and all her bearing gracious; and she rose ypening her arms to meet me, as who should say, ‘Rest here ;” but when I touch’d her, | lo! she, too, “ell into dust and nothing, and the house secame no better than a broken shed, and i in it a dead babe; and also this vel into dust, and I was left alone. ‘And on I rode, and greater was my thirst. “hen flash’d a yellow gleam across the | world, ind where it smote the plowshare in the field, “he plowman left his plowing, and fell down u 3efore it ; where it glitter’d on her pail, he milkmaid left her milking, and fell i | down 3efore it, and I knew not why, but | thought ‘The sun is rising,” tho’ thesun had risen. Then was I ware of one that on me moved .n golden armour with a crown of gold About a casque all jewels ; and his horse _ n golden armour jewell’d everywhere : And on the splendour came, flashing me | blind ; "And seem’d to me the Lord of all the world, | THE HOLY GRATE, 425 Being so huge. meant To crush me, moving on me, lo! he, too, Open’d his arms to embrace me as he came, And up I went and touch’d him, and he, too, Fell into dust, and I was left alone And wearying in a land of sand and thorns. But when I thought he ‘And I rode on and found a mighty hill, And on the top, a city wall’d: the spires Prick’d with incredible pinnacles into heaven. And by the gateway stirr’d a crowd ; and these Cried to me climbing, ‘‘ Welcome, Perci- vale ! Thou mightiest and thou purest among men !” And glad was I and clomb, but found at top No man, nor any voice. And thence I past Far thro’ a ruinous city, and I saw That man had once dwelt there; but there I found Only one man of an exceeding age. *¢ Where is that goodly company,” said I, ‘¢ That so cried out upon me?” and he had Scarce any voice to answer, and yet gasp’d, ‘¢ Whence and what art thou ?”? and even as he spoke Fell into dust, and disappear’d, and I Was left alone once more, and cried in grief, ‘‘Lo, if I find the Holy Grail itself And touch it, it will crumble into dust.” ‘And thence I dropt into a lowly vale, Low as the hill was high, and where the vale Was lowest, found a chapel, and thereby A holy hermit in a hermitage, To whom I told my phantoms, and he said ; 426 ‘**Q son, thou hast not true humility, The highest virtue, mother of them all ; For when the Lord of all things made Himself Naked of glory for His mortal change, ‘Take thou my robe,’ she said, ‘for all is thine,’ And all her form shone forth with sudden light So that the angels were amazed, and she Follow’d Him down, and like a flying star Led on the gray-hair’d wisdom of the east ; But her thou hast not known: for what is this Thou thoughtest of thy prowess and thy sins ? Thou hast not lost thyself to save thyself As Galahad.” When the hermit made an end, In silver armour suddenly Galahad shone Before us, and against the chapel door Laid lance, and enter’d, and we knelt in prayer. And there the hermit slaked my burning thirst, And at the sacring of the mass I saw The holy elements alone ; but he, «Saw ye no more? I, Galahad, saw the Grail, Holy Grail, shrine : I saw the fiery face as of a child That smote itself into the bread, and went ; And hither am I come; and never yet Hath what thy sister taught me first to see, This Holy Thing, fail’d from my side, nor come Cover’d, but moving with me night and day, Fainter by day, but always in the night Blood-red, and sliding down the blacken’d marsh Blood-red, and on the naked mountain to Blood-red, and in the sleeping mere below Blood-red. And in the strength of this I rode, Shattering all evil customs everywhere, The descend upon the THE HOLY GRATE And past thro’ Pagan realms, and made them mine, | And clash’d with Pagan hordes, and bore them down, And broke thro’ all, and in the stre of this Come victor. hand, And hence I go; and one will rom nme king Far in the spiritual city 5 3 and come thon, too, For thou shalt see the vision when I go.” But my time is hardll at ‘While thus he spake, his eye, dwe ing on mine, ae Drew me, with power upon me, til p grew One with him, to believe as he beli Then, when the day began to wane, went. ‘There rose a hill that none but 4 could climb, Scarr’d with a hundred wintry water- courses— ee Storm at the top, and when we gain’d it, storm > Round us and death; for every moment glanced ; His silver arms and gloom’d: so q and thick The lightnings here and there to left 2 right Struck, till the dry old trunks about dead, Yea, rotten with a hundred years of | Sprang into fire: and at the base we fount On either hand, as far as eye could see, A great black swamp and of an evil smell, Part black, part whiten’d with the bone of men, Not to be crost, save that some ancien king j Had built a way, where, link’d wit many a bridge, A thousand piers ran into the great Sea. And Galahad fled along them bridge b bridge, And every bridge as quickly as he crost [ tt orang into fire and vanish’d, tho’ I | yearn’d » follow ; and thrice above him all the | heavens pen’d and blazed with thunder such as seem’d noutings of all the sons of God: and first t once I saw him far on the great Sea, | silver-shining armour starry-clear ; ad o’er his head the Holy Vessel hung _othed in white samite ora luminous cloud. ‘ad with exceeding swiftness ran the boat, boat it were—I sawnot whence it came. ad when the heavens open’d and blazed again varing, I saw him like a silver star— ad had he set the sail, or had the boat -come a living creature clad with wings ? ad o’er his head the Holy Vessel hung edder than any rose, a joy to me, or now I knew the veil had been with- drawn. ien in amoment when they blazed again pening, I saw the least of little stars . own on the waste, and straight beyond the star saw the spiritual city and all her spires ad gateways in a glory like one pearl— i‘ larger, tho’ the goal of all the saints — : ike from the sea; and from the star if there shot _ rose-red sparkle to the city, and there _ welt, and I knew it was the Holy Grail, __ hich never eyes on earth again shall see. "ren fell the floods of heaven drowning the deep. ad how my feet recrost the deathful ridge " omemoryin me lives; but that I touch’d ne chapel-doors at dawn I know; and | thence aking my war-horse from the holy man, lad that no phantom vext me more, | return’d P whence I came, the gate of Arthur’s i wars.’ £0 brother,’ —‘ for in sooth hese ancient books —and they would win thee—teem, ask’d Ambrosius, | 7 | | } | LT 3} j | | 4 THE HOLY GRAIL. 427 Only I find not there this Holy Grail, With miracles and marvels like to these, Not all unlike ; which oftentime I read, Who read but on my breviary with ease, Till my head swims ; and then go forth and pass Down to the little thorpe that lies so close, And almost plaster’d like a martin’s nest To these old walls—and mingle with our folk ; And knowing every honest face of theirs As well as ever shepherd knew his sheep, And every homely secret in their hearts, Delight myself with gossip and old wives, And ills and aches, and teethings, lyings- in, And mirthful sayings, children of the place, That have no meaning half a league away : Or lulling random squabbles when they rise, Chafferings and chatterings at the market- Cross, Rejoice, small man, in this small world of mine, Yea, even in their hens and in their eggs— O brother, saving this Sir Galahad, Came ye on none but phantoms in your quest, No man, no woman ?’ Then Sir Percivale : ‘ All men, to one so bound by such a vow, And women were as phantoms. O, my brother, Why wilt thou shame me to confess to thee How far I falter’d from my quest and vow? For after I had lain so many nights, A bedmate of the snail and’eft and snake, In grass and burdock, I was changed to wan * And meagre, and the vision had not come ; And then I chanced upon a goodly town With one great dwelling in the middle of it ; Thither I made, and there was I disarm’d By maidens each as fair as any flower : But when they led me into hall, behold, The Princess of that castle was the one, Brother, and that one only, who had ever 428 LHE HOLY * GKAGL: Made my heart leap; for when I moved of old A slender page about her father’s hall, And she a slender maiden, all my heart Went after her with longing: yet we twain Had never kiss’d a kiss, or vow’d a vow. And now I came upon her once again, And one had wedded her, and he was dead, And all his land and wealth and state were hers. And while I tarried, every day she set A banquet richer than the day before By me; for all her longing and her will Was toward me as of old; till one fair morn, I walking to and fro beside a stream That flash’d across her orchard underneath Her castle-walls, she stole upon my walk, And calling me the greatest of all knights, Embraced me, and so kiss’d me the first time, And gave herself and all her wealth to me. Then I remember’d Arthur’s warning word, That most of us would follow wandering fires, And the Quest faded in my heart. Anon, The heads of all her people drew to me, With supplication both of knees and tongue : ‘¢ We have heard of thee: greatest knight, Our Lady says it, and we well believe: Wed thou our Lady, and rule over us, And thou shalt be as Arthur in our land.” O me, my brother ! but one night my vow Burnt me within, so that I rose and fled, But wail’d and wept, and trike mine own self, And ev’n the Holy Quest, and all but her ; Then after I was join’d with Galahad Cared not for her, nor anything upon earth.’ thou art our Then said the monk, ‘ Poor men, when yule is cold, Must be content to sit by little fires. And this am I, so that ye care for me Ever so little ; yea, and blest be Heaven That brought thee here to this poor house of ours . 7 Where all the brethren are so hard, warm My cold heart with a friend: but O the ; ity | To find thine own first love once more= to hold, . Hold her a wealthy bride within thin arms, : Or all but hold, and then—cast her as Foregoing all her sweetness, like a For we that want the warmth of dou life, ; We that are plagued with dreams « something sweet a Beyond all sweetness in a life so rich, Ah, blessed Lord, I speak too earthl Seeing I never stray’d beyond the ce But live like an old badger in his ea: With earth about him everywhere, des All fast and penance. Saw ye none bi side, : None of your knights ?’ ee ‘Yea so,’ said Percivale ‘One night my pathway swerving cas saw The pelican on the casque of our Sir Bo All in the middle of the rising moon: And toward him spurr’d, and hail’d hir and he me, = | and each made joy of either; then | ask’d, | ‘‘Where is he? hast thou seen nile | Lancelot ?—Once,” | Said good Sir Bors, ‘‘ he dash’d across? | —mad, f And maddening what he rode: and wb I cried, ‘Ridest thou then so hotly on a quest | So holy,’ Lancelot shouted, ‘Stay mem [have been the sluggard, and I ride 7 . So vanish’d.” ‘Then Sir Bors had ridden i Softly, and sorrowing for our Lancelot) Because his former madness, once the ti, And scandal of our table, had return’ ir Lancelot’s kith and kin so worship him at ill to him is ill to them ; to Bors lyond the rest: he well had been content ht to have seen, so Lancelot might have | seen, e Holy Cup of healing ; and, indeed, ‘ing so clouded with his grief and love, all heart was his after the Holy Quest : |God would send the vision, well: if not, ne Quest and he were in the hands of i Heaven. PeAnd then, with small adventure met, | Sir Bors de to the lonest tract of all the realm, ad found a people there among their | crags, ‘ur race and blood, a remnant that were left vynim amid their circles, and the stones dey pitch up straight to heaven: and their wise men ~ ‘ere strong in that old magic which can . trace he wandering of the stars, and scoffd at oe him nd this high Quest as at a simple thing : old him he follow’d—almost Arthur’s : ‘S‘what other fire than _ Thereby the blood beats, and the blossom it blows, nd the sea rolls, and all the world is | warm’d ?” md when his answer chafed them, the rough crowd, fearing he had a difference with their priests, _ eized him, and bound and plunged him | into a cell Df great piled stones ; and lying bounden j there n darkness thro’ innumerable hours Te heard the hollow-ringing heavens 1 sweep Over him till by miracle—what else ?— Teavy as it was, a great stone slipt and fell, 1 | } 4 f THE HOLY GRAIL. 429 Such.as no wind could move: and thro’ the gap Glimmer’d the streaming scud: then came a night Still as the day was loud; and thro’ the a The seven clear stars of Arthur’s Table Round For, brother, so one night, because they roll Thro’ such a round in heaven, we named the stars, Rejoicing in ourselves and in our King— And these, like bright eyes of familiar friends, In on him shone: ‘‘ And then to me, to me,”’ Said good Sir Bors, “‘ beyond all hopes of mine, Who scarce had pray’d or ask’d it for myself— Across the seven clear stars—O grace to me— In colour like the fingers of a hand Before a burning taper, the sweet Grail Glided and past, and close upon it peal’d A sharp quick thunder.” Afterwards, a maid, Who kept our holy faith among her kin In secret, entering, loosed and let him go.’ To whom the monk: ‘And I remember now That pelican on the casque: Sir Bors it was Who spake so low and sadly at our board ; And mighty reverent at our grace was he : A square-set man and honest; and his eyes, ‘ An out-door sign of all the warmth within, Smiled with his lips—a smile beneath a cloud, But heaven had meant it for a sunny one : Ay, ay, Sir Bors, who else? But when ye reach’d The city, found ye all your knights re- turn’d, Or was there sooth in Arthur’s prophecy, Tell me, and what said each, and what the King ?’ Then answer’d Percivale: ‘ And. that can- Jl, Brother, and truly ; since the living words Of so great men as Lancelot and our King Pass not from door to door and out again, But sit within the house. O, when we reach’d The city, our horses stumbling as they trode On heaps of ruin, hornless unicorns, Crack’d basilisks, and splinter’d cocka- trices, And shetier'd talbots, which had left the stones Raw, that they fell from, brought us to the hall. ‘And there sat Arthur on the dais- throne, And those that had gone out upon the Quest, Wasted and worn, and but a tithe of them, And those that had not, stood before the King, Who, when he saw me, rose, and bad me hail, Saying, ‘‘ A welfare in thine eye reproves Our fear of some disastrous chance for thee On hill, or plain, at sea, or flooding ford. So fierce a gale made havoc here of late Among the strange devices of our kings ; Yea, shook this newer, stronger hall of ours, And from the statue Merlin moulded for us Half-wrench’d a golden wing ; but now— the Quest, This vision—-hast thou seen the Holy Cup, That Joseph brought of old to Glaston- bury ?” ‘So when I told him all thyself hast heard, Ambrosius, and my fresh but fixt resolve To pass away into the quiet life, He answer’d not, but, sharply turning, ask’d Of Gawain, ‘‘ Gawain, was this Quest for thee ?” THE HOL ViGKAGE *<€ Nay; lords: such as I. Therefore I communed with a saintl Who made me sure the Quest was for me ; For I was much awearied of the Que But found a silk pavilion in a field, © And merry maidens in it; and then thi gale 3 Tore my pavilion from the tenting-pin, — And blew my merry maidens all abo With all discomfort ; yea, and but for this My twelvemonth and a day were pleasar to me.” said Gawain, ‘not fo ‘He ceased; and Arthur turn’d | whom at first He saw not, for Sir Bors, on entering push’d ¥ : Athwart the throng to Lancelot, cag! his hand, Held it, and there, half-hidden by hie stood, Until the King espied him, saying to his ‘* Hail, Bors! if ever loyal man and tr Could see it, thou hast seen the Grail 7 and Bors, ‘‘ Ask me not, for I may not speak a y I saw it ;” and the tears were in his ey: ‘ Then there remain’d but Lancelot, | the rest a. Spake but of sundry perils in the stor Perhaps, like him of Cana in Holy Wi Our Arthur kept his best until the last ‘Thou, too, my Lancelot,” aka 1 King, ‘‘ my friend, Our mightiest, hath this Quest avail’d theese ‘ <¢ Our mightiest !” answer’d Lancel) with a groan ; “QO King!”—and when he paus methought I spied A dying fire of madness in his eyes— ‘“O King, my friend, if friend of thine I | Happier are those that welter in their: Swine in the mud, that cannot see. slime, Slime of the ditch: but in me lived a So strange, of such a kind, that all of pt THE HOLY GRAIL. ) 431 oble, and knightly in me twined and clung ound that one sin, until the wholesome flower nd poisonous grew together, each as each, ‘ot to be pluck’d asunder ; knights ware, I sware with them only in the hope hat could I touch or see the Holy Grail and when thy hey might be pluck’d asunder. Then I spake © one most holy saint, who wept and | said, hat save they could be black’d asunder, all ly quest were but in vain ; to whom I vow’d hat I would work according as he will’d. nd forth I went, and while I yearn’d and strove o tear the twain asunder in my heart, ly madness came upon me as of old, nd whipt me into waste fields far away ; here was I beaten down by little men, ' lean knights, to whom the moving of my sword | nd shadow of my spear had been enow " oscare them from me once; and then 1 I came _ Ilin my folly to the naked shore, ! Vide flats, where nothing but coarse grasses grew ; ut such a blast, my King, began to blow, ; ‘0 loud a blast along the shore and sea, af (iv -ecould not hear the waters for the blast, ‘ho? heapt in mounds and ridges all the sea Jrove like a cataract, and all the sand wept like a river, and the clouded | heavens Vere shaken with the motion and the sound. And blackening in the sea-foam sway’d a boat, Ialf- swallow’d in it, chain ; And in my madness to myself I said, I will embark and I will lose myself; And in the great sea wash away my sin,’ anchor’d with a I burst the chain, I sprang into the boat, Seven days I drove along the dreary deep, And with me drove the moon and all the Stars ; And the wind fell, and on the seventh night I heard the shingle grinding in the surge, And felt the boat shock earth, and looking up, Behold, the enchanted towers of Car- bonek, A castle like a rock upon a rock, With chasm-like portals open to the sea, And steps that met the breaker! there was none Stood near it but a lion on each side That kept the entry, and the moon was full. Then from the boat I leapt, and up the stairs. There drew my sword. flaring manes Those two great beasts rose upright like a man, Each gript a_ shoulder, between ; And, when I would have smitten them, heard a voice, ‘Doubt not, go forward ; if thou doubt, With sudden- and I stood the beasts Will tear thee piecemeal.’ Then with violence The sword was dash’d from out my hand, and fell. And up into the sounding hall I past ; But nothing in the sounding hall I saw, No bench nor table, painting on the wall Or shield of knight; only the rounded moon Thro’ the tall oriel on the rolling sea. But always in the quiet house I heard, Clear as a lark, high o’er me as a lark, A sweet voice singing in the topmost tower To the eastward: up I climb’d a thousand steps With pain: as in a dream I seem’d to climb For ever: at the last I reach’d a door, A light was in the crannies, and | heard, ‘Glory and joy and honour to our Lord And to the Holy Vessel of the Grail.’ Then in my madness I essay’d the door ; It gave; and thro’a stormy glare, a heat As from a seventimes-heated furnace, I, Blasted and burnt, and blinded as I was, With such a fierceness that I swoon’d away— O, yet methought I saw the Holy Grail, All pall’d in crimson samite, and around Great angels, awful-shapes, and wings and eyes. And but for all my madness and my sin, And then my Se 3 I had sworn I saw That which I saw; but what I saw was veil’d And cover’d ; and this Quest was not for me;?? ‘ So speaking, and here ceasing, Lance- lot left The hall long silent, till Sir Gawain—nay, Brother, I need not tell thee foolish words, — A reckless and irreverent knight was he, Now bolden’d by the silence of his King, — Well, I will tell thee: ‘“*O King, my liege,” he said, *‘ Hath Gawain fail’d in any quest of thine ? When have I stinted stroke in foughten field ? But as for thine, my good friend Percivale, Thy holy nun and thou have driven men mad, Yea, made our mightiest madder than -our least. But by mine eyes and by mine ears I swear, I will be deafer than the blue-eyed cat, ' And thrice as blind as any noonday owl, To holy virgins in their ecstasies, Henceforward.” ‘ “ Deafer,” said the blameless King, ** Gawain, and blinder unto holy things Hope not to make thyself by idle vows, Being too blind to have desire to see. THE HOLY GATX But if indeed there came a sign heaven, Blessed are Bors, Lancelot and Pere For these have seen according to th sight. + For every fiery prophet in old time * And all the sacred madness of the bar When God made music thro’ them, | but speak His music by the framework and chord ; r And as ye saw it ye have spoken truth, ‘«« Nay—but thou errest, Lancelie: never yet 3 4: Could all of true and noble in knight = man Twine round one sin, whatever it might be, . With such a closeness, but apart there grew, = | ‘Save that he were the swine thou ses of, Some root of knighthood and pure nob Je- - ness ; fa Whereto see thou, that it may beats ats | flower. a - «« And spake I not too truly, O my . knights ? t Was I too dark a prophet when I sai To those who went upon the Holy Quest, That most of them would follow wan- dering fires, = Lost in the quagmire ?—lost to me a nd gone, And left me gazing at a barren hoatdil | And a lean Order—scarce returiae ay tithe— a And out of those to whom the vision came. My greatest hardly will believe he saw Another hath beheld it afar off, And leaving human wrongs to right them- selves, ae Cares but to pass into the silent life. = | And one hath had the vision face | face, | And now his chair desires him i vain, However they may crown him otherwhere. | * » © And some among you held, that if the King Had seen the sight he would have sworn the vow : Not easily, seeing that the King must guard That which he rules, and is but as the hind To whom a space of land is given to | plow. Who may not wander from the allotted field Before his work be done; but, being done, Let visions of the night or of the day Some, as they will; and many a time they come, Jntil this earth he walks on seems not earth, This light that strikes his eyeball is not & light, This air that smites his forehead is not air 3ut vision—yea, his very hand and foot— nm moments when he feels he cannot die, _ And knows himself no vision to himself, _ Nor the high God a vision, nor that One Who rose again: ye have seen what ye | have seen.” | I ‘So spake the King: I knew not all | he meant.’ __PELLEAS AND ETTARRE. _ SinGc ARTHUR made new knights to fill Ph the gap _ eft by the Holy Quest ; and as he sat _ n hall at old Caerleon, the high doors ' Vere softly sunder’d, and thro’ these a a youth, elleas, and the sweet smell of the fields - ast, and the sunshine came along with Vi him. , ‘Make me thy knight, because I know, Sir King, \ll that belongs to knighthood, and I love.’ _ »uch was his cry: for having heard the | King tad let proclaim a tournament—the prize R i golden circlet and a knightly sword, _ ull fain had Pelleas for his lady won | | ot PELLEAS AND ETTARRE. 433 The golden circlet, for himself the sword : And there were those who knew him near the King, And promised for him: and Arthur made him knight. And this new knight, Sir Pelleas of the isles— But lately come to his inheritance, And lord of many a barren isle was he— Riding at noon, a day or twain before, Across the forest call’d of Dean, to find Caerleon and the King, had felt the sun Beat like a strong knight on his helm, - and reel’d Almost to falling from his horse; but saw Near him a mound of even-sloping side, Whereon a hundred stately beeches grew, And here and there great hollies under them ; But for a mile all round was open space, And fern and heath: and slowly Pelleas drew To that dim day, then binding his good horse To a tree, cast himself down ; and as he lay At random looking over the brown earth Thro’ that green-glooming twilight of the grove, It seem’d to Pelleas that the fern without Burnt as a living fire of emeralds, So that his eyes were dazzled looking at it. Then o’er it crost the dimness of a cloud Floating, and once the shadow of a bird Flying, and then a fawn; and his eyes closed. And since he loved all maidens, but no maid In special, half-awake he whisper’d, ‘Where? O where? I love thee, tho’ I know thee not. For fair thou art and pure as Guinevere, And I will make thee with my spear and sword As famous—O my Queen, my Guinevere, For I will be thine Arthur when we meet.’ 2F 434 Suddenly waken’d with a sound of talk And laughter at the limit of the wood, And glancing thro’ the hoary boles, hesaw, Strange as to some old prophet might have seem’d A vision hovering on a sea of fire, Damsels in divers colours like the cloud Of sunset and sunrise, and all of them On horses, and the horses richly trapt Breast-high in that bright line of bracken stood : And all the damsels talk’d confusedly, And one was pointing this way, and one that, Because the way was lost. And Pelleas rose, And loosed his horse, and led him to the light. There she that seem’d the chief among them said, ‘In happy time behold our pilot-star ! Youth, we aredamsels-errant, and weride, Arm’d as ye see, to tilt against the knights There at Caerleon, but have lost our way: To right? to left? straight forward? back again ? Which? tell us quickly.’ Pelleas gazing thought, ‘Is Guinevere herself so beautiful ?’ For large her violet eyes look’d, and her bloom A rosy dawn kindled in stainless heavens, And round her limbs, mature in woman- hood ; And slender was her hand and small her shape ; And but for those large eyes, the haunts of scorn, She might have seem’d a toy to trifle with, And pass and care no more. But while he gazed The beauty of her flesh abash’d the boy, As tho’ it were the beauty of her soul : For as the base man, judging of the good, Puts his own baseness in him by default Of will and nature, so did Pelleas lend All the young beauty of his own soul to hers, PELLEAS AND ETTARRE. | Rough wives, that laugh’d and scre: | And look’d upon her people ; and as | A stone is flung into some sleeping Believing her ; and when she spake 0) him, Stammer’d, and could not make her a reply. For out of the waste islands had he cor Wheresaving his own sisters he had kno Scarce any but the women of his isl against the gulls, . Makers of nets, and living from the se Then with a slow smile turn’d the round The circle widens till it lip the marge Spread the slow smile thro’ all her com- pany. Three knights were thereamong ; and ’ ) too smiled, : Scorning him ; for the lady was Ettame, And she was a great lady in her land. Again she said, ‘O wild and of ‘the woods, Knowest thou not the fashion of our speech ? 3 Or have the Heavens but given thee face, Lacking a tongue ?’ “O damsel,’ answer’d 1 ‘I woke from dreams; and ca ( of gloom Was dazzled by the sudden light, ‘and crave % Pardon: but will ye to Caerleon ? Go likewise: shall Ilead you to the ‘Lead then,’ she said; and thro woods they went. 4 And while they rode, the meaning in his eyes, e His tenderness of manner, and chest His broken utterances and bashfulne Were all a burthen to her, and i heart an She mutter’d, ‘I have lighted on a fool, Raw, yet so stale ! !? But since her mine was bent 1 On hearing, after trumpet blown, her name’ PELLEAS AND ETTARRE., And title, ‘Queen of Beauty,’ in the lists Cried—and beholding him so strong, she thought That peradventure he will fight for me, And win the circlet: therefore flatter’d him, Being so gracious, that he wellnigh deem’d \Hiis wish by hers was echo’d; and her knights i all her damsels too were gracious to him, For she was a great lady. And when they reach’d Saerleon, ere they past to lodging, she, Taking his hand, ‘O the strong hand,’ she said, See! look at mine! but wilt thou fight for me, And win me this fine circlet, Pelleas, Chat I may love thee ?’ Then his helpless heart | | capt, and he cried, ‘Ay! wilt thou if I ; win ?” | Ay, that will I,’ she answer’d, and she | | laugh’d, _ ind straitly nipt the hand, and flung it - from her ; | ‘hen glanced askew at those three knights ; of hers, i ij 1 = re | t | | \ { nd wonder’d after him, because his face 435 Then Arthur made vast banquets, and strange knights From the four winds came in: one sat, Tho’ served with choice from air, land, stream, and sea, Oft in mid-banquet measuring with his eyes His neighbour’s make and might: Pelleas look’d Noble among the noble, for he dream’d His lady loved him, and he knew himself Loved of the King: and him his new- made knight Worshipt, whose lightest whisper moved him more Than all the ranged reasons of the world. and each and Then blush’d and brake the morning of the jousts, And this was call’d ‘The Tournament of Youth ;’ For Arthur, loving his young knight, withheld His older and his mightier from the lists, That Pelleas might obtain his lady’s love, According to her promise, and remain Lord of the tourney. And Arthur had the jousts Down in the flat field by the shore of Usk Holden: the gilded parapets were crown’d With faces, and the great tower fill’d with eyes Up to the summit, and the trumpets blew. There all day long Sir Pelleas kept the field With honour: so by that strong hand of his The sword and golden circlet were achieved. Then rang the shout his lady loved : the heat Of pride and glory fired her face ; her eye Sparkled; she caught the circlet from his lance, And there before the people crown’d herself : So for. the last time she was gracious to him, 436 Then at Caerleon for a space—her look Bright for all others, cloudier on her knight— Linger’d Ettarre: and seeing Pelleas droop, Said Guinevere, ‘We marvel at thee much, O damsel, wearing this unsunny face To him who won thee glory !? And she said, ‘Had ye not held your Lancelot in your bower, My Queen, he had not won.’ Whereat the Queen, As one whose foot is bitten by an ant, Glanced down upon her, turn’d and went her way. But after, when her damsels, and her- self, And those three knights all set their faces home, Sir Pelleas follow’d. cried, ‘Damsels—and yet I should be shamed to say it— Icannot bide Sir Baby. Keep him back Among yourselves. Would rather that we had Some rough old knight who knew the worldly way, Albeit grizzlier than a bear, to ride And jest with: take him to you, keep him off, And pamper him with papmeat, if ye will, Old milky fables of the wolf and sheep, Such as the wholesome mothers tell their boys. Nay, should ye try him with a merry one She that saw him To find his mettle, good: and if he fly us, Smalls matter!) lets him.’ «Thiswtheér damsels heard, And mindful of her small and cruel hand, They, closing round him thro’ the journey home, Acted her hest, and always from her side Restrain’d him with all manner of device, So that he could not come to speech with her. PEELEAS AND ETTARKE, And when she gain’d her aaa upsprang the bridge, ta Down rang the grate of iron thro’ the groove, And he was left alone in open field. ‘These be the ways of ladies,’ Pelleas thought, “To those who love them, trials of o faith. Yea, let her prove me to the uttermosh For loyal to the uttermost am I.’ So made his moan; and, darkness fallin; sought ° A priory not far off, there lodged,. bi rose 2 With morning every day, and, moist” : d ry, Full-arm’d upon his charger all day ioe Sat by the walls, and no one open’d to him. 4 And this persistence turn’d her “— to wrath. Then calling her three knights, se charged them, ‘ Out ! i And at And drive him from the walls.’ they came, But Pelleas overthrew them as ty dash’d : Against him one. by one; and the: return’d, * But still he kept his watch beneath the wall. a 7 Thereon her wrath became a hate; and once, te | A week beyond, while walking on the walls : With her three knights, she pointed downward, ‘ Look, a He haunts me—lI cannot breathe —be- sieges me ; Down! strike him! put my hate | your strokes, And drive him from my walls.’ down they went, And Pelleas overthrew them one by one ; ; And from the tower above him cried Ettarre, q ‘Bind him, and bring him in.’ 3 Ad a . Co , oa PELLEAS AND ETTARRE. 437 He heard her voice ; Then let the strong hand, which had overthrown Her minion-knights, by those he over- | threw Be bounden straight, and so they brought him in, Then when he came before Ettarre, the sight Of her rich beauty made him at one glance . More bondsman in his heart than in his bonds. Yet with good cheer he spake, ‘ Behold \ me, Lady, A prisoner, and the vassal of thy will ; And if thou keep me in thy donjon here, content am I so that I see thy face ‘But once a day: for I have sworn my . vows, And thou hast given thy promise, and I know That all these pains are trials of my faith, _ And that thyself, when thou hast seen me strain’d \nd sifted to the utmost, wilt at length Tield me thy love and know me for thy knight.’ a | Then she began to rail so bitterly, Vith all her damsels, he was stricken mute 5 _3ut when she mock’d his vows and the i great King, _ aghted on words: ‘For pity of thine i own self, ~ 'eace, Lady, peace: is he not thine and mine ?’ ‘Thou fool,’ she said, ‘I never heard his | voice ut long’d to break away. now, nd thrust him out of doors; for save | he be ool to the midmost marrow of his bones, -e will return no more.’ And those, her three, ~ augh’d, and unbound, and thrust him | from the gate. Unbind him And after this, a week beyond, again She call’d them, saying, ‘There he watches yet, There like a dog before his master’s door ! Kick’d, he’returns : do ye not hate him, ye? Ye know yourselves : how can ye bide at eace, Affronted with his fulsome innocence ? Are ye but creatures of the board and bed, No men to strike? Fall on him all at onees And if ye slay him I reck not : if ye fail, Give ye the slave mine order to be bound, Bind him as heretofore, and bring him in: It may be ye shall slay him in his bonds.’ She spake; and at her will they couch’d their spears, Three against one: and Gawain passing by, Bound upon solitary adventure, saw Low down beneath the shadow of those towers A villainy, three to one: and thro’ his heart The fire of honour and all noble deeds Flash’d, and he call’d, ‘I strike upon thy side— The caitiffs !’ forbear ; He needs no aid who doth his lady’s will.’ ‘ Nay,’ said Pelleas, ‘ but So Gawain, looking at the villainy done, Forbore, but in his heat and eagerness Trembled and quiver’d, as the dog, with- held A moment from the vermin that he sees Before him, shivers, ere he springs and kills. And Pelleas overthrew them, one to three ; And they rose up, and bound, and brought him in. Then first her anger, leaving Pelleas, burn’d Full on her knights in many an evil name Of craven, weakling, and thrice- beaten hound : 438 ‘Yet, take him, ye that scarce are fit to touch, Far less to bind, your victor, and thrust him out, And let who will release him from his bonds. And if he comes again ’— there she brake short ; And Pelleas answer’d, ‘ Lady, for indeed I loved you and I deem’d you beautiful, I cannot brook to see your beauty marr’d Thro’ evil spite: and if ye love me not, I cannot bear to dream you so forsworn: I had liefer ye were worthy of my love, Than to be loved again of you—farewell ; And tho’ ye kill my hope, not yet my love, Vex not yourself: ye will not see me more.’ While thus he spake, she gazed upon the man Of princely bearing, tho’ in bonds, and thought, ‘Why have I push’d him from me? this man loves, If love there be: yet him I loved not. Why? I deem’d him fool? yea, so? or that in him A something—was it nobler than my- self ?>— Seem’d my reproach? He is not of my kind. He could not love me, did he know me well. Nay, let him go—and quickly.’ And her | knights of door. Forth sprang Gawain, and loosed him from his bonds, And flung them o’er the walls ; and after- ward, Shaking his hands, as from a lazar’s rag, ‘Faith of my body,’ he said, ‘and art thou not— Yea thou art he, whom late our Arthur made Knight of his table ; yea and he that won PELLEAS AND ELTARRS, | And tame thy jailing princess to thin Laugh’d not, but thrust him bounden out | The circlet? wherefore hast thea Sc defamed Thy brotherhood in me and all the re As let these caitiffs on thee work t will ?’ And Pelleas answer’d, ‘ O, their will: are hers ‘ For whom I won the circlet ; hers, Thus to be bounden, so to see her face, Marr’d tho’ it be with spite and mock 4 now, x Other than when I found her i woods ; And tho’ she hath me bounden but in spite And all to flout me, when they bringin in, Let me be bounden, I shall see her face Else must I die thro’ mine unhappiness.’ and. mine, 4 sg And Gawain answer’d kindly tho’ ry scorn, . ‘Why, let my lady bind me if she wil q And let my lady beat me if she will: But an she send her delegate to thrall _ These fighting hands of mine— Christ kil me then But I will slice him handless by the valet And let my lady sear the stump for him Howl as he may. But hold me for you friend : a Come, ye know nothing: here I pl my troth, ¥ Yea, by the honour of the Table Round I will be leal to thee and work thy : hand. 2 | Lend me thine horse and arms, and I wi sa 4 That I have slain thee. She will letm in 5 To hear the manner of thy fight and fall Then, when I come within her counsels then : From prime to vespers will I chant praise z As prowest knight and truest lover, mor Than any have sung thee living, till sh long Gg 'To have thee back in lusty life again, Not to be bound, save by white bonds and warm, Dearer than freedom. Wherefore now thy horse And armour : let me go: be comforted : sive me three days to melt her fancy, and hope The third night hence will bring thee | news of gold.’ Then Pelleas lent his horse and all his arms, Saving the goodly sword, his prize, and took zawain’s, and said, ‘ Betray me not, but help— \rt thou not he whom men call light-of- love ?’ ‘ Ay,’ said Gawain, ‘for women be so light.’ “hen bounded forward to the castle walls, nd raised a bugle hanging from his neck, and winded it, and that so musically ‘hat all the old echoes hidden in the | wall tang out like hollow woods at hunting- tide. | Upran a score of damsels to the tower ; Avaunt,’ they cried, ‘our lady loves thee not.’ ut Gawain lifting up his vizor said, Gawain am I, Gawain of Arthur’s court, nd I have slain this Pelleas whom ye hate : ehold his horse and armour. gates, nd I will make you merry.’ Open And down they ran, er damsels, crying to their lady, ‘Lo! slleas is dead—he told us—he that hath is horse and armour: will ye let him in? e slew him! Gawain, Gawain of the court, r Gawain—there he waits below the wall, owing his bugle as who should say him nay.’ PELLEAS AND ETTARRE. 439 And so, leave given, straight-on thro’ open door Rode Gawain, whom she greeted cour- teously. ‘Dead; isi so'?’>she ask’d" “Ay, ay,’ said he, ‘ And oft in dying cried upon your name.’ ‘Pity on him,’ she answer’d, ‘a good knight, But never let me bide one hour at peace.’ ‘Ay,’ thought Gawain, ‘and you be fair enow : | But I to your dead man have given my troth, That whom ye loathe, him will I make you love.’ So those three days, aimless about the land, Lost in a doubt, Pelleas wandering Waited, until the third night brought a moon With promise of large light on woods and ways. | Hot was the night and silent; but a sound Of Gawain ever coming, and this lay Which Pelleas had heard sung before the Queen, And seen her sadden listening—vext his heart, And marr’d his rest—‘ A worm within the rose.’ ‘ A rose, but one, none other rose had I, A rose, one rose, and this was wondrous fair, One rose, a rose that gladden’d earth and sky, One rose, my rose, mine air— I cared not for the thorns ; were there. that sweeten’d all the thorns ‘One rose, a rose to gather by and by, One rose, a rose, to gather and to wear, No rose but one—what other rose had I? One rose, my rose; a rose that will not die,— He dies who loves it,—if the worm be there.’ 440 PELLEAS AND ETTARRE. This tender rhyme, and evermore the doubt, ‘Why lingers Gawain with his golden news ?’ So shook him that he could not rest, but rode Ere midnight to her walls, and bound his horse Hard by the gates. Wide open were the gates, And no watch kept; and in thro’ these he past, And heard but his own steps, and his own heart Beating, for nothing moved but his own self, And his own shadow. Then he crost the court, And spied not any light in hall or bower, But saw the postern portal also wide Yawning ; and up a slope of garden, all Of roses white and red, and brambles mixt And overgrowing them, went on, and found, Here too, all hush’d below the mellow moon, Save that one rivulet from a tiny cave Came lightening downward, and so spilt itself Among the roses, and was lost again. Then was he ware of three pavilions rear’d Above the bushes, gilden-peakt : in one, Red afterrevel, droned her lurdane knights Slumbering, and their three squires across theirifeet:: In one, their malice on the placid lip Froz’n by sweet sleep, four of her damsels lay : And in the third, the circlet of the jousts Bound on her brow, were Gawain and Ettarre. Back, as a hand that pushes thro’ the leaf To find a nest and feels a snake, he drew: Back, as a coward slinks from what he fears To cope with, or a traitor proven, or hound Beaten, did Pelleas in an utter shame Creep with his shadow thro’ the cout again, Fingering at his sword-handle until stood : There on the castle-bridge once more, and thought, . ‘I will go back, and slay them where the lie.’ And so went back, and seeing them re in sleep Said, ‘Ye, that so dishallow the hol sleep, & Your sleep is death,’ and drew the sword, and thought, a ‘What ! slay a sleeping knight? the x hath bound And sworn me to this brotherhood; again, ‘Alas that ever a knight should be | SC false.’ Then turn’d, and so return’d, and groan ing laid The naked sword athwart their naker throats, . There left it, and them sleeping ; and ah lay, The circlet of the tourney round he brows, And the sword of the tourney across he * throat. And forth he past, and mounting 01 his horse > | Stared at her towers that, larger tha themselves In their own darkness, throng’d into th, moon. Then crush’d the saddle with his thighs and clench’d His hands, and madden’d with himse and moan’d ; ‘Would they have risen against = i their blood At the last day? I might have answet them Even before high God. strong, O towers: | - . PELLEAS AND ETTARRE. 441 ‘Auge, solid, would that even while I gaze The crack of earthquake shivering to your base Split you, and Hell burst up your harlot roofs Bellowing, and charr’d you thro’ and thro’ within, 3lack as the harlot’s heart—hollow as a skull ! uet the fierce east scream thro’ your eye- let-holes, {nd whirl the dust of harlots round and round -n dung and nettles! hiss, snake—I saw him there— et the fox bark, let the wolf yell. Who ae yells ere in the still sweet summer night, but fe , the poor Pelleas whom she call’d her fool ? ‘ool, beast—he, she, or I? myself most jee fool; seast too, as lacking human wit— dis- graced, Jishonour’d all for trial of true love— uove ?—we be all alike: only the King ath-made us fools and liars. O noble 4 vows ! ) great and sane and simple race of brutes vhat own no lust because they have no law ! ~ or why should I have loved her to my shame ? loathe her, as I loved her to my shame. ‘never loved her, I but lusted for her— .way—’ He dash’d the rowel into his horse, ’ \nd bounded forth and vanish’d thro’ the 3 night. | Then she, that felt the cold touch on her throat, waking knew the sword, and turn’d herself 0 Gawain: ‘Liar, for thou hast not slain his Pelleas! here he stood, and might have slain feand thyself.’ And he that tells the tale Says that her ever-veering fancy turn’d To Pelleas, as the one true knight on earth, And only lover; and thro’ her love her life Wasted and pined, desiring him in vain. But he by wild and way, for half the night, And over hard and soft, striking the sod From out the soft, the spark from off the hard, Rode till the star above the wakening sun, Beside that tower where Percivale was cowl’d, Glanced from the rosy forehead of the dawn, For so the words were flash’d into his heart He knew not whence or wherefore: ‘O sweet star, Pure on the virgin forehead of the dawn!’ And there he would have wept, but felt his eyes Harder and drier than a fountain bed In summer: thither came the village girls And linger’d talking, and they come no more Till the sweet heavens have fill’d it from the heights Again with living waters in the change Of seasons: hard his eyes; harder his heart Seem’d ; but so weary were his limbs, that he, Gasping, ‘Of Arthur’s hall am I, but here, Here let me rest and die,’ cast himself down, And gulf his griefs in inmost sleep ; so lay, Till shaken by a dream, that Gawain fired The hall of Merlin, and the morning star Reel’d in the smoke, brake into flame, and fell. He woke, and being ware of some one nigh, Sent hands upon him, as to tear him, crying, ‘False! and I held thee pureas Guinevere,’ 442 PELLEAS AND ETTARKLEG But Percivale stood near him and replied, ‘Am I but false as Guinevere is pure ? Or art thou mazed with dreams ? or being one Of our free-spoken Table hast not heard That Lancelot ’—there he check’d him- self and paused. Then fared it with Sir Pelleas as with one Who gets a wound in battle, and the sword That made it plunges thro’ the wound again, And pricks it deeper: and he shrank and wail’d, ‘Ts the Queen false ?’ and Percivale was mute. ‘Have any of our Round Table held their Vows ?’ And Percivale made answer not a word. ‘Is the King true?’ ‘The King!’ said Percivale. ‘Why then let men couple at once with’ wolves. What! art thou mad ?’ But Pelleas, leaping up, Ran thro’ the doors and vaulted on his horse And fled: small pity upon his horse had he, Or on himself, or any, and when he met A cripple, one that held a hand for alms— Hunch’d as he was, and like an old dwarf- elm That turns its back on the salt blast, the boy Paused not, but overrode him, shouting, ‘ False, And false with Gawain !’ and so left him bruised And batter’d, and fled on, and hill and wood Went ever streaming by him till the gloom, That follows on the turning of the world, Darken’d the common path: he twitch’d the reins, And made his beast that better knew it, swerve Now off it and now on; but when he High up in heaven the hall that built, Blackening against the dead-green st ‘ipe of even, ‘ Black nest of rats,’ he groan’d, ‘ye b too high.’ Not long thereafter from the city gat Issued Sir Lancelot riding airily, Warm with a gracious parting from tl Queen, Peace at his heart, and gazing at a star And marvelling what it was: on w the boy, Ss Across the silent seeded meadow-grass Borne, clash’d: and Lancelot, saying ‘What name hast thou a That ridest here so blindly and si hard ?” ‘IT have no name,’ he shouted, ‘a scourg) am J, To lash the treasons of the Table Rout “Yea, but ses name?’ ‘I have names,’ he cried : : ‘I am wrath and shame and hate and. eV) fame, 4 And like a poisonous wind I pass t blast And blaze the crime of Lancelot and th Queen.’ ‘First over me,’ sald Lancelot, ‘sha thou pass.’ ‘Fight therefore,’ yell’d the youth, + either knight at once “ The weary steed of Pelleas flounderin: flung E His rider, who call’d out from the dar field, ‘Thou art false as Hell: no sword.’ Then Lancelot, ‘Yea, between thy lips= and sharps : = But here will I disedge it by thy deat ‘ Slay then,’ he shriek’d, ‘ my will is to slain,’ . And Lancelot, with his heel upon t' fall’n, | slay me: I hay a ili, Rolling his eyes, a moment stood, then | spake : : ‘Rise, weakling ; I am Lancelot ; say thy ! say.’ _ And Lancelot slowly rode his warhorse back [To Camelot, and Sir Pelleas in brief while Vaught his unbroken limbs from the dark field, \nd follow’d to the city. both 3rake into hall together, worn and pale. (here with her knights and dames was Guinevere. "ull wonderingly she gazed on Lancelot It chanced that him self ye fought ?’ he said. And thou hast overthrown him ?’ i. my Queen.’ ‘hen she, turning to Pelleas, *O young knight, lath the great heart of knighthood in thee fail’d 0 far thou canst not bide, unfrowardly, fall from zm ?? Then, for he answer’d not, Or hast thou other griefs? If I, the Queen, lay help them, loose thy tongue, and let me know.’ ut Pelleas lifted up an eye so fierce he quail’d ; and he, hissing ‘I have no sword,’ - prang from the door into the dark. The Queen ook’d hard upon her lover, he on her ; nd each foresaw the dolorous day to pers ind all talk died, as in a grove all song neath the shadow of some bird of prey ; hen a long silence came upon the hall, nd Modred thought, ‘ The time is hard at hand.’ THE LAST TOURNAMENT. $0 soon return’d, and then on Pelleas, | Vho had not greeted her, but cast him- | Jown on a bench, hard-breathing. ‘Have she ask’d of Lancelot. ‘Ay, my Queen,’ cAy, | 443 THE LAST TOURNAMENT. DAGONET, the fool, whom Gawain in his mood Had made mock-knight of Arthur’s Table Round, At Camelot, high above the yellowing woods, Danced like a wither’d leaf before the hall. And toward him from the hall, with harp in hand, And from the crown thereof a carcanet Of ruby swaying to and fro, the prize Of Tristram in the jousts of yesterday, Came Tristram, saying, ‘Why skip ye so, Sir Fool ?’ For Arthur and Sir Lancelot riding once Far down beneath a winding wall of rock Heard a child wail, A stump of oak half-dead, From roots like some black coil of carven snakes, Clutch’d at the crag, and started thro’ mid air Bearing an eagle’s nest: and thro’ the tree Rush’d ever a rainy wind, and thro’ the wind Pierced ever a child’s cry: and crag and tree Scaling, Sir Lancelot from the perilous nest, This rubynecklace thrice around her neck, And all unscarr’d from beak or talon, brought A maiden babe; which Arthur pitying took, Then gave it to his Queen to rear: the Queen But coldly acquiescing, in her white arms Received, and after loved it tenderly, And named it Nestling ; so forgot herself A moment, and her cares ; till that young life Being smitten in mid heaven with mortal cold Past from her; and in time the carcanet Vext her with plaintive memories of the child: 444 THE LAST TOURNAMENT. 5 So she, delivering it to Arthur, said, Bridge-broken, one eye out, and one han | ‘Take thou the jewels of this dead in- off, . nocence, And one with shatter’d fingers dang And make them, an thou wilt, a tourney- lame, prize.’ A churl, to whom indignantly the itp To whom the King, ‘ Peace to thine ‘My churl, for whom Christ died, | eagle-borne evil beast | Dead nestling, and this honour after | Hath drawn his claws athwart thy | death, or fiend ? Following thy will! but, O my Queen, | Man was it who marr’d heaven’s imag I muse in thee thus ?’ .. Why ye not wear on arm, or neck, or i zone Then, sputtering thro’ the hedge ( Those diamonds that I rescued from the splinter’d teeth, 2 tarn, Yet strangers to the tongue, and wit And Lancelot won, methought, for thee blunt stump a} to wear.’ Pitch-blacken’d sawing the air, said th maim’d churl, % ‘Would rather you had let them fall,’ , she cried, ‘He took them and he drave them { ‘Plunge and be lost—ill-fated as they his tower— were, Some hold he wasa table-knight of thine- A bitterness to me !—ye look amazed, A hundred goodly ones—the Red Ku Not knowing they were lost as soon as he— given— Lord, I was tending swine, and the Re} Slid from my hands, when I was leaning Knight | out Brake in upon me and drave them toh Above the river—that unhappy child tower 5 Past in her barge: but rosier luck will go | And when I call’d upon thy name as 4 With these rich jewels, seeing that they | That doest right by gentle and by churl | came Maim’d me and maul’d, and would a Not from the skeleton of a brother-slayer, right have slain, But the sweet body of a maiden babe. Save that he sware me to a message Perchance—who knows ?—the purest of saying, 7 thy knights “Tell thou the King sa all his liars, that | May win them for the purest of my maids.’ | Have founded my Round Table in ‘th! North, 4 She ended, and the cry of a great jousts | And whatsoever his own knights 4 With trumpet-blowings ran on all the sworn ways My knights have sworn the counter it | From Camelot in among the faded fields it—and sa . To furthest towers ; and everywhere the | My tower is full of harlots, like his odie: | knights But mine are worthier, seeing they profes Arm’d for a day of glory before the King. | ‘Tobenone other than themselves—and sa | My knights are all adulterers like his owl But on the hither side of that loud morn | But mine are truer, seeing they profess” Into the hall stagger’d, his visage ribb’d | To benone other; andsayhishour is com’ From ear to ear with dogwhip-weals, his | The heathen are upon him, his long Jane) nose Broken, and his Excalibur a straw.”’ | schal, Take thou my churl, and tend him / curiously ike a king’s heir, till all his hurts be whole. ‘he heathen — but that ever-climbing - wave, furl’d back again so often in empty foam, {ath lain for years at rest—and renegades, _ ‘hieves, bandits, leavings of confusion, whom he wholesome realm is purged of other- where, riends, thro’ your manhood and your fealty, —now fake their last head like Satan in the North. ly younger knights, new-made, in whom your flower . Jaits to be solid fruit of golden deeds, fove with me toward their quelling, , which achieved, he loneliest ways are safe from shore to | shore. _ utthou, Sir Lancelot, sitting in my place nehair’d to-morrow, arbitrate the field ; _ or wherefore shouldst thou care to mingle | with it, nly to yield my Queen her own again? deak, Lancelot, thou art silent: is it , well ?’ _ Thereto Sir Lancelot answer’d, ‘It is hl well : et better if the King abide, and leave he leading of his younger knights to me. _ (se, for the King has will’d it, it is well.’ Then Arthur rose and Lancelot follow’d him, _ ad while they stood without the doors, 1 the King arn’d to him saying, ‘ Is it then so well? t mine the blame that oft I seem as he _ f whom was written, ‘‘ A sound is in his f ears’? ne foot that loiters, bidden go,—the glance ne THE LAST TOURNAMENT. - hat only seems half-loyal to command, — } 445 | Then Arthur turn’d to Kay the sene- | A manner somewhat fall’n from rever- ence— Or have I dream’d the bearing of our knights Tells of a manhood ever less and lower ? Or whence the fear lest this my realm, uprear’d, By noble deeds at one with noble vows, From flat confusion and brute violences, Reel back into the beast, and be no more ?” He spoke, and taking all his younger knights, Down the slope city rode, and sharply turn’d North by the gate. the Queen, Working a tapestry, lifted up her head, Watch’d her lord pass, and knew not that she sigh’d. Then ran across her memory the strange rhyme Of bygone Merlin, ‘Where is he who knows ? From the great deep to the great deep he goes,’ In her high bower But when the morning of a tournament, By these in earnest those in mockery call’d The Tournament of the Dead Innocence, Brake with a wet wind blowing, Lancelot, Round whose sick head all night, lke birds of prey, The words of Arthur flying shriek’d, arose, And down a streetway hung with folds of pure White samite, and by fountains running wine, Where children sat in white with cups of gold, Moved to the lists, and there, with slow sad steps Ascending, fill’d his chair. double - dragon’d He glanced and saw the stately galleries, Dame, damsel, each thro’ worship of their Queen White-robed in honour of the stainless child, 446 And some with scatter’d jewels, like a bank Of maiden snow mingled with sparks of fire. He look’d but once, and vail’d his eyes again. The sudden trumpet sounded as in a dream To ears but half-awaked, then one lowroll Of Autumn thunder, and the jousts began : And ever the wind blew, and yellowing leaf And gloom and gleam, and shower and shorn plume Went down it. Sighing weariedly, as one Who sits and gazes on a faded fire; When all the goodlier guestsare past away, Sat their great umpire, looking o’er the lists. He saw the laws that ruled the tournament Broken, but spake not; once, a knight cast down Before his throne of arbitration cursed The dead babe and the follies of the King ; And once the laces of a helmet crack’d, And show’d him, like a vermin in its hole, Modred, a narrow face: anon he heard The voice that billow’d round the barriers roar An ocean-sounding welcome to oneknight, But newly-enter’d, taller than the rest, And armour’d all in forest green, whereon There tript a hundred tiny silver deer, And wearing but a holly-spray for crest, With ever-scattering berries, and on shield A spear, a harp, a bugle—Tristram—late From overseas in Brittany return’d, And marriage witha princess of that realm, Isolt the White—Sir Tristram of the Woods— Whom Lancelot knew, had held sometime with pain His own against him, and now yearn’d to shake The burthen off his heart in one full shock With Tristram ev’n to death: his strong hands gript And dinted the gilt dragons right and left, Until he groan’d for wrath—so many of those, THE LAST TOURNAMENTS, That ware their ladies’ colours on th casque, Drew from before Sir Tristram to the bounds, And there with gibes and fickerin mockeries + a Stood, while he mutter’d, ‘ Craven crests O shame ! What faith have these in whom they swan to love? The glory of our Round Table is no more, e So Tristram won, and Lancelot gave the gems, Not speaking other word than ‘ Hast ov won ? x Art thouthe purest, brother? See, the hanc Wherewith thou takest this, is red !’ ba whom Tristram, half plagued by Lancelet’ lamenoreus mood, : Made answer, ‘Ay, but wherefore toss me this Likea dry bone cast tosome hungry hound: Let be thy fair Queen’s fantasy. Strength of heart — | And might of limb, but mainly useand skill, Are winners in this pastime of our King. My hand—belike the lance hath om | upon it— No blood of mine, I trow; but O al knight, Right arm of Arthur in the battlefield, Great brother, thou nor I have made the | world ; Be happy in thy fair Queen as I in mine, And Tristram round the gallery made his horse Caracole ; then bow’d his homage, bluntly saying, ‘Fair damsels, each to him who worl each Sole Queen of Beauty and of love, behold This day my Queen of Beauty is not here.’ And most of these were mute, some angerd dy one Murmuring, ‘ All courtesy is dead,’ 4 one, | ‘The glory os our Round Tableisno more.” mi: | ‘Then fell thick rain, plume droopt and mantle clung, And pettish cries awoke, and the wan day Went glooming down in wet and weari- ! ness : But under her black brows a swarthy one |Laugh’d shrilly, crying, ‘ Praise the patient saints, Dur one white day of Innocence hath past, Tho’ somewhat draggled at theskirt. So be it. The snowdrop only, flowering thro’ the year, Would make the world as blank as Winter-tide. “ome—let us gladden their sad eyes, our Queen’s And Lancelot’s, at this night’s solemnity ‘ ith all the kindlier colours of the field.’ So dame and damsel glitter’d at the feast Jariously gay: for he that tells the tale uiken’d them, saying, as when an hour of cold ie falls on the mountain in midsummer snows, 3 And all the purple slopes of mountain t flowers Pass under white, till the warm hour ' returns -Vith veer of wind, and all are flowers again ; _ \odame and damsel cast the simple white, ras ne Say Se es, and glowing in all colours, the live grass, _ \ose-campion, bluebell, kingcup, poppy, glanced .bout the revels, and with mirth so loud veyond all use, that, half-amazed, the Queen, nd wroth at Tristram and the lawless | jousts, take up their sports, then slowly to her bower arted, and in her bosom pain was lord. | And little Dagonet on the morrow morn, figh over all the yellowing Autumn-tide, anced like a wither’d leaf before the hall. } 1 THE LAST TOURNAMENT. 447 Then Tristram saying, ‘Why skip ye so, Sir Fool ?’ Wheel’d round on either heel, Dagonet replied, ‘ Belike for lack of wiser company ; Or being fool, and seeing too much wit Makes the world rotten, why, belike I skip To know myself the wisest knight of all.’ ‘ Ay, fool,’ said Tristram, ‘ but ’tis eating dry To dance without a catch, a roundelay To dance to.’ Then he twangled on his harp, And while he twangled little Dagonet stood Quiet as any water-sodden log Stay’d in the wandering warble of a brook ; But when the twangling ended, skipt again ; And being ask’d, ‘ Why skipt ye not, Sir Fool ?’ Made answer, ‘I had liefer twenty years Skip to the broken music of my brains Than any broken music thou canst make.’ Then Tristram, waiting for the quip te come, ‘Good now, what music have I broken, fool ?’ And little Dagonet, skipping, ‘ Arthur, the King’s ; For when thou playest that air with Queen Isolt, Thou makest broken music with thy bride, Her daintier namesake down in Brittany— And so thou breakest Arthur’s music too.’ ‘ Save for that broken music in thy brains, Sir fool,’ said Tristram, ‘I would break thy head. Fool, I came late, the heathen wars were o’er, The life had flown, we sware but by the shell— I am but a fool to reason with a fool— Come, thou art crabb’d and sour: but lean me down, Sir Dagonet, one of thy long asses’ ears, And harken if my music be not true. ‘ «¢ Free love—free field—we love but while we may: The woods are hush’d, their music is no more : 448 The leaf is dead, the yearning past away: New leaf, new life—the days of frost are oer: New life, new love, to suit the newer day: New loves are sweet as those that went before : Free love—free field—we love but while we may.” ‘Ye might have moved slow-measure to my tune, Not stood stockstill. woods, I made it in the And heard it ring as true as tested gold.’ ‘But Dagonet with one foot poised in his hand, ‘Friend, did ye mark that fountain yesterday Made to run wine ?—but this had run itself All out like a long life to a sour end— And them that round it sat with golden cups To hand the wine to whosoever came— The twelve small damosels white as Innocence, In honour of poor Innocence the babe, Who left the gems which Innocence the Queen Lent to the King, and Innocence the King ‘Gave for a prize—and one of those white slips Handed her cup and piped, the pretty one, “¢Drink, drink, Sir Fool,” and thereupon I drank, ‘Spat — pish—the cup was gold, draught was mud.’ ‘Was it muddier than the And Tristram, thy gibes? TIsall the laughter gone dead out of thee >— Not marking how the knighthood mock thee, fool— “‘ Fear God: honour the King—his one true knight— ‘Sole follower of the vows ”—for here be they ‘Who knew thee swine enow before I came, ‘Smuttier than blasted grain: but when the King THE LAST TOURNAMENT. It frighted all free fool from out thy heart Which left thee less than fool, ang a than swine, A naked aught—yet swine I hold heed For I have flung thee pearls and find thee Had made thee fool, thy vanity so J swine.’ And little Dagonet mincing with his feet, ‘Knight, an ye fling those rubies rounc my neck | In lieu of hers, I’ll hold thou hast some touch Of music, since I care not for thy pearls Swine? I have wallow’d, I have wae | —the world Is flesh and shadow—I have had my day — The dirty nurse, Experience, in her kine Hath foul’d me—an I wallow’d, then i| wash’d— i I have had my day and my philosophies— And thank the Lord I am oe Arthgr | | fool. Swine, say ye? swine, poe asses, ram and geese it Troop’d round a Paynim harper once who thrumm’d On such a wire as musically as thou Some such fine song—but never a king’ fool.’ | And Tristram, ‘Then were swine goats, asses, geese The wiser fools, seeing thy Paynim bar Had such a mastery of his mystery LI That he could harp his wife up out of hell. Then Dagonet, turning on the ball « his foot, | ‘And whither harp’st thou thine? down) . and thyself Down! and two more: thou, That harpest downward! Dost thou kno" | | the star We call the harp of Arthur up in heaven i. a helpful harpe } And Tristram, ‘ Ay, Sir Fool, for whe our King Was victor wellnigh day by day, i knights, ! i | | -_ —— i Bi 1 Glorying in each new glory, set his name digh on all hills, and in the signs of heaven.’ And Dagonet answer’d, ‘ Ay, and when i the land “Was freed, and the Queen false, ye set yourself To babble about him, all to show your wit— And whether he were King by courtesy, J King by right—and so went harping down The black king’s highway, got so far, and grew | 3o witty that ye play’d at ducks and | drakes With Arthur’s vows on the great lake of fire. Tuwhoo ! do ye see it? do ye see the star ?’ ‘Nay, fool,’ said Tristram, ‘not in open ss And Dagonet, and hear. It makes a silent music up in heaven, And I, and Arthur and the eels hear, And then we skip.’ ‘ Lo, fool,’ he said, ‘Nay, nor will: I see it ‘ye talk Foo!’ treason: is the King thy brother fool ?’ Then little Dagonet clapt his hands and shrill’d, «Ay, ay, my brother fool, the king of fools ! _ Conceits himself as God that he can make _ Figs out of thistles, silk from bristles, milk From burning spurge, honey from hornet- combs, And men from beasts—Long live the king of fools !’ And down the city Dagonet danced away ; But thro’ the slowly-mellowing avenues And solitary passes of the wood ‘Rode Tristram toward Lyonnesse and the west. | Before him fled the face of Queen Isolt With ruby-circled neck, but evermore THE LAST TOURNAMENT. 449 Past, as a rustle or twitter in the wood Made dull his inner, keen his outer eye For all that walk’d, or crept, or perch’d, or flew. Anon the face, as, when a gust hath blown, Unruffling waters re-collect the shape Of one that in them sees himself, return’d ; But at the slot or fewmets of a deer, Or ev’n a fall’n feather, vanish’d again. So on for all that day from lawn to lawn Thro’ many a league-long bower he rode. At length A lodge of intertwisted beechen-boughs Furze-cramm/’d, and bracken-rooft, the which himself Built for a summer day with Queen Isolt Against a shower, dark in the golden grove Appearing, sent his fancy back to where She lived a moon in that low lodge with him : Till Mark her lord had past, the Cornish King, With six or seven, when Tristram was away, And snatch’d her thence; yet dreading worse than shame Her warrior Tristram, word, But bode his hour, devising wretchedness. spake not any And now that desert lodge to Tristram lookt So sweet, that halting, in he past, and sank Down on a drift of foliage random-blown ; But could not rest for musing how to smoothe And sleek his marriage over to the Queen. Perchance in lone Tintagil far from all The tonguesters of the court she had not heard. But then what folly had sent him overseas After she left him lonely here? a name? Was it the name of one in Brittany, Isolt, the daughter of the King? ‘ Isolt Of the white hands’ they call’d her: the sweet name 2G 450 Allured him first, and then the maid her- self, Who served him well with those white hands of hers, And loved him well, until himself had thought He loved her also, wedded easily, But left her all as easily, and return’d. The black-blue Irish hair and Irish eyes Had drawn him home—what marvel ? then he laid His brows upon the drifted leaf and dream’d. He seem’d topace the strand of Brittany Between Isolt of Britain and his bride, And show’d them both the ruby-chain, and both Began to struggle for it, till his Queen Graspt it so hard, that all her hand was red. Then cried the Breton, ‘ Look, her hand is red ! These be no rubies, this is frozen blood, And melts within her hand—her hand is hot With ill desires, but this I gave thee, look, Is all as cool and white as any flower.’ Follow’d a rush of eagle’s wings, and then A whimpering of the spirit of the child, Because the twain had spoil’d her car- canet. He dream’d ; but Arthur with a hun- dred spears Rode far, till o’er the illimitable reed, And many a glancing plash and sallowy isle, The wide-wing’d sunset of the misty marsh Glared on a huge machicolated tower That stood with open doors, whereout was roll’d A roar of riot, as from men secure Amid their marshes, ruffians at their ease Among their harlot-brides, an evil song. ‘Lo there,’ said one of Arthur’s youth, for there, High ona grim dead tree before the tower, A goodly brother of the Table Round Swung by the neck: and on the boughs a shield THE LAST TOURNAMENT. Showing a shower of blood ina field noir And therebeside a horn, inflamed the knights At that dishonour done the gilded spur, _ Till each would clash the shield, and bigs the horn. But Arthur waved them back. Alone hv rode. é Then at the dry harsh roar of the ae horn, That sent the face of all the marsh aloft An ever upward-rushing storm and clouc Of shriek and plume, the Red kui heard, and all, Even to tipmost lance and topmost hal In blood-red armour sallying, howl’d t. the King, ‘The teeth of Hell flay bare and gnas thee flat !— Lo! art thou not that eunuch- hearte: King Who fain had clipt free manhood fror the world— The woman-worshipper?. Yea, God’) curse, and I! Slain was the brother of my paramour By a knight of thine, and I that hear her whine i And snivel, being eunuch-hearted too, Sware by the scorpion-worm that vr in hell, And stings itself to everlasting death, _ To hang whatever knight of thine I fough © And tumbled. Art thou King i to thy life !’ | I He ended: Arthur knew the voice ; th face Wellnigh was helmet-hidden, and th name Went wandering somewhere darkly i his mind. And Arthur deign’d not use of word 0 sword, But let the drunkard, as he stretch’d frov horse To strike him, overbalancing his baile | Down from the causeway heavily to th swamp Fall, as the crest of some slow-arching wave, Heard in dead night along that table- shore, Drops flat, and after the great waters break Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves, Far over sands marbled with moon and . cloud, From less and less to nothing ; thus he fell _\Head-heavy; then the knights, who : watch’d him, roar’d _ And shouted and leapt down upon the fall’n There trampled out his face from being | known, And sank his head in mire, and slimed themselves : _ Nor heard the King for their own cries, | but sprang | Thro’ open doors, and swording right and ; } left ‘Men, women, . hurl’d _ The tables over and the wines, and slew Till all the rafters rang with woman-yells, _ And all the pavement stream’d with on their sodden faces, massacre : Then, echoing yell with yell, they fired bi the tower, _ Which half that autumn night, like the | live North, Bee rulsing up thro’ Alioth and Alcor, _ Made all above it, and a hundred meres _ About it, as the water Moab saw Come round by the East, and out beyond | them flush’d The long low dune, and lazy-plunging sea. So all the ways were safe from shore to shore, But in the heart of Arthur pain was lord. . | Then, out of Tristram waking, the red dream ''Fled with a shout, and that low lodge | return’d, pa -forest, and the wind among the boughs. THE LAST TOURNAMENT. 451 He whistled his good warhorse left to graze Among the forest greens, vaulted upon him, And rode beneath an ever-showering leaf, Till one lone woman, weeping near a “cross, Stay’d him. ‘Why weep ye?’ she said, ‘my man Hath left me or is dead ;’ “Lord,’ whereon he thought— ‘What, if she hate me now? I would not this. What, if she love me still? I would not that. I know not what I would’—but said to her, ‘Yet weep not thou, lest, if thy mate return, He find thy favour changed and love thee not ’— Then pressing day by day thro’ Lyonnesse Last in a roky hollow, belling, heard The hounds of Mark, and felt the goodly hounds Yelp at his heart, but turning gain’d Tintagil, half in sea, and high on land, A crown of towers. » past and Down in a casement sat, A low sea-sunset glorying round her hair And _ glossy-throated grace, Isolt the Queen. And when she heard the feet of Tristram grind The spiring stone that scaled about her tower, Flush’d, started, met him at the doors, and there Belted his body with her white embrace, Crying aloud, ‘Not Mark—not Mark, my soul! The footstep flutter’d me at first : not he: Catlike thro’ his own castle steals my Mark, But warrior-wise thou stridest thro’ his halls Who hates thee, as I him—ev’n to the death. My soul, I felt my hatred for my Mark 452 THE LAST TOURNAMENT. Quicken within me, and knew that thou wert nigh.’ To whom Sir Tristram smiling, ‘I am here. Let be thy Mark, seeing he is not thine.’ And drawing somewhat backward she replied, ‘Can he be wrong’d who is not ev’n his own, But save for dread of thee had beaten me, Scratch’d, bitten, blinded, marrd me somehow—Mark ? What rights are his that dare not strike for them? Not lift a hand—not, tho’ he found me thus ! But harken ! have ye met him? hence he went To-day for three days’ hunting—as he said— And so returns belike within an hour. Mark’s way, my soul !—but eat not thou with Mark, Because he hates thee even more than fears ; Nor drink: and when thou passest any wood Close vizor, lest an arrow from the bush Should leave me all alone with Mark and hell. My God, the measure of my hate for Mark Is as the measure of my love for thee.’ So, pluck’d one way by hate and one by love, Drain’d of her force, again she sat, and spake To Tristram, as he knelt before her, saying, ‘O hunter, and O blower of the horn, Harper, and thou hast been a rover too, For, ere I mated with my shambling king, Ye twain had fallen out about the bride Of one—his name is out of me—the prize, If prize she were—(what marvel—she could see)— Thine, friend ; and ever since my craven seeks To wreck thee villainously: but, O Sir Knight, What dame or damsel have ye kneel’ last ?’ first q Her light feet fell on our rough Lyon } Sailing from Ireland.’ Softly laugh’d Tsolt ‘Flatter me not, for hath not our grea Queen My dole of beauty trebled ?? and he sa id ‘Her beauty is her beauty, and thin thine, And thine is more to me—soft, gracions kind— 1. Save when thy Mark is kindled on thy lip: Most gracious ; but she, haughty, evn t him, ° Lancelot ; for I have seen him wan enov To make one doubt if ever the great Qi Have yielded him her love.’ To whom A ‘Ah then, false hunter and false harper thou . s Who brakest thro’ the scruple of 3 bond, | Calling me thy white hind, and sayin, to me That Guinevere had sinn’d against th highest, And I—misyoked with such a want © man— That I could hardly sin against the oe He answer’d, forted ! If this be sweet, to sin in leading-string: If here be comfort, and if ours be sin, Crown’d-watrantyhad we for thea ‘O my soul, be com sin That made us happy: but how ye grec me—fear And fault and doubt—no word of the fond tale— Thy deep heart-yearnings, thy sweet - memories Of Tristram in that year he was away.’ | And, saddening on the sudden, spake | Isolt, ‘1 had forgotten all in my strong joy To see thee—yearnings ?—ay ! for, hour by hour, Here in the never-ended. afternoon, _ O sweeter than all memories of thee, Deeper than any yearnings after thee Seem’d those far-rolling, westward- f smiling seas, _ Watch’d from this tower. Isolt of Britain dash’d Before Isolt of Brittany on the strand, Would that have chill’d her bride-kiss ? Wedded her ? : ought in her father’s battles? wounded there ? The King was all fulfill’d with grateful- ness, And she, my namesake of the hands, that if. heal’d ‘Thy hurt and heart with unguent and caress— ~ Well—can I wish her any huger wrong _/Than having known thee? her too hast thou left ‘To pine and waste in those sweet | memories. (9 were I not my Mark’s, by whom all men ‘Are noble, I should hate thee more than love.’ - —e — And Tristram, fondling her light hands, replied, ‘Grace, Queen, for being loved: ! loved me well. Did I love her? the name at least I loved. solt ?—I fought his battles, for Isolt ! The night was dark; the true star set. Isolt ! _ The name was ruler of the dark Isolt ? Care not for her! patient, and prayerful, | meek, |Pale. blooded, she will yield herself to | God.’ she THE LAST TOURNAMENT. 453 And Isolt answer’d, not I? Mine is the larger need, who am not meek, ‘Yea, and why Pale-blooded, prayerful. Let me tell thee now. Here one black, mute midsummer night I sat, Lonely, but musing on thee, wondering where, Murmuring a light song I had heard thee sing, And once or twice I spake thy name aloud. Then flash’d a levin-brand ; and near me stood, In fuming sulphur blue and green, a fiend— Mark’s way to steal behind one in the dark— For there was Mark: ‘‘ He has wedded her,” +he;said, Not said, but hiss’d it: of towers So shook to such a roar of all the sky, That here in utter dark I swoon’d away, And woke again in utter dark, and cried, “‘T will flee hence and give myself to God ”— And thou wert lying in thy new leman’s arms,’ then this crown Then Tristram, ever dallying with her hand, ‘ May God be with thee, sweet, when old and gray, And past desire !’ a saying that anger’d her. ‘«* May God be with thee, sweet, when thou art old, And sweet no more to me!” I need Him now. For when had Lancelot utter’d aught so gTOSS Ev’n to the swineherd’s malkin in the mast ? The greater man, the greater courtesy. Far other was the Tristram, Arthur’s knight ! But thou, thro’ ever harrying thy wild beasts— Save that to touch a harp, tilt with a lance 454 Becomes thee well—art grown wild beast thyself. How darest thou, if lover, push me even In fancy from thy side, and set me far In the gray distance, half a life away, Her to be loved no more? Unsay it, unswear ! Flatter me rather, seeing me so weak, Broken with Mark and hate and solitude, Thy marriage and mine own, that I should suck : Lies like sweet wines: lieto me: I believe. Will ye not lie? not swear, as there ye kneel, And solemnly as when ye sware to him, The man of men, our King—My God, the power Was once in vows when men believed the King ! They lied not then, who sware, and thro’ their vows The King prevailing made his realm :— I say, Swear to me thou wilt love me ew’n when old, Gray-hair’d, and past desire, and in de- spair.’ Then Tristram, pacing moodily up and down, “Vows ! did you keep the vow you made to Mark More than I mine ? but learnt, The vow that binds too -strictly snaps itself-— My knighthood taught me this—ay, being snapt— We run more counter to the soul thereof Than had we never sworn. I swear no Lied, say ye? Nay, more. I swore to the great King, and am for- sworn. For once—ev’n to the Belg hte honour’d him. ‘Man, is he man at all?” methought, when first I rode from our rough Lyonnesse, and beheld That victor of the Pagan throned in hall— THE LAST TOURNAMENT. His hair, a sun that ray’d from off a brow Like hillsnow high in heaven, the steel. blue eyes, The golden beard that clothed hie with light— Moreover, that weird legend of his b With Merlin’s mystic babble about his Amazed me ; then, his foot was ona. Shaped as a dragon ; he seem’d to meno man, a But Michaél trampling Satan ; so I sw; Being amazed: but this went by—T vows ! , O ay—the wholesome madness off an hour— 4 They served their use, their time; for every knight Believed himself a greater than himsell ie | And every follower eyed him as a God Till he, being lifted up beyond himself, Did mightier deeds than elsewise he hz done, “a And so the realm was made; but the their vows— | | First mainly thro’ that sullying of our Queen— a Began to gall the knighthood, a. e | whence Dropt down from heaven ? wash’d 1 up- from out the deep ? - They fail’d to trace him thro’ the flesh and blood Of our old kings : ful lord To bind them by inviolable vows, Which flesh and blood perforce would | violate : Z For feel this arm of mine—the tide wi h Red with free chase and heather-sce air, ’ Pulsing full man; can Arthur make 1 me whence then ? a dou Bt pure As any maiden child ? lock up my tong From uttering freely what I freely hear? — Bind me to one? The wide w laughs at it. : And worldling of the world am I], and | know 1 The ptarmigan that whitens ere his he a T Noos his own end ; we are not angels here Nor shall be: vows—I am woodman of | the woods, And hear the garnet-headed yaffingale Mock them: my soul, we love but while we may; And therefore is my love so large for thee, Seeing it is not bounded save by love.’ _ Here ending, he moved toward her, and she said, Good: an I turn’d away my love for thee fo some one thrice as courteous as thy- self— “or courtesy wins woman all as well \\s valour may, but he that closes both $ perfect, he is Lancelot—taller indeed, Xosier and comelier, thoun—but say I loved This knightliest of all knights, and cast thee back Chine own small saw, ‘SWe love but while we may,” Well then, what answer ?’ He that while she spake, Mindful of what he brought to adorn her with, Che jewels, had let one finger lightly touch The warm white apple of her throat, . replied, Press this a little closer, sweet, until— -ome, I am hunger’d and half-anger’d— meat, Wine, wine—and I will love thee to the death, And out beyond into the dream to come.’ | | ' So then, when both were brought to | full accord, She rose, and set before him all he will’d ; And after these had comforted the bisa’ With meats and wines, and satiated their hearts— Now talking of their woodland paradise, Uhe deer, the dews, the fern, the founts, the lawns ; Now mocking at the much ungainliness, \nd craven shifts, and long crane legs of Mark— Chen Tristram laughing caught the harp, and sang : THE LAST TOURNAMENT, 455 ‘Ay, ay, O ay—the winds that bend the brier ! A star in heaven, a star within the mere ! Ay, ay, O ay—a star was my desire, And one was far apart, and one was near : Ay, ay, O ay—the winds that bow the grass ! And one was water and one star was fire, And one will ever shine and one will pass. Ay, ay, O ay—the winds that move the mere.’ Then in the light’s last glimmer Tris- tram show’d And swung the ruby carcanet. She cried, ‘The collar of some Order, which our King , Hath newly founded, all for thee, my soul, For thee, to yield thee grace beyond thy peers.’ ‘Not so, my Queen,’ he said, ‘but the red fruit Grown on amagic oak-tree in mid-heaven, And won by Tristram as a tourney-prize, And hither brought by Tristram for his last Love-offering and peace-offering unto thee.’ He spoke, he turn’d, then, flinging round her neck, Claspt it, and cried ‘Thine Order, O my Queen !’ But, while he bow’d to kiss the jewell’d throat, Out of the dark, just as the lips had touch’d, Behind him rose a shadow and a shriek— ‘ Mark’s way,’ said Mark, and clove him thro’ the brain. That night came Arthur home, and while he climb’d, All in a death-dumb autumn- dripping gloom, The stairway to the hall, and look’d and saw The great Queen’s bower was dark,—- about his feet A voice clung sobbing till he question’d it, 456 ‘What art thou?’ and the voice about his | feet Sent up an answer, sobbing, ‘I am thy. fool, And I shall never make thee smile again.’ GUINEVERE. QUEEN GUINEVERE had fled the court, and sat There in the holy house at Almesbury Weeping, none with her save a little maid, A novice: one low light betwixt them burn’d Blurr’d by the creeping mist, for all abroad, Beneath a moon unseen albeit at full, The white mist, like a face-cloth to the face, Clung to the dead earth, and the land was still. For hither had she fled, her cause of flight Sir Modred ; he that like a subtle beast Lay couchant with his eyes upon the throne, Ready to spring, waiting a chance: this He chill’d the popular praises of the King With silent smiles of slow disparagement ; And tamper’d with the Lords of the White Horse, Heathen, the brood by Hengist left ; sought To make disruption in the Table Round Of Arthur, and to splinter it into feuds Serving his traitorous end; and all his aims Were sharpen’d by strong hate for Lance- lot. for and For thus it chanced one morn when all the court, Green-suited, but with plumes that mock’d the may, Had been, their wont, return’d, That Modred still in green, all ear and eye, a-maying and GUINEVERE. | And saw the Queen who sat betwixt he | The alee and the worst ; one more | Climb’d to the high top of the garden 4 wall | | To spy some secret scandal if he might, — best j Enid, and lissome Vivien, of her court than this He saw not, for Sir Lancelot passin Spied where he couch’d, and as- gardener’s hand Picks from the colewort a green c pillar, So from the high wall and the flowe grove { Of grasses Lancelot pluck’d him by heel, And cast him as a worm upon the way But when he knew the Prince tho’ m with dust, He, reverencing king’s blood ina bad man, Made such excuses as he might, and Full knightly without scorn ; for in days | No knight of Arthur’s noblest dealt i mn SCOrn 5 4 But, if a man were halt or hunch in him. By those whom God had made full- lim no and tall, : Scorn was allow’d as part of his defect And he was answer’d softly by the And all his Table. So Sir Lancelot To raise the Prince, who rising twit thrice Full sharply smote his knees, and smi le, and went: But, ever after, the small violence done Rankled in him and ruffled all his heart, q As the sharp wind that ruffles all day long. A little bitter pool about a stone oe. On the bare coast. r By | “ a But when Sir Lancelot told’ This matter to the Queen, at first $ Be laugh’d Lightly, to think of Modred’s dusty fall, | Then shudder’d, as the village wife who cries | ‘I shudder, some one steps across My grave ;’ ** Once more the gate behind me falls, Once more before my face T see the moulder'd Abbey walls, That stand within the chace.” ” _ Then laugh’d again, but faintlier, for in- ;| deed _ Would track her guilt until he found, and hers Would be for evermore a name of scorn. Henceforward rarely could she front in hall, Or elsewhere, Modred’s narrow foxy face, Heart-hiding smile, and gray persistent | eye : Henceforward too, the Powers that tend the soul, To help it from the death that cannot die, And save it even in extremes, began To vex and plague her. Many a time for hours, ide the placid breathings of the King, Tn the dead night, grim faces came and went Before her, or a vague spiritual fear— | Like to some doubtful noise of creaking doors, ‘Heard by the watcher in a haunted house, That keeps the rust of murder on the f ; walls— ‘Held her awake: or if she slept, she dream’d | An awful dream ; for then she seem’d to stand On some vast plain before a setting sun, And from the sun there swiftly made at her ' A ghastly something, and its shadow flew ’ Before it, till it touch’d her, and she ; turn’d— When lo! her own, that broadening from her feet, _ And blackening, swallow’d all the land, and in it Far cities burnt, and with a cry she woke. And all this trouble did not pass but grew; Till ev’n the clear face of the guileless | King, _ And trustful courtesies of household life, _ Became her bane; and at the last she said, *O Lancelot, get thee hence to thine own | land, _ For if thou tarry we shall meet again, _ And if we meet again, some evil chance GUINE VERE. 457 Will make the smouldering scandal break and blaze Before the people, and our lord the King.’ And Lancelot ever promised, but re- main’d, And still they met and met. Again she said, ‘O Lancelot, if thou love me get thee hence.’ And then they were agreed upon a night (When the good King should not be there) to meet And part for ever. Passion-pale they met And greeted: hands in hands, and eye to eye, Low on the border of her couch they sat Stammering and staring: it was their last hour, A madness of farewells. brought ITis creatures to the basement of the tower For testimony; and crying with full voice ‘Traitor, come out, ye are trapt at last,’ aroused Lancelot, who rushing outward lionlike Leapt on him, and hurl’d him headlong, and he fell Stunn’d, and his creatures took and bare him off, And all was still : come, And I am shamed for ever;’ and he said, ‘Mine be the shame; mine was the sin: but rise, And fly to my strong castle overseas : There will I hide thee, till my life shall end, There hold thee with my life against the world.’ She answer’d, ‘ Lancelot, wilt thou hold me so? Nay, friend, for we have taken our fare- wells. Would God that thou couldst hide me from myself ! Mine is the shame, for I was wife, and thou Unwedded : yet rise now, and let us fly, For I will draw me into sanctuary, And bide my doom.’ So Lancelot got her horse, And Modred then she, ‘ The end is 458 GUINEVERE. , :' 7 Set her thereon, and mounted on his own, And then they rode to the divided way, There kiss’d, and parted weeping: for he past, Love-loyal to the least wish of the Queen, Back to his land; but she to Almesbury Fled all night long by glimmering waste and weald, And heard the Spirits of the waste and weald Moan as she fled, or thought she heard them moan : And in herself she moan’d ‘ Too late, too late !” Till in the cold wind that foreruns the morn, A blot in heaven, the Raven, flying high, Croak’d, and she thought, ‘He spies a field of death ; For now the Heathen of the Northern Sea, Lured by the crimes and frailties of the court, Begin to slay the folk, and spoil the land.’ And when she came to Almesbury she spake There to the nuns, and said, enemies Pursue me, but, O peaceful Sisterhood, Receive, and yield me sanctuary, nor ask Hier name to whom ye yield it, till her time ‘Yo tell you: power, Wrought as a charm upon them, and they spared To ask it. ‘Mine > and her beauty, grace and So the stately Queen abode For many a week, unknown, among the nuns ; Nor with them mix’d, nor told her name, nor sought, Wrapt in her grief, for housel or for shrift, But communed only with the little maid, Who pleased her with a babbling heed- lessness Which often lured her from herself; but now, This night, a rumour wildly blown about Came, that Sir Modred had usurp’d the realm, And leagued him with the heathen, while the King Was waging war on Lancelot: then she thought, ‘With what a hate the people and the King Must hate me,’ and bow’d down upon her hands Silent, until the little maid, who brook’d No silence, brake it, uttering ‘ Late! so late ! What hour, I wonder, now?’ and when she drew No answer, by and by began to hum An air the nuns had taught her; ‘ Late, so late !” Which when she heard, the Queen look’d up, and said, ‘O maiden, if indeed ye list to sing, Sing, and unbind my heart that I may weep.’ Whereat full willingly sang the little maid. ‘Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill ! Late, late, so late! but we can enter still. Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now. ‘No light had we: for that we do repent ; And learning this, the bridegroom will — relent. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. ‘No light: so late! and dark and chill the night ! O let us in, that we may find the light! Too late, too late: ye cannot enter now. ‘Have we not heard the bridegroom is sO sweet ? O let us in, tho’ late, to kiss his feet ! No, no, too late ! ye cannot enter now.’ So sang the novice, while full passion- ately, Her head upon her hands, remembering e | | | Her thought when first she came, wept D5. GUINEVERE. 459 the sad Queen. Then said the little novice prattling to her, *O pray you, noble lady, weep no more’; \"' But let my words, the words of one so | small, -Who knowing nothing knows but to obey, And if I do not there is penance given— _ Comfort your sorrows ; for they do not flow From evil done; right sure am I of that, Who see your tender grace and stateliness. But weigh your sorrows with our lord the King’s, And weighing find them less ; for gone is he To wage grim war against Sir Lancelot there, | Round that strong castle where he holds the Queen ; And Modred whom he left in charge of all, : _ The traitor—Ah sweet lady, the King’s grief For his own self, and his own Queen, and realm, _ Must needs be thrice as great as any of ours. For me, I thank the saints, I am not great. _ For if there ever come a grief to me I cry my cry in silence, and have done. None knows it, and my tears have brought me good : _ But even were the griefs of little ones _ As great as those of great ones, yet this grief Is added to the griefs the great must bear, _ That howsoever much they may desire Silence, they cannot weep behind a cloud: As even here they talk at Almesbury _ About the good King and his wicked Queen, _ AndwereI such a King with such a Queen, _ Well might I wish to veil her wickedness, _ But were I such a King, it could not be.’ Then to her own sad heart mutter’d the Queen, ‘Will the child kill me with her innocent talk ?’ But openly she answer’d, ‘ Must not I, If this false traitor have displaced his lord, Grieve with the common grief of all the realm ?’ ‘Yea;’ said the maid, ‘this is» all woman’s grief, That she is woman, whose disloyal life Hath wrought confusion in the Table Round Which good King Arthur founded, years ago, With signs and miracles and wonders, there At Camelot, ere the coming of the Queen.’ Then thought the Queen within herself again, ‘Will the child kill me with her foolish prate ?? But openly she spake and said to her, ‘O little maid, shut in by nunnery walls, What canst thou know of Kings and Tables Round, Or what of signs and wonders, but the signs And simple miracles of thy nunnery ?’ To whom the little novice garrulously, ‘Yea, but I know: the land was full of signs And wonders ere the coming of the Queen. So said my father, and himself was knight Of the great Table—at the founding of it ; And rode thereto from Lyonnesse, and he said That as he rode, an hour or maybe twain After the sunset, down the coast, he heard Strange music, and he paused, and turn- ing—there, All down the lonely coast of Lyonnesse, Each with a beacon-star upon his head, And with a wild sea-light about his feet, He saw them—headland after headland flame Far on into the rich heart of the west : 460 And in the light the white mermaiden swam, And strong man-breasted things stood from the sea, And sent a deep sea-voice thro’ all the land, To which the little elves of chasm and cleft Made answer, sounding likeadistant horn. So said my father—yea, and furthermore, Next morning, while he past the dim-lit woods, Himself beheld three spirits mad with Joy Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower, That shook beneath them, as the thistle shakes When three gray linnets wrangle for the seed : And still at evenings on before his horse The flickering fairy-circle wheel’d and broke Flying, and link’d again, and wheel’d and broke Flying, for all the land was full of life. And when at last he came to Camelot, A wreath of airy dancers hand-in-hand Swung round the lighted lantern of the hall ; And in the hall itself was such a feast As never man had dream’d; for every knight Had whatsoever meat he long’d for served By hands unseen ; and even as he said Down in the cellars merry bloated things Shoulder’d the spigot, straddling on the butts While the wine ran: and men Before the coming of the sinful Queen.’ so glad were spirits Then spake the Queen and somewhat bitterly, ‘Were they so glad? ill prophets were they all, Spirits and men: foresee, Not even thy wise father with his signs And wonders, what has fall’n upon the realm ?’ could none of them GUINEVERE. ; To whom the novice garrulously again ‘Yea, one, a bard; of whom my fathe said, Full many a noble war-song had he sung, Ev’n in the presence of an enemy’s fleet, Between the steep cliff and the coming wave ; And many a mystic lay of life and death Had chanted on the smoky mountain: tops, When round him bent the spirits of the hills With all their dewy hair blown back flame : So said my father—and that night the bard Sang Arthur’s glorious wars, and sang the King | As wellnigh more than man, and rail’d at those Who call’d him the false son of Gorlois: For there was no man knew from whee he came ; But after tempest, when the long wave broke All down the thundering shores of Bude: and Bos, There came a day as still as heaven, and then They found a naked child upon the sani Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea ; And that was Arthur; and they foster’d him tl Till he by miracle was approven King: And that his grave should be a mystery : From all men, like his birth; and could. Fe he find : | A woman in her womanhood as great As he was in his manhood, then, he sang, — The twain together well mighe change the world. But even in the middle of his song He falter’d, and his hand fell from the harp, And pale he turn’d, and reel’d, and | have fall’n, | But that they stay’d him up; nor would he tell His vision; but what doubt that he fore: saw This evil work of Lancelot and the Queen?” | ‘a %. Then thought the Queen, ‘Lo! they have set her on, Our simple-seeming Abbess and her nuns, To play upon me,’ and bow’d her head nor spake. Whereat the novice crying, with clasp’d hands, | Shame on her own garrulity garrulously, ' Said the good nuns would check her gadding tongue Full often, ‘and, sweet lady, if I seem To vex an ear too sad to listen to me, Unmannerly, with prattling and the tales Which my good father told me, check me too Nor let me shame my father’s memory, one Of noblest manners, tho’ himself would say Sir Lancelot had the noblest; and he died, Kill'd in a tilt, come next, five summers back, And left me ; but of others who remain, | And of the two first-famed for courtesy— And pray you check me if I ask amiss— But pray you, which had noblest, while . you moved Among them, Lancelot or our lord the King ?’ | Then the pale Queen look’d up and answer’d her, “Sir Lancelot, as became a noble knight, “Was gracious to all ladies, and the same In open battle or the tilting-field _Forbore his own advantage, and the King In open battle or the tilting-field Forbore his own advantage, and these two Were the most nobly-manner’d men of all ; ‘For manners are not idle, but the fruit Of loyal nature, and of noble mind.’ _ *Yea,’ said the maid, ‘be manners such fair fruit ? Then Lancelot’s needs must be a thou- sand-fold Less noble, being, as all rumour runs, by most disloyal friend in all the world.’ GUINEVERE. 461 To which a mournful answer made the Queen : ‘O closed about by narrowing nunnery- walls, What knowest thou of the world, and all its lights And shadows, all the wealth and all the woe ? If ever Lancelot, that most noble knight, Were for one hour less noble than himself, Pray for him that he scape the doom of fire, And weep for her who drew him to his doom.’ ‘Yea,’ said the little novice, ‘I pray for both ; But I should all as soon believe that his, Sir Lancelot’s, were as noble as the King’s, As I could think, sweet lady, yours would be Such as they are, were you the sinful Queen.’ So she, like many another babbler, hurt Whom she would soothe, and harm’d where she would heal ; For here a sudden flush of wrathful heat Fired all the pale face of the Queen, who cried, ‘Such as thou art be never maiden more For ever! thou their tool, set on to plague And play upon, and harry me, petty spy And traitress.” When that storm of anger brake From Guinevere, aghast the maiden rose, White as her veil, and stood before the Queen As tremulously as foam upon the beach Stands in a wind, ready to break and fly, And when the Queen had added ‘Get thee hence,’ Fled frighted. Then that other left alone Sigh’d, and began to gather heart again, Saying in herself, ‘The simple, fearful child Meant nothing, but my own too-fearful guilt, Simpler than any child, betrays itself. But help me, heaven, for surely I repent. 462 For what is true repentance but in thought— Not ev’n in inmost thought to think again The sins that made the past so pleasant to us: And I have sworn never to see him more, To see him more.’ And ev’n in saying this, Ifer memory from old habit of the mind Went slipping back upon the golden days In which she saw him first, when Lancelot came, Reputed the best knight and goodliest man, Ambassador, to lead her to his lord Arthur, and led her forth, and far ahead Of his and her retinue moving, they, Rapt in sweet talk or lively, all on love And sport and tilts and pleasure, (for the time Was maytime, and as yet no sin was dream’d, ) Rode under groves that look’d a paradise Of blossom, over sheets of hyacinth That seem’d the heavens upbreaking thro’ the earth, And on from hill to hill, and every day Beheld at noon in some delicious dale The silk pavilions of King Arthur raised For brief repast or afternoon repose By couriers gone before ; and on again, Till yet once more ere set of sun they saw The Dragon of the great Pendragonship, That crown’d the state pavilion of the King, Blaze by the rushing brook or silent well. But when the Queen immersed in such a trance, And moving thro’ the past unconsciously, Came to that point where first she saw the King Ride toward her from the. city, sigh’d to find Her journey done, glanced at him, thought him cold, High, self-contain’d, and passionless, not like him, GUINEVERE. ‘Not like my Lancelot while © she brooded thus 4 And grew half-guilty in her thoughts again, ¢ There rode an armed warrior to the doors, i, A murmuring whisper thro’ the nunnery ran, E Then on a sudden a cry, ‘The King? She sat a Stiff-stricken, listening ; but when arn feet ee coming, prone from off her seat she q fell, a And grovell’d with her face against the floor: 4 There with her milkwhite arms and shadowy hair She made her face a darkness from the King: is And in the darkness heard his armed fe Pause by her; then came silence, then a voice, Monotonous and hollow like a Ghost’s Denouncing judgment, but tho’ changed, the King’s: 4 ‘Liest thou here so low, the child 4 one | I honour’d, happy, dead before thy shame Well is it that no child is born of thee. ‘The children born of thee are sword i | fire, Red ruin, and the breaking up of laws, The craft of kindred and the Godless = i V Of heathen swarming o’er the Norther Sea; Whom I, while yet Sir Lancelot, my ght arm The mightiest of my leciehis abode with me, Have everywhere about this land of Christ In twelve great battles ruining overthrown. — And knowest thou now from whence I come—from him, From waging bitter war with him: and he, . That did not shun to smite me in worse way, Had yet that grace of courtesy in him let : % y 4 He spared to lift his hand against the King Who made him knight: but many a knight was slain ; And many more, and all his kith and kin Clave to him, and abode in his own land. And many more when Modred raised . revolt, \Porgetful of their troth and fealty, clave To Modred, and a remnant stays with me. And of this remnant will I leave a part, True men who love me still, for whom [ live, To guard thee in the wild hour coming on, Lest but a hair of this low head be harm’d. ‘Fear not: thou shalt be guarded till my death. 1% I know, if ancient prophecies Have err’d not, that I march to meet my | doom. ‘Thou hast not made my life so sweet to me, ‘That I the King should greatly care to live ; For thou hast spoilt the purpose of my life. Bear with me for the last time while I | show, Ewn for thy sake, the sin which thou hast 1a sinn’d. for when the Roman left us, and their law Relax’d its hold upon us, and the ways Were fill’d with rapine, here and there a deed Of prowess done redress’d a random . wrong. But I was first of all the kings who drew ‘The knighthood-errant of this realm and . all I he realms together under me, their | Head, -n that fair Order of my Table Round, X glorious company, the flower of men, To serve as model for the mighty world, And be the fair beginning of a time. - made them lay their hands in mine and swear To reverence the King, as if he were Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, Yo break the heathen and uphold the Christ, eens | } GUINEVERE. 463 To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, To honour his own word as if his God’s, To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, To love one maiden only, cleave to her, And worship her by years of noble deeds, Until they won her ; for indeed I knew Of no more subtle master under heaven Than is the maiden passion for a maid, Not only to keep down the base in man, But teach high thought, and amiable words And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and all that makes a man. And all this throve before I wedded thee, Believing, ‘‘lo mine helpmate, one to feel My purpose and rejoicing in my joy.” Then came thy shameful sin with Lance- lot ; Then came the sin of Tristram and Isolt; Then others, following these my mightiest knights, And drawing foul ensample from fair names, Sinn’d also, till the loathsome opposite Of all my heart had destined did obtain, And all thro’ thee! so that this life of mine I guard as God’s high gift from scathe and wrong, Not greatly care to lose; but rather think How sad it were for Arthur, should he live, To sit once more within his lonely hall, And miss the wonted number of my knights, And miss to hear high talk of noble deeds As in the golden days before thy sin. For which of us, who might be left, could speak Of the pure heart, nor seem to glance at thee ? And in thy bowers of Camelot or of Usk Thy shadow still would glide from room to room, And I should evermore be vext with thee In hanging robe or vacant ornament, Or ghostly footfall echoing on the stair. For think not, tho’ thou wouldst not love thy lord, Thy lord has wholly lost his love for thee. 464 I am not made of so slight elements. Yet must I leave thee, woman, to thy shame. I hold that man the worst of public foes Who either for his own or children’s sake, To save his blood from scandal, lets the wife Whom he knows false, abide and rule the * house: For being thro’ his cowardice allow’d Her station, taken everywhere for pure, She like a new disease, unknown to men, Creeps, no precaution used, among the crowd, Makes wicked lightnings of her eyes, and saps The fealty of our friends, and stirs the pulse With devil’s leaps, and poisons half the young. Worst of the worst were that man he that reigns ! Better the King’s waste hearth and aching heart Than thou reseated in thy place of light, The mockery of my people, and their bane.’ He paused, and in the pause she crept an inch Nearer, and laid her hands about his feet. Far off a solitary trumpet blew. Then waiting by the doors the warhorse neigh’d As at a friend’s voice, and he spake again: ‘Yet think not that I come to urge thy crimes, I did not come to curse thee, Guinevere, I, whose vast pity almost makes me die To see thee, laying there thy golden head, My pride in happier summers, at my feet. The wrath which forced my thoughts on that fierce law, The doom of treason and the flaming death, (When first I learnt thee hidden here) is past. The pang—which while I weigh’d thy heart with one GUINEVERE. Too wholly true to dream untruth in thee Made my tears burn—is also pasta part. And all is past, the sin is sinn’d, and L, Lo! I forgive thee, as Eternal God Forgives: do thou for thine own soul th rest. But how to take last leave of all I loved O golden hair, with which I used to pla Not knowing! O imperial-moulded form And beauty such as never woman wore, Until it came a kingdom’s curse wit’ thee— I cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine But Lancelot’s: nay, they never were th. King’s. I cannot take thy hand ; that too is flesh And in the flesh thou hast sinn’d ; an mine own flesh, Here looking down on thine polluted, crie “‘T loathe thee:”’ yet not less, O co vere, For I was ever virgin save for thee, My love thro’ flesh hath wrought into m: life So far, that my doom is, I love thee still Let no man dream but that I love thee still Perchance, and so thou purify thy soul, And so thou lean on our fair father Christ Hereafter in that world where all are pur We two may meet before high God, anc thou Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine and know I am thine husband—not a smaller soul Nor Lancelot, nor another. Leave m¢ that, i I charge thee, my last hope. Now mus) I hence. Thro’ the thick night I hear the trumpe blow : They summon me their King to lead min’ hosts : Far down to that great battle in the west Where I must strike against the man . call My sister’s son—no kin of mine, oh leagues With Lords of the White Horse, heathen | and knights, } (raitors—and strike him dead, and meet myself Jeath, or I know not what mysterious doom. | (nd thou remaining here wilt learn the event ; Sut hither shall I never come again, ever lie by thy side ; see thee no more— },*arewell !’ And while she grovell’d at his feet, | »he felt the King’s breath wander o’er her neck, | ind in the darkness o’er her fallen head, Perceived the waving of his hands that blest. OO _ Then, listening till those armed steps | were gone, tose the pale Queen, and in her anguish found he casement : ‘peradventure,’ so she thought, If I might see his face, and not be seen.’ ind lo, he’ sat on horseback at the door! ind near him the sad nuns with each a ; light _tood, and he gave them charge about the Queen, ‘o guard and foster her for evermore. nd while he spake to these his helm was lower’d, 0 which for crest the golden dragon clung 'f Britain ; so she did not see the face, Yhich then was as an angel’s, but she | saw, Vet with the mists and smitten by the lights, ‘he Dragon of the great Pendragonship laze, making all the night a steam of fire. nd even then he turn’d ; and more and more ‘he moony vapour rolling round the King, Yho seem’d the phantom of a Giant in it, /nwound him fold by fold, and made him |e gray nd grayer, till himself became as mist efore her, moving ghostlike to his doom. GUINEVERE. 465 Then she stretch’d out her arms and cried aloud ‘Oh Arthur!’ there her voice brake suddenly, Then—as a stream that spouting from a cliff Fails in mid air, but gathering at the base Re-makes itself, and flashes down the vale— Went on in passionate utterance : ‘Gone—my lord ! Gone thro’ my sin to slay and to be slain ! And he forgave me, and I could not speak. Farewell? I should have answer’d his farewell. His mercy choked me. Gone, my lord the King, My own true lord! how dare [ call him mine ? The shadow of another cleaves to me, And makes me one pollution: he, the King, Call’d me polluted : shall I kill myself? What help inthat? Icannot kill my sin, If soul be soul ; nor can I kill my shame; No, nor by living can I live it down. The days will grow to weeks, the weeks to months, The months will add themselves and make the years, The years will roll into the centuries, And mine will ever be a name of scorn. I must not dwell on that defeat of fame. Let the world be ; that is but of the world What else ? what hope ? I think there was a hope, Except he mock’d me when he spake of hope ; His hope he call’d it ; but he never mocks, For mockery is the fume of little hearts. And blessed be the King, who hath for- given My wickedness to him, and left me hope That in mine own heart I can live down sin And be his mate hereafter in the heavens Before high God. Ah great and gentle lord, Who wast, as is the conscience of a saint PANS GUINE VERE. 466 Among his warring senses, to thy knights— To whom my false voluptuous pride, that took Full easily all impressions from below, Would not look up, or half-despised the height To which I would not or I could not climb— I thought I could not breathe in that fine air That pure severity of perfect light— I yearn’d for warmth and colour which I found In Lancelot—now I see thee what thou art, Thou art the highest and most human too, Not Lancelot, none Will tell the King I love him tho’ so late? Now—ere he goes to the great Battle? none : Myself must tell him in that purer life, But now it were too daring. Ah my God, What might I not have made of thy fair world, Had I but loved thy highest creature here ? It was my duty to have loved the highest : It surely was my profit had I known: It would have been my pleasure had I seen. We needs must love the highest when we see it, Not Lancelot, nor another.’ nor another. Is there Here her hand Grasp’d, made her vail her eyes: she look’d and saw The novice, weeping, suppliant, and said to her, ‘Yea, little maid, for am /not forgiven?’ Then glancing up beheld the holy nuns All round her, weeping ; and her heart was loosed Within her, and she wept with these and said, L£nd of ‘The Round Table.’ ‘Ye know me then, that wicked one, who broke a The vast design and purpose of the King, O shut me round with narrowing nun walls, Meek maidens, from the voices crying ‘* shame.”’ a I must not scorn myself: he loves me still. ' Let no one dream but that he loves me still. So let me, if you do not shudder at me, Nor shun to call me sister, dwell with you; . 4 Wear black and white, and be a nun like you, -& Fast with your fasts, not feasting ig your feasts ; Grieve with your griefs, not grieving 2 4 your joys, But not rejoicing ; mingle with your rites H Pray and be pray’d for ; lie before your shrines ; ¥ Do each low office of your holy house ; 7 | Walk your dim cloister, and distributedole To poor sick people, richer in His eyes” Who ransom’d us, and haler too than I; And treat their loathsome hurts and heal mine own ; And so wear out in almsdeed and in prayer The sombre close of that voluptuous day, — Which wrought the ruin of my lord = King.’ | |e She said: they took her to heme and she 2 Still hoping, fearing ‘is it yet too late?” Dwelt with them, till in time their a died. Then she, for her good deeds and A pure life, And for the power of ministration in her, And likewise for the high rank she had borne, Was chosen Abbess, there, an Abbess lived “a For three brief years, and there, a Abbess, past To where beyond these voices there is peace. @ | Ee THAT story which the bold Sir Bedivere, First made and latest left of all the knights, hi old, when the man was no more than a . voice In the white winter of his age, to those With whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds. For on their march to westward, . Bedivere, Who slowly paced among the slumbering host, Heard in his tent the moanings of the King : ‘I found Him in the shining of thestars, i mark’d Him in the flowering of His fields, Butin His ways with men I find Him not. | I waged His wars, and now I pass and die. ‘Oo me! for why is all around us here Asif some lesser god had made the world, But had not force to shape it as he would, Till the High God behold it from beyond, And enter it, and make it beautiful ? Or else as if the world were wholly fair, ‘But that these eyes of men are dense and dim, And have not power to see it as it is: Perchance, because we see not to the close ;— For I, being simple, thought t to work His will, And have but stricken with the sword in vain ; And all whereon IT lean’d in wife and friend Is traitor to my peace, and all my realm Reels back into the beast, and is no more. My God, thou hast forgotten me in my death : Nay—God my Christ—I pass but shall not die.’ t | Then, ere that last weird battle in the west, There came on Arthur sleeping, Gawain kill’d i THE PASSING OF ARTHUR, 467 THE? PASSING OF ARTHUR. In Lancelot’s war, the ghost of Gawain blown Along a wandering wind, and past his ear Went shrilling, ‘Hollow, hollow all delight ! Hail, King! to-morrow thou shalt pass away. Farewell ! there is an isle of rest for thee. And I am blown along a wandering wind, And hollow, hollow, hollow all delight.’ And fainter onward, like wild birds that change Their season in the night and wail their wa From cloud to cloud, down the long wind the dream ’ Shrill’d ; but in going mingled with dim cries Far in the moonlit haze among the hills, As of some lonely city sack’d by night, When all is lost, and wife and child with wail Pass to new lords; and Arthur woke and call’d, ‘Who spake? A dream. the wind, Thine, Gawain, was the voice—are these dim cries Thine? or doth all that haunts the waste and wild Mourn, knowing it will go along withme?’ O light upon This heard the bold Sir Bedivere and spake : ‘O me, my King, let pass whatever will, Elves, and the harmless glamour of the field ; But in their stead thy name and glory cling To all high places like a golden cloud For ever: but as yet thou shalt not pass. Light was Gawain in life, and light in death Is Gawain, for the ghost is as the man ; And care not thou for dreams from him, but rise— - I hear the steps of Modred in the west, 468 And with him many of thy people, and knights Once thine, whom thou hast loved, but grosser grown Than heathen, spitting at their vows and thee. Right well in heart they know thee for the King. Arise, go forth and conquer as of old.’ Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedi- vere : ‘Far other is this battle in the west Whereto we move, than when we strove in youth, And brake the petty kings, and fought with Rome, Or thrust the heathen from the Roman wall, And shook him thro’ the north. Ill doom is mine To war against my people and my knights. The king who fights his people fights himself. And they my knights, who loved me once, . the stroke That strikes them dead is as my death to me. Yet let us hence, and find or feel a way Thro’ this blind haze, which ever since I saw One lying in the dust at Almesbury, Hath folded in the passes of the world.’ Then rose the King and moved his host by night, And ever push’d Sir Modred, league by league, Back to the sunset bound of Lyonnesse— A land of old upheaven from the abyss By fire, to sink into the abyss again ; Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt, And the long mountains ended in a coast Of ever-shifting sand, and far away The phantom circle of a moaning sea. There the pursuer could pursue no more, And he that fled no further fly the King ; And there, that day when the great light of heaven THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. Burn’d at his lowest in the rolling year, — On the waste sand by the waste sea “7 y closed. Nor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight Like this last, dim, weird battle of the an west. A deathwhite mist slept over sand and sea : Whereof the chill, to him who breathed it, drew : Down with his blood, till all his heart was cold With formless fear ; and ev’n on Ath fell Confusion, since he saw not whom he fought. For friend and foe were shadows in the mist, And friend slew friend not knowing wii . he slew ; ti And some had visions out of golden. youth, Ve And some beheld the faces of old ghosts Look in upon the battle ; and in the mist Was many a noble deed, many a base, ~ And chance and craft and strength in single fights, And ever and anon with host to host Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn, Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, . the crash \ Of battleaxes on shatter’d helms, ane shrieks 7 After the Christ, of those who falling dat mM Look’d up for heaven, and only saw thc — mist ; | And shouts of heathen and the veer knights, Oaths, insult, filth, and monstrous blas phemies, | Sweat, writhings, anguish, labouring o) the lungs In that close mist, and cryings for the light, Moans of the dying, and voices of the dead, q Last, as by some one deathbed a wail . Of suffering, silence follows, or thro’ death or Beathlike swoon, thus over all that shore, sae for some whisper of the seething seas, \ dead hush fell ; but when the dolorous | day xrew drearier toward twilight falling, came \ bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew The mist aside, and with that wind the tide Xose, and the pale King glanced across the field If battle: but no man was moving there ; Nor any cry of Christian heard thereon, Nor yet of heathen ; only the wan wave 3rake in among dead faces, to and fro jwaying the helpless hands, and up and down Tumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen, And shiver’d brands that once had fought with Rome, “And rolling far along the gloomy shores he voice of days of old and days to be. ula Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedi- vere, And whiter than the mist that all day long fad held the field of battle was the King: | ‘Hearest thou this great voice that | shakes the world, move, Land beats upon the faces of the dead, My dead, as tho’ they had not died for | me ?— io Bedivere, for on my heart hath fall’n Confusion, till I know not what I am, Nor whence I am, nor whether I be King. Behold, Iseem but King among the dead.’ _ Then spake the bold Sir Bedivere : ‘My King, King everywhere ! and so the dead have kings, There also will I worship thee as King. Yet still thy life is whole, and still I live Who love thee ; but who hates thee, he that brought THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. And wastes the narrow realm whereon we 469 The heathen back among us, yonder stands, Modred, unharm’d, the traitor of thine house.’ Then spake the King: been my doom. But call not thou this traitor of my house Who hath but dwelt beneath one roof with me. My house are rather they who sware my vows, Yea, even while they brake them, own’d me King. And well for thee, saying in my dark hour, When all the purport of my throne hath fail’d, That quick or dead thou holdest me for King. King am I, whatsoever be their cry ; And one last act of kinghood shalt thou see Yet, ere I pass.’ King Made at the man: his liege Hard on that helm which many a heathen sword Had beaten thin; while Arthur at one blow, Striking the last stroke with Excalibur, Slew him, and all but slain himself, he fell. ‘My house hath And uttering this the then Modred smote So all day long the noise of battle roll’d Among the mountains by the winter sea ; Until King Arthur’s Table, man by man, Had fall’n in Lyonnesse about their lord, King Arthur. Then, because his wound was deep, The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him, And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, A broken chancel with a broken cross, That stood on a dark strait of barren land: On one side lay the Ocean, and on one Lay a great water, and the moon was full. Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedi- vere : ‘ The sequel of to-day unsolders all The goodliest fellowship of famous knights THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 470 Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep They sleep—the men I loved. I think that we Shall never more, at any future time, Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, Walking about the gardens and the halls Of Camelot, as in the days that were. I perish by this people which I made,— Tho’ Merlin sware that I should come again To rule once more ; but, let what will be, be, I am so deeply smitten thro’ the helm That without help I cannot last till morn. Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, Which was my pride: for thou remem- berest how In those old days, one summer noon, an arm Rose up from out the bosom of the lake, Clothed in white samite, mystic, won- derful, Holding the sword—and how I row’d across And took it, and have worn it, like a king; And, wheresoever I am sung or told In aftertime, this also shall be known: But now delay not : take Excalibur, And fling him far into the middle mere: “Watch what thou seést, and lightly bring me word.’ To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere : ‘It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus, Aidless, alone, and smitten thro’ the helm— A little thing may harm a wounded man; Yet I thy hest will all perform at full, Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word.’ So saying, from the ruin’d shrine he stept, And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, What is it thou hast. seen? or what has Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed roel Came on the shining levels of the lake. There drew he forth the brand Excali- bur, And o’er him, drawing it, moon, Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt : For all the haft twinkled with diamon sparks, Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth- wi] Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so lon; That both his eyes were dazzled as bi stood, This way and that dividing the swift mind In act to throw: but at the last it seem’ Better to leave Excalibur conceal’d There in the many-knotted waterflags, _ That whistled stiff and dry about th marge. So strode he back slow to the woul King. the winte) I Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedi vere: ‘Hast thou perform’d my mission whic! I gave? | heard ?’ | And answer made the bold Sir Bec: vere : ‘T heard the ripple washing in the reed: And the wild water lapping on the oe To whom replied King Arthur, fan and pale: ‘Thou hast betray’d thy nature and th name, Not rendering true answer, as bescemml Thy féalty, nor like a noble knight: For surer sign had follow’d, either hance Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. This is a shameful thing for men to lie. | { i Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again, _ As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing _ I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me | word.’ Across the ridge, and paced beside the I mere, 7 as the dewy pebbles, fix’d in thought ; But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, i | How curiously and strangely chased, he smote | His palms together, and he cried aloud: | ; | * And if indeed I cast the brand away, Surely a precious thing, one worthy note, _ Should thus be lost for ever from the i earth, i Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. What good should follow this, if this were done ? What harm, undone? . disobey, Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. _ Were it well to obey then, if a king demand An act unprofitable, against himself ? _ The King is sick, and knows not what he does. What record, or what relic of my lord | Should be to aftertime, but empty breath And rumours of a doubt? But were this kept, _ Stored in some treasure-house of mighty 7 kings, _ Some one might show it at a joust of arms, _ Saying, ‘‘ King Arthur’s sword, Excali- Deep harm to bur, | ap seht by the lonely maiden of the Lake. _ Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps | ieee the hidden bases of the hills.” _ So might some old man speak in the after- time _ To all the people, winning reverence. But now much honour and much fame were lost.’ THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. Then went Sir Bedivere the second time © 471 So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, And hid Excalibur the second time, And so strode back slow to the wounded King. Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily : ‘What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard ?’ - And answer made the bold Sir Bedi- vere : ‘I heard the water lapping on the crag, And the long ripple washing in the reeds.’ To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath : ‘Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me! Authority forgets a dying king, Laid widow’d of the power in his eye That bow’d the will. I see thee what thou art, For thou, the latest-left of all my knights, In whom should meet the offices of all, Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt ; Either from lust of gold, or like a girl Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, And the third time may prosper, get thee hence: But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, I will arise and slay thee with my hands.’ Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and Tan; And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged Among the bulrush beds, and clutch’d the sword, And strongly wheel’d and threw it. The great brand Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon, And flashing round and round, whirl’d in an arch, Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, Seen where the moving isles of winter shock and 472 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. By night, with noises of the Northern Sea. So flash’d and fell the brand Excalibur : But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm Clothed in white samite, mystic, won- derful, And caught him bythe hilt, and brandish’d him Three times, and drew him under in the mere. And lightly went the other to the King. Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath : ‘ Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seenin. And answer made the bold Sir Bedi- vere : ‘Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems Should blind my purpose, for I never saw, Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, Not tho’ I live three lives of mortal men, So great a miracle as yonder hilt. Then with both hands I flung him, wheel- ing him ; But when I look’d again, behold an arm, Clothed in white samite, mystic, won- derful, That caught him by the hilt, brandish’d him Three times, and drew him under in the mere.’ and And answer made King Arthur, breath- ing hard : ‘My end draws nigh ; were gone. Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight, And bear me to the margin ; yet I fear My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die.’ ’tis time that I So saying, from the pavement he half rose, Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes _As ina picture, Him Sir Bediyere not words ; a | Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee, -O’er both his shoulders drew the languid hands, = And rising bore him thro’ the place ¢ tombs. e | " hard, Like one that feels a nightmare on his b ed When all the house is mute. So sig a the King, : Muttering and TRUBS at his a ; Quick, quick ! ‘ q I fear it is too late, and I shall die.’ But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, : + Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk’d, { Larger than human on the frozen hills. He heard the deep behind him, and a cry Before. His own thought drove him like . a goad. Dry clash’d his harness in the icy caves | ; And barren chasms, and all to left and right | The rape black cliff clang’d round him, ¢ as he based His feet on juts of slippery crag that ae Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels— | And on a sudden, lo! the level lake, — And the long glories of the winter moon. Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, Beneath them ; and descending they were’ ware That all the decks were dense with statalyt forms, Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a drean —by these 5 Three Queens with crowns of gold : ane from them rose a A cry that shiver’d to the tingling stars, | And, as it were one voice, anagony | Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills All night in a waste land, where no one | comes, Or hath come, since the making of the world, Then murmur’d Arthur, ‘ Place me in the barge.’ So to the barge they came. three Queens Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept. But she, that rose the tallest of them all And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, And loosed the shatter’d casque, and chafed his hands, And call’d him by his name, complaining loud, And dropping bitter tears against a brow jtriped with dark blood : for all his face was white And colourless, and like the wither’d | moon ‘3mote by the fresh beam of the spring- ing east ; | And all his greaves and cuisses dash’d with . drops Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls— Chat made his forehead like a rising sun Tigh from the dais-throne—were parch’d | with dust ; Jr, clotted into points and hanging loose, Mix’d with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. 0 like a shatter’d column lay the King ; Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, ‘rom spur to plume a star of tournament, / shot thro’ the lists at Camelot, and a) charged defore the eyes of ladies and of kings. There those a —— Then loudly Bedivere : Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go? » Vhere shall I hide my forehead and my eyes ? ‘or now I see the true old times are dead, cried the bold Sir THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 473 When every morning brought a noble chance, And every chance brought out a noble knight. Such times have been not since the light that led The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. But now the whole Round Table is dis- solved Which was an image of the mighty world, And I, the last, go forth companionless, And the days darken round me, and the years, Among new men, strange faces, other minds.’ And slowly answer’d Arthur from the barge : ‘The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? I have lived my life, and that which I have done May He within himself make pure ! but thou, If thou shouldst never see my face again, Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better thansheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend ? For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. But now farewell. I am going along way With these thou seést—if indeed I go (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)— To the island-valley of Avilion ; Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow. Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it lies Wherefore, 474 Deep-meadow’d, happy, fair with orchard lawns And bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea, Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.’ So said he, and the barge with oar and sail Moved from the brink, like some full- breasted swan That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood With swarthy webs. Bedivere Revolving many memories, till the hull Look’d one black dot against the verge of dawn, And on the mere the wailing died away. Long stood Sir But when that moan had past for ever- more, The stillness of the dead world’s winter dawn Amazed him, and he groan’d, ‘ The King is gone.’ And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme, ‘From the great deep to the great deep he goes.’ Whereat he slowly turn’d and slowly clomb The last hard footstep of that iron crag ; TO THE QUEEN. O LOYAL to the royal in thyself, And loyal to thy land, as this to thee—— Bear witness, that rememberable day, When, pale as yet, and fever-worn, the Prince Who scarce had pluck’d his flickering life again From halfway down the shadow of the grave, Past with thee thro’ thy people and their love, TO THE QUEEN. Thence mark’d the black hull moving yet and cried, ‘He passes to be King among the des And after healing of his grievous woutll He comes again; but—if he come : more— O me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat, 5 | Who shriek’d and wail’d, the threc whereat we gazed On that high day, when, clothed vail living light, They stood before his throne in sileay friends Of Arthur, who should help him at hi need ?’ . Then from the dawn it seem’d there came, but faint As from beyond the limit of the world} Like the last echo born of a great cry, Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice Around a king returning from his wars. Thereat once more he moved about and clomb Ev’n to the highest he could climb, ‘ant saw, Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand Or thought he saw, the speck that bar the King, Down that long water opening on the deey Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and g From less to less and vanish into light. And the new sun rose bringing the new year. j And London roll’d one tide of joy thro all Her trebled millions, and loud leagues ° man ' And welcome! witness, too, the silent cry The prayer of many a race and creed and clime— Thunderless lightnings striking under se: From sunset and sunrise of all thy realm And that true North, whereof we - heard _ A strain to shame us ‘keep you to your- | selves ; _ So loyal is too costly ! friends—your love ‘Is but a burthen : loose the bond, and go.’ \Is this the tone of empire ? nee the faith ‘That made us rulers? this, indeed, her voice | land meaning, whom the roar of Hougou- mont Left mightiest of all peoples under heaven? / What shock has fool’d her since, that she | should speak 'So feebly ? wealthier—wealthier—hour by hour ! |The voice of Britain, or a sinking land, _ Some third-rate isle half-lost among her | seas ? There rang her voice, when the full city The loyal to their crown Are loyal to their own far sons, who love Our ocean-empire with her boundless homes | For ever-broadening England, and her throne ‘In our vast Orient, and one isle, one isle, _ That knows not her own greatness: if | she knows _ And dreads it we are fall’n. my Queen, Not for itself, but thro’ thy living love _ For one to whom I made it o’er his grave Sacred, accept this old imperfect tale, New-old, and shadowing Sense at war | with Soul _ Rather than that gray king, whose name, a ghost, Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak, _ And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still ; or him peal’d : Thee # thy Prince ! : : But thou, atin — ae TO THE QUEEN. 475 Of Geoffrey’s book, or him of Malleor’s, - one Touch’d by the adulterous finger of a time That hover’d between war and wanton- ness, And crownings and dethronements: take withal Thy poet’s blessing, and his trust that Heaven Will blow the tempest in the distance back From thine and ours: for some are scared, who mark, Or wisely or unwisely, signs of storm, Waverings of every vane with every wind, And wordy trucklings to the transient hour, And fierce or careless looseners of the faith, And Softness breeding scorn of simple ’ life, Or Cowardice, the child of lust for gold, Or Labour, with a groan and not a voice, Or Art with poisonous honey stol’n from France, And that which knows, but careful for itself, And that which knows not, ruling that which knows To its own harm: the goal of this great world Lies beyond sight: yet—if our slowly- grown And crown’d Republic’s crowning com- mon-sense, That saved her many times, not fail— their fears Are morning shadows huger than the shapes That cast them, not those gloomier which forego The darkness of that battle in the West, Where all of high and holy dies away. THE>sLOVER >a f THE original Preface to ‘The Lover’s Tale’ states that it was composed in my nineteenth year. Two only of the three parts then written were printed, when, feeling the imperfection of the poem, I with- drew it from the press. One of my friends however who, boylike, admired the boy’s work, distri- buted among our common associates of that hour some copies of these two parts, without my know- ledge, without the omissions and amendments which I had in contemplation, and marred by the many misprints of the compositor. Seeing that these two parts have of late been mercilessly pirated, and that what I had deemed scarce worthy to live is not allowed to die, may I not be pardoned if I suffer the whole poem at last to come into the light—accompanied with a reprint of the sequel—a work of my mature life—‘ The Golden Supper’? May 1879. ARGUMENT. JuLian, whose cousin and foster-sistér, Camilla, has been wedded to his friend and rival, Lionel, endeavours to narrate the story of his own love for her, and the strange sequel. He speaks (in Parts II. and III.) of having been haunted by visions and the sound of bells, tolling for a funeral, and at last ringing for a marriage ; but he breaks away, overcome, as he approaches the Event, and a’ Witness to it completes the tale. I: HERE far away, seen from the topmost cliff, Filiing with purple gloom the vacancies Between the tufted hills, the sloping seas Hung in mid-heaven, and half-way down rare sails, White as white clouds, floated from sky to sky. Oh! pleasant breast of waters, quiet bay, Like to a quiet mind in the loud world, Where the chafed breakers of the outer sea Sank powerless, as anger falls aside And withers on the breast of peaceful love ; Thou didst receive the growth of pines that fledged The hills that watch’d thee, as Love watcheth Love, In thine own essence, and delight thyself To make it wholly thine on sunny days. Keep thou thy name of ‘ Lover’s Bay.’ See, sirs, Even now the Goddess of the Past, that takes The heart, and sometimes touches but one string That quivers, and is silent, and sometimes Sweeps suddenly all its half-moulder’d chords To some old melody, begins to play That air which pleased her first. I feei thy breath ; I come, great Mistr ess of the ear and eye: Thy breath is of the pinewood ; and tho i years tf Have hollow’d out a deep and stormy i strait Betwixt the native land of Love and me, Breathe but a little on me, and the sail Will draw me to the rising of the sun, The lucid chambers of the morning star, And East of Life. 4 | : i Permit me, friend, I prythee, To pass my hand across my brows, and muse On those dear hills, that never more will meet I The sight that throbs and aches ae: my touch, As tho’ there beat a heart in either eye; 4 For when the outer lights are darken’é thus, The memory’s vision hath a keener edge. It grows upon me now—the semicircle | Of dark-blue waters and the narrow fringe Of curving beach—its wreaths of dripping | green— Its pale pink shells—the summerhouse aloft | That open’d on the pines with doors 0! glass, A mountain nest—the pleasure-boat that rock’d, letegreen with its own shadow, keel to keel, Upon the dappled dimplings of the wave, ‘Phat blanch’d upon its side. ! O Love, O Hope! They come, they crowd upon me all at f once— Moved from the cloud of unforgotten | things, ise sometimes on the horizon of the mind Lies folded, often sweeps athwart in | storm— Flash upon flash they lighten thro’ me— . | days Of dewy dawning and the amber eves _ When thou and I, Camilla, thou and I : Were borne about the bay or safely | moor’d z Idegeath a low-brow’d cavern, where the ; tide ; Plash’d, sapping its worn ribs; and all without | The slowly-ridging rollers on the cliffs | Clash’d, calling to each other, and thro’ the arch Down those loud waters, like a setting | star, Mixt with the gorgeous west the light- ; house shone, And silver-smiling Venus ere she fell - Would often loiter in her balmy blue, _ To crown it with herself. | Here, too, my love - Waver’d at anchor with me, when day 4 hung From his mid-dome in Heaven’s airy halls ; Gleams of the water-circles as they broke, fi! - Flicker’d like doubtful smiles about her 3 lips, - Quiver’ d a flying glory on her hair, _ Leapt like a passing thought across her i eyes ; ie mine with one that will not pass, till earth | THE OVER STALE. 477 And heaven pass too, dwelt on my heaven, a face Most starry-fair, but kindled from within As ’twere with dawn. She was dark- hair’d, dark-eyed : Oh, such dark eyes! a single glance of them Will govern a whole life from birth to death, Careless of all things else, led on with light In trances and in visions: look at them, You lose yourself in utter ignorance ; You cannot find their depth ; for they go back, And farther back, and still withdraw themselves Quite into the deep soul, that evermore Fresh springing from her fountains in the brain, Still pouring thro’, floods with redundant life Her narrow portals. Trust me, long ago I should have died, if it were possible To die in gazing on that perfectness Which I do bear within me: I had died, But from my farthest lapse, my latest ebb, Thine image, like a charm of light and strength Upon the waters, push’d me back again On these deserted sands of barren life. Tho’ from the deep vault where the heart of Hope Fell into dust, and crumbled in the dark— Forgetting how to render beautiful Her countenance with quick and health- ful blood— Thou didst not sway me upward ; could I perish While thou, a meteor of the sepulchre, Didst swathe thyself all round Hope’s quiet urn For ever? He, that saith it, hath o’er- stept The slippery footing of his narrow wit, And fall’n away from judgment. Thou art light, To which my spirit leaneth all her flowers, And length of days, and immortality 478 THE LOVER’S TALE. Of thought, and freshness ever self-re- new’d. For Time and Grief abode too long with Life, And, like all other friends i’ the world, at last They grew aweary of her fellowship : So Time and Grief did beckon unto Death, And Death drew nigh and beat the doors of Life ; But thou didst sit alone in the inner house, A wakeful portress, and didst parle with Death, — ‘This is a charmed dwelling which I hold ;’ So Death gave back, and would no further come. Yet is my life nor in the present time, Nor in the present place. To me alone, Push’d from his chair of regal heritage, The Present is the vassal of the Past : So that, in that I ave lived, do I live, And cannot die, and am, in having been— A portion of the pleasant yesterday, Thrust forward on to-day and out of place ; A body journeying onward, sick with toil, The weight as if of age upon my limbs, The grasp of hopeless grief about my heart, And all the senses weaken’d, save in that, Which long ago they had glean’d and garner’d up Into the granaries of memory— The clear brow, bulwark of the precious brain, Chink’d as you see, and seam’d—and all the while The light soul twines and mingles with the growths Of vigorous early days, attracted, won, Married, made one with, molten into all The beautiful in Past of act or place, And like the all-enduring camel, driven Far from the diamond fountain by the palms, Who toils across the middle moonlit nights, Or when the white heats of the blinding noons : Beat from the concave sand; yet in him keeps A draught of that sweet fountain i“ loves, To stay his feet from falling, and his spr From bitterness of death. — =; Ye ask me, a When I began to love. How should J tell you? Or from the after-fulness of my heart, - Flow back again unto my slender spring And first of love, tho’ every turn anc depth a Between is clearer in my life than all Its present flow. Ye know not what ye ask. How should the broad and open flowe: tell What sort of bud it was, when, pres together In its green sheath, close-lapt in silker folds, i It seem’d to keep its sweetness to itsel | Yet was not the less sweet for that i seem’d ? { For young Life knows not when youn, Life was born, But takes it all for granted: neither Lave, Warm in the heart, his cradle, can 4 member Love in the womb, but resteth satistie! : Looking on her that brought him to thy light : Or as men know not when they fall asia Into delicious dreams, our other life, So know I not when I began to love. This is my sum of knowledge—that 4 love Grew with myself—say rather, was m growth, } My inward sap, the hold I have on earth My outward circling air wherewith ‘breathe, Which yet upholds my life, and evermor Is to me daily life and daily death: For how should I have lived and no have loved ? be Jan ye take off the sweetness from the flower, The colour and the sweetness from the rose, And place them by themselves; or set apart heir motions and their brightness from the stars, And then point out the flower or the star ? Or build a wall betwixt my life and love, And tell me where I am? ’Tis even . thus : (a that I live I love ; Iecdnse I love { live: whate’er is fountain to the one iis fountain to the other ; and whene’er Jur God unknits the riddle of the one, There is no shade or fold of mystery i= the other. Many, many years, | Ber they seem many and my most of life, And well I could have linger’d in that | porch, ‘50 unproportion’d to the dwelling-place, ) In the Maydews of childhood, opposite The flush and dawn of youth, we lived | together, ; Apart, alone together on those hills. _ Before he saw my day my father died, ‘And he was happy that he saw it not ; But I and the first daisy on his grave From the same clay came into light at once. ‘As Love and I do number equal years, So she, my love, is of an age with me. ‘How like each other was the birth of each ! On the same morning, almost the same hour, Under the selfsame aspect of the stars, (Oh falsehood of all starcraft !) we were born. How like each other was the birth of each! The sister of my mother—she that bore Camilla close beneath her beating heart, Which to the imprison’d spirit of the child, . With its true-touched pulses in the flow ‘And hourly visitation of the blood, : Sent notes of preparation manifold, THE LOVER’S TALE. 479 And mellow’d echoes of the outer world— My mother’s sister, mother of my love, Who had a twofold claim upon my heart, One twofold mightier than the other was, In giving so much beauty to the world, And so much wealth as God had charged her with— Loathing to put it from herself for ever, Left her own life with it ; and dying thus, Crown’d with her highest act the placid face And breathless body of her good deeds past. So were we born, so orphan’d. She . was motherless And I without a father. So from each Of those two pillars which from earth uphold Our childhood, one had fallen away, and all The careful burthen of our tender years Trembled upon the other. He that gave Her life, to me delightedly fulfill’d All lovingkindnesses, all offices Of watchful care and trembling tender: ness. He waked for both: he pray’d for both : he slept Dreaming of both: nor was his love the less Because it was divided, and shot forth Boughs on each side, laden with whole- some shade, Wherein we nested sleeping or awake, And sang aloud the matin-song of life. She was my foster-sister: on one arm The flaxen ringlets of our infancies Wander’d, the while we rested: one soft lap Pillow’d us both: a common light of eyes Was on us as we lay: our baby lips, Kissing one bosom, ever drew from thence The stream of life, one stream, one life, one blood, One sustenance, which, still as thought grew large, Still larger moulding all the house of thought, 480 THE LOVER'S, TALE: Made all our tastes and fancies like, perhaps— All—all but one; and sweet, Sweet thro’ strange years to know that whatsoe’er Our general mother meant for me alone, Our mutual mother dealt to both of us: So what was earliest mine in earliest life, I shared with her in whom myself remains. As was our childhood, so our infancy, They tell me, was a very miracle Of fellow-feeling and communion. They tell me that we would not bealone,— We cried when we were parted ; when I wept, Her smile lit up the rainbow on my tears, Stay’d on the cloud of sorrow; that we loved The sound of one-another’s voices more Than the gray cuckoo loves his name, and learn’d To lisp in tune together ; that we slept In the same cradle always, face to face. Heart beating time to heart, lip pressing lip, Folding each other, breathing on each other, Dreaming together (dreaming of each other They should have added), till the morning light Sloped thro’ the pines, upon the dewy pane Falling, unseal’d our eyelids, and we woke and strange to me, To gaze upon each other. If this be true, At thought of which my whole soul languishes And faints, and hath no pulse, no breath —as tho’ A man in some still garden should infuse Rich atar in the bosom of the rose, Till, drunk with its own wine, and over- full Of sweetness, and in smelling of itself, It fall on its own thorns—if this be truae— And that way my wish leads me evermore Still to believe it—’tis so sweet a thought, Why in the utter stillness of the soul Doth question’d memory answer not, nor tell z Of this our earliest, our closest- drawn, Most loveliest, earthly -heavenliest har- mony ? O blossom’d portal of the lonely wl Green prelude, April promise, glad new- year... Z Of Being, which with earliest violets And lavish carol of clear-throated larks Fill’d all the March of life !—I will ae speak of thee, These have not seen thee, these can neve) know thee, They cannot understand me. then A term of eighteen years. laugh, If I should tell you how I hoard ir thought The faded rhymes and scraps of ancien’ crones, Gray relics of the nurseries of the world | Which are as gems set in my memory, | Because she learnt them with me; Oo: what use To know her father left us just before: The daffodil was blown? or how 4 found The dead man cast upon the shore? Al this Seems to the quiet daylight of your mind: | But cloud and smoke, and in the dark o Pass we i Ye would fi mine Is traced with flame. Move with me t the event. /| There came a glorious morning, such : I one As dawns but once a season. Mereaie | On such a morning would have i. himself From cloud to cloud, and swum wit! balanced wings f To some tall mountain: when I said 4 her, ‘A day for Gods to stoop,’ she answered ‘Ay, And men to soar:’ for as that othe gazed, Shading his eyes till all the fiery cloudy ‘he prophet and the pence and the steeds, uck’d into oneness like a little star Vere drunk into the inmost blue, we stood, When first we came from out the pines at noon, Vith hands for eaves, uplooking and | almost Vaiting to see some blessed shape in heaven, jo bathed we were in brilliance. Never yet defore or after have I known the spring our with such sudden deluges of light nto the middle summer ; for that day wove, rising, shook his wings, and charged 4 the winds : With spiced May-sweets from bound to . bound, and blew *resh fire into the sun, and from within jurst thro’ the heated buds, and sent his 7 soul _ nto the songs of birds, and touch’d far- . off _ iis mountain-altars, his high hills, with flame Milder and purer. Ss sa Thro’ the rocks we wound : Che great pine shook with lonely sounds of joy Chat came on the sea-wind. tain streams _ Jur bloods ran free : As moun- the sunshine seem’d | to brood _ lore warmly on the heart than on the brow. We often paused, and, looking back, we saw The clefts and openings in the mountains fill’d | With the blue valley and the glistening | brooks, And all the low dark groves, a land of love ! { A land of promise, a land of memory, _ Aland of promise flowing with the milk And honey of delicious memories ! THE LOVER’S TALE. 481 And down to sea, and far as eye could ken, Each way from verge to verge a Holy Land, Still growing holier as you near’d the bay, For there the Temple stood. When we had reach’d The grassy platform on some hill, I stoop’d, I gather’d the wild herbs, and for her brows And mine made garlands of the selfsame flower, Which she took smiling, and with my work thus Crown’d her clear forehead. twice she told me (For I remember all things) to let grow The flowers that run poison in their veins. She said, ‘ The evil flourish in the world.’ Then playfully she gave herself the lie— ‘Nothing in nature is unbeautiful ; Once or So, brother, pluck and spare not.’ So I wove Ev’n the dull-blooded poppy-stem, ‘ whose flower, Hued with the scarlet of a fierce sunrise, Like to the wild youth of an evil prince, Is without sweetness, but who crowns himself Above the naked poisons of his heart In his old age.’ A graceful thought of hers Grav’n on my fancy ! a nymph, A stately mountain nymph she look’d ! how native Unto the hills she trod on! gazed My coronal slowly disentwined itself And fell between ts both; tho’ while I gazed My spirit leap’d as with those thrills of bliss That strike across the soul in prayer, and show us That we are surely heard. light And oh, how like While I Methought a 21 482 Burst from the garland I had wov’n, and stood A solid glory on her bright black hair ; A light methought broke from her dark, dark eyes, And shot itself into the singing winds ; A mystic light flash’d ev’n from her white robe As from a glass in the sun, and fell about My footsteps on the mountains. Last we came To what our people call ‘The Hill of Woe.’ A bridge is there, that, look’d at from beneath Seems but a cobweb filament to link The yawning of an earthquake-cloven chasm. And thence one night, when all the winds were loud, A woful man (for so the story went) Had thrust his wife and child and dash’d himself Into the dizzy depth below. Below, Fierce in the strength of far descent, a stream Flies with a shatter’d foam along the chasm. The path was perilous, loosely strown with crags : We mounted slowly ; yet to both there came The joy of life in steepness overcome, And victories of ascent, and looking down On all that had look’d down on us ; and gey In breathing nearer heaven ; and joy. to me, High over all the azure-circled earth, To breathe with her as if in heaven itself; And more than joy that I to her became Her guardian and her angel, raising her Still higher, past all peril, until she saw Beneath her feet the region far away, Beyond the nearest mountain’s bosky brows, Arise in open prospect—heath and hill, And hollow lined and wooded to the lips, Andsteep-down walls of battlemented rock THE LOVER’S TALE. Gilded with broom, or shatter’d im spires, And glory of broad waters interfused, Whence rose as it were breath and ste of gold, And over all the great wood rioting” And climbing, streak’d or sar intervals With falling brook or blossom’d’ bush . and last, . Framing the mighty landscape to the w A purple range of mountain - conta tween ; Whose interspaces gush’d in blindin : bursts .. The incorporate blaze of sun and sea. q Descending from the point and standing both, There on the tremulous bridge, that fron beneath Had seem’d a gossamer filament up in ir] We paused amid the splendour. All thi west 4 And ev’n unto the middle south 9 ribb’d { And barr’d with bloom on, bloom. Thi sun below, a Held for a space *twixt cloud and we ave shower’d down Rays of a mighty circle, weaving over — That various wilderness a tissue of light Unparallel’d. On the other side, ‘th: moon, f Half-melted into thin blue air, stood still And pale and fibrous as a wither’d leaf, © Nor yet endured in presence of His eye To indue his lustre ; most unloverlike, — Since in his absence full of light and joy And giving light to others. But - most, Next to her presence whom I Lovell S| well, 7 | Spoke loudly even into my inmost heart As to my outward hearing: the lou stream, x Forth issuing from his portals in the era, (A visible link unto the home of m heart), st | Xan amber toward the west, and nigh the sea 2arting my own loved mountains was : received, jhorn of its strength, into the sympathy Jf that small bay, which out to open main xlow’d intermingling close beneath the sun. spirit of Love ! that little hour was bound shut in from Time, and dedicate to } thee: “hy fires from heaven had touch’d it, : and the earth They fell on became hallow’d evermore. We turn’d: our eyes met: hers were | bright, and mine Vere dim with floating tears, that shot the sunset n lightnings round me; and my name was borne Jpon her breath. Henceforth my name has been \ hallow’d memory like the names of old, “\ center’d, glory-circled memory, ind a peculiar treasure, brooking not xchange or currency: and in that hour \ hope flow’d round me, like a golden mist vharm’d amid eddies of melodious airs, \ moment, ere the onward whirlwind shatter it, Vaver’d and floated—which was less than Hope, Secause it lack’d the power of perfect Hope ; sut which was more and higher than all Hope, 3ecause all other Hope had lower aim ; iven that this name to which her gracious lips Nid lend such gentle utterance, this one name, mM some obscure hereafter, might in- | wreathe How lovelier, nobler then !) her life, her love, Vith my life, love, soul, spirit, and heart and strength. } se THE LOVER’S TALE. 483 ‘ Brother,’ she said, ‘let this be call’d henceforth The Hill of Hope ;’ and I replied, ‘O sister, My will is one with thine; the Hill of Hope.’ Nevertheless, we did not change the name. I did not speak : I could not speak my | love. Love lieth deep: Love dwells not in lip- depths. Love wraps his wings on either side the heart, Constraining it with kisses closeand warm, Absorbing all the incense of sweet thoughts So that they pass not to the shrine of sound. Else had the life of that delighted hour Drunk in the largeness of the utterance Of Love; but how should Earthly mea- sure mete The Heavenly-unmeasured or unlimited Love, “ Who scarce can tune his high majestic sense Unto the thundersong that wheels the spheres, Scarce living in the Zolian harmony, And flowing odour of the spacious air, Scarce housed within the circle of this Earth, Be cabin’d up in words and syllables, Which pass with that which breathes them? Sooner Earth Might go round Heaven, and the strait girth of Time Inswathe the fulness of Eternity, Than language grasp the infinite of Love. O day which did enwomb that happy hour, Thou art blessed in the years, divinest day ! O Genius of that hour which dost uphold. Thy coronal of glory like a God, Amid thy melancholy mates far-seen, Who walk before thee, ever turning round To gaze upon thee till their eyes are dim With dwelling on the light and depth of thine, 484 Thy name is ever worshipp’d among hours ! Had I died then, I had not seem’d to die, For bliss stood round me like the light of Heaven, — Had I died then, I had not known the death ; Yea had the Power from whose right hand the light Of Life issueth, and from whose left hand floweth The Shadow of Death, perennial efflu- ences, Whereof to all that draw the wholesome air, Somewhile the one must overflow the other ; Then had he stemm’d my day with night, and driven My current to the fountain whence it sprang, — Even his own abiding excellence— On me, methinks, that shock of gloom had fall’n » Unfelt, and in this glory I had merged The other, like the sun I gazed upon, Which seeming for the moment due to death, And dipping his head low beneath the verge, Yet bearing round about him his own day, In confidence of unabated strength, Steppeth from Heaven to Heaven, from light to light, And holdeth his undimmed forehead far Into a clearer zenith, pure of cloud. We trod the shadow of the downward hill ; We past from light to dark. On the other side Is scoop’d a cavern and a mountain hall, Which none have fathom’d. If you go far in (The country people rumour) you may hear The moaning of the woman and the child, Shut in the secret chambers of the rock. I too have heard a sound—perchance of streams THE LOVER'S TALE. Running far on within its inmost halls, The home of darkness; but the cavern: mouth, Half overtrailed with a wanton weed : Gives birth to.a brawling brook, tha passing lightly # Adown a natural stair of tangled roots, Is presently received in a sweet grave — Of eglantines, a place of burial Far lovelier than its cradle ; for unseen, But taken with the sweetness of the place It makes a constant bubbling melody — That drowns the nearer echoes. Lowe down Spreads out a little lake, that, floodme leaves Low banks of yellow sand ; and from th: woods That belt it rise three dark, tall cy presses, — Three cypresses, symbols of mortal hg / That men plant over graves. H Hither we came And sitting down upon the golden moss. Held converse sweet and low—low con. verse sweet, In which our voices bore least part. wind Told a lovetale beside us, how he woo’ The waters, and the waters answerin, lisp’d | To kisses of the wind, that, sick with ie Fainted at intervals, and grew again To utterance of passion. Ye cannc shape | Fancy so fair as is this memory. Methought all excellence that ever was | Had drawn herself from many thou years, And all the separate Edens of this caitt| To centre in this place and time, listen’d, And her words stole with most prevailin sweetness Into my heart, as thronging fancies cor To boys and girls when summer days a) new, And soul and heart and body are all i ease ; Th | ¢ What marvel my Camilla told me all? ‘[t was so happy an hour, so sweet a place, And I was as the brother of her blood, And by that name I moved upon her | breath ; Dear name, which had too much of near- ness in it. ‘And heralded the distance of this time ! \t first her voice was very sweet and low, ‘As if she were afraid of utterance ; ‘But in the onward current of her speech, As echoes of the hollow-banked brooks Are fashion’d by the channel which they keep), Ter words did of their meaning borrow sound, Her cheek did catch the colour of her words, i heard and trembled, yet I could but hear ; : My heart paused—my raised eyelids | would not fall, Sut still I kept my eyes upon the sky. . seem’d the only part of Time stood still, . “And saw the motion of all other things ; _ While her words, syllable by syllable, _ uike water, drop by drop, upon my ear Fell; and I wish’d, yet wish’d her not to speak ; But she spake on, for I did name no wish, _ Nhat marvel my Camilla told me all _ der maiden dignities of Hope and Love— 1 Perchance,’ she said, ‘return’d.’ Even q then the stars | Jid tremble in their stations as I gazed ; _ 3ut she spake on, for I did name no wish, a es i Nowish—no hope. Hope was not wholly dead, ut breathing hard at the approach of . Death, — vamilla, my Camilla, who was mine _ No longer in the dearest sense of mine— ‘or all the secret of her inmost heart, And all the maiden empire of her mind, _ «ay like a map before me, and I saw Chere, where I hoped myself to reign as king, Chere, where that day I crown’d myself as king, _ There in my realm and even on my throne, THE LOVER’S TALE. 485 Another ! then it seem’d as tho’ a link Of some tight chain within my inmost Bs frame Was riven in twain : that life I heeded not Flow’d from me, and the darkness of the grave, The darkness of the grave and utter night, Did swallow up my vision ; at her feet, Even the feet of her I loved, I fell, Smit with exceeding sorrow unto Death. Then had the earth beneath me yawn- ing cloven With such a sound as when an iceberg splits From cope to base—had Heaven from all her doors, With all her golden thresholds clashing, roll’d Her heaviest thunder—I had lain as dead, Mute, blind and motionless as then I lay ; Dead, for henceforth there was no life for me ! Mute, for henceforth what use were words to me! Blind, for the day was as the night to me ! The night to me was kinder than the day ; The night in pity took away my day, Because my grief as yet was newly born Of eyes too weak to look upon the light ; And thro’ the hasty notice of the ear Frail Life was startled from the tender love Of him she brooded over. lain Until the plaited ivy-tress had wound Round my worn limbs, and the wild brier had driven Its knotted thorns thro’ my unpaining brows, Leaning its roses on my faded eyes. The wind had blown above me, and the rain Had fall’n upon me, and the gilded snake Had nestled in this bosom-throne of Love, But I had been at rest for evermore. Would I had 486 THE LOVER'S TALE. Long time entrancement held me. All too soon Life (like a wanton too-officious friend, . Who will not ear denial, vain and rude With proffer of unwish’d-for services) Entering all the avenues of sense Past thro’ into his citadel, the brain, With hated warmth of apprehensiveness. And first the chillness of the sprinkled brook Smote on my brows, and then I seem’d to hear Its murmur, as the drowning seaman hears, Who with his head below the surface dropt Listens the muffled booming indistinct Of the confused floods, and dimly knows His head shall rise no more: and then came in The white light of the weary moon above, Diffused and molten into flaky cloud. Was my sight drunk that it did shape to me Him who should own that name? Were it not well If so be that the echo of that name Ringing within the fancy had updrawn A fashion and a phantasm of the form It should attach to? Phantom !—had the ghastliest That ever lusted for a body, sucking The foul steam of the grave to thicken by it, There in the shuddering moonlight brought its face And what it has for eyes as close to mine As he did—better that than his, than he The friend, the neighbour, Lionel, the beloved, The loved, the lover, the happy Lionel, The low-voiced, tender-spirited Lionel, All joy, to whom my agony was a joy. O how her choice did leap forth from his eyes ! O how her love did clothe itself in smiles About his lips ! and—not one moment’s grace—— my head 4 To come my way! to twit me with & cause ! Was not the land as free thro’ all he ways To him as me? Was not his wont to walk 4 Between the going light and growing night ? Had I not learnt my loss before he came? Could that be more because he came my way? . Why should he not come my way if he would ? 2 And yet to-night, to-night—when all =) wealth Flash’d from me in a moment and I fell Beggar’d for ever—why should he come my way * ] Robed in those robes of light I must. no wear, t With that great crown of beams about hi brows— a | Come like an angel to a damned soul, | To tell him of the bliss he had wit God— Come like a careless and a greedy hee . That scarce can wait the reading of th will » | Before he takes possession? Was min a mood | To be invaded rudely, and not rather — A sacred, secret, unapproached woe, Unspeakable? I was shut up wit Grief ; [ She took the body of my past delight, | Narded and swathed and balm’d it | herself, And laid it in a sepulchre of rock Never to rise again. I was led mute | Into her temple like a sacrifice ; 4 I was the High Priest in her holie place, Not to be loudly broken in upon. Oh friend, thoughts deep and heavy. these well-nigh O’erbore the limits of my brain : but b) Bent o’er me, and my neck his arm up- stay’d. I thought it was an adder’s fold, and once I strove to disengage myself, but fail’d, Being so feeble: she bent above me, too ; Wan was her cheek; for whatsoe’er of blight Lives in the dewy touch of pity had made The red rose there a pale one—and her eyes— I saw the moonlight glitter on their tears— And some few drops of that distressful . rain Fell on my face, and her long ringlets i moved, Drooping and beaten by the breeze, and brush’d My fallen forehead in their to and fro, For i in the sudden anguish of her heart Loosed from their simple thrall they had flow’d abroad, _ And floated on and parted round her neck, Mantling her form halfway. She, when I woke, Something she ask’d, I know not what, and ask’ d, _ Unanswer’d, since I spake not ; for the sound _ Of that dear voice so musically low, And now first heard with any sense of pain, As it had taken life away before, choked all the syllables, that strove to rise _ From my full heart. | The blissful lover, too, _ From his great hoard of happiness dis- . till’d - drops of solace ; like a vain rich man, That, having always prosper’d in the . world, _ folding his hands, deals comfortable | words To hearts wounded for ever; yet, in | truth, _ ‘air speech was his and delicate of | phrase, THE LOVER’S TALE. 487 Falling in whispers on the sense, ad- dress’d More to the inward than the outward ear, As rain of the midsummer midnight soft, Scarce-heard, recalling fragrance and the green Of the dead spring: but mine was wholly dead, No bud, no leaf, no flower, no fruit for me. Yet who had done, or who had suffer’d wrong ? And why was I to darken their pure love, If, as I found, they two did love each other, Because my own was darken’d? Why was I To cross between their happy star and them ? To stand a shadow by their shining doors, And vex them with my darkness? Did I love her ? Ye know that I did love her; to this present My full-orb’d love has waned not. Did I love her, And could I look upon her tearful eyes ? What had she done to weep? Why should she weep ? O innocent of spirit—let my heart Break rather—whom the gentlest airs of -Heaven Should kiss with an unwonted gentleness. Her love did murder mine? What then? She deem’d I wore a brother’s mind: she call’d me brother : She told me all her love: she shall not weep. The brightness of a burning thought, awhile In battle with the glooms of my dark will, Moonlike emerged, and to itself lit up There on the depth of an unfathom’d woe Reflex of action. Starting up at once, As from a dismal dream of my own death, I, for I loved her, lost my love in Love ; I, for I loved her, graspt the hand she lov’d, 488 THE LOVER’S TALE. And laid it in her own, and sent my cry Thro’ the blank night to Him who loving made The happy and the unhappy love, that He Would hold the hand of blessing over them, Lionel, the happy, and her, and her, his bride ! Let them so love that men and boys may say, ‘Lo! how they love each other!’ till their love Shall ripen to a proverb, unto all Known, when their faces are forgot in the land— One golden dream of love, from which may death Awake them with heaven’s music in a life More living to some happier happiness, Swallowing its precedent in victory. And as for me, Camilla, as for me,— The dew of tears is an unwholesome dew, They will but sicken the sick plant the more. Deem that I love thee but as brothers do, So shalt thou love me still as sisters do ; Or if thou dream aught farther, dream but how I could have loved thee, had there been none else To love as lovers, loved again by thee. Or this, or somewhat like to this, I spake, When I beheld her weep so ruefully ; For sure my love should ne’er indue the front And mask of Hate, who lives on others’ moans. Shall Love pledge Hatred in her bitter draughts, And batten on her poisons? Love forbid ! Love passeth not the threshold of cold Hate, And Hate is strange beneath the roof of Love. O Love, if thou be’st Love, dry up these tears Shed for the love of Love; for tho’ mine image, The subject of thy power, be cold in her, Vet, like cold snow, it melteth in the source Of these sad tears, and feeds their down- — ward flow. Be So Love, arraign’d to judgment and to death, Received unto himself a part of blamnl a Being guiltless, as an innocent prisoner, — Who, when the woful sentence hath b = past, And all the clearness of his fame hath gone Beneath the shadow of the curse of m First falls asleep in swoon, wherefrom awaked, : And looking round upon his tearful friends, ; Forthwith and in his agony conceives Pa A shameful sense as of a cleaving crime— For whence without some guilt should such grief be ? ie So died that hour, and fell into the abysm | Of forms outworn, but not to me outa Who never hail’d another —was there one P ee } There might be one—one other, woes | the life That made it sensible. So that hour died Like odour rapt into the winged wind Borne into alien lands and far away. iy There be some hearts so airily built, that they, 7”: They—when their love is wreck’ d—if Love can wreck— * On that sharp ridge of utmost doom ride highly Above the perilous seas of Change and, Chance ; Nay, more, hold out the lights of cheer. fulness ; As the tall ship, that many a dreary year Knit to some dismal sandbank far at sea,, All thro’ the livelong hours of utter dark, Showers slanting light upon the dolorous wave. For me—what light, what gleam on those black ways Where Love could walk with banish’d Hope no more? _ It was ill-done to part you, Sisters fair ; Love’s arms were wreath’d about the neck of Hope, And Hope kiss’d Love, and Love drew | in her breath In that close kiss, and drank her ’ whisper’d tales. They said that Love would die when Hope was gone, And Love mourn’d long, and sorrow’d after Hope ; At last she sought out Memory, and they trod The same old paths where Love had walk’d with Hope, And Memory fed the soul of Love with tears. Lie Rom that time forth I would not see . her more ; ‘But many weary moons I lived alone— ‘Alone, and in the heart of the great forest. Sometimes upon the hills beside the sea Allday I watch’d the floatingisles of shade, And sometimes on the shore, upon the sands {nsensibly I drew her name, until The meaning of the letters shot into My brain; anon the wanton billow wash’d Them over, till they faded like my love. The hollow caverns heard me—the black 1 brooks Jf the midforest heard me—the soft . winds, aden with thistledown and seeds of | flowers, Paused in their course to hear me, for my voice _ Was all of thee: the merry linnet knew | me, The squirrel knew me, and the dragonfly Shot by me like a flash of purple fire. _ The rough brier tore my bleeding palms ; 7 the hemlock, 3row-high, did strike my forehead as I past ; Yet trod I not the wildflower in my path, Nor bruised the wildbird’s egg. ] | } THE LOVER'S TALE. 489 Was this the end? Why grew we then together in one plot? Why fed we from one fountain? drew one sun ? Why were our mothers’ branches of one stem ? Why were we one in all things, save in that Where to have been one had been the cope and crown Of all I hoped and fear’d ?—if that same nearness Were father to this distance, and that one Vauntcourier to this double? if Affection Living slew Love, and Sympathy hew’d out The bosom-sepulchre of Sympathy ? Chiefly I sought the cavern and the hill Where last we roam’d together, for the sound Of the loud stream was pleasant, and the wind Came wooingly with woodbine smells, Sometimes All day I sat within the cavern-mouth, Fixing my eyes on those three cypress- cones That spired above the wood; and with mad hand Tearing the bright leaves of the ivy- screen, I cast them in the noisy brook beneath, And watch’d them till they vanish’d from my sight Beneath the bower of wreathed eglan- tines : And all the fragments of the living rock (Huge blocks, which some old trembling of the world Had loosen’d from the mountain, till they fell Half-digging their own graves) these in my agon Did I make bare of all the golden moss, Wherewith the dashing runnel in the spring Had liveried them all over. brain In my 490 THE LOVER’S TALE. The spirit seem’d to flag from thought to thought, As moonlight wandering thro’ a mist: my blood Crept like marsh drains thro’ all my lan- guid limbs ; The motions of my heart seem’d far within me, Unfrequent, low, as tho’ it told its pulses ; And yet it shook me, that my frame would shudder, As if ’twere drawn asunder by the rack. But over the deep graves of Hope and Fear, And all the broken palaces of the Past, Brooded one master-passion evermore, Like to a low-hung and a fiery sky Above some fair metropolis, earth- shock’d, — Hung round with ragged rims and _ burn- ing folds, — Embathing all with wild and woful hues, Great hills of ruins, and collapsed masses Of thundershaken columns indistinct, And fused together in the tyrannous light— Ruins, the ruin of all my life and me! Sometimes I thought Camilla was no more, Some one had told me she was dead, and ask’d If I would see her burial: then I seem’d To rise, and through the forest-shadow borne With more than mortal swiftness, I ran down The steepy sea-bank, till I came upon The rear of a procession, curving round The silver-sheeted bay: in front of which Six stately virgins, all in white, upbare A broad earth-sweeping pall of whitest lawn, Wreathed round the bier with garlands : in the distance, From out the yellow woods upon the hill Look’d forth the summit and the pinna- cles Of a gray steeple—thence at intervals A low bell tolling. All the pageantry, Save those six virgins which upheld bier, Were stoled from head to foot in flowing black ; One walk’d abreast with me, and ve his brow, And he was loud in weeping and in pr. Of her, we follow’d: a strong sympat Shook all my soul: I flung myself u him a In tears and cries: I told him all my lo How I had loved her from the first whereat 4 He shrank and howl, and from his br drew back a» His hand to push me from him ; and the face, The very face and form of Lionel Flash’d thro’ my eyes into my innermos brain, & And at his feet I seem’d to faint and fall To fall and die away. I could not rise Albeit I strove to follow. They past on The lordly Phantasms ! in their ‘| folds They past and were no more: but I bat fallen . Prone by the dashing runnel on the grass_ Alway the inaudible invisible thought. Artificer and subject, lord and slave, | Shaped by the audible and visible, Moulded the audible and visible; All crisped sounds of wave and leaf a 4 wind, Flatter’d the fancy of my fading brain; _ The cloud-pavilion’d element, the woo’ The mountain, the three cypresses, th cave, Storm, sunset, glows and glories of tl moon Below black firs, when silent-creepin’ winds Laid the long night in silver streaks an bars, i Were wrought into the tissue of mt dream : | The moanings in the forest, the lov brook, = | Cries of the partridge like a rusty key Turn’d in a lock, owl-whoop and dor- hawk-whirr Awoke me not, but were a part of sleep, And voices in the distance calling to me And in my vision bidding me dream on, Like sounds without the twilight realm of dreams, Which wander round the bases of the 4 hills, And murmur at the low-dropt eaves of . sleep, ; ‘Hall. -entering the portals. Oftentimes ‘The vision had fair prelude, in the end Opening on darkness, stately vestibules To caves and shows of Death: whether the mind, With some revenge—even to itself un- : known, — Made strange division of its suffering With her, whom to have suffering view’d had been ‘Extremest pain; or that the clear-eyed Spirit, Being blunted in the Present, grew at length Prophetical and prescient of whate’er ‘The Future had in store: or that which most Enchains belief, the sorrow of my spirit Was of so wide a compass it took in All I had loved, and my dull agony, Ideally to her transferr’d, became Anguish intolerable. | The day waned ; ‘Alone I sat with her: about my brow ‘Her warm breath floated in the utterance Of silver-chorded tones: her lips were sunder’d With smiles of tranquil bliss, which broke in light Like morning from her eyes—her elo- | quent eyes, {As I have seen them many a hundred times) » Filld all with pure clear fire, thro’ mine 7 down rain’d Ir feir spirit- -searching splendours. vision See Asa | | THE LOVER'S TALE. 491 Unto a haggard prisoner, iron-stay’d In damp and dismal dungeons under- ground, Confined on points of faith, when strength is shock’d With torment, and expectancy of worse Upon the morrow, thro’ the ragged walls, All unawares before his half-shut eyes, Comes in upon him in the dead of night, And with the excess of sweetness and of awe, Makes the heart tremble, and the sight run over Upon his steely gyves ; so those fair eyes Shone on my darkness, forms which ever stood Within the magic cirque of memory, Invisible but deathless, waiting still The edict of the will to reassume The semblance of those rare realities Of which they were the mirrors. Now the light Which was their life, burst through the cloud of thought Keen, irrepressible. It was a room Within the summer-house of which I spake, Hung round with paintings of the sea, and one A vessel in mid-ocean, her heaved prow Clambering, the mast bent and the ravin wind In her sail roaring. From the outer day, Betwixt the close-set ivies came a broad And solid beam of isolated light, Crowded with driving atomies, and fell Slanting upon that picture, from prime youth Well-known well-loved. long ago Forthgazing on the waste and open sea, One morning when the upblown billow ran Shoreward beneath red clouds, and I had pour’d Into the shadowing pencil’s naked forms Colour and life : it was a bond and seal Of friendship, spoken of with tearful smiles ; She drew it 492 THE LOVER’S TALE. A monument of childhood and of love ; The poesy of childhood ; my lost love Symbol’d in storm. We gazed on it together In mute and glad remembrance, and each heart Grew closer to the other, and the eye Was riveted and charm-bound, gazing like The Indian on a still-eyed snake, low- couch’d— A beauty which is death; when all at once That painted vessel, as with inner life, Began to heave upon that painted sea ; An earthquake, my loud heart-beats, made the ground Reel under us, and all at once, soul, life And breath and motion, past and flow’d awa To those unreal billows: round and round A whirlwind caught and bore us; mighty gyres Rapid and vast, of hissing spray wind- driven Far thro’ the dizzy dark. Aloud she shriek’d ; My heart was cloven with pain ; I wound my arms About her: we whirl’d giddily ; the wind Sung; but I clasp’d her without fear : her weight Shrank in my grasp, and over my dim eyes, And parted lips which drank her breath, down-hung The jaws of Death: I, me flung Her empty phantom : whirl Of the storm dropt to windless calm, and I Down welter’d thro’ the dark ever and groaning, from all the sway and ever. iii: I CAME one day and sat among the stones Strewn in the entry of the moaning cave 5 over The rippling levels of the lake, ¢ au blew | Coolness and moisture and all smells. of bud ; And foliage from the dark and aripgi woods nd Upon my fever’d brows that shook an throbb’d From temple unto temple. To oi height é The day had grown I know not. 7 came on me The hollow tolling of the bell, and alld 3 The vision of the bier. As heretofore — I walk’d behind with one who veil’d .| brow. Methought by slow degrees the sullen bell Toll’d quicker, and the breakers on the shore y Sloped into louder surf: those that went with me, And those that held the bier before my ; face, Moved with one spirit round about the | bay, Trod swifter steps; and while I walk’d } with these In marvel at that gradual change, 4 thought Four bells instead of one began to ring, Four merry bells, four merry marriage-| bells, In clanging cadence jangling peal on eal— A long loud clash of rapid mara | bells. Then those who led the hay and thost in rear, Rush’d into dance, and like wild Bae | chanals Fled onward to the steeple in the woods : I, too, was borne along and felt th . blast Beat on my heated eyelids: all at once | The front rank made a sudden halt ; | bells at Lapsed into frightful stillness ; the surge fell From thunder into whispers; those six maids ‘With shrieks and ringing laughter on the sand Threw down the bier ; the woods upon the hill Waved with a sudden gust that sweeping down ‘Took the edges of the pall, and blew it far Until it hung, a little silver cloud Over the sounding seas: I turn’d: my heart ‘Shrank in me, like a snowflake in the . hand, ‘Waiting to see the settled countenance i} her I loved, adorn’d with fading flowers. ‘But she from out her death-like chrysalis, She from her bier, as into fresher life, 4 Me sister, and my cousin, and my love, i Leapt lightly clad in bridal white—her hair . Studded with one rich Provence rose—a light of smiling welcome round her lips—her eyes And cheeks as bright as when she climb’d | the hill. One hand she reach’d to those that came behind, And while I mused nor yet endured to L take _ So rich a prize, the man who stood with me Stept gaily forward, throwing down his robes, ‘And claspt her hand in his: again the | bells 1 Jangled and clang’d: again the stormy surf f Bi Crash’ d in the shingle: and the whirling rout i ‘Led by those two rush’d into dance, and fled _ Wind - footed to the steeple in the 5 woods, ¥ | | THE LOVER'S TALE. 493 Till they were swallow’d in the leafy bowers, And I stood sole beside the vacant bier. There, there, my latest vision—then the event ! Le THE GOLDEN SUPPER.! (Another speaks.) HE flies the event : to me: Poor Julian—how he rush’d away ; the bells, Those marriage-bells, echoing in ear and heart— But cast a parting glance at me, you saw, As who should say ‘Continue.’ Well he had One golden hour—of triumph shall I say? Solace at least—before he left his home. he leaves the event Would you had seen him in that hour of his ! . He moved thro’ all of it majestically— Restrain’d himself quite to the close-— but now— Whether they were his lady’s marriage- bells, Or prophets of them in his fantasy, I never ask’d: but Lionel and the girl Were wedded, and our Julian came again Back to his mother’s house among the pines. But these, their gloom, the mountains and the Bay, The whole land weigh’d him down as Etna does The Giant of Mythology : he would go, Would leave the land for ever, and had gone Surely, but for a whisper, ‘Go not yet,’ Some warning—sent divinely —as_ it seem’d 1 This poem is founded upon a story in Boc- caccio, See Introduction, p. 476. 494 THE GOLDEN SUPPER. By that which follow’d — but of this I deem As of the visions that he told—the event Glanced back upon them in his after life, And partly made them—tho’ he knew it not. And thus he stay’d and would not look at her— No not for months: eleventh moon After their marriage lit the lover’s Bay, Heard yet once more the tolling bell, and said, Would you could toll me out of life, but found— All softly as his mother broke it to him— A crueller reason than a crazy ear, For that low knell tolling his lady dead— Dead—and had lain three days without a pulse : All that look’d on her had pronounced her dead. And so they bore her (for in Julian’s land They never nail a dumb head up in elm), Bore her free-faced to the free airs of heaven, And laid her in the vault of her own kin, What did he then? not die: and hale— Not plunge headforemost from the moun- tain there, And leave the name of Lover’s Leap: but, when the he is here not he: He knew the meaning of the whisper now, Thought that he knew it. ‘This, I stay’d for this ; O love, I have not seen you for so long. Now, now, will I go down into the grave, I will be all alone with all I love, And kiss her on the lips. She is his no more : The dead returns to me, and I go down To kiss the dead.’ The fancy stirr’d him so He rose and went, and entering the dim vault, And, making there a sudden light, b All round about him that which all wil be. The light was but a flash, and went again, Of black and bands of silvers which § h moon Struck from an open grating overhead High in the wall, and all the rest of h Drown’d in the gloom and horror of the vault. ‘It was my wish,’ he said, ‘ to nasil sleep, ° To rest, to be with her—till the great, day al Peal’d on us with that music which all, } And ined us hand in hand.’ And kneeling there | Down in the dreadful dust that once was man, Dust, as he said, that once was loving hearts, j Hearts that had beat with such a love as mine— Not such as mine, no, nor for such & her— | He softly put his arm about her neck — And kiss’d her more than once, till 4 less death | And silence made him bold—nay, bat wrong him, He _ reverenced his dear lady even 4 death ; © But, placing his true hand upon She heart, ‘O, you warm heart,’ he moan’d, x even death Can chill you all at once :’ then startin, thought His dreams had come again. ‘¢ Do wake or sleep ? Or am I made immortal, or my lovel Mortal once more ?’ It beat—the hea —it beat : Faint—but it beat: at which his | began | | | | _ To pulse with such a vehemence that it } drown’d _ The feebler motion underneath his hand. _ But when at last his doubts were satisfied, He raised her softly from the sepulchre, 7 , And, wrapping her all over with the cloak _ He came in, and now striding fast, and now _ Sitting awhile to rest, but evermore Holding his golden burthen in his arms, So bore her thro’ the solitary land _| Back to the mother’s house where she was born. __ There the good mother’s kindly minis- tering, ‘With half a night’s appliances, recall’d Her fluttering life: she rais’d an eye that ask’d ‘Where?’ till the things familiar to her youth Had made a silent answer: then she spoke |*Here! and how came I here?’ and learning it (They told her somewhat rashly as I | think) _At once began to wander and to wail, _ ‘Ay, but you know that you must give | me back : Send! bid him come ;’ but Lionel was away— Stung by his loss had vanish’d, none knew where. _ ‘He casts me out,’ she wept, ‘and goes’ —a wail That seeming something, yet was nothing, born f Not from believing mind, but shatter’d | nerve, Yet haunting Julian, as her own reproof _At some precipitance in her burial. Then, when her own true spirit had return’d, “Oh yes, and you,’ she said, ‘and none i but you? For you have given me life and love again, And none but you yourself shall tell him of it, ana you shall give me back when he | returns.’ THE LOVER’S TALE. 495 ‘Stay then a little,’ answer’d Julian, ‘here, . And keep yourself, none knowing, to yourself ; And I will do your will. I may not stay, No, not an hour; but send me notice of him When he returns, and then will I return, And I will make a solemn offering of you To him you love.’ And faintly she replied, ‘And I will do your will, and none shall know.’ Not know? with such a secret to be known. But all their house was old and loved them both, And all the house had known the loves of both ; Had died almost to serve them any way, And all the land was waste and solitary: And then he rode away ; but after this, An hour or two, Camilla’s travail came Upon her, and that day a boy was born, Heir of his face and land, to Lionel. And thus our lonely lover rode away, And pausing at a hostel in a marsh, There fever seized upon him: myself was then Travelling that land, and meant to rest an hour ; And sitting down to such a base repast, It makes me angry yet to speak of it— I heard a groaning overhead, and climb’d The moulder’d stairs (for everything was vile) And in a loft, with none to wait on him, Found, as it seem’d, a skeleton alone, Raving of dead men’s dust and beating hearts. A dismal hostel in a dismal land, A flat malarian world of reed and rush ! But there from fever and my care of him Sprang up a friendship that may help us yet. For while we roam’d along the dreary coast, 496 THE GOLDEN SUPPER. ' And waited for her message, piece by piece I learnt the drearier story of his life ; -And, tho’ he loved and honour’d Lionel, Found that the sudden wail his lady made Dwelt in his fancy: did he know her worth, Her beauty even? should henot be taught, Ev’n by the price that others set upon it, The value of that jewel he had to guard? Suddenly came her notice and we past, I with our lover to his native Bay. This love is of the brain, the mind, the soul : That makes the sequel pure ; tho’ some of us Beginning at the sequel know no more. Not such am I: and yet I say the bird That will not hear my call, however sweet, But if my neighbour whistle answers him— What matter? there are others in the wood. Yet when I saw her (and I thought him crazed, Tho’ not with such a craziness as needs A cell and keeper), those dark eyes of hers— Oh! such dark eyes! and not her eyes alone, But all from these to where she touch’d on earth, For such a craziness as Julian’s look’d No less than one divine apology. So sweetly and so modestly she came To greet us, her young hero in her arms ! ‘Kiss him,’ she said. ‘You gave me life again. He, but for you, had never seen it once. His other father you! Kiss him, and then Forgive him, if his name be Julian too.’ Talk of lost hopes and broken heart ! his own Sent such a flame into his face, I knew Some sudden vivid pleasure hit him there. But he was.all the more resolved to. And sent at once to Lionel, praying him By that great love they both had borne the dead, To come and revel for one hour with bs Before he left the land for evermore; — And then to friends—they were not many —who lived Scatteringly about that lonely land of his, And bad them to a banquet of farewell And Julian made a solemn feast: I never Sat at a costlier ; for all round his hall From column on to column, as in a wood, Not such as here—an equatorial one, __ Great garlands swung and blossom’d; and beneath, Heirlooms, and ancient miracles of Art, Chalice and salver, wines that, Heaven knows when, Had -suck’d the fire of some forgotten sun, And kept it thro’ a hundred years: oO} gloom, Yet glowing in a heart of ruby—cups - Where nymph and god ran ever round ir gold— Others of glass as costly—some with gems } Moveable and resettable at will, | And trebling all the rest in value—Al heavens ! Why need I tell you all ?—suffice to say That whatsoever such a house as his, And his was old, has in it rare or fair Was brought before the guest: and they’ the guests, Wonder’d at some strange light in Julian’, eyes (I told you that he had his golden A And such a feast, ill-suited as it seem’d To such a time, to Lionel’s loss and his - And that resolved self-exile from a land | He never would revisit, such a feast So rich, so strange, and stranger eV! than rich, But rich as for the nuptials of a king. _ And stranger yet, at one end of the hall /'wogreat funereal curtains, looping down, arted a little ere they met the floor, bout a picture of his lady, taken ome years before, and falling hid the frame. nd just above the parting was a lamp: ‘o the sweet figure folded round with night eem’d stepping out of darkness with a smile. _ Well then—our solemn feast—we ate | and drank, nd might—the wines being of such nobleness— cave jested also, but for Julian’s eyes, nd something weird and wild about it all : _ That was it? for our lover seldom spoke, carce touch’d the meats; but ever and . anon _ priceless goblet with a priceless wine _ rising, show’d he drank beyond his use ; biod when the feast was near an end, he | said : TZ §) “Phere is a custom in the Orient, | friends— read of it in Persia—when a man Jill honour those who feast with him, he brings _nd shows them whatsoever he accounts fall his treasures the most beautiful, old, jewels, arms, whatever it may be. his custom——’ | Pausing here a moment, all he guests broke in upon him with meeting hands nd cries about the banquet—‘ Beautiful ! _/ho could desire more beauty at a feast ?’ | |The lover answer’d, it than one ere sitting who desires it. Laud me not fore my time, but hear me to the close. his custom steps yet further when the guest _ loved and honour’d to the uttermost. ‘There is more HE LOVERS PALE 497 For after he hath shown him gems or gold, He brings and sets before him in rich guise That which is thrice as beautiful as these, The beauty that is dearest to his heart— ‘*O my heart’s lord, would I could show you,”’ he says, ‘‘Ev’n my heart too.” And I propose to-night To show you what is dearest to my heart, And my heart too. ‘But solve me first a doubt. I knew a man, nor many years ago; He had a faithful servant, one who loved His master more than all on earth beside. He falling sick, and seeming close on death, His master would not wait until he died, But bad his menials bear him from the door, And leave him in the public way to die. I knew another, not so long ago, Who found the dying servant, took him home, And fed, and cherish’d him, and saved his life. I ask you now, should this first master claim His service, whom does it belong to? him Who thrust him out, or him who saved his life ?? This question, so flung down before the guests, And balanced either way by each, at length When some were doubtful how the law would hold, Was handed over by consent of all To one who had not spoken, Lionel. Fair speech was his, and delicate of phrase. And he beginning languidly—his loss Weigh’d on him yet—but warming as he went, Glanced at the point of law, to pass it by, Affirming that as long as either lived, Poy ine 498 By all the laws of love and gratefulness, The service of the one so saved was due All to the saver—adding, with a smile, The first for many weeks—a semi-smile As at a strong conclusion—‘ body and soul And life and limbs, all his to work his will.’ Then Julian made a secret sign to me To bring Camilla down before them all. And crossing her own picture as she came, And looking as much lovelier as herself Is lovelier than all others—on her head A diamond circlet, and from under this A veil, that seemed no more than gilded air, Flying by each fine ear, an Eastern gauze With seeds of gold—so, with that grace of hers, Slow-moving as a wave against ie wind, That flings a mist behind it in the sun— And bearing high in arms the mighty babe, The younger Julian, who himself was crown’d With roses, none so rosy as himself— And over all her babe and her the jewels Of many generations of his house Sparkled and flash’d, for he had decked them out As for a solemn sacrifice of love— So she came in :—I am long in telling it, I never yet beheld a thing so strange, Sad, sweet, and strange together—floated in— While all the guests in mute amazement rose — And slowly pacing to the middle hall, Before the board, there paused and stood, her breast Hard-heaving, and her eyes upon her feet, Not daring yet to glance at Lionel. But him she carried, him nor lights nor feast Dazed or amazed, nor eyes of men ; who cared Only to use his own, and staring wide And hungering for the gilt and jewell’d world About him, look’d, as he is like to prove, When Julian goes, the lord of all he saw, THE GOLDEN SOTLE Rs ‘My guests,’ said Julian: honour’d now Ewv’n to the uttermost : i ‘ yo ! p Of all things upon earth the dearest ton Then waving us a sign to seat ours Led his dear lady to a chair of state. And I, by Lionel sitting, saw his fac : like ; ; She never had a sister. I knew non 3 Some cousin of his and hers—O God, SC like !? And then he suddenly ask’d her if sy were. s She shook, and cast her eyes down, i was dumb. And then some other question’d if : ‘sh “came From foreign lands, and still she did nc speak. Another, if the boy were hers: but dhe To all their queries answer’d not a wore Which made the amazement more, | q one of them Said, shuddering, ‘ Her spectre !’ B his friend 5 Replied, in half a whisper, ‘ Not 4 The spectre that will speak if spoken 1 tt Terrible pity, if one so beautiful = Prove, as I almost dread to find he | dumb !’ : ; But Julian, sitting by her, answer'dal| ‘She is but dumb, because in her ye see } That faithful servant whom we sp about, Obedient to hee second master now 5 Which will not last. I have here to-nig a guest So bound to me by common love a loss— | What! shall I bind him more? in | behalf, Shall I exceed the Persian, giving him That which of all things is the dearest me, Not only showing ? and he pisaselt pro- nounced ‘That my rich gift is wholly mine to give. ‘Now all be dumb, and promise all of you Not to break in on what I say by word ‘Or whisper, while I show you all my heart.’ ‘And then began the story of his love ‘As here to- day, but not so wordily— The passionate moment would not suffer | that— Down to this last strange hour in his own hall ; And then rose up, and with him all his guests tee more as by enchantment ; all but he, Lionel, who fain had risen, but fell again, ‘And sat as if in chains—to whom he said : _ ‘Take my free gift, my cousin, for ; your wife ; _ And were it only for the giver’s sake, | And tho’ she seem so like the one you lost, _ Yet cast her not away so suddenly, _ Lest there be none left here to bring her back: { leave this land for ever.’ ceased. _| Then taking his dear lady by one hand, And bearing on one arm the noble babe, He slowly brought them both to Lionel. And there the widower husband and dead wife i Rush’ d each at each witha cry, that rather seem’d _ forsome new death than for a liferenew’d ; _ Whereat the very babe began to wail; At once they turn’d, and caught and brought him in To their charm’d circle, and, half killing | him | With kisses, round him closed and claspt | again. But Lionel, when at last he freed himself _ From wife and child, and lifted up a face All over glowing with the sun of life, And love, and boundless thanks—the | sight of this Here he THE FIRST QUARREL. Past thro’ his visions to the burial ; thence. 499 So frighted our good friend, that turning to me And saying, ‘It is over: let us go’— There were our horses ready at the doors— We bad them no farewell, but mounting these He past for ever from his native land ; And I with him, my Julian, back to mine. TO ALFRED TENNYSON MY GRANDSON. GOLDEN -HAIR’D Ally whose name is one with mine, Crazy with laughter and babble and earth’s new wine, Now that the flower of a year and a half is thine, O little blossom, O mine, and mine of mine, Glorious poet who never hast written a line, Laugh, for the name at the head of my verse is thine. May’st thou never be wrong’d by the name that is mine ! THE FIRST, QUARREL, (IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT.) 1. ‘WAIT a little,’ you say, ‘you are sure it “ll all come right,’ But the boy was born?’ trouble, an’ looks so wan an’ so white: Wait! an’ once I ha’ waited—I hadn’t to wait for long. Now I wait, wait, wait for Harry.—No, no, you are doing me wrong ! Harry and I were married: the boy can hold up his head, The boy was born in wedlock, but after my man was dead ; I ha’ work’d for him fifteen years, an’ I work an’ I wait to the end. I am all alone in the world, an’ you are my only friend. Il. Doctor, if you can wait, I'll tell you the tale o’ my life. When Harry an’ I were children, he call’d me his own little wife ; 500 I was happy when I was with him, an’ sorry when he was away, Aw when we play’d together, I loved him better than play ; He workt me the daisy chain—he made me the cowslip ball, He fought the boys that were rude, an’ I loved him better than all. Passionate girl tho’ I was, an’ often at home in disgrace, I never could quarrel with Harry—I had but to look in his face. Th: There was a farmer in Dorset of Harry’s kin, that had need Of a good stout lad at his farm ; he sent, an’ the father agreed ; So Harry was bound to the Dorsetshire farm for years an’ for years ; I walked with him down to the quay, poor lad, an’ we parted in tears. The boat was beginning to move, we heard them a-ringing the bell, ‘T’ll never love any but you, God bless you, my own little Nell.’ IV. I was a child, an’ he was a child, an’ he came to harm ; There was a girl, a hussy, that workt with him up at the farm, One had deceived her an’ left her alone with her sin an’ her shame, And so she was wicked with Harry; the girl was the most to blame. Wis And years went over till I that was little had grown so tall, The men would say of the maids, ‘ Our Nelly’s the flower of ’em all.’ I didn’t take heed 0’ ¢hem, but I taught myself all I could To make a good wife for Harry, when Harry came home for good. Was Often I seem’d unhappy, and often as happy too, For I heard it abroad in the fields ‘I'll never love any but you ;’ THE PIRST QUARKEL, So I set to righting the house, for wa: s = ‘Tl never love any but you’ the mor ning song of the lark, : ‘I'll never love any but you’ the nig _ gale’s hymn in the dark. VII. And Harry came home at last, b look’d at me sidelong and sk Vext me a bit, till he told me that so many years had gone by, I had grown so handsome and tall— I might ha’ forgot him someh For he thought—there were other la he was fear’d to look at me VITIl. Hard was the frost in the field, we wer married o’ Christmas day, Married among the red berries, an’ 2 is merry as May— i Those were the pleasant times, my house an’ my man were my pride, We seem’d like ships 7? the Channe sailing with wind an’ tide. IX. But work was scant in the Isle, tho’ tried the villages round, So Harry went over the Solent to see work could be found ; . An’ he wrote ‘I ha’ six weeks? work little wife, so faras I know; I’ll come for an hour to-morrow, an’ kis: you before I go.’ | X. he coming that day? An’ I hit on an old deal-box that wa Ve push’d in a corner away, nad | It was full of old odds an’ ends, an’ : letter along wi’ the rest, I had better ha’ put my naked hand in hornets’ nest. a | XI. ‘Sweetheart ’—this was the letter—th’ was the letter I read— ‘You promised to find me work near yo an’ I wish I was dead— = Didn’t you kiss me an’ promise? you haven’t done it, my lad, An’ I almost died o’ your going away, an’ I wish that I had.’ XII. { too wish that I had—in the pleasant times that had past, Before I quarrell’d with Harry — my quarrel—the first an’ the last. | XIII. For Harry came in, an’ I flung ‘him the letter that drove me wild, Aw’ he told it me all at once, as simple as | any child, What can it matter, my lass, what I did | wi’ my single life ? ha’ been as true to you as ever a man to | his wife ; ‘An’ she wasn’t “sh o’ the worst.’ ‘Then,’ I said, ‘I’m none o’ the best.’ An’ he smiled at me, ‘ Ain’t you, my love? | Come, come, little wife, let it rest ! Che man isn’t like the Ey no need to make such a stir.’ | 3ut he anger’d me all the more, an’ I said ‘You were keeping with Her: _ Vhen I was a-loving you all along an’ the | same as before.’ in’ he didn’t speak for a while, an’ he anger’d me more and more. “hen he patted my hand in his gentle | way, ‘ Let bygones be !’ i} Beers ! you kept yours hush’d,’ I said, | ‘when you married me ! 7 _'y-gones ma’ be come- “agains 5 3; an’ she— Wf in her shame an’ her sin— ou'll have her to nurse my child, if I Hn die o’ my lying in! owl make her its second mother! I | hate her—an’ I hate you !’ 7 ih, Harry, my man, you had better ha’ beaten me black an’ blue { ‘han ha? spoken as kind as you did, } q when I were so crazy wi’ spite, Wait a little, my lass, I am sure it ‘ill q all come right.’ XIV. 4 cw’ he took three turns in the rain, an’ I I watch’d him, an’ when he came in q RIZPAH. 501 I felt that my heart was hard, he was all wet thro’ to the skin, An’ I never said ‘ off wi’ the wet said ‘on wi’ the dry,’ So I knew my heart was hard, when he came to bid me goodbye. ‘You said that you hated me, Ellen, but that isn’t true, you know ; I am going to leave you a bit—you’ll kiss me before I go?’ » Inever XV, ‘Going ! you’re going to her-—kiss her-— if you will,’ I said— I was near my time wi’ the boy, I must ha’ been light ? my head— ‘I had sooner be cursed than kiss’d !’—I didn’t know well what I meant, But I turn’d my face from 42, an’ he turn’d zs face an’ he went. XVI. And then he sent mea letter, ‘ I’ve gotten my work to do; You wouldn’t kiss me, my lass, never loved any but you ; I am sorry for all the quarrel an’ sorry for what she wrote, I ha’ six weeks’ work in Jersey an’ go to- night by the boat.’ an’ I XVII. An’ the wind began to rise, an’ I thought of him out at sea, An’ I felt I had been to blame ; he was always kind to me. ‘Wait a little, my lass, I am sure it “ill all come right ’—- An’ the boat went down that night—the boat went down that night. RIZPAH, 17—. Ts WAILING, wailing, wailing, the wind over land and sea— And Willy’s voice in the wind, ‘ O mother, come out to me,’ 502 RIZLPATS Why should he call me to-night, when he knows that I cannot go? For the downs are as bright as day, and the full moon stares at the snow. II. We should be seen, my dear ; they would spy us out of the town. The loud black nights for us, and the storm rushing over the down, When I cannot see my own hand, but am led by the creak of the chain, | And grovel and grope for my son till I find myself drenched with the rain. Ill. Anything fallen again? nay—what was there left to fall? I have taken them home, I have number’d the bones, I have hidden them all. What am I saying? and what are you ? do you come as a spy? Falls ? what falls? who knows? tree falls so must it lie. As the IV. Who let her in? how long has she been ? you—what have you heard ? Why did you sit so quiet ? you never have spoken a word. O—to pray with me—yes—a lady—none of their spies— But the night has crept into my heart, and begun to darken my eyes. Vie Ah—you, that have lived so soft, what should you know of the night, The blast and the burning shame and the bitter frost and the fright ? I have done it, while you were asleep— you were only made for the day. I have gather’d my baby together—and now you may go your way. Vi, Nay—for it’s kind of you, Madam, to sit by an old dying wife. But say nothing hard of my boy, I have only an hour of life. I kiss’d my boy in the prison, befo went out to die. when he was but a child— ‘The farmer dared me to do it,’ he said he was always so wildoae 7 And idle—and couldn’t be idle— Willy—he never could rest. — -, The King should have made him a soldier, he would have been one of his Ed VII. But he lived with a lot of wild mates, and they never would Jet him be good They swore that he dare not rob the mail, and he swore that he would; And he took no life, but he tools one a purse, and when all was done — He flung it among his fellows—I'll none of it, said my son. : VIII. I came into court to the Judge and ‘the lawyers. I told them my tale, — God’s own truth—but they kill’d him they kill’d him forrobbing the mail They hang’d him in chains for a show— we had always bornea good name—__ To be hang’d for a thief—and then pu | away—isn’t that enough shame? Dust to dust—low down—let us hide y but they set him sohigh That all the ships of the world coul: 4 stare at him, passing by. | God ’ill pardon the hell-black raven an) horrible fowls of the air, But not the black heart of the lawyer wh kill’d him and hang’d him thete. IX And the jailer forced me away. Tha bid him my last goodbye ; They had fasten’d the door of his cel ‘O mother!’ I heard him cry. I couldn’t get back tho’ I tried, he he something further to say, And now I never shall know it. Tl jailer forced me away. x. Then since I couldn’t but hear that cry of my boy that was dead, They seized me and shut me up: fasten’d me down on my bed. ‘Mother, O mother !’—he call’d in the | dark to me year after year— ead beat me for that, they beat me— you know that I couldn’t but hear ; And then at the last they found I had grown so stupid and still They let me abroad again—pbut the | creatures had worked their will. they | XI. F lesh of my flesh was gone, but bone of . my bone was left— { stole them all from the lawyers—and you, will you call it a theft >— My baby, the bones that had suck’d me, the bones that had laughed and had cried— ‘Theirs? O no! they are mine—not theirs—they had moved in myside. XII. ! Do you think I was scared by the bones? I kiss’d ’em, I buried ’em all— I can’t dig deep, I am old—in the night | by the churchyard wall. My Willy ’ill rise up whole when the | trumpet of judgment ill sound, But I charge you never to say that I laid him in holy ground. XIII. ‘They would scratch him up—they would hang him again on the cursed tree. Sin? O yes—we are sinners, I know— let all that be, And read me a Bible verse of the Lord’s good will toward men— ‘ Full of compassion and mercy, the Lord’ —let me hear it again ; al “Pall of compassion and mercy—long- suffering.’ Yes, O yes! For the lawyer is born but to murder— | the Saviour lives but to bless. RIZPALH. 503 ffe’ll never put on the black cap except - for the worst of the worst, And the first may be last—I have heard it in church—and the last may be first. Suffering—O long-suffering—yes, as the Lord must know, Year after year in the mist and the wind and the shower and the snow. XIV. Heard, have you? what? they have told you he never repented his sin. How do they know it? are ¢hey his mother ? are you of his kin? Heard ! have you ever heard, when the storm on the downs began, The wind that ill wail like a child and the sea that ’ill moan like a man? XV. Election, Election and Reprobation—it’s all very well. But I go to-night to my boy, and I shall not find him in Hell. For I cared so much for my boy that the Lord has look’d into my care, And He means me I’m sure to be happy with Willy, I know not where. XVI. And if e be lost—but to save my soul, that is all your desire : Do you think that I care for my soul if my boy be gone to the fire ? I have been with God in the dark—go, go, you may leave me alone— You nevér have borne a child—you are — just as hard as a stone. XVII. Madam, I beg your pardon! I think that you mean to be kind, But I cannot hear what you say for my Willy’s voice in the wind— The snow and the sky so bright—he used but to call in the dark, And he calls to me now from the church and not from the gibbet—for hark ! 504 Nay—you can hear it yourself—it is coming—shaking the walls— Willy—the moon’s in a cloud——Good night. Iam going. He calls. THE NORTHERN COBBLER. I. WAAIT till our Sally cooms in, fur thou mun a’ sights! to tell. Eh, but I be maain glad to seed tha sa ’arty an’ well. ‘Cast awady on a disolut land wi’ a vartical soon? !’ Strange fur to goa fur to think what saailors a’ seéan an’ a’ doon ; ‘Summat to drink—sa’ ’ot ?’? I ’a nowt but Adam/’s wine: What’s the ’eat o’ this little ’ill-side to the ’eat o’ the line? Il. ‘What’s i’ tha bottle a-stanning theer ?’ I'll tell tha, Gin. But if thou wants thy grog, tha mun goa fur it down to the inn. Naay—fur I be maain-glad, but thaw tha was iver sa dry, Thou gits naw gin fro’ the bottle theer, an’ I’]l tell tha why. III. Mea an’ thy sister was married, when wur it? back-end o’ June, Ten year sin’, and wa ’greed as well as a fiddle 1’ tune: I could fettle and clump owd booots and shoes wi’ the best on ’em all, As fer as fro’ Thursby thurn hup to Harmsby and Hutterby Hall. 1 The vowels az, pronounced separately though in the closest conjunction, best render the sound of the long and y in this dialect. But since such words as craiin’, daiin’, whai, ai (1), etc., look awkward except in a page of express phonetics, I have thought it better to leave the simple z and y, and to trust that my readers will give them the broader pronunciation. 2 The oo short, as in ‘ wood.’ THE NORTHERN COBSLER, We was busy as beeis i’ the bloom a’ ’appy as ’art could think, — Aw then the babby wur burn, and I taakes to the drink. IV. An’ I weant gadinsaay it, my lad, thaw ] be hafe shadmed on it now, — We could sing a good song at the Plov could sing a good song at the Ple Thaw once of a frosty nibs I slither’d hurted my huck, ! An’ I coom’d neck-an-crop soomtit slaape down 7’ the squad an’ muck : An’ once I fowt wi’ the Taadilor—not hat UCB Ea 5 lad— 4 Fur he scrawm’d an’ scratted my faiice like a cat, an’ it madde ’er sa mad That mally she turn’d a tongue- banger,? an’ raited ma, ‘ Sottin’ thy braa Guzzlin’ an’ soakin’ an’ smoakin’ 2 hawmin’® about i’ the ladnes, 4 Soa sow-droonk that tha doesn not touch thy ’at to the Squire ;’ 4 An’ I loodk’d cock-eyed at my noase I seead ’im a- gittin’ o’ fire ; 3 ‘, But sin’ I wur hallus i’ liquor an’ hal as droonk as a king, Foalks’ coostom flitted awady like s wi’ a brokken string. . Vv | An’ Sally she wesh’d foalks’ cloiths to keep the wolf fro’ the door, 4 Eh but the moor she riled me, she drwy me to drink the moor, Fur I fun’, when ’er back wur turn vd, wheer Sally’s owd stockin’ wur "id, An’ I grabb’d the munny she maiide, and. I wear’d it o’ liquor, I did. ae VI. 4 An’ one night I cooms ’oam like a bul gotten loose at a faair, 4 An’ she wur a-waiitin’ fo’mma, an’ Ss and tedarin’ ’er ’adir, l 3 Loungingti q : +. - 1 Hip. 2 Scold. } i | An’ I tummled athurt the craadle an’ swear’d as I’d break ivry stick O’ furnitur ’ere i’ the ’ouse, an’ I gied our Sally a kick, An’ I mash’d the taables an’ chairs, an’ she an’ the babby beal’d,! Fur I knaw’d naw moor what I did nor a mortal beast o’ the feald. VII. Aw when I waaked i’ the murnin’ I seeaid that our Sally went laamed Cos’ o’ the kick as I gied ’er, an’ I wur dreadful ashaamed ; An’ Sally wur sloomy ? an’ draggle taail’d in an owd turn gown, An’ the babby’s faace wurn’t wesh’d an’ the ’ole ’ouse hupside down. VIII. An’ then I minded our Sally sa pratty an’ neat an’ sweeat, Strait as a pole an’ clean as a flower fro’ "edd to feedat : An’ then I minded the fust kiss I gied | ’er by Thursby thurn ; Theer wur a lark a-singin’ ’is best of a Sunday at murn, _ -ouldn’t see ’im, we ’eadrd ’im a-mountin’ 7 oop *igher an’ ’igher, Aw then ’e turn’d to the sun, an’ ’e | shined like a sparkle o’ fire. | Doesn't tha see ’im,’ she axes, ‘fur I can see im?’ an’ I Seedd nobbut the smile o’ the sun as danced in ’er pratty blue eye ; - \n’ I says ‘I mun gie tha a kiss,’ an’ | Sally says ‘ Noa, thou moant,’ 3ut I gied ’er a kiss, an’ then anoother, an’ Sally says ‘ doant !’ | 1X \n’ when we coom’d into Meeiatin’, at fust she wur all in a tew, 3ut, arter, we sing’d the ’ymn togither like birds on a beugh ; 1 Bellowed, cried out. 2 Sluggish, out of spirits. THE NORTHERN COBBLER. 505 An’ Muggins ’e preach’d o’ Hell-fire an’ the loov o’ God fur men, An’ then upo’ coomin’ awaay Sally gied me a kiss ov ’ersen. aS Heer wur a fall fro’ a kiss to a kick like Saatan as fell Down out o’ heaven i’ Hell-fire—thaw theer’s naw drinkin’ i’ Hell ; Mea fur to kick our Sally as kep the wolf fro’ the door, All along o’ the drink, fur I loov’d ’er as well as afoor. XI. Sa like a graat num-cumpus I blubber’d awaady o’ the bed— ‘Weant niver do it naw moor;’ an’ Sally loodkt up an’ she said, ‘Tl upowd it! tha weant; thou’rt like the rest o’ the men, Thow’ll goa sniffin’ about the tap till tha does it agéan. Theer’s thy hennemy, man, an’ I knaws, as knaws tha sa well, That, if tha seeds ’im an’ smells ’im tha’ll foller ’im slick into Hell.’ XII. ‘Nady,’ says I, ‘fur I weant goa sniffin’ about the tap.’ ‘Weant tha?’ she says, an’ mysen I thowt i’ mysen ‘ mayhap.’ ‘Noa :’ an’ I started awaay like a shot, an’ down to the Hinn, An’ I browt what tha seeds stannin’ theer, yon big black bottle o’ gin. XIII. ‘That caps owt,’? says Sally, an’ saw she begins to cry, But I puts it inter ’er ’ands an’ I says to ’er, ‘Sally,’ says I, ‘Stan’ ’im theer i’ the naame o’ the Lord an’ the power ov ’is Graice, ‘Stan’ ’im theer, fur I'l] loodk my hennemy strait i’ the fadce, 1 [ll uphold it. 2 That’s beyond everything. 506 THE NORTHERN COBBLER. Stan’ ’im theer i’ the winder, an’ let ma loook at ’im then, °E seedms naw moor nor watter, an’ ’e’s the Divil’s oan sen.’ XIV. An’ I wur down 7’ tha mouth, couldn’t do naw work an’ all, Nasty an’ snaggy an’ shaaky, an’ poonch’d my ’and wi’ the hawl, But she wur a power o’ coomfut, an’ sattled ’ersen o’ my knee, An’ coaxd an’ coodled me oop till agean I feel’d mysen free. XV. An’ Sally she tell’d it about, an’ foalk stood a-gawmin’! in, As thaw it wur summat bewitch’d istead of a quart 0’ gin ; An’ some on ’em said it wur watter—an’ I wur chousin’ the wife, Fur I couldn’t ’owd ’ands off gin, wur it nobbut to saive my life ; An’ blacksmith ’e strips me the thick ov is airm, an’ ’e shaws it to me, ‘Feéal thou this! thou can’t graw this upo’ watter !’ says he. An’ Doctor ’e calls 0’ Sunday an’ just as candles was lit, ‘Thou moant do it,’ he says, ‘tha mun break ’im off bit by bit.’ ‘Thow’rt but a Methody-man,’ says Par- son, and laiys down ’is ’at, An’ ’e points to the bottle o’ gin, ‘ but I respecks tha fur that ;’ An’ Squire, his oan very sen, walks down fro’ the ’All to see, An’ ’e spanks “is ’and into mine, ‘fur I respecks tha,’ says ’e ; An’ coostom ageain draw’d in like a wind fro’ far an’ wide, And browt me the boodts to be cobbled fro’ hafe the coontryside. XVI. An’ theer ’e stans an’ theer ’e shall stan to my dying daay ; 1 Staring vacantly. I ’a gotten to loov ’im agean in anoo kind of a waay, Proud on ’im, like, my lad, an’ I k ’im clean an’ bright, Loovs ’im, an’ roobs ’im, an’ doosts "im, — an’ puts ’im back i’ the light. — XVII. Wouldn’t a pint a’ sarved as well quart? Naw doubt: | But I liked a bigger feller to fight wi’ an’ fowt it out. ; Fine an’ meller ’e mun be by this, i ae, cared to taaste, 3 But I moant, my lad, and I weant, r r I'd feal mysen clean disgraticeds XVIII. ; An’ once I said to the Missis, ‘ My lass, when I cooms to die, ; Smash the bottle to smithers, the Divil’s in *im,’ said I. : But arter I chainged my mind, an sally be left aloan, 3 Ill hev ’im a-buried wi’mma an’ taake im afoor the Throan. XIX. Coom thou ’eer—yon laddy a- - Stepy pin along the streedat, > Doesn’t tha knaw ’er—sa pratty, an’ et an’ neat, an’ sweeat ? 1 Look at the cloathe on ’er back, theblx ammost spick-span-new, An’ Tommy’s faice be as fresh as a codlit wesh’d i’ the dew. ; XX. "Ere be our Sally an’ Tommy, an’ we b a- goin to dine, Pl Baacon an’ taates, an’ a beslings- -pud din’! an’ Adam’s wine ; But if tha wants ony grog tha mun go fur it down to the Hinn, = Fur I weant shed a drop on ’is blood. nod, not fur Sally’s oin kin. | 1 A pudding made with the first milk of theeo after calving. ; moe REVENGE. A BALLAD OF THE FLEET. I. AT FLores in the Azores Sir Richard | Grenville lay, And a pinnace, like a flutter’d bird, came flying from far away : *Spanish ships of war at sea! we have | sighted fifty-three !’ Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: *’Fore God I am no coward ; But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear, And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick. We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three ?’ i i; Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: ‘I know you are no coward ; You fly them for a moment to fight with them again. But I’ve ninety men and more that are | lying sick ashore. I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard, To these Inquisition dogs and the devil- doms of Spain.’ TEYs So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war that day, Till he melted like a cloud in the silent | summer heaven ; But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land Very carefully and slow, Men of Bideford in Devon, And we laid them on the ballast down below ; For we brought them all aboard, And they blest him in their pain, that they | were not left to Spain, To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord. THE REVENGE. 507 IV. He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight, And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight, With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow. ‘ Shall we fight or shall we fly ? Good Sir Richard, tell us now, For to fight is but to die ! There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set.’ And Sir Richard said again : good English men. Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil, ; For I never turn’d my back upon Don or devil yet.’ ‘We be all v. Sir Richard spoke and he laugh’d, and we roar’d a hurrah, and so The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe, With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below ; For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were seen, And the little Revenge ran on thro’ the long sea-lane between. VI. Thousands of their soldiers look’d down from their decks and laugh’d, Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft Running on and on, till delay’d By their mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen hundred tons, And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning tiers of guns, Took the breath from our sails, and we stay’d. VII. And while now the great San Philip hung above us like a cloud Whence the thunderbolt will fall Long and loud, 508 THE REVENGE. Four galleons drew away From the Spanish fleet that day, And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay, And the battle-thunder broke from them all. VIII. But anon the great San Philip, she be- thought herself and went Having that within her womb that had left her ill content ; And the rest they came aboard us, and. they fought us hand to hand, For a dozen times they came with their pikes and musqueteers, And a dozen times we shook ’em off as a dog that shakes his ears When he leaps from the water to the land. a LAS And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea, But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three. Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came, Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame ; Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame. For some were sunk and many were shat- ter’d, and so could fight us no more— God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before ? ey For he said ‘ Fight on! fight on! Tho’ his vessel was all but a wreck ; And it chanced that, when half of the short summer night was gone, With a grisly wound to be drest he had left the deck, But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly dead, And himself he was wounded again in the side and the head, And he said ‘ Fight on ! fight on !’ XI. And the night went down, and the : smiled out far over the summer s And the Spanish fleet with broken sid lay round usallinaring; But they dared not touch us again, for they fear’d that we still could sting, So they watch’d what the end would be. And we had not fought them in vain, | But in perilous plight were we, Seeing forty of our poor hundred w slain, And half of the rest of us maim’d for life In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife ; e And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold, And the pikes were all broken or ent, and the powder was all of it spent; And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side ; But Sir Richard cried in his English = | ‘We have fought such a fight for a day and a night © As may never be fought again ! We have won great glory, my men! — And a day less or more * At sea or ashore, : We die—does it matter when ? 4 Sink me the ship, Master Gunner—sinh- her, split her in twain ! Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain !’ XII. And the gunner said ‘ Ay, ay,’ but thi seamen made reply : ‘We have children, we have wives, And the Lord hath spared our lives. — We will make the Spaniard promis we yield, to let us go; We shall live to fight again and to str another blow.’ . And the lion there lay dying, and the; yielded to the foe. XIII. And the stately Spanish men to thei. flagship bore him then, : 4 | | - | | 4 THE SISTERS. 509 Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last, And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace ; But he rose upon their decks, and he cried: T have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true ; only done my duty as a man is bound to do: With a joyful spirit I Sir Richard Gren- ville die !’ . And he fell upon their decks, and he died. [ have oe i XIV. ‘And they stared at the dead that had | been so valiant and true, ‘And had holden the power and glory of Spain so cheap That he dared her with one little ship : - and his English few ; Was he devil or man? He was devil | for aught they knew, But they sank his body with honour down i} into the deep, And they mann’d the Revenge with a swarthier alien crew, _ And away she sail’d with her loss and long’d for her own ; | When a wind from the lands they had i ruin’d awoke from sleep, And the water began to heave and the weather to moan, ‘And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew, And a wave like the wave that is raised | by an earthquake grew, . Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their masts and their flags, And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter’d navy of Spain, ‘And the little Revenge herself went down by the island crags ‘To be lost evermore in the main. | i \ THE SISTERS. -Tury have left the doors ajar ; and by 1 their clash, And prelude on the keys, I know the | song, Their favourite—which I call ‘The Tables Turned.’ Evelyn begins it ‘O diviner Air.’ EVELYN. O diviner Air, Thro’ the heat, the drowth, the dust, the glare, . Far from out the west in shadowing showers, Over all the meadow baked and bare, Making fresh and fair All the bowers and the flowers, Fainting flowers, faded bowers, Over all this weary world of ours, Breathe, diviner Air ! A sweet voice that—vyou scarce could better that. Now follows Edith echoing Evelyn. EDITH. O diviner light, Thro’ the cloud that roofs our noon with night, Thro’ the blotting mist, showers, Far from out a sky for ever bright, Over all the woodland’s flooded bowers, Over all the meadow’s drowning flowers, Over all this ruin’d world of ours, Break, diviner light ! the blinding Marvellously like, their voices—and them- selves ! Tho’ one is somewhat deeper than the other, As one issomewhat graver than the other— Edith than Evelyn. Your good Uncle, whom You count the father of your fortune, longs For this alliance: let me ask you then, Which voice most takes you? for I do not doubt Being a watchful parent, you are taken With one or other: tho’ sometimes I fear You may be flickering, fluttering in a doubt 510 Between the two—which must not be— which might Be death to one: they both are beautiful : Evelyn is gayer, wittier, prettier, says The common voice, if one may trust it : she ? No! but the paler and the graver, Edith. Woo her and gain her then: no waver- : ing, boy ! The graver is perhaps the one for you Who jest and laugh so easily and so well. For love will go by contrast, as by likes. No sisters ever prized each other more. Not so: their mother and her sister loved More passionately still. But that my best And oldest friend, your Uncle, wishes it, And that I know you worthy everyway To be my son, I might, perchance, be loath To part them, or part from them: and yet one Should marry, or all the broad lands in your view From this bay window—which our house has held Three hundred years—will pass collater- ally. My father with a child on either knee, A hand upon the head of either child, Smoothing their locks, as golden as his own Were silver, ‘get them wedded’ would he say. And once my prattling Edith ask’d him ‘why ?’ Ay, why? said he, ‘for why should I go lame ?? Then told them of his wars, and of his wound. For see—this wine—the grape from whence it flow’d Was blackening on the slopes of Portugal, When that brave soldier, down the terrible ridge Plunged in the last fierce charge at Waterloo, And caught the laming bullet. He left me this, THE SISTERS. Which yet retains a memory of its y As I of mine, and my first p Come! “ fault of mine ! You say that you can do it as willed 4 As birds make ready for their br time a By change of feather: boy, ee. | Some birds are sick and sullen when: a4 yo moult. . F An old and worthy name! but mine | that stirr’d 3 Among our civil wars and earlier too 2 Among the Roses, the more venerable, Z care not for a name—no fault of mine. Once more—a happier marriage than m q own ! for all that, my You see yon Lombard poplar on plain. The highway running byit leavesa breadth Of sward to left and right, where, long ago, j One bright May morning in a world of song, I lay at leisure, watching overhead I dozed ; I woke. An open tandadle i Whirl’d by which, after it had past me, tS show’d ie Turning my way, the loveliest face on earth. The face of one there sitting opposite On whom I brought a strange unhappi- | ness, | ; That time I did not see. Mi eo j Love at first sight May seem—with goodly rhyme and reason for it— Possible—at first glimpse, and for a fr | Gone in a moment—strange. Yet once, when first a I came on lake Llanberris in the dark, A moonless night with storm—one | ning-fork ‘ 4 The full day after, yet in retrospect That less than momentary thunder-sketch Of lake and mountain conquers all the day. The Sun himself has limn’d the face for me. Not quite so quickly, no, nor half as well. _ For look you here—the shadows are too 7 deep, _ And like the critic’s blurring comment | make _ The veriest beauties of the work appear | The darkest faults: the sweet eyes frown: | the lips Seem but a gash. My sole memorial _ Of Edith—no, the other,—both indeed. i | | Flash’d out the lake ; and tho’ I loiter’d t there ' So that bright face was flash’d thro’ sense and soul And by the poplar vanish’d—to be found Long after, as it seem’d, beneath the tall Tree-bowers, and those long -sweeping beechen boughs _Of our New Forest. I was there alone: The phantom of the whirling landaulet For ever past me by: when one quick | peal Of laughter drew me thro’ the glimmer- ing glades Down to the snowlike sparkle of a cloth On fern and foxglove. Lo, the face again, _ My Rosalind in this Arden—Edith—all One bloom of youth, health, beauty, happiness, _ And moved to merriment at a passing jest. There one of those about her knowing | me _Call’d me to join them ; so with these I spent What seem’d my crowning hour, my day of days. I woo’d her then, nor unsuccessfully, _ The worse for her, for me ! was I content ? _Ay—no, not quite; for now and then I thought _ Laziness, vague love-longings, the bright May, THE VSISTERS. 511 Had made a heated haze to magnify © The charm of Edith—that a man’s ideal Is high in Heaven, and lodged with Plato’s God, Not findable here—content, and not con- tent, In some such fashion as a man may be That having had the portrait of his friend Drawn by an artist, looks at it, and says, ‘Good! very like! not altogether he.’ As yet I had not bound myself by words, Only, believing I loved Edith, made Edith love me. Then came the day when I, Flattering myself that all my doubts were fools Born of the fool this Age that doubts of all— Not I that day of Edith’s love or mine— Had braced my purpose to declare my- self : I stood upon the stairs of Paradise. The golden gates would open at a word. I spoke it—told her of my passion, seen And lost and found again, had got so far, Had caught her hand, her eyelids fell—I heard Wheels, and a noise of welcome at the doors— On a sudden after two Italian years Had set the blossom of her health again, The younger sister, Evelyn, enter’d— there, There was the face, and altogether she. The mother fell about the daughter’s neck, The sisters closed in one another’s arms, Their people throng’d about them from the hall, And in the thick of question and reply I fled the house, driven by one angel face, And all the Furies. I was bound to her ; I could not free myself in honour—bound Not by the sounded letter of the word, But counterpressures of the yielded hand That timorously and faintly echoed mine, 512 THE SISTERS. Quick blushes, the sweet dwelling of her eyes Upon me when she thought I did not see— Were these not bonds? nay, nay, but could I wed her Loving the other? do her that greai wrong ? Had I not dream’d I loved her yester- morn ? Had I not known where Love, at first a fear, Grew after marriage to full height and form ? Yet after marriage, that mock -sister there— Brother-in-law—the fiery nearness of it— Unlawful and disloyal brotherhood— What end but darkness could ensue from this For all the three? So Love and Honour jarr’d Tho’ Love and Honour join’d to raise the full High-tide of doubt that sway’d me up and down Advancing nor retreating. Edith wrote : ‘My mother bids me ask’ (I did not tell you— A widow with less guile than many a child. God help the wrinkled children that are Christ’s As well as the plump cheek—she wrought us harm, Poor soul, not knowing) ‘are you ill?’ (so ran The letter) ‘you have not been here of late. You will not find me here. At last I go On that long-promised visit to the North. I told your wayside story to my mother And Evelyn. She remembers you. Farewell. Pray come and see my mother. Almost blind With ever-growing cataract, yet she thinks She sees you when she hears. Again farewell.’ Cold words from one I had hoped t warm so far That I could stamp my image on he heart ! ‘Pray come and see my mother, farewell.’ Cold, but as welcome as free airs ¢ heaven | After a dungeon’s closeness. strange ! What dwarfs are men! my strangle vanity Utter’d a stifled cry—to have vext mysel And all in vain for her—cold heart o none— No bride for me. clear To win the sister. Whom I woo’d and won) For Evelyn knew not of my former suit! Because the simple mother work’d upon By Edith pray’d me not to whisper of it! And Edith would be bridesmaid on th) day. But on that day, not being all at ease. I from the altar glancing back upon her Before the first ‘I will’ was utter’d, say) The bridesmaid pale, statuelike, passion less— ‘No harm, no harm’ I turn’d again, ani placed My ring upon the finger of my bride. am Selfish Yet so my path wa! So, when we parted, Edith spoke m word, She wept no tear, but round my Evely), clung i In utter silence for so long, I thought “What, will she never set her sister free? We left her, happy each in each, an’ then, As tho’ the happiness of each in each Were not enough, must fain have torrents, lakes, > | Hills, the great things of Nature and th} fair, To lift us as it were from commonplace, And help us to our joy. Better havy| sent pa THE SISTERS. 513 e) ur Edith thro’ the glories of the earth, To change with her horizon, if true Love Were not his own imperial all-in-all. My God, I would i Far off we went. not live jaye that I think this gross hard-seeming world 's our misshaping vision of the Powers 3ehind the world, that make our griefs our gains. _ For on the dark night of our marriage- { day “he great Tragedian, that had quench’d herself a that assumption of the bridesmaid— she chat loved me—our true Edith—her t brain broke With over-acting, till she rose and fled | eneath a pitiless rush of Autumn rain “othe deaf church—to be let in—to pray ‘ 3efore that altar—so I think ; and there | ‘hey found her beating the hard Protest- 4 ant doors. ‘he died and she was buried ere we knew. _ I learnt it first. once “he bright quick smile of Evelyn, that | had sunn’d “he morning of our marriage, past away : : and on our home-return the daily want of Edith in the house, the garden, still / taunted us like her ghost ; and by and by, ‘ither from that necessity for talk . Vhich lives with blindness, or plain innocence / fnature, or desire that her lost child hould earn from both the praise of heroism, | he mother broke her promise to the dead, ‘nd told the living daughter with what love hdith had welcomed my brief wooing of her, nd all her sweet self-sacrifice and death. I had to speak. At Henceforth that mystic bond betwixt the twins— Did I not tell you they were twins >— prevail’d So far that no caress could win my wife Back to that passionate answer of full heart I had from her at first. Not that her love, Tho’ scarce as great as Edith’s power of love, Had lessen’d, but the mother’s garrulous wail For ever woke the unhappy Past again, Till that dead bridesmaid, meant to be my bride, Put forth cold hands between us, and I fear’d The very fountains of her life were chill’d ; So took her thence, and brought her here, and Here She bore a child, whom peverently. we call’d Edith ; and in the second year was born A second—this I named from her own self, Evelyn ; then two weeks—no more—she joined, In and beyond the grave, that one she loved. Now in this quiet of declining life, Thro’ dreams by night and trances of the day, The sisters glide about me hand in hand, Both beautiful alike, nor can I tell One from the other, no, nor care to tell One from the other, only know they come, They smile upon me, till, remembering all The love they both have borne me, and the love I bore them both—divided as I am From either by the stillness of the grave— I know not which of these I love the best. But you love Edith ; and her own true eyes Are traitors to her ; our quick Evelyn— 2. 514 The merrier, prettier, wittier, as they talk, And not without good reason, my good son— Is yet untouch’d: and I that hold them both Dearest of all things—well, I am not sure— But if there lie a preference eitherway, And in the rich vocabulary of Love ‘ Most dearest’ be a true superlative— I think 7 likewise love your Edith most. THE VILLAGE WIFE; OR, THE ENTAIL! I. °OUSE-KEEPER sent tha my lass, fur New Squire coom’d last night. Butter an’ heggs—yis—yis. Tl goa wi’ tha back : all right ; Butter I warrants be prime, an’ I war- rants the heggs be as well, Hafe a pint o’ milk runs out when ya breaks the shell. if. Sit thysen down fur a bit : heva glass o’ cowslip wine ! I liked the owd Squire an’ ’is gells as thaw they was gells o’ mine, Fur then we was all es one, the Squire an’ ’is darters an’ me, Hall but Miss Annie, the heldest, I niver not took to she: But Nelly, the last of the cletch,? I liked ’er the fust on ’em all, Fur hoffens we talkt o’ my darter es died o’ the fever at fall : An’ I thowt ’twur the will o’ the Lord, but Miss Annie she said it wur draains, Fur she hedn’t naw coomfut in ’er, an’ arn’d naw thanks fur ’er paains. Ih! thebbe all wi’ the Lord my childer, I han’t gotten none! Sa new Squire’s coom’d wi’ ’is taail in ’is ’and, an’ owd Squire’s gone. 1 See note to ‘ Northern Cobbler.’ 2 A brood of chickens. THE VILLAGE WIFE 5; OR; (TREE ee t. III. Fur ’staate be i’ taail, my lass: knaw what that be ? But I knaws the law, I does, for t] lawyer ha towd it me. ‘When theer’s naw ’ead to a Ouselll the fault o’ that ere maale— The gells they counts fur nowt, and tl next un he tadkes the taail.’ tha dos IV. What be the next un like? can tha te ony harm on ’im lass ?— | Naay sit down—naw ’urry—sa cowd } r hev another glass ! Straange an’ cowd fur the time! we mz happen a fall o? snaw— Not es I cares fur to hear ony harm, bi I likes to knaw. Anis baps es ’e beant boooklarn’d : bi ’e dosn’ not coom fro’ the shere | We’d anew o’ that wi’ the Squire, an ?| hadtes boooklarnin’ ere. : v. w Fur Squire wur a Varsity scholard, a niver lookt arter the land— Whoits or turmuts or taaites—’e * hallus a book V ’is ’and, Hallus alodn wi’ ’is boodks, “that nig upo’ seventy year. | An’ boodks, what’s boodks ? thou knaw thebbe neyther ’ere nor theer. — VI. | An’ the gells, they hedn’t naw taails, al the lawyer he towd it me That ’is tadil were soa tied up es I) couldn’t cut down a tree! ‘Drat the trees,’ says I, to be sewer | haates ’em, my lass, Fur we puts the muck o’ the land 7 they sucks the muck fro’ the al VII. An’ Squire wur hallus a-smilin’, an’ gie to the tramps gom’ byes An’ all o’ the wust i’ the parish—W| hoffens a drop in ’is eye. DBA VILLAGE WIFE; OR, THE ENTAIL. Ki An’ ivry darter 0’ Squire’s hed her awn ridin-erse to ’ersen, An’ they rampaged about wi’ their grooms, an’ was ’untin’ arter the men, An’ hallus a-dallackt! an’ dizen’d out, an’ a-buyin’ new cloathes, ’e sit like a graat glimmer-gowk ? wi ’is glasses athurt “is noase, An’ *is noase sa grufted wi’ snuff es it couldn’t be scroob’d awaay, *ur atween is readin’ an’ writin’ ’e snifft up a box in a daay, \n’ ’e niver runn’d arter the fox, nor arter the birds wi’ ’is gun, An’ ’e niver not shot one ’are, but ’e leaved it to Charlie ’is son, \n’ ’e niver not fish’d ’is awn ponds, but Charlie ’e cotch’d the pike, “or ’e warn’t not burn to the land, an’ ’e | didn’t take kind to it like ; 3ut I ears es ’e’d gie fur a howry? owd book thutty pound an’ moor, n ’e’d wrote an owd book, his awn sen, | sal knaw’d es’e’d coom to be poor ; An’ ’e gied—I be fear’d fur to tell tha ’ow much—fur an owd scratted ston, An *’e digg’d up a loomp 7’ the land an’ ’e got a brown pot an’ a boan, n’’e bowt owd money, €s wouldn’t goa, wi good gowd o’ the Queen, \n’ ’e bowt little statutes all-naakt an’ which was a shaame to be seen ; ut ’e niver loodkt ower a bill, nor ’e niver not seed to owt, am ’e niver knawd nowt but boodks, an’ boooks, asthou knaws, beant nowt. I While | VIII. ~ dut owd Squire’s lady es long es she lived she kep ’em all clear, “haw es long es she lived I niver hed none of ’er darters ’ere ; out arter she died we was all es one, the childer an’ me, in’ sarvints runn’d in an’ out, an’ offens | we hed ’em to tea. awk ! ’ow I laugh’d when the lasses ’ud talk o’ their Missis’s waays, 1 Overdrest in gay colours. 2 Owl. a | 3 Filthy. Avr’ the Missisis talk’d 0’ the lasses.— I'll tell tha some o’ these daays. Hoanly Miss Annie were saw stuck oop, like ’er mother afoor— ’er blessed darter—they niver derken’d my door. ran 1X An’ Squire ’e smiled an’’e smiled till ’e’d gotten a fright at last, An’ ’e calls fur ’is son, fur the ’turney’s letters they foller’d sa fast ; But Squire wur afear’d 0’ ’is son, an’ ’e says to ’im, meek as a mouse, ‘Lad, thou mun cut off thy taail, or the gells ’ull goa to the ’Ouse, Fur I finds es I be that i’ debt, es I ops es thou’ll ’elp me a bit, An’ if thou’ll ’gree to cut off thy taail I may sadive mysen jit.’ x But Charlie ’e sets back ’is ears, an’’e swears, an’ ’e says to ’im ‘ Noa. I’ve gotten the ’staite by the taail an’ be dang’d if I iver let goa! Coom! coom! feyther,’ ’e says, ‘why shouldn’t thy boodks be sowd ? I hears es soom o’ thy boodks mebbe worth their weight i’ gowd.’ XI: Heaps an’ heaps o’ boodks, I ha’ see’d ’em, belong’d to the Squire, But the lasses ’ed teard out leaves 1 the middle to kindle the fire ; Sa moiast on ’is owd big boodks fetch’d nigh to nowt at the saale, And Squire were at Charlie agean to git ’im to cut off ’is taail. XII. Ya wouldn’t find Charlie’s iikes—’e were that outdacious at ’oim, Not thaw ya went fur to raake out Hell wi’ a small-tooth coamb— Droonk wi’ the Quoloty’s wine, an’ droonk wi’ the farmer’s aale, Mad wi’ the lasses an’ all—an’ ’e wouldn’ t cut off the taail. 516 XIII. Thou’s coom’d oop by the beck ; and a thurn be a-grawin’ theer, I niver ha seed it sa white wi’ the Maay es I see’d it to-year— Theerabouts Charlie joompt—and it gied me a scare tother night, Fur I thowt it wur Charlie’s ghoast 7? the derk, fur it loodkt sa white. ‘ Billy,’ says ’e, ‘hev a joomp !’—thaw the banks o’ the beck be sa high, Fur he ca’d ’is ’erse Billy-rough-un, thaw niver a hair wur awry ; But Billy fell bakkuds o’ Charlie, an’ Charlie ’e brok ’is neck, Sa theer wur a hend o’ the taail, fur ’e lost *is taail 7’ the beck. D4 ic Sa ’is tadil wur lost an’ ’is boodks wur gone an’ ’is boy wur dead, An’ Squire ’e smiled an’ ’e smiled, but ’e niver not lift oop ’is ’ead: Hallus a soft un Squire! an’ ’e smiled, fur ’e hedn’t naw friend, Sa feyther an’ son was buried togither, an’ this wur the hend. XV. An’ Parson as hesn’t the call, nor the mooney, but hes the pride, °E reads of a sewer an’ sartan ’oap o’ the tother side ; But I beant that sewer es the Lord, how- siver they praay’d an’ praay’d, Lets them inter ’eaven easy es leaves their debts to be paaid. Siver the mou’ds rattled down upo’ poor owd Squire i’ the wood, An’ I cried along wi’ the gells, fur they weant niver coom to naw good. XVI. Fur Molly the long un she walkt awaay wi’ a hofficer lad, An’ nawbody ’eard on ’er sin, sa 0’ coorse she be gone to the bad ! An’ Lucy wur laime o’ one leg, sweet- ‘arts she niver ’ed none— LHE VILLAGE WIFE; OR, THEN IA Straange an’ unheppen! Miss Lucy ! naamed her ‘ Dot an’ gaw one!’ An’ Hetty wur weak i’ the hattics, wi’out ony harm 7’ the legs, An’ the fever ’ed baiked Jinny’s ’ead as bald as one o’ them heggs, An’ N ae wur up fro’ the craadle as © i? the mouth as a cow, An’ saw she mun hammergrate,? lass, she weadnt git a maate ony An’ es for Miss Annie es call’d me afe my awn foalks to my faace y | ‘A hignorant village wife as ’ud hev to be larn’d her awn plaice,’ Hes fur Miss Hannie the heldest hes | be a-grawin’ sa howd, . I knaws that mooch o’ shea, es it beiint not fit to be towd ! ; VIET. Sa I didn’t not taake it kindly ov Se Miss Annie to saay ae | Es I should be talkin agean "em, eS soon es they went awaay, } Fur, lawks! ’ow I cried when they went, an’ our Nelly she gied me ’er ‘and, Fur I’d ha done owt for the Squire an’ is gells es belong’d to the land; | Boooks, es I said afoor, thebbe neythe ’ere nor theer ! > | But I sarved ’em wi’ butter an’ heggs1 huppuds o’ twenty year. a XVIII. An’ they hallus padid what I hax hallus deal’d wi the Hall, An’ they knaw’d what butter wur, an? the: knaw’d what a hegg wur an’ all | Hugger-mugger they lived, but the: wasn’t that easy to pleise, - Till I gied ’em Hinjian curn, an’ the, ladid big heggs es tha seeas;_ An’ I niver puts sadme? i’ my butter they does it at Willis’s farm, Taaste another drop o’ the wine—tweiin do tha naw harm. ek y a if! 8 nef nC ? 1 Ungainly, awkward. 2 Emigrate. 3 Lard, XIX. $a new Squire’s coom’d wi’ ’is tadil in ’is ’and, an’ owd Squire’s gone ; heard ’im a roomlin’ by, but arter my nightcap wur on ; ja I han’t clapt eyes on ’im yit, fur he coom’d last night sa laite— luksh ! ! !1 the hens i’ the pea’s! why didn’t tha hesp the gaate? Peer CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL. EMMIE. I. )uR doctor had call’d in another, I never had seen him before, jut he sent a chill to my heart when I saw him come in at the door, “resh from the surgery-schools of France i and of other lands— Tarsh red hair, big voice, big chest, big merciless hands ! Vonderful cures he had done, O yes, but they said too of him le was happier using the knife than in trying to save the limb, and that I can well believe, fot he look’d so coarse and so red, could think he was one of those who would break their jests on thedead, nd mangle the living dog that had loved him and fawn’d at his knee— ’ench’d with the hellish oorali— that : ever such things should be ! ; 4 Il. lere was a boy—I am sure that some of our children would die ‘ut for the voice of Love, and the smile, and the comforting eye— ‘ere was a boy in the ward, every bone } seem’d out of its place— ‘aught in a mill and crush’d—it was all but a hopeless case : |] A cry accompanied by a clapping of hands to are trespassing fowl. ! IN THE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL. 517 And he handled him gently enough ; but his voice and his face were not kind, And it was but a hopeless case, he had seen it and made up his mind, And he said to me roughly ‘ The lad will need little more of your care.’ ‘ All the more need,’ I told him, ‘ to seek the Lord Jesus in prayer ; They are all his children here, and I pray for them all as my own :’ But he turn’d to me, ‘Ay, good woman, can prayer set a broken bone ?’ Then he mutter’d half to himself, but I know that I heard him say ‘All very well—but the good Lord Jesus has had his day.’ lil. Had? has it come? It has only dawn’d. It will come by and by. O how could I serve in the wards if the hope of the world were a lie? How could I bear with the sights and the loathsome smells of disease But that He said ‘ Ye do it to me, when ye do it to these’? IV. So he went. And we past to this ward where the younger children are laid: Here is the cot of our orphan, our dar- ling, our meek little maid ; Empty you see just now! We have lost her who loved her so much— Patient of pain tho’ as quick as a sensitive plant to the touch ; Hers was the prettiest prattle, it often moved me to tears, Hers was the gratefullest heart I have found in a child of her years— Nay you remember our Emmie ; you used to send her the flowers ; How she would smile at ’em, play with ?em, talk to’em hours after hours ! They that can wander at will where the works of the Lord are reveal’d Little guess what joy can be got from a cowslip out of the field ; Flowers to these ‘spirits in prison’ are all they can know of the spring, 518 They freshen and sweeten the wards like the waft of an Angel’s wing ; And she lay with a flower in one hand and her thin hands crost on her breast— Wan, but as pretty as heart can desire, and we thought her at rest, Quietly sleeping—so quiet, our doctor said ‘ Poor little dear, Nurse, I must do it to-morrow ; she’ll never live thro’ it, I fear.’ Vv. IT walk’d with our kindly old doctor as far as the head of the stair, Then I return’d to the ward ; the child didn’t see I was there. Walls Never since I was nurse, had I been so grieved and so vext ! Emmie had heard him. Softly she call’d from her cot to the next, ‘He says I shall never live thro’ it, O Annie, what shall I do?’ Annie consider’d. ‘If I,’ said the wise little Annie, ‘was you, I should cry to the dear Lord Jesus to help me, for, Emmie, you see, It’s -all {ine the .picture there <44' (ittle children should come to me.’’’ (Meaning the print that you gave us, I find that it always can please Our children, the dear Lord Jesus with children about his knees.) ‘Yes, and I will,’ said Emmie, ‘ but then if I call to the Lord, How should he know that it’s me? such a lot of beds in the ward !’ That was a puzzle for Annie. Again she consider’d and said : ‘Emmie, you put out your arms, and you leave ’em outside on the bed— The Lord has so mzuch to see to! but, Emmie, you tell it him plain, It’s the little girl with her arms lying out on the counterpane.’ VII. I had sat three nights by the child—I could not watch her for four— DEDICATORV POEM TO THE PRINCESS ALIC#, : My brain had begun to reel—I felt . could do it no more. That was my sleeping-night, but I though: that it never would pass. ; There was a thunderclap once, and clatter of hail on the glass, And there was a phantom cry that I heart as I tost about, 4 The motherless bleat of a lamb in th storm and the darkness without ; My sleep was broken besides with dream: of the dreadful knife And fears for our delicate Emmie = scarce would escape with her life Then in the gray of the morning it seem’ she stood by me and smiled, ~ And the doctor came at his hour, and we went to see to the child. VIII. He had brought his ghastly tools: we believed her asleep again— | Her dear, long, lean, little arms lying ou’! on the counterpane ; Say that His day is done! Ah why shoule we care what they say? The Lord of the children had heard her, and Emmie had past away. DEDICATORY POEM TO THE PRINCESS ALICE. DEAD PRINCESS, living Power, if that, which lived True life, live on—and if the fatal kiss, _ Born of true life and love, divorce thee not From earthly love and life—if what we cal The spirit flash not all at once from out | This shadow into Substance—then perhap‘ The mellow’d murmur of the people’ praise From thine own State, and all ow breadth of realm, Where Love and Longing dress thy deed: in light, Ascends to thee; and this March mor) that sees Thy Soldier-brother’s bridal orange-bloom FAME DEFENCE OF LUCKNOW. 519 3reak thro’ the yews and cypress of thy grave, And thine Imperial mother smile again, vlay send one ray to thee! and who can tell— Chou—England’s England-loving daugh- \ ter—thou Jying so English thou wouldst have her flag 3orne on thy coffin—where is he can swear 3ut that some broken gleam from our poor earth fay touch thee, while remembering thee, I lay At thy pale feet this ballad of the deeds )f England, and her banner in the East ? moe DEFENCE OF LUCKNOW. I, 3ANNER of England, not for a season, O 1 banner of Britain, hast thou loated in conquering battle or flapt to | the battle-cry ! _ Jever with mightier glory than when we | had rear’d thee on high ‘lying at top of the roofs in the ghastly ’ siege of Lucknow— } | _ hot thro’ the staff or the halyard, but ever we raised thee anew, and ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew. Ei. ‘rail were the works that defended the hold that we held with our lives— Yomen and children among us, God help | them, our children and wives! Told it we might—and for fifteen days i or for twenty at most. _ Never surrender, I charge you, but | every man die at his post !’ oice of the dead whom we loved, our “ft Lawrence the best of the brave : old were his brows when we kiss’d him—we laid him that night in his grave. ‘Every man die at his post !’ and there hail’d on our houses and halls Death from their rifle-bullets, and death from their cannon-balls, Death in our innermost chamber, death at our slight barricade, Death while we stood with the musket, and death while we stoopt to the spade, Death to the dying, and wounds to the wounded, for often there fell, Striking the hospital wall, crashing thro’ it, their shot and their shell, Death—for their spies were amongus, their marksmen were told of our best, So that the brute bullet broke thro’ the brain that could think for the rest ; Bullets would sing by our foreheads, and bullets would rain at our feet— Fire from ten thousand at once of the rebels that girdled us round— Death at the glimpse of a finger from over the breadth of a street, Death from the heights of the mosque and the palace, and deathinthe ground ! Mine? yes, a mine ! Countermine 1 down, down ! and creep thro’ the hole! Keep the revolver in hand ! you can hear him—the murderous mole ! Quiet, ah! wait till the point of the pickaxe be thro’! Click with the pick, coming nearer and nearer again than before— Now let it speak, and you fire, and the dark pioneer is no more ; And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew ! and Tit. Ay, but the foe sprung his mine many times, and it chanced on a day Soon as the blast of that underground thunderclap echo’d away, Dark thro’ the smoke and the sulphur like so many fiends in their hell— Cannon-shot, musket-shot, volley on volley, and yell upon yell— Fiercely on all the defences our myriad enemy fell. What have they done? where is it? Out yonder. Guard the Redan! 520 THE DEFENCE OH TUCK. Storm at the Water-gate! storm at the Bailey-gate ! storm, and it ran Surging and swaying all round us, as ocean on every side Plunges and heaves at a bank that is daily drown’d by the tide— So many thousands that if they be bold enough, who shall escape ? Kill or be kill’d, live or die, they shall know we are soldiers and men ! Ready ! take aim at their leaders—their masses are gapp’d with our grape— Backward they reel like the wave, like the wave flinging forward again, Flying and foil’d at the last by the hand- ful they could not subdue ; And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew. IV. Handful of men as we were, we were English in heart and in limb, Strong with the strength of the race to command, to obey, to endure, Each of us fought as if hope for the garri- son hung but on him ; Still—could we watch at all points? we were every day fewer and fewer. There was a whisper among us, but only a whisper that past : ‘Children and wives—if the tigers leap into the fold unawares— Every man die at his post—and the foe may outlive us at last— Better to fall by the hands that they love, than to fall into theirs!’ Roar upon roar in a moment two mines by the enemy sprung Clove into perilous chasms our walls and our poor palisades. Rifleman, true is your heart, but be sure that your hand be as true ! Sharp is the fire of assault, better aimed are your flank fusillades— Twice do we hurl them to earth from the ladders to which they had clung, Twice from the ditch where they shelter we drive them with hand-grenades ; And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew. Vv. wild earthquake out-tore FE Clean from our lines of defence ten o1 twelve good paces or more. . Rifleman, high on the roof, hidden th from the light of the sun— One has leapt up on the breach, cry out: ‘Follow me, follow me !’— Mark him—he falls! then another, an him too, and down goes he. * Had they been bold enough then, whe can tell but the traitors had won| Boardings and rafters and doors—an em brasure ! make way for the gun! Now double-charge it with grape ! “ti charged and we fire, and they run. me Praise to our Indian brothers, and let the dark face have his due! -: Thanks to the kindly dark faces whe fought with us, faithful and few, - Fought with the bravest among us, anc drove them, and smote them anc slew, That ever upon the topmost roof ow banner in India blew. Men will forget what we suffer and no what we do. We can fight! But to be soldier all day and be sentine all thro’ the night— Ever the mine and assault, our sallies their lying alarms, : Bugles and drums in the darkness, an shoutings and soundings to arms Ever the labour of fifty that had to b’ done by five, Ever the marvel among us that one sho be left alive, Ever the day with its traitorous deat from the loopholes around, Ever the night with its coffinless corps to be laid in the ground, 4 Heat like the mouth ofa hell, or a ead of cataract skies, Stench of old offal decaying, and infinit torment of flies, Thoughts of the breezes of May blowing over an English field, cholera, scurvy, and fever, the wound that zoz/d not be heal’d, Lopping away of the limb by the pitiful- | pitiless knife, — forture and trouble in vain,—for it never could save us a life. Valour of delicate women who tended the hospital bed, dorror of women in travail among the dying and dead, Srief for our perishing children, and never a moment for grief, Coil and ineffable weariness, faltering hopes of relief, avelock baffled, or beaten, or butcher’d for all that we knew— Chen day and night, dayand night, coming i down on the still-shatter’d walls Millions of musket-bullets, and thousands of cannon-balls— But ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew. i Vil. Tark cannonade, fusillade! is it true what was told by the scout, ' utram and Havelock breaking their way : | through the fell mutineers ? | purely the pibroch of Europe is ringing again in our ears ! All on a sudden the garrison utter a jubi- lant shout, dayelock’s glorious Highlanders answer | with conquering cheers, _ ick from the hospital echo them, women and children come out, slessing the wholesome white faces of | Havelock’s good fusileers, Missing the war-harden’d hand of the | Highlander wet with their tears ! Jance to the pibroch!—saved! we are saved !—is it you? is it youe saved by the valour of Havelock, saved | by the blessing of Heaven ! Hold it for fifteen days!’ we have held it for eighty-seven ! ind ever aloft on the palace roof the old banner of England blew. STR JOHN OLDCASTLE, LORD COBHAM. 521 IK JOHNS CLDCASILE, LORD COBHAM. (IN WALES.) My friend should meet me somewhere hereabout To take me to that hiding in the hills. I have broke their cage, no gilded one, I trow— I read no more the prisoner’s mute wail Scribbled or carved upon the pitilessstone ; I find hard rocks, hard life, hard cheer, or none, For I am emptier than a friar’s brains ; But God is with me in this wilderness, These wet black passes and foam-churn- ing chasms— And God’s free air, and hope of better things. I would I knew their speech ; not now to glean, Not now—I hope to do it—some scatter’d ears, Some ears for Christ in this wild field of Wales— But, bread, merely for bread. tongue that wagg’d They said with such heretical arrogance Against the proud archbishop Arundel— So much God’s cause was fluent in it—is here But as a Latin Bible to the crowd ; ‘Bara!’—-what use? The Shepherd, when I speak, Vailing a sudden eyelid with his hard ‘Dim Saesneg’ passes, wroth at things This of old— No fault of mine. Had he God’s word in Welsh He might be kindlier: happily come the day ! Not least art thou, thou little Bethle- hem In Judah, for in thee the Lord was born ; Nor thou in Britain, little Lutterworth, Least, for in thee the word was born again. 522 STR JOHN OLDCASTLE, LORD COB ALG Heaven-sweet Evangel, word, Who whilome spakest to the South in Greek About the soft Mediterranean shores, And then in Latin to the Latin crowd, As good need was—thou hast come to talk our isle. Hereafter thou, fulfilling Pentecost, Must learn to use the tongues of all the world. Yet art thou thine own witness that thou bringest © Not peace, a sword, a fire. What did he say, _ My frighted Wiclif-preacher whom I crost In flying hither? that one night a crowd Throng’d the waste field about the city gates : The king was on them suddenly with a host. ever - living Why there? they came to hear their preacher. Then Some cried on Cobham, on the good Lord Cobham ; Ay, for they love me! but the king—nor voice Nor finger raised against him—took and hang’d, Took, hang’d and burnt—how many— thirty-nine— Call’d it rebellion—hang’d, poor friends, as rebels And burn’d alive as heretics! for your Priest Labels—to take the king along with him— All heresy, treason: but to call men traitors May make men traitors. Rose of Lancaster, Red in thy birth, redder with household war, Now reddest with the blood of holy men, Redder to be, red rose of Lancaster— If somewhere in the North, as Rumour sang Fluttering the hawks of this crown-lust- ing line— By firth and loch thy silver sister gro w,! That were my rose, there my allegiane: due. | Self-starved, they say—nay, murder doubtless dead) Ty : So to this king I cleaved: my friend wa; he, Once my fast friend: I would have giver my life To help his own from scathe, a thousanc lives o To save his soul. He might have com: to learn Our Wiclif’s learning: but the worldly Priests Who fear the king’s hard common-ss should find 7 What rotten piles uphold their mason work, Jj Urge him to foreign war. O had q will’d I might have stricken a lusty stroked fo him, But he would not; far liever led m friend Back to the pure and universal chuvam But he would not: whether that heirles flaw In his throne’s title make him feel si frail, i He leans on Antichrist ; or that his cial So quick, so capable in soldiership, —_ In matters of the faith, alas the while! © More worth than all the kingdoms ¢ this world, Runs in the rut, a coward to the Priest. Burnt—good Sir Roger Acton, m dear friend ! Burnt too, my faithful preacher, Beverley Lord give thou power to thy two wit nesses ! Lest the false faith make merry ove: them ! Two—nay but thirty-nine have risen an stand, Dark with the smoke of human | Before thy light, and cry continually— Cry—against whom ? 1 Richard II. i SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE, LORD COBHAM. 523 | Him, who should bear the sword Df Justice—what ! the kingly, kindly boy ; Vho took the world so easily heretofore, ‘ty boon companion, tavern-fellow—him Vho gibed and japed—in many a merry | tale “hat shook our sides—at Pardoners, } Summoners, ‘Triars, absolution-sellers, monkeries {nd nunneries, when the wild hour and the wine es set the wits aflame. Harry of Monmouth, bi Amurath of the East ? Better to sink “hy fleurs-de-lys in slime again, and fling “hy royalty back into the riotous fits of wine and harlotry—thy shame, and | mine, 7} “hy comrade—than to persecute the Bord, * And play the Saul that never will be Paul. ) Burnt, burnt! and while this mitred | Arundel )ooms our unlicensed preacher to the i) a flame, he mitre-sanction’d harlot draws his | clerks _ nto the suburb—their hard celibacy, _ worn to be veriest ice of pureness, molten _ nto adulterous living, or such crimes 4 1s holy Paul—a shame to speak of | them— } among the heathen— Sanctuary granted ‘h o bandit, thief, assassin—yea to him | Vho hacks his mother’s throat—denied to him, ie finds the Saviour in his mo.xer - tongue. the Gospel, the Priest’s pearl, flung down to swine— “he swine, lay-men, lay- women, who | will come, ‘od willing, to outlearn the filthy friar. ih rather, Lord, than that thy Gospel, | meant ‘0 course and range thro’ all the world, | should be Tether’d to these dead pillars of the Church— Rather than so, if thou wilt have it so, Burst vein, snap sinew, and crack heart, and life Pass in the fire of Babylon! but how long, O Lord, how long ! My friend should meet me here. Cross ! To thee, dead wood, I bow not head nor knees. Rather to thee, green boscage, work of God, Black holly, and white-flower’d wayfar- ing-tree ! Rather to thee, thou living water, drawn By this good Wiclif mountain down from heaven, And speaking clearly in thy native tongue— No Latin—He that thirsteth, come and drink ! Eh! how I anger’d Arundel asking me To worship Holy Cross! I spread mine arms, God’s work, I said, a cross of flesh and blood And holier. That was heresy. (My good friend By this time should be with me.) ‘ Images ?’ ‘Bury them as God’s truer images Are daily buried.’ ‘ Heresy.— Penance?’ ‘ Fast, let a man repent, Do penance in his heart, God hears him.’ ‘ Heresy— Not shriven, not saved ?’ an ill Priest Between me and my God ? spurn Good counsel of good friends, but shrive myself No, not to an Apostle.’ ‘ Heresy.’ (My friend is long in coming.) grimages ?? ‘What profits I would not ‘ Pil- 524 SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE, LORD COBHAM. ‘Drink, bagpipes, revelling, devil’s- dances, vice. The poor man’s money gone to fat the friar. Who reads of begging saints in Scripture?’ —‘ Heresy ’>— (Hath he been here—not found me—gone again ? Have I mislearnt our place of meeting ?) ‘ Bread— Bread left after the blessing?’ how they stared, That was their main test-question— glared at me! ‘He veil’d Himself in flesh, and now He veils His flesh in bread, body and _ bread together.’ Then rose the howl of all the cassock’d wolves, ‘No bread, no bread. God’s body!’ Archbishop, Bishop, Canons, _ Friars, Parish-clerks— ‘No bread, no bread !’— the Church, Power of the keys !’"—Then I, God help me, I So mock’d, so spurn’d, so baited two whole days— I lost myself and fell from evenness, And rail’d at all the Popes, that ever since Sylvester shed the venom of world-wealth Into the church, had only prov’n them- selves Poisoners, murderers. don all— Me, them, and all the world—yea, that . proud Priest, That mock-meek mouth of utter Anti- christ, That traitor to King Richard and the truth, Who rose and doom’d me to the fire. Amen ! Nay, I can burn, so that the Lord of life Be by me in my death. Those three ! the fourth Was like the Son of God! Not burnt were they. Priors, bellringers, ‘ Authority of Well—God par. On ¢hem the smell of burning had ni past. That was a miracle to convert the king | These Pharisees, this Caiaphas-Arunde What miracle could turn? He he again, i ffe thwarting their traditions of " self, He would be found a heretic to Himse And doom’d to burn alive. & So, caught, I bur Burn ? heathen men have borne as mu as this, For freedom, or the sake of those th loved, Or some less cause, some cause far Ke than mine ; For every other cause is less than mine The moth will singe her wings, ai singed return, = | Her love of light quenching her fear pain— 4 How now, my soul, we do not heed ti fire ? 4 Faint-hearted? tut !— faint- stomaae faint as I am, God willing, I will burn for Him. Who come A thousand. marks are set upon 1 head. Friend ?>—foe perhaps—a. tussle far | then ! | Nay, but my friend. Thou art so w disguised, I knew thee not. Hast thou broug bread with thee ? I have not broken bread for fifty hours) None? I am damn’d already as | Priest For holding there was bread where bre was none— No bread. My friends await me youl Yes: Lead on then. it far P Climb first and reach me do| thy hand. I am not like to die for lack of brea | For I must live to testify by fire.? 1 He was burnt on Christmas Day, 1417. 1, Up the mountain ? Not far. COLUMBUS. 525 COLUMBUS. |HAINS, my good lord: brows I read ome wonder at our chamber ornaments. Je brought this iron from our isles of gold. In your raised Does the king know you deign to visit him Vhom once he rose from off his throne to greet ‘efore his people, like his brother king ? ‘saw your face that morning in the crowd. ' At Barcelona—tho’ you were not then G@epearded. Yes, ‘The city deck’d fee herself /o meet me, roar’d my name ; the king, | the queen ad me be seated, speak, and tell them all the story of my voyage, and while I spoke he crowd’s roar fell as at the ‘ Peace, . be still !’ nd when I ceased to speak, the king, the queen, | ank from their thrones, and melted into iq tears, nd knelt, and lifted hand and heart and . voice _ 1 praise to God who led me thro’ the waste. a then the great ‘ Laudamus’ rose to heaven. ; _ Chains for the Admiral of the Ocean ! | chains ‘or him who gave a new heaven, a new ; earth, Ss holy John had prophesied of me, rave glory and more empire to the kings _)f Spain than all their battles ! chains for him Yho push’d his prows into the setting sun, snd made West East, and sail’d the Dragon’s mouth, ‘and came upon the Mountain of the World, ind saw the Biers roll from Paradise ! — Chains ! we are Admirals of the Ocean, we, We and our sons for ever. Ferdinand Hath sign’d it and our Holy Catholic queen— Of the Ocean—of the Indies—Admirals we— Our title, which we never mean to yield, Our guerdon not alone for what we did, But our amends for all we might have done— The vast occasion of our stronger life— Eighteen long years of waste, seven in your Spain, Lost, showing courts and kings a truth the babe Will suck in with his milk hereafter— earth A sphere. Were you at Salamanca? No. We fronted there the learning of all Spain, All their cosmogonies, their astronomies : Guess-work ¢hey guess’d it, but the golden guess Is morning-star to the full round of truth. No guess-work ! I was certain of my goal ; Some thought it heresy, but that would not hold. King David call’d the heavens a hide, a tent Spread over earth, and so this earth was flat : Some cited old Lactantius : could it be That trees grew downward, rain fell up- ward, men Walk’d like the fly on ceilings? and _ be- sides, The great Augustine wrote that none could breathe Within the zone of heat; so might there be Two Adams, two mankinds, and that was clean Against God’s word: thus was I beaten back, And chiefly to my sorrow by the Church, And thought to turn my face from Spain, appeal 526 Once more to France or England ; but our Queen Recall’d me, for at last their Highnesses Were half-assured this earth might be a sphere. All glory to the all-blessed Trinity, All glory to the mother of our Lord, And Holy Church, from whom I never swerved Not even by one hair’s-breadth of heresy, I have accomplish’d what I came to do. Not yet—not all—last night a dream— I sail’d On my first voyage, harass’d by the frights Of my first crew, their curses and their groans. The great flame-banner borne by Tene- riffe, Thecompass, like an old friend false at last In our most need, appall’d them, and the wind Still westward, and the weedy seas—at length The landbird, and the branch with berries on it, The carven staff—and last the light, the light On Guanahani ! but I changed the name; San Salvador I call’d it; and the light Grew as I gazed, and brought out a broad sky Of dawning over—not those alien palms, The marvel of that fair new nature—not That Indian isle, but our most ancient Kast Moriah with Jerusalem ; and I saw The glory of the Lord flash up, and beat Thro’ all the homely town from jasper, sapphire, Chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, Chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, Jacynth, and amethyst—and those twelve gates, Pearl—and I woke, and thought—death —TI shall die— I am written in the Lamb’s own Book of Life To walk within the glory of the Lord COLUMBUS. Sunless and moonless, utter light—bu no! | The Lord had sent this bright, strang dream to me To mind me of the secret vow I mad When Spain was waging war agains the Moor— I strove myself with Spain against thi Moor. . There came two voices from the . | chre, Two friars crying that if Spain sho oust The Moslem from her limit, he, the fiere Soldan of Egypt, would break down al 7 raze The blessed tomb of Christ ; whereon | vow'd - | That, if our Princes harken’d to m prayer, a Whatever wealth I brought from that new world Should, in this old, be consecrate to 4 A new crusade against the Saracen, And free the Holy Sepulchre from theall | Gold? I had brought your Prince: gold enough If left alone! Being but a Genoveamm I am handled worse than had I be Moor, And breach’d the belting wall of Cami And given the Great Khan’s palaces t the Moor, Qr clutch’d the sacred crown of Preste John, And cast it to the Moor: but had 1 brought | From Solomon’s now-recover’d Ophir al The gold that Solomon’s navies carrie home, os | Would that have gilded me? Blue _ of Spain, Tho’ quartering your own royal arms 0 Spain, I have not: blue blood and black bless of Spain, I The noble and the convict of Castile, i Howl’d me from Hispaniola; for Pe know f “he flies at home, that ever swarm about ind cloud the highest heads, and murmur down ‘ruth in the distance—these outbuzz’d | me so ‘hat even our prudent king, our righteous | queen— \ pray’d them being so calumniated ‘hey would commission one of weight and worth ‘o judge between my slander’d self and me— onseca my main enemy at their court, ‘hey sent me out 4zs tool, Bovadilla, one $ ignorant and impolitic as a beast— lockish irreverence, brainless greed— who sack’d fy dwelling, seized upon my papers, loosed ly captives, feed the rebels of the crown, old the crown-farms for all but nothing, woe ee te gave ll but free leave for all to work the mines, ‘rove me and my good brothers home in chains, nd gathering ruthless gold—a single piece Jeigh’d nigh four thousand Castillanos ti 00 hey tell me—weigh’d him down into the abysm— be hurricane of the latitude on him fell, he seas of our discovering over-roll im and his gold ; the frailer caravel, ‘ith what was mine, came happily to the | shore. here was a glimmering of God’s hand. And God _ ath more than glimmer’d on me. O my lord, swear to you I heard his voice between ; je thunders in the black Veragua ;| nights, " ) soul of little faith, slow to believe! ave I not been about thee from thy birth ? ven thee the keys of the great Ocean- sea? ff | COLUMBUS. 527 Set thee in light till time shall be no more ? Is it I who have deceived thee or the world ? Endure ! thou hast done so well for men, that men Cry out against thee: was it otherwise With mine own Son ?’ And more than once in days Of doubt and cloud and storm, when drowning hope Sank all but out of sight, I heard his voice, ‘Be not cast down. I lead thee by the hand, Fear not.’ And I shall hear his voice again— I know that he has led me all my life, I am not yet too old to work his will— His voice again. Still for all that, my lord, I lying here bedridden and alone, Cast off, put by, scouted by court and king— The first discoverer starves—his followers, all Flower into fortune—our world’s way and I, Without a roof that I can call mine own, With scarce a coin to buy a meal withal, And seeing what a door for scoundrel scum I open’d to the West, thro’ which the lust, Villany, violence, avarice, of your Spain Pour’d in on all those happy naked isles— Their kindly native princes slain or slaved, Their wives and children Spanish concu- bines, Their innocent hospitalities quench’d in blood, Some dead of hunger, some beneath the scourge, Some over-labour’d, some by their own hands, — Yea, the dear mothers, crazing Nature, kill Their babies at the breast for hate of Spain— 528 COLUMBUS. =| = Ah God, the harmless people whom we found In Hispaniola’s island- Paradise ! Who took us for the very Gods from Heaven, And we have sent them very fiends from Hell ; And I myself, myself not blameless, I Could sometimes wish I had never led the way. Only the ghost of our great Catholic Queen Smiles on me, saying, ‘Be thou com- forted ! This creedless people will be brought to Christ And own the holy governance of Rome.’ But who could dream that we, who bore the Cross Thither, were excommunicated there, For curbing crimes that scandalised the Cross, By him, the Catalonian Minorite, Rome’s Vicar i in our Indies? who believe These hard memorials of our truth to Spain Clung closer to us for a longer term Than any friend of ours at Court ? and yet Pardon—too harsh, unjust. I am rack’d with pains. You see that I have hung them by my bed, And I will have them buried in my grave. Sir, in that flight of ages which are God’s Own voice to justify the dead—perchance Spain once the most chivalric race on earth, Spain then the mightiest, wealthiest realm on earth, So made by me, may seek to unbury me, To lay me in some shrine of this old Spain, Or in that vaster Spain I leave to Spain. Then some one standing by my grave will say, ‘Behold the bones of Christopher Colon? ‘Ay, but the chains, what do ¢hey mez —the chains ? ’— I sorrow for that kindly child of Spain Who then will have to answer, ‘ The same chains Bound these same bones back thro’ tl Atlantic sea, : Which he unchain’d for all the world come.’ O Queen of Heaven who seest the sot in Hell And purgatory, I suffer all as much As they do—for the moment. Stay, r son : Is here anon: my son will speak for m. Ablier than I can in these spasms th grind ! Bone against bone. last word. You will not. O7 You move about the Court, I pray y tell King Ferdinand who plays with me, tl one, Whose life has been no play with hi and his | Hidalgos—shipwrecks, famines, feve, fights, Mutinies, treacheries—wink’d at, a! condoned— \ That I am loyal to him till the death, And ready—tho’ our Holy Cathe Queen, Who fain had pledged her jewels on first voyage, Whose hope was mine to spread | Catholic faith, | Who wept with me ‘when I return’d} chains, Who sits beside the blessed Virgin nc | To whom I send my prayer by night : day— 1 She is gone—but you will tell the Ki that 16 i Rack’d as I am with gout, and wrenc with pains - Gain’d in the service of His Highn yet | Am ready to sail] forth on one last voys: g THE VOVAGE OF MAELDUNE, 529 | And readier, if the King would hear, to | lead One last crusade against the Saracen, , And save the Holy Sepulchre from | thrall. Going? I am old and slighted: you have dared ‘Somewhat perhaps in coming? my poor thanks ! I am but an alien and a Genovese. : ee VOYAGE OF MAELDUNE. _ {FOUNDED ON AN IRISH LEGEND. os A.D. 700.) nt I 1 WAS the chief of the race—he had stricken my father déad— But I gather’d my fellows together, I swore I would strike off his head. t Bach of them look’d like a king, and was : noble in birth as in worth, _ And each of them boasted he sprang from . the oldest race upon earth. tach was as brave in the fight as the ‘| bravest hero of song, And each of them liefer had died than b | have done one another a wrong. Te lived on an isle in the ocean—we | | sail’d on a Friday morn Te that had slain my father the day i before I was born. a II. - nd we came to the isle in the ocean, and there on the shore was he. ‘Ut a sudden blast blew us out and away thro’ a boundless sea. | ll. bind we came to the Silent Isle that we never had touch’d at before, vial) bere a silent ocean always broke on a silent shore, Lia the brooks glitter’d on in the light without sound, and the long waterfalls st oft Pour’d in a thunderless plunge to the base of the mountain walls, And the poplar and cypress unshaken by storm flourish’d up beyond sight, And the pine shot aloft from the crag to an unbelievable height, And high in the heaven above it there flicker’d a songless lark, And the cock couldn’t crow, and the bull couldn’t low, and the dog couldn’t bark. And round it we went, and thro’ it, but never a murmur, a breath— It was all of it fair as life, it was all of it quiet as death, And we hated the beautiful Isle, for whenever we strove to speak Our voices were thinner and fainter than any flittermouse-shriek ; And the men that were mighty of tongue and could raise such a battle-cry That a hundred who heard it would rush on a thousand lances and die— O they to be dumb’d by the charm !—so fluster’d with anger were they They almost fell on each other ; but after we sail’d away. IV. And we came to the Isle of Shouting, we landed, a score of wild birds Cried from the topmost summit with human voices and words ; Once in an hour they cried, and whenever their voices peal’d The steer fell down at the plow and the harvest died from the field, And the men dropt dead in the valleys and half of the cattle went lame, And the roof sank in on the hearth, and the dwelling broke into flame ; And the shouting of these wild birds ran into the hearts of my crew, Till they shouted along with the shout- ing and seized one another and slew ; But I drew them the one from the other ; I saw that we could not stay, And we left the dead te the birds and we sail’d with our wounded away. 2M 530 THE VOYAGE OF MAELDUNE. Vv. And we came to the Isle of Flowers: their breath met us out on the seas, For the Spring and the middle Summer sat each on the lap of the breeze ; And the red passion-flower to the cliffs, and the dark-blue clematis, clung, And starr’d with a myriad blossom the long convolvulus hung ; And the topmost spire of the mountain was lilies in lieu of snow, And the lilies like glaciers winded down, running out below Thro’ the fire of the tulip and poppy, the blaze of gorse, and the blush Of millions of roses that sprang without leaf or a thorn from the bush ; And the whole isle-side flashing down from the peak without ever a tree Swept like a torrent of gems from the sky to the blue of the sea ; And we roll’d upon capes of crocus and vaunted our kith and our kin, And we wallow’d in beds of lilies, and chanted the triumph of Finn, Till each like a golden image was pollen’d from head to feet And each was as dry as a cricket, with thirst in the middle-day heat. Blossom and blossom, and promise of blossom, but never a fruit ! And we hated the Flowering Isle, as we hated the isle that was mute, And we tore up the flowers by the million and flung them in bight and bay, And we left but a naked rock, and in anger we sail’d away. Vi. And we came to the Isle of Fruits: all round from the cliffs and the capes, Purple or amber, dangled a hundred fathom of grapes, And the warm melon lay like a little sun on the tawny sand, And the fig ran up from the beach and rioted over the land, And the mountain arose like a jewell’d throne thro’ the fragrant air, Glowing with all-colour’d plums and we golden masses of pear, # And the crimson and scarlet of berrie that flamed upon bine and vine, But in every berry and fruit was th poisonous pleasure of wine; _ And the peak of the mountain was apple: the hugest that ever were seen, © And they prest, as they grew, on each othe with hardly a leaflet between, And all of them redder than rosiest healt or than utterest shame, m § And setting, when Even descended, a very sunset aflame ; rf And we stay’d three days, and we oa : and we madden’d, till vem drew His sword on his fellow to slay him, ar ever they struck and they slew: And myself, I had eaten but sparely, a1 fought till I sunder’d the fray, — Then I bad them remember my 7 death, and we sail’d away. | VII. And we came to the Isle of Fire : we a lured by the light from afar, For the peak sent up one league of f it) to the Northern Star ; : Lured by the glare and the blare, ie scarcely could stand upright, For the whole isle shudder’d and sho! ~ like a man in a mortal affright — We were giddy besides with the fruits * had gorged, and so crazed that: last | There were some leap’d into the fis f and away we sail’d, and we pe — Over that undersea isle, where the wa’ — is clearer than air: it Down we look’d: what a garden! / bliss, what a Paradise there! | Towers of a happier time, low down ' a rainbow deep | Silent palaces, quiet fields of eter sleep ! i And three of the gentlest and best of people, whate’er I could say, Plunged head down in the sea, and. Paradise trembled away. THE VOYAGE OF MAELDUNE. 531 VIII. | And we came to the Bounteous Isle, where the heavens lean low on the land, And ever at dawn from the cloud glitter’d | o’er us a sunbright hand, /Then it open’d and dropt at the side of each man, as he rose from his eee rest, Bread Eaouch for his need till the labour- less day dipt under the West ; And we wander’d about it and thro’ it. O never was time so good ! And we sang of the triumphs of Finn, and the boast of our ancient blood, And we gazed at the wandering wave as | : i we sat by the gurgle of springs, And we chanted the songs of the Bards ' and the glories of fairy kings ; ut at length we began to be weary, to sigh, and to stretch and yawn, “on we hated the Bounteous Isle and the | sunbright hand of the dawn, ‘or there was not an enemy near, but the whole green Isle was our own, And we took to playing at ball, and we took to throwing the stone, And we took to playing at battle, but that was a perilous play, Tor the passion of battle was in us, we slew and we sail’d away. IX. and we came to the Isle of Witches and heard their musical cry— ‘Come to us, O come, come’ stormy red of a sky ashing the fires and the shadows of dawn on the beautiful shapes, or a wild witch naked as heaven stood on each of the loftiest capes, nda hundred ranged on the rock like white sea-birds in a row, nd a hundred gamboll’d and pranced on the wrecks in the sand below, nda hundred splash’d from the ledges, | and bosom’d the burst of the in the spray, at I knew we should fall on each other, and hastily sail’d away. ap And we came in an evil time to the Isle of the Double Towers, One was of smooth-cut stone, one carved all over with flowers, But an earthquake always moved in the hollows under the dells, And they shock’d on each other and butted each other with clashing of bells, And the daws flew out of the Towers and jangled and wrangled in vain, And the clash and boom of the beHs rang into the heart and the brain, Till the passion of battle was on us, and all took sides with the Towers, There were some for the clean-cut stone, there were more for the carven flowers, And the wrathful thunder of God peal’d over us all the day, For the one half slew the other, and after we sail’d away. XI, And we came to the Isle of a Saint who had sail’d with St. Brendan of yore, He had lived ever since on the Isle and his winters were fifteen score, And. his voice was low as from other worlds, and his eyes were sweet, And his white hair sank to his heels and his white beard fell to his feet, And he spake to me, ‘O Maeldune, let be this purpose of thine ! Remember the words of the Lord when he told us ‘* Vengeance is mine!” His fathers have slain thy fathers in war or in single strife, Thy fathers have slain his fathers, each taken a life for a life, Thy father had slain his father, how long shall the murder last ? Go back to the Isle of Finn and suffer the Past to be Past.’ And we kiss’d the fringe of his beard and we pray’d as we heard him pray, And the Holy man he assoil’d us, and sadly we sail’d away. 532 XII. And we came to the Isle we were blown from, and there on theshore was he, The man that had slain my father. I saw him and let him be. O weary was I of the travel, the trouble, the strife and the sin, When I landed again, with a tithe of my men, on the Isle of Finn. DE PROFUNDIS: THE TWO GREETINGS. f OuT of the deep, my child, out of the deep, Where all that was to be, in all that was, Whitld for a million zeons thro’ the vast Waste dawn of multitudinous -eddying light— Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep, Thro’ all this changing world of change- less law, And every phase of ever-heightening life, And ninelong months of antenatal gloom, With this last moon, this crescent—her dark orb Touch’d with earth’s light—thou comest, - darling boy 5 Our own; ; a babe in lineament and limb Perfect, and prophet of the perfect man ; Whose face and form are hers and mine in one, Indissolubly married like our love ; Live, and be happy in thyself, and serve This mortal race thy kin so well, that men May bless thee as we bless thee, O young life Breaking with laughter from the dark ; and may The fated channel where thy motion lives Be prosperously shaped, and sway thy course Along the years of haste and random youth Unshatter’d ; then full-current thro’ full man ; DE PROFUNDIS. And last in kindly curves, with gentlest fall | By quiet fields, a slowly-dying power, To that last deep where we and thou are still. 7 II. 1 OuT of the deep, my child, out of iy deep, From that great deep, before our work begins, . Whereon the Spirit of God moves as h will— | Out of the deep, my child, out of th deep, From that true world within He worl we see, Whereof our world is but the bom shore— i Out of the deep, Spirit, out of the deep. With this ninth moon, that sends th) hidden sun Down yon dark sea, thou comest, darlin boy. For in the world, which is not ours, The said ‘Let us make man’ should be man, From that one light noman can look upo! Drew to this shore lit by the suns ar . moons And all the shadows. half-lost . In thine own shadow and this fleshly | i That thou art thou—who wailest bei born And banish’d into mystery, and the pa Of this divisible-indivisible world Among the numerable-innumerable Sun, sun, and sun, thro’ finite-infin’ space In finite-infinite Time—our mortal veil And shatter’d phantom of that infin’ One, Who made thee unconceivably Thyself Out of His whole World-self and all all— | Il. | | and_ that whic O dear Spi ~ | 3 PREFATORY SONNET, ‘Live thou! and of the grain and husk, the grape And ivyberry, choose ; and still depart From death to death thro’ life and life, and find ‘Nearer and ever | wrought ‘Not Matter, nor the finite-infinite, But this main-miracle, that thou art thou, With power on thine own act and on the world. nearer Him; who \ THE HUMAN CRY. a 1. HALLOWED be Thy name—Halleluiah !— _ Infinite Ideality ! Immeasurable Reality ! | Infinite Personality ! ‘Hallowed be Thy name—Halleluiah ! ite We feel we are nothing—for all is Thou and in Thee ; We feel we are something—+hat also has come from Thee ; We know we are nothing—but Thou wilt | help us to be. allowed be Thy name—Halleluiah ! PReErATORY SONNET TO THE ‘NINETEENTH CENTURY.’ HOSE that of late had fleeted far and fast 0 touch all shores, now leaving to the skill )f others their old craft seaworthy still, lave charter’d this ; where, mindful of the past, Jur true co-mates regather round the a mast ; P diverse tongue, but with a common will ’ lere, in this roaring moon of daffodil nd crocus, to put forth and brave the | blast ; or some, descending from the sacred | peak | | . 1 ETC.—MONTENEGRO. 533 Of hoar high-templed Faith, have leagued again Their lot with ours to rove the world about ; And some are wilder comrades, sworn to seek If any golden harbour be for men In seas of Death and sunless gulfs of Doubt. TO THE REV. W. H. BROOK- FIELD. Brooks, for they call’d you so that knew you best, Old Brooks, who loved so well to mouth my rhymes, How oft we two have heard St. Mary’s chimes ! How oft the Cantab supper, host and guest, Would echo helpless laughter to your jest ! How oft with him we paced that walk of limes, Him, the lost light of those dawn-golden times, Who loved you well !_ Now both are gone , to rest. You man of humorous-melancholy mark, Dead of some inward agony—is it so? Our kindlier, trustier Jaques, past away ! I cannot laud this life, it looks so dark : Zkids vap—dream of a shadow, go— God bless you. I shall join you in a day. MONTENEGRO. THEY rose to where their sovran eagle sails, They kept their faith, their freedom, on the height, Chaste, frugal, savage, arm’d by day and night Against the Turk ; whose inroad nowhere scales Their headlong passes, but his footstep fails, 534 And red with blood the Crescent reels from fight Before their dauntless hundreds, in prone flight By thousands down the crags and thro’ the vales. O smallest among peoples! rough rock- throne Of Freedom ! warriors beating back the swarm Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years, Great Tsernogora! never since thine own Black ridges drew the cloud and brake the storm Has breathed a race of mightier moun- taineers. TO VICTOR HUGO. VICTOR in Drama, Victor in Romance, Cloud-weaver of phantasmal hopes and fears, TRANSLATIONS aa BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH. Constantinus, King of the Scots, after having sworn allegiance to Athelstan, allied himself with the Danes of Ireland under Anlaf, and invading England, was defeated by Athelstan and his brother Edmund with great slaughter at Brunan- burh in the year 937. Te 1 ATHELSTAN King, Lord among Earls, Bracelet-bestower and Baron of Barons, He with his brother, Edmund Atheling, Gaining a lifelong Glory in battle, Slew with the sword-edge There by Brunanburh, 1 I have more or less availed myself of my son’s prose translation of this poem in the Con- temporary Review (November 1876). BATTLE OF BRUNANBURG. French of the French, and Lord of = | tears ; Pd Child-lover ; Bard whose fame-lit a glance Darkening the wreaths of all that veal advance, Beyond our strait, their claim to be a peers ; Weird Titan by thy winter weight, G years As yet unbroken, Stormy voice ¢ France! ; Who dost not love our England—so the say ; ! I know not—England, France, all ma| to be Will make one people ere man’s race t run : And I, desiring that diviner day, Vield thee full thanks for thy fu courtesy To younger England in the boy my son Brake the shield-wall, Hew’d the lindenwood,? Hack’d the battleshield, Sons of Edward with hammer’d brands II. Theirs was a greatness Got from their Grandsires— | Theirs that so often in Strife with their enemies Struck for their hoards and their heart and their homes. ITI. Bow’d the spoiler, Bent the Scotsman, Fell the shipcrews : Doom’d to the death. 4 All the field with blood of the fighters Flow’d, from when first the gre Sun-star of morningtide, | 2 Shields of lindenwood. E 1 Lamp of the Lord God Lord everlasting, Glode over earth till the glorious creature Sank to his setting. IV. There lay many a man Marr’d by the javelin, Men of the Northland Shot over shield. There was the Scotsman Weary of war. Vv. We the West-Saxons, Long as the daylight Lasted, in companies © Troubled the track of the host that we | hated, stimly with swords that were sharp from the grindstone, Miercely we hack’d at the flyers before us. VI. Mighty the Mercian, Hard was his hand-play, Sparing not any of Those that with Anlaf, Warriors over the Weltering waters Borne in the bark’s-bosom, Drew to this island: Doom’d to the death. VII. ive young kings put asleep by the sword- stroke, Seven strong Earls of the army of Anlaf Fell on the war-field, numberless numbers, Shipmen and Scotsmen. VIII. Then the Norse leader, . Dire was his need of it, Few were his following, Fled to his warship : Fleeted his vessel to sea with the king in it, Saving his life on the fallow flood. BATTLE OF BRUNANBURGH. 535 IX, Also the crafty one, Constantinus, Crept to his North again, Hoar-headed hero ! X. Slender warrant had ffe to be proud of The welcome of war-knives— He that was reft of his Folk and his friends that had Fallen in conflict, Leaving his son too Lost in the carnage, Mangled to morsels, A youngster in war ! XI. Slender reason had fle to be glad of The clash of the war- glaive— Traitor and trickster And spurner of treaties— He nor had Anlaf With armies so broken A reason for bragging That they had the better In perils of battle On places of slaughter— The struggle of standards, The rush of the javelins, The crash of the charges,! _ The wielding of weapons— The play that they play’d with The children of Edward. XII. Then with their nail’d prows Parted the Norsemen, a Blood-redden’d relic of Javelins over The jarring breaker, the deep- sea billow, Shaping their way toward Dy- flen? again, Shamed in their souls. 1 Lit. ‘the gathering of men.’ 2 Dublin. 536 ACHILLES OVER THE TRENCH. XITI. Also the brethren, King and Atheling, Each in his glory, Went to his own in his own West-Saxon- land, Glad of the war. XIV. Many a carcase they left to be carrion, Many a livid one, many a sallow-skin— Left for the white-tail’d eagle to tear it, and Left for the horny-nibb’d raven to rend it, and Gave to the garbaging war-hawk to gorge it, and That gray beast, the wolf of the weald. XV. Never had huger Slaughter of heroes Slain by the sword-edge— Such as old writers Have writ of in histories— Hapt in this isle, since Up from the East hither Saxon and Angle from Over the broad billow Broke into Britain with Haughty war-workers who Harried the Welshman, when Earls that were lured by the Hunger of glory gat Hold of the land. ACH TLS OM ie Ure TRENCH. ILIAD, XVili. 202. So saying, light-foot Iris pass’d away. Then rose Achilles dear to Zeus; and round The warrior’s puissant shoulders Pallas flung Her fringed zgis, and around his head The glorious goddess wreath’d a golden cloud, And from it lighted an all - shinga| flame. x As when a smoke from a city soe heaven Far off from out an island girt by foes, | All day the men contend in grievou war aj From their own city, but with set ¢ sun | Their fires flame thickly, and aloft th glare | Flies streaming, if perchance the neigh bours round May see, and sail to help them in th war $ % So from his head the splendour went t- heaven. From wall to dyke he stept, he sae nor join’d Achzeans — honouring his mother’s word— 4 There standing, shouted, and Pallas fa awa Call’d ; and a boundless panic shook th foe. } For like the clear voice when a trumpe shrills, Blown by the fierce balezenerem of town, : So rang the clear voice of ALakidés ; And when the brazen cry of Atakidés- Was heard among the Trojans, all thei The as } hearts Were troubled, and the full-maned horse | white The chariots backward, knowing gre! at hand ; And sheer-astounded were the charioteer! To see the dread, unweariable fire That always o’er the great Peleion’ | head . Burn’d, for the bright-eyed goddess madd it burn. Thrice from the dyke he sent his might shout, | Thrice backward reel’d the Trojans a an allies ; | And there and then twelve of their nobles died Among their spears and chariots. 7 ae eee ate PRINCESS FREDERICA—T0O DANTE. BS v4 “TO PRINCESS FREDERICA ON HER MARRIAGE. DJ you that were eyes and light to the | King till he past away _ From the darkness of life— de saw not his daughter—he blest her : | the blind King sees you to-day, He blesses the wife. SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. , ON THE CENOTAPH IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. Nor here! the white North has thy bones ; and thou, Heroic sailor-soul, ‘rt passing on thine happier voyage now Toward no earthly pole. pore FITZGERALD. Jp Frrz, who from your suburb grange, _ Where once I tarried for a while, lance at the wheeling Orb of change, _ And greet it with a kindly smile ; hom yet I see as there you sit _ Beneath your sheltering garden-tree, and watch your doves about you flit, _ And plant on shoulder, hand and knee, ?r on your head their rosy feet, _ As if they knew your diet spares Vhatever moved in that full sheet _ Let down to Peter at his prayers ; Vho live on milk and meal and grass ; _ And once for ten long weeks I tried our table of Pythagoras, And seem’d at first ‘a thing enskied’ As Shakespeare has it) airy-light | To float above the ways of men, hen fell from that half-spiritual height ~Chill’d, till I tasted flesh again POSDAN TE, (WRITTEN AT REQUEST OF THE FLORENTINES. ) KING, that hast reign’d six hundred years, and grown In power, and ever growest, since thine own Fair Florence honouring thy nativity, Thy Florence now the crown of Italy, Hath sought the tribute of a verse from me, I, wearing but the garland of a day, Cast at thy feet one flower that fades away. ML RE STAS fee OTHER POEMS. One night when earth was winter-black, And all the heavens flash’d in frost ; And on me, half-asleep, came back That wholesome heat the blood had lost, And set me climbing icy capes And glaciers, over which there roll’d To meet me long-arm’d vines with grapes Of Eshcol hugeness ; for the cold Without, and warmth within me, wrought To mould the dream ; but none can say That Lenten fare makes Lenten thought, Who reads your golden Eastern lay, Than which I know no version done In English more divinely well ; A planet equal to the sun Which cast it, that large infidel Your Omar; and your Omar drew Full-handed plaudits from our best In modern letters, and from two, Old friends outvaluing all the rest, Two voices heard on earth no more ; But we old friends are still alive, 538 And I am nearing seventy-four, While you have touch’d at seventy- five, And sco I send a birthday line © Of greeting ; and my son, who dipt In some forgotten book of mine With sallow scraps of manuscript, And dating many a year ago, Has hit on this, which you will take My Fitz, and welcome, as I know Less for its own than for the sake Of one recalling gracious times, When, in our younger London days, You found some merit in my rhymes, And I more pleasure in your praise. TIRESIAS.: I wisH I were as in the years of old, While yet the blessed daylight made itself Ruddy thro’ both the roofs of sight, and woke These eyes, now dull, but then so keen to seek The meanings ambush’d under all they saw, The flight of birds, the flame of sacrifice, What omens may foreshadow fate to man And woman, and the secret of the Gods. My son, the Gods, despite of human prayer, Are slower to forgive than human kings. The great God, Arés, burns in anger still Against the guiltless heirs of him from Lyre; Our Cadmus, out of whom thou art, who found Beside the springs of Dircé, smote, and still’d Thro’ all its folds the multitudinous beast, The dragon, which our trembling fathers call’d The God’s own son. A tale, that told to me, When but thine age, by age as winter- white As mine is now, amazed, but made me yearn TIRESIAS. ‘ | For larger glimpses of that more tha man Which rolls the heavens, and lifts, an lays the deep, Yet loves and hates with mortal hat: and loves, And moves unseen among the ways ' men. 2 Then, in my wanderings all the la that lie Subjected to the Heliconian ridge Have heard this footstep fall, altho’ n wont Was more to scale the highest of tl heights With some strange hope to see the near God. One naked peak—the sister of tf] sun Would climb from out the dark, ar linger there To silver all the valleys with her shafts- There once, but long ago, five-fold t! term Of years, I lay; the winds were de for heat ; The noonday crag made the hand bun and sick For shadow—not one bush was near. I rose Following a torrent till its myriad falls Found silence in the hollows unde neath. There in a secret olive-glade I saw Pallas Athene climbing from the bath In anger ; yet one glittering foot disturl The lucid well; one snowy knee Ww | prest Against the margin flowers ; a ~_ light Came from her golden hair, her gold helm And all her golden armour on the gra And from her virgin breast, and virg. eyes Remaining fixt on mine, till mine 4 dark For ever, and I heard a voice that sai: ‘ Henceforth be blind, for thou hast Bel too much, f LIRESIAS, And speak the truth that no man may | believe.’ ' Son, in the hidden world of sight, that | lives Behind this darkness, I behold her still, Beyond all work of those who carve the stone, | Beyond all dreams of Godlike woman- hood, Ineffable beanty, out of whom, at a glance, And as it were, perforce, upon me flash’d The power of prophesying—but to me No power—so chain’d and coupled with the curse ‘Of blindness and their unbelief, who heard And heard not, when I spake of famine, plague, Shrine-shattering earthquake, fire, flood, thunderbolt, And angers of the Gods for evil done ‘And expiation lack’d—no power on Fate, ‘Theirs, or mine own! for when the crowd would roar For blood, for war, whose issue was their doom, To cast wise words among the multitude Was flinging fruit to lions; nor, in | hours Mf civil outbreak, when I knew the twain Would each waste each, and bring on both the yoke Of stronger states, was mine the voice to . curb — The madness of our cities and their | kings. _ Who ever turn’d upon his heel to hear My warning that the tyranny of one Was prelude to the tyranny of all ? " My counsel that the tyranny of all | ved backward to the tyranny of one? | This power hath work’d no good to ti aught that lives, \nd these blind hands were useless in i their wars. _ ) therefore that the unfulfill’d desire, f “he grief for ever born from griefs to be, “he boundless yearning of the Prophet’s heart— 539 Could ¢haf stand forth, and like a statue, rear’d To some great citizen, win all pes from all Who past it, saying, ‘ That was he !’ In vain ! Virtue must shape itself in deed, and those Whom weakness or necessity have cramp’d Within themselves, immerging, each, his urn In his own well, draw solace as he may. Menceceus, thou hast eyes, and I can hear Too plainly what full tides of onset sap Our seven high gates, and what a weight of war Rides on those ringing axles ! jingle of bits, Shouts, arrows, tramp of the hornfooted horse That grind the glebe to powder ! showers Of that ear-stunning hail of Arés crash Stony Along the sounding walls. Above, below, Shock after shock, the song-built towers and gates Reel, bruised and butted with the shuddering War-thunder of iron rams; and from within The city comes a murmur void of joy, Lest she be taken captive—maidens, wives, And mothers with their babblers of the dawn, And oldest age in shadow from the night, Falling about their shrines before their Gods, . And wailing ‘ Save us.’ And they wail to thee ! These eyeless eyes, that cannot see thine own, See this, that only in thy virtue lies The saving of our Thebes; for, yester- night, To me, the great God Arés, whose one bliss 540 Is war, and human sacrifice—himself Blood-red from battle, spear and helmet tipt With stormy light as on a mast at sea, Stood out before a darkness, crying ‘ Thebes, Thy Thebes shall fall and perish, for I loathe The seed of Cadmus—yet if one of these By his own hand—if one of these——’ My son, No sound is breathed so potent to coerce, And to conciliate, as their names who dare For that sweet mother land which gave them birth Nobly to do, nobly to die. Their names, Graven on memorial columns, are a song Heard in the future ; wall And rampart, hand Far thro’ all years, and everywhere they meet And kindle generous purpose, and the strength To mould it into action pure as theirs. Fairer thy fate than mine, if life’s best end Be to end well! and thou refusing this, Unvenerable will thy memory be While men shall move the lips: thou dare— Thou, one of these, the race of Cadmus —then No stone is fitted in yon marble girth Whose echo shall not tongue thy glorious few, but more than their examples reach a but if doom, Nor in this pavement but shall ring thy name To every hoof that clangs it, and the springs Of Dircé laving yonder battle-plain, Heard from the roofs by night, will mur- mur thee To thine own Thebes, while Thebes thro’ thee shall stand Firm-based with all her Gods. TIRESTAS. The Dragon’s cay Half hid, they tell me, now in flowin, vines— Where once he dwelt and whence h roll’d himself At dead of night—thou knowest, an that smooth rock : Before it, altar-fashion’d, where of late The woman-breasted Sphinx, with wing drawn back, Folded her lion paws, and look’d t Thebes. There blanch the bones of whom sh slew, and these Mixt with her own, because the fere beast found A wiser than herself, and dash’d herself Dead in her rage: but thou art wis enough, Tho’ young, to love thy wiser, blunt w curse Of Pallas, hear, truth Believe I speak it, let thine own han strike : Thy youthful pulses into rest and quae The red God’s anger, fearing not to plung Thy torch of life in darkness, rather-| thou Rejoicing that the sun, the) moon, th stars | Send no such light upon the ways of me As one great deed. Thither, my son, and the: Thou, that hast never known the embrac of love, Offer thy maiden life. and tho’ I speak 7 This useless hanc I felt one warm tear fall upon it. | He will achieve his greatness. But for mi I would that I were gather’d to my res And mingled with the famous kings © old, On whom about their ocean-islets fash { The faces of the Gods—the wise man word, Here Lranigied by the populace undewe There crown’d with worship—and the: eyes will find The men I knew, and watch the chariot i ae whirl ‘About the goal again, and hunters race ‘The shadowy lion, and the warrior- kings, : In height and prowess more than human, strive Again for glory, while the golden lyre Is ever sounding in heroic ears Heroic hymns, and every way the vales Wind, clouded with the grateful incense- fume Of those who mix all odour to the Gods On one far height in one far-shining fire. i ae iS See ‘One height and one far-shining fire’ _ And while I fancied that my friend or this brief idyll would require _ A less diffuse and opulent end, And would defend his judgment well, If I should deem it over nice— ‘The tolling of his funeral bell Broke on my Pagan Paradise, And mixt the dream of classic times _ And all the phantoms of the dream, With present grief, and made the rhymes, That miss’d his living welcome, seem uike would-be guests an hour too late, Who down the highway moving on ‘With easy laughter find the gate Is bolted, and the master gone. one into darkness, that full light | Of friendship ! past, in sleep, away 4y night, into the deeper night ! | The deeper night? A clearer day Than our poor twilight dawn on earth— ' Tfnight, what barren toil to be ! Nhat life, so maim’d by night, were : worth Our living out? Not mine to me Be mbering all the golden hours _ Now silent, and so many dead, _ And him the last; and laying flowers, _ This wreath, above his honour’d head, And praying that, when I from hence _ Shall fade with him into the unknown, ly close of earth’s experience | May prove as peaceful as his own. THE WRECK. 541 THE WRECK. I. HIpE me, Mother! my Fathers belong’d to the church of old, I am driven by storm and sin and death to the ancient fold, I cling to the Catholic Cross once more, to the Faith that saves, My brain is full of the crash of wrecks, and the roar of waves, My life itself is a wreck, I have sullied a noble name, I am flung from the rushing tide of the world as a waif of shame, I am roused by the wail of a child, and awake to a livid light, Anda ghastlier face than ever has haunted a grave by night, I would hide from the storm without, I would flee from the storm within, I would make my life one prayer for a soul that died in his sin, I was the tempter, Mother, and mine was the deeper fall ; I will sit at your feet, I will hide my face, I will tell you all. II. He that they gave me to, Mother, a heedless and innocent bride— I never have wrong’d his heart, I have only wounded his pride— Spain in his blood and the Jew——dark- visaged, stately and tall— A princelier-looking man never stept thro’ a Prince’s hall. And who, when his anger was kindled, would venture to give him the nay? And a man men fear is a man to be loved by the women they say. } Andel could have loved him too, if the blossom can doat on the blight, Or the young green leaf rejoice in the frost that sears it at night ; He would open the books that I prized, and toss them away with a yawn, 542 THE WRECK. Repell’d by the magnet of Art to the which my nature was drawn, The word of the Poet by whom the deeps of the world are stirr’d, The music that robes itin language beneath and beyond the word ! My Shelley would fall from my hands when he cast a contemptuous glance From where he was poring over his Tables of Trade and Finance ; My hands, when I heard him coming would drop from the chords or the keys, But ever I fail’d to please him, however I strove to please— All day long far-off in the cloud of the city, and there Lost, head and heart, in the chances of dividend, consol, and share— And at home if I sought for a kindly caress, being woman and weak, His formal kiss fell chill as a flake of snow on the cheek : And so, when I bore him a girl, when I held it aloft in my joy, He look’d at it coldly, and said to me ‘Pity it isn’t a boy.’ The one thing given me, to love and to live for, glanced at in scorn ! The child that I felt I could die for—as if she were basely born ! Thad lived a wild-flower life, I was planted now in a tomb; The daisy will shut to the shadow, I closed my heart to the gloom; I threw myself all abroad—I would play my part with the young By the low foot-lights of the world—and I caught the wreath that was flung. DEG. Mother, I have not—-however their tongues may have babbled of me— Sinn’d thro’ an animal vileness, for all but a dwarf was he, And all but a hunchback too; and I look’d at him, first, askance, With pity—not he the knight for an amorous girl’s romance ! Tho’ wealthy enough to have bask’d i the light of a dowerless smile,” Having lands at home and abroad in rich West-Indian isle ; But I came on him once at a ball, th heart of a listening crowd— _ | Why, what a brow was there! he w: et ie seated—speaking aloud . To women, the flower of the time, an men at the helm of state— F lowing with easy greatness and toucl ing on all things great, fe Science, philosophy, song—till I felt m} self ready to weep ¥ For I knew not what, when I heard the voice,—as mellow and deep As a psalm by a mighty master and par from an organ,—roll Rising and falling —for, Mother, the voic was the voice of the soul; And the sun of the soul made day in th dark of his wonderful eyes. Here was the hand that would help m« would heal me—the heart thé ; was wise ! of And he, poor man, when he learnt th: I hated the ring I wore, é He helpt me with death, and he heal’ me with sorrow for evermore. | LV. For I broke the bond. That day m nurse had brought me the child. The small sweet face was flush’d, but — coo’d to the Mother and smiled. ‘Anything ailing,’ I ask’d her, ‘wil! baby?’ She shook her head, | And the Motherless Mother kiss’d it, an turn’d in her haste and fled. ~ Y. Low warm winds had gently breathed 1 away from the land— Ten long sweet summer days upon deel sitting hand in hand— When he clothed a naked mind with th wisdom and wealth of his own, | And I bow’d myself down as a slag 1 his intellectual throne, | i} Then he coin’d into English gold some | treasure of classical song, ‘Vhen he flouted a statesman’s error, or flamed at a public wrong, \Vhen he rose as it were on the wings of an eagle beyond me, and past ver the range and the change of the world from the first to the last, Vhen he spoke of his tropical home in the canes by the purple tide, und the high star-crowns of his palms on the deep-wooded mountain-side, and cliffs all robed in lianas that dropt to the brink of his bay, und trees like the towers of a minster, the sons of a winterless day. Paradise there!’ so he said, but I seem’d in Paradise then Vith the first great love I had felt for the first and greatest of men; en long days of summer and sin—if it | must be so— jut days of a larger light than I ever again shall know— ays that will glimmer, I fear, thro’ life to my latest breath ; No frost there,’ so he said, ‘as in truest Love no Death.’ VI. | ‘other, one morning a bird with a warble plaintively sweet ‘erch’d on the shrouds, and then fell fluttering down at my feet ; _took it, he made it a cage, we fondled it, Stephen and I, ut it died, and I thought of the child for a moment, I scarce know why. Nags ut if sin be sin, not inherited fate, as many will say, y sin to my desolate little one found me at sea on a day, Then her orphan wail came borne in the shriek of a growing wind, nd a voice rang out in the thunders of Ocean and Heaven ‘Thou hast sinn’d,’ A THE WRECK. 543 And down in the cabin were we, for the towering crest of the tides Plunged on the vessel and swept in a cataract off from her sides, And ever the great storm grew with a howl and a hoot of the blast In the rigging, voices of hell—then came the crash of the mast. ‘The wages of sin is death,’ and there I began to weep, ‘I am the Jonah, the crew should cast me into the deep, For ah God, what a heart was mine to forsake her even for you.’ ‘ Never the heart among women,’ he said, ‘more tender and true.’ ‘The heart! not a mother’s heart, when I left my darling alone.’ ‘Comfort yourself, for the heart of the father will care for his own.’ ‘The heart of the father will spurn her,’ I cried, ‘for the sin of the wife, The cloud of the mother’s shame will enfold her and darken her life.’ Then his pale face twitch’d; ‘O Stephen, I love you, I love you, and yet ’— As I lean’d away from his arms—‘ would God, we had never met!’ And he spoke not—only the storm; till after a little, I yearn’d For his voice again, and he call’d to me ‘Kiss me!’ and there—as I turn’d— *The heart, the heart!’ I kiss’d him, I clung to the sinking form, And the storm went roaring above us, and he—was out of the storm. VIET. And then, then, Mother, the ship stag- ger’d under a thunderous shock, That shook us asunder, as if she had struck and crash’d on a rock; For a huge sea smote every soul from the decks of The Falcon but one; All of them, all but the man that was lash’d to the helm had gone; And I fell—and the storm and the days went by, but I knew no more 544 DESPAIR. Lost myself—lay like the dead by the dead on the cabin floor, Dead to the death beside me, and lost to the loss that was mine, With a dim dream, now and then, of a hand giving bread and wine, Till I woke from the trance, and the ship stood still, and the skies were blue, But the face I had known, O Mother, was not the face that I knew. IX. The strange misfeaturing mask that I saw so amazed me, that I Stumbled on deck, half mad. I would fling myself over and die! But one—he was waving a flag—the one man left on the wreck— ‘Woman ’—he graspt at my arm—‘ stay there ’—I crouch’d upon deck— ‘We are sinking, and yet there’s hope: look yonder,’ he cried, ‘a sail’ In a tone so rough that I broke into passionate tears, and the wail Of a beaten babe, till I saw that a boat was nearing us-—then All on a sudden I thought, I shall look on the child again. X. They lower’d me down the side, and there in the boat I lay With sad eyes fixt on the lost sea-home, as we glided away, And I sigh’d, as the low dark hull dipt under the smiling main, ‘Had I stay’d with Aim, I had now— with 4z#—been out of my pain.’ XI. They took us aboard: the crew were gentle, the captain kind; But Z was the lonely slave of an often- wandering mind ; For whenever a rougher gust might tumble a stormier wave, ‘O Stephen,’ I moan’d, ‘I am coming to thee in thine Ocean-grave.’ And again, when a balmier breeze - over a peacefuller sea, 4 I found myself moaning again “@) chile I-am coming to “thee.? XII. The broad white brow of the Isle—thz bay with the colour’d sand— _ Rich was the rose of sunset there, as w drew to the land; All so quiet the ripole would hard) blanch into spray — At the feet of the cliff; and I pray . ‘my child’—for I still ey pray— B | ‘ May her life be as blissfully calm, 7 never gloom’d by the curse Of a sin, not hers!’ Was it well with the child I wrote to the nur: Who had borne my flower on her hirelin heart; and an-answer came _ Not from the nurse—nor yet to the wi —to her maiden name! I shook as I open’d the letter—I kne that hand too well-—— And from it a scrap, clipt out of th ‘deaths’ in a paper, fell. ‘Ten long sweet summer days’ of feve and want of care! | And gone—that day of the storm—( Mother, she came to me there. | DESPAIR. A man and his wife having lost faith in a Go. and hope of a life to come, and being utter miserable in this, resolve to end themselves t drowning. The woman is drowned, but the m: rescued by a minister of the sect he had aba doned. i Is it you, that preach’d in the chap! there looking over the sand? Follow’d us-too that night, and dogg) us, and drew me to land? II 7 | What did I feel that night ? You a’ curious. How should I tell? ‘oes it matter so much what I felt? You rescued SC at it well Chat you came unwish’d for, uncall’d, between me and the deep and my doom, “hree days since, three more dark days of the Godless gloom Jf a life without sun, without health, with- out hope, without any delight n anything here upon earth? but ah God, that night, that night Vhen the rolling eyes of the lighthouse there on the fatal neck f land running out into aia, oY had —— ee ilared on our way toward death, I re- member I thought, as we past, does it matter how many they saved? we are all of us wreck’d at last— Do you fear?’ and there came thro’ the roar of the breaker a whisper, a breath, Fear? am I not with you? frighted at life not death.’ reget I am : III. nd the suns of the limitless Universe sparkled and shone in the sky, lashing with fires as of God, but we | knew that their light was a lie— right as with deathless hope— but, i however they sparkled and shone, he dark little worlds running round them were worlds of woe like our own— 0 soul in the heaven above, no soul on the earth below, fiery scroll written over with lamenta- tion and woe. | IV. 2e, we were nursed in the drear night- fold of your fatalist creed, ad we turn’d to the growing dawn, we had hoped for a dawn indeed, hen the light of a Sun that was coming would scatter the ghosts of the Past, DESPATR. 545 And the cramping creeds that had madden’d the peoples would vanish at last, And we broke away from the Christ, our human brother and friend, For He spoke, or it seem’d that He spoke, of a Hell without help, without end. Wes Hoped for a dawn and it came, but the promise had faded away ; We had past from a cheerless night to the glare of a drearier day; He is only a cloud and a smoke who was once a pillar of fire, The guess of a worm in the dust and the shadow of its desire— Of a worm as it writhes in a world of the weak trodden down by the strong, Of a dying worm in a world, all massacre, murder, and wrong. VI. O we poor orphans of nothing—alone on that lonely shore— Born of the brainless Nature who knew not that which she bore ! Trusting no longer that earthly flower would be heavenly fruit— Come from the brute, poor souls—no souls —and to die with the brute—— WAG Nay, but I am not claiming your pity: I know you of old— Small pity for those that have ranged from the narrow warmth of your fold, Where you bawl’d the dark side of your faith and a God of eternal rage, Till you flung us back on ourselves, and the human heart, and the Age. VIII. But pity—the Pagan held it a vice—was in her and in me, Helpless, taking the place of the pitying God that should be! 2N 546 DESPATR: Pity for all that aches in the grasp of an idiot power, And-pity for our own selves on an earth that bore not a flower; Pity for all that suffers on land or in air or the deep, And pity for our own selves till we long’d for eternal sleep. IX. ‘Lightly step over the sands ! the waters —you hear them call ! Life with its anguish, and horrors, and errors—away with it all !’ And she laid her hand in my own—she was always loyal and sweet— Till the points of the foam in the dusk came playing about our feet. There was a strong sea-current would sweep us out to the main. ‘Ah God’ tho’ I felt as I spoke I was taking the name in vain— ‘Ah God’ and we turn’d to each other, we kiss’d, we embraced, she and I, Knowing the Love we were used to be- lieve everlasting would die: We had read their know-nothing books and we lean’d to the darker side— Ah God, should we find Him, perhaps, perhaps, if we died, if we died ; We never had found Him on earth, this earth is a fatherless Hell— ‘Dear Love, for ever and ever, for ever and ever farewell,’ Never a cry so desolate, not since the world began, Never a kiss so sad, rio, not since the coming of man ! X. But the blind wave cast me ashore, and you saved me, a valueless life. Not a grain of gratitude mine! You have parted the man from the wife. I am left alone on the land, she is all alone in the sea; If a curse meant ought, I would curse you for not having let me be. XI. Visions of youth—for my brain was drur with the water, it seems; r I had past into perfect quiet at leng out of pleasant dreams, : And the transient trouble of drowning- what was it when match’d wi the pains Of the hellish heat of a wreichaaa 1 rushing back thro’ the veins? _ XII. Why should I live? one son had ong on his father and fled, And if I believed in a God, I en thank him, the other is dead, | And there was a baby-girl, that h never look’d on the light: Happiest she of us all, for she past fre the night to the night. XIII. But the crime, if a crime, of her elde born, her glory, her boast, | Struck hard at the tender heart of t mother, and broke it almost; Tho’, glory and shame dying out for ev, in endless time, Does it matter so much whether crow1) for a virtue, or hang’d for a Ei XIV. And ruin’d by zm, by him, I 4 , there, naked, amazed In a world of arrogant opulence, fea | myself turning crazed, And I would not be mock’ d in am: house ! and she, the delicate wi With a grief that could only be cured, cured, by the surgeon’s knife,—_ XV. Why should we bear with an hour! torture, a moment of pain, If every man die for ever, if all his gri) are in vain, And the homeless planet at length will} wheel’d thro’ the silence of spa’ Motherless evermore of an ever-vanishing mee race, When the worm shall have writhed its last, and its last brother-worm } will have fled rom the dead fossil skull that is left in the rocks of an earth that is dead ? XVI. Tave I crazed myself over their horrible infidel writings? O yes, Yor these are the new dark ages, you see, of the popular press, Vhen the bat comes out of his cave, and the owls are whooping at noon, snd Doubt is the lord of this dunghill and crows to the sun and the moon, vill the Sun and the Moon of our science are both of them turn’d into blood, nd Hope will have broken her heart, running after a shadow of good; : or their knowing and know-nothing books are scatter’d from hand to hand— _ “have knelt in your know-all chapel : too looking over the sand. | XVIT. "hat! I should call on that Infinite Love that has served us so well ? finite cruelty rather that made ever- q lasting Hell, ade us, foreknew us, foredoom’d us, and does what he will with his own; ‘tter our dead brute mother who ae has heard us groan ! | XVIII. | ‘Il? if the souls of men were immortal, | as men have been told, _ e lecher would cleave to his lusts, and ____ the miser would yearn for his gold, L Ad so there were Hell for ever! but | were there a God as you say, 5 Love would have power over Hell till it utterly vanish’d away. THE ANCIENT SAGE. 547 XIX. Ah yet—I have had some glimmer, at times, in my gloomiest woe, Of a God behind all—after all—the great God for aught that I know; But the God of Love and of Hell to- gether—they cannot be thought, If there be such a God, may the Great God curse him and bring him to nought ! XX. Blasphemy! whose is the fault? is it mine? for why would you save A madman to vex you with wretched words, who is best in his grave? Blasphemy! ay, why not, being damn’d beyond hope of grace ? O would I were yonder with her, and away from your faith and your face ! Blasphemy! true! I have scared you pale with my scandalous talk, But the blasphemy to my mind lies all in the way that you walk. XXI. Hence! she is gone! can I stay? can I breathe divorced from the Past ? You needs must have good lynx-eyes if I do not escape you at last. Our orthodox coroner doubtless will find it a felo-de-se, And the stake and the cross-road, fool, if you will, does it matter to me? THE ANCIENT) SAGE, A THOUSAND summers ere the time of Christ From out his ancient city came a Seer Whom one that loved, and honour’d him, and yet Was no disciple, richly garb’d, but worn From wasteful living, follow’d—in his hand A scroll of verse—till that old man before 548 THE ANCIENT SAGE. A cavern whence an affluent fountain | But never yet hath dipt into the abysi pour’d The Abysm of all Abysms, beneath From darkness into daylight, turn’d and within spoke. The blue of sky and sea, the green ¢ earth, This wealth of waters might but seem to | And in the million-millionth of a grain | draw Which cleft and cleft again for evermort From yon dark cave, but, son, the source | And ever vanishing, never vanishes, _ is higher, To me, my son, more mystic than ie | Yon summit half-a-league in air—and | Or even than the Nameless is to me. higher, And when thou sendest thy free ?| The cloud that hides it—higher still, the thro’ heaven, heavens Nor understandest bound nor boundles: Whereby the cloud was moulded, and ness, 43 whereout Thou seest ‘the Nameless of the und The cloud descended. Force is from the names. heights. And if the Nameless should witha I am wearied of our city, son, and go from all To spend my one last year among the | Thy frailty counts most real, all thy | hills. Might vanish like thy shadow in the | What hast thou there? Some deathsong for the Ghouls ‘‘And since—from when this ‘ear To make their banquet relish? let me began— : read. The Nameless never came Among us, never spake with man, ‘¢ Flow far thro’ all the bloom and brake And never named the Name ”— That nightingale is heard ! * What power but the bird’s could make Thou canst not prove the Nameless, — This music in the bird? my son, How summer-bright are yonder skies, Nor canst thou prove the world th And earth as fair in hue ! movest in, @ And yet what sign of aught that lies Thou canst not prove that thou art bo! Behind the green and blue ? alone, But man to-day is fancy’s fool Nor canst thou prove that thou art Bp. : As man hath ever been. alone, The nameless Power, or Powers, that rule | Nor canst thou prove that thou art » Were never heard or seen.” in one: | Thoucanst not prove thou art in ) If thou would’st hear the Nameless, and | Nor yet that thou art mortal—nay_ ; wilt dive son, Into the Temple-cave of thine own self, | Thou canst not prove that I, who sp) There, brooding by the central altar, thou with thee, f May’st haply learn the Nameless hath a | Am not thyself in converse with thyse’ voice, For nothing worthy proving can ! By which thou wilt abide, if thou be wise, proven, As if thou knewest, tho’ thou canst not | Nor yet disproven : wherefore thou know; wise, . For Knowledge is the swallow on the lake | Cleave ever to the sunnier side of dox| That sees and stirs the surface-shadow | And cling to Faith beyond the form: there Faith ! i SHEVANCIENT SAGE. 549 She reels not in the storm of warring words, she brightens at the clash of ‘ Yes’ and ‘No,’ jhe sees the Best that glimmers thro’ the Worst, jhe feels the Sun is hid but for a night, jhe spies the summer thro’ the winter bud, jhe tastes the fruit before the blossom falls, ihe hears the lark within the songless egg, ‘he finds the fountain where they wail’d | ‘ Mirage’! | | What Power? aught akin to Mind, The mind in me and you? Or power as of the Gods gone blind ; Who see not what they do?” t ut some in yonder city hold, my son, hat none but Gods could build this house of ours, ‘co beautiful, vast, Sons so beyond Il work of man, yet, like all work of man, _ beauty with defect knows, nd is not known, but felt thro’ what we feel Jithin ourselves is highest, shall descend n this half-deed, and shape it at the | last ccording to the Highest in the Highest. till That which “What Power but the Years that make | And break the vase of clay, ad stir the sleeping earth, and wake The bloom that fades away? hat rulers but the Days and Hours That cancel weal with woe, ad wind the front of youth with flowers, And cap our age with snow?” | the days and hours are ever glancing by, id seem to flicker past thro’ sun and shade, * short, or long, as Pleasure leads, or Pain ; But with the Nameless is nor Day nor Hour ; Tho’ we, thin minds, who creep from thought to thought, Break into ‘Thens’ and ‘ Whens’ the Eternal Now: This double seeming of the single world !— My words are like the babblings in a dream Of nightmare, when the babblings break the dream. But thou be wise in this dream-world of ours, Nor take thy dial for thy Seine But make the passing shadow serve thy will. “‘ The years that made the stripling wise Undo their work again, And leave him, blind of heart and eyes, The last and least of men ; Who clings to earth, and once would dare Hell-heat or Arctic cold, And now one breath of cooler air Would loose him from his hold ; His winter chills him to the root, He withers marrow and mind ; The kernel of the shrivell’d fruit Is jutting thro’ the rind ; The tiger spasms tear his chest, The palsy wags his head ; The wife, the sons, who love him best Would fain that he were dead ; The griefs by which he once was wrung Were never worth the while ”— Who knows ? orwhether this earth-narrow life Be yet but yolk, and forming in the shell ? *¢ The shaft of scorn that once had stung But wakes a dotard smile.” The placid gleam of sunset after storm ! ‘‘The statesman’s brain that sway’d the | past Is feebler than his knees ; The passive sailor wrecks at last In ever-silent seas ; THE ANCIENT SAGE: The warrior hath forgot his arms, The Learned all his lore ; The changing market frets or charms The merchant’s hope no more ; The prophet’s beacon burn’d in vain, And now is lost in cloud ; The plowman passes, bent with pain, To mix with what he plow’d ; The poet whom his Age would quote As heir of endless fame— He knows not ev’n the book he wrote, Not even his own name. For man has overlived his day, And, darkening in the light, Scarce feels the senses break away To mix with ancient Night.” Theshellmust break before the birdcan fly. ‘‘The years that when my Youth began Had set the lily and rose By all my ways where’er they ran, Have ended mortal foes ; My rose of love for ever gone, My lily of truth and trust— They made her lily and rose in one, And changed her into dust. O rosetree planted in my grief, And growing, on her tomb, Her dust is greening in your leaf, Her blood is in your bloom. O slender lily waving there, And laughing back the light, In vain you tell me ‘ Earth is fair’ When all is dark as night.” My son, the world is dark with griefs and graves, So dark that men cry out against the Heavens. Who knows but that the darkness is in man? The doors of Night may be the gates of Light ; For wert thou born or blind or deaf, and then Suddenly heal’d, how would’st thou glory in all The splendours and the voices of the world ! And we, the poor earth’s dying race, andy) No phantoms, watching from a phanto shore e Await the last and largest sense to mak The phantom walls of this illusion fade! And show us that the world is wholly fai «* But vain the tears for darken’d yea As laughter over wine, And vain the laughter as the tears, O brother, mine or thine, For all that laugh, and all that weep. And all that breathe areone Slight ripple on the boundless deep — That moves, and all is gone.” But that one ripple on the boundless de Feels that the deep is boundless, a’ itself = | For ever changing form, but evermore _ One with the boundless motion of t deep. ‘‘ Yet wine and laughter friends ! and: The lamps alight, and call For golden music, and forget The darkness of the pall.” If utter darkness closed the day, i) son But earth’s dark forehead flings athwi| the heavens Her shadow crown’d with stars—a_ yonder—out To northward—some that never seth pass q From sight and night to lose themsel’) in day. | I hate the black negation of the bier, | And wish the dead, as happier than 0) selves And higher, having climb’d one si! beyond Our village miseries, might be bose white To burial or to burning, hymn’d fr hence With songs in praise of death, 2) crown’d with flowers ! | ~ THE ANCIENT SAGE. « 1emselves but shadows of a shadow- world. “And idle gleams will come and go, But still the clouds remain ; ” | + | | \ | I | 551 The clouds themselves are children of the Sun. *¢ And Night and Shadow rule below When only Day should reign.” And Day and Night are children of the Sun, And idle gleams to thee are light to me. Some say, the Light was father of the Night, And some, the Night was father of the Light, No night no day !—I touch thy world again— No ill no good! such counter-terms, my son, Are border-races, holding, each its own By endless war: but night enough is there In yon dark city: get thee back :, and since The key to that weird casket, which for thee But holds a skull, is neither thine nor mine, But in the hand of what is more than man, Or in man’s hand when man is more than man, Let be thy wail and help thy fellow men, And make thy gold thy vassal not thy king, And fling free alms into the beggar’s bow], And send the day into the darken’d heart ; Nor list for guerdon in the voice of men, A dying echo from a falling wall ; Nor care—for Hunger hath the Evil eye— To vex the noon with fiery gems, or fold Thy presence in the silk of sumptuous looms ; Nor roll thy viands on a luscious tongue, Nor drown thyself with flies in honied wine ; Nor thou be rageful, like a handled bee, And lose thy life by usage of thy sting ; Nor harm an adder thro’ the lust for harm, Nor make a snail’s horn shrink for wan- ‘tonness ; And more—think well! follow thought, And in the fatal sequence of this world Do-well will THEN LIGEaS 552 An evil thought may soil thy children’s blood ; But curb the beast would cast thee in the mire, And leave the hot swamp of voluptuous- ness A cloud between the Nameless and thyself, And lay thine uphill shoulder to the wheel, And climb the Mount of Blessing, whence, if thou Look higher, then—perchance—thou mayest— beyond A hundred ever-rising mountain lines, And past the range of Night and Shadow —see The high-heaven dawn of more than mortal day Strike on the Mount of Vision ! So, farewell. THE EEIGH A T. ARE you sleeping ? have you forgotten ? do not sleep, my sister dear! How caz you sleep? the morning brings the day I hate and fear; The cock has crow’d already once, he crows before his time}; Awake! the creeping glimmer steals, the hills are white with rime. UB Ah, clasp me in your arms, sister, ah, fold me to your breast ! Ah, let me weep my fill once more, and cry myself to rest! To rest? to rest and wake no more were better rest for me, Than to waken every morning to that face I loathe to see: III. T envied your sweet slumber, all night so calm you lay, The night was calm, the morn is calm, and like another day; But I could wish yon moaning sea wa rise and burst the shore, e And such a whirlwind blow these wood as never blew before, i IV For, one by one, the stars went dow across the gleaming pane, And project after project rose, and all: them were vain ; The blackthorn-blossom fades and fal and leaves the bitter sloe, The hope I catch at vanishes and ed is turn’d to woe. Ve % Come, speak a little comfort! all nig I pray’d with tears, And yet no comfort came to me, a now the morn appears, When he will tear me from your sid who bought me for his slave: This father pays his debt with me, | al weds me to my grave. VI. What father, this or mine, was he, wk on that summer day When I had fall’n from off the crag: clamber’d up in play, Found, fear’d me dead, and groan’d, a took and kiss’d me, and again He kiss’d me; and I loved him the he was my father then. VII. No father now, the tyrant vassal of tyrant vice! The Godless Jephtha vows his child. to one cast of the dice, These ancient woods, this Hall at 1 will go—perhaps have gone, Except his own meek daughter yield} life, heart, soul to one— VIII. To one who knows I scorn him. O° formal mocking bow, he cruel smile, the courtly phrase that masks his malice now— ut often in the sidelong eyes a gleam of all things ill— is not Love but Hate that weds a bride against her will; IX. ate, that would pluck from this true breast the locket that I wear, e@ precious crystal into which I braided Edwin’s hair ! 1¢ love that keeps this heart alive beats on it night and day— nie golden curl, his golden gift, before | he past away. X. 2 left us weeping in the woods; his | boat was on the sand; »w slowly down the rocks he went, how loth to quit the land! id all my life was darken’d, as I saw the white sail run, id darken, up that lane of light into the setting sun. XI. yw often have we watch’d the sun fade from us thro’ the West, d follow Edwin to those isles, those islands of the Blest! ihe not there ? would I were there, the friend, the bride, the wife, th him, where summer never dies, with Love, the Sun of life! XII. would I were in Edwin’s arms—once _ more—to feel his breath on my cheek—on Edwin’s ship, with Edwin, ev’n in death, 9 all about the shuddering wreck the death-white sea should rave, ‘if lip were laid to lip on the pillows of the wave. THEI PTAGHT, 553 XIII, Shall I take Azm? I kneel with Azmz? I swear and swear forsworn To love him most, whom most I loathe, to honour whom I scorn? The Fiend would yell, the grave would yawn, my mother’s ghost would rise— To lie, to lie—in God’s own house—the blackest of all lies! XIV. Why—rather than that hand in mine, tho’ every pulse would freeze, I’d sooner fold an icy corpse dead of some foul disease: Wed him? I will not wed him, let them spurn me from the doors, And I will wander till I die about the barren moors. XV. The dear, mad bride who stabb’d her bridegroom on her bridal night— If mad, then Iam mad, but sane, if she were in the right. My father’s madness makes me mad— but words are only words! I am not mad, not yet, not quite—There ! listen how the birds XVI. Begin to warble yonder in the budding orchard trees ! The lark has past from earth to Heaven upon the morning breeze ! How gladly, were I one of those, how early would I wake! And yet the sorrow that I bear is sorrow for hzs sake. XVII. They love their mates, to whom they sing; or else their songs, that meet The morning with such music, would never be so sweet! And tho’ these fathers will not hear, the blessed Heavens are just, 554) would trample it to dust. XVIII. A door was open’d in the house—who ? who? my father sleeps! A stealthy foot upon the stair! he—some one—this way creeps! If he? yes, he. . . lurks, listens, fears his victim may have fled— He! where is some sharp-pointed thing ? he comes, and finds me dead. XIX, Not he, not yet! and time to act—but how my temples burn! And idle fancies flutter me, I know not where to turn; Speak to me, sister; counsel me; marriage must not be. You only know the love that makes the world a world to me! this XX. Our gentle mother, had she lived—but we were left alone: That other left us to ourselves; he cared not for his own; So all the summer long we roam’d in these wild woods of ours, My Edwin loved to call us then ‘ His two wild woodland flowers.’ XXI. Wild flowers blowing side by side in God’s free light and air, Wild flowers of the secret woods, when Edwin found us there, Wild woods in which we roved with him, and heard his passionate vow, Wild woods in which we rove no more, if we be parted now ! XXII. You will not leave me thus in grief to wander forth forlorn ; THE PLIGHT, And Love is fire, and burns the feet | We never changed a bitter word ( once since we were born ; ; Our dying mother join’d our hands ; sh knew this father well ; She bad us love, like souls in Heave: and now I fly from Hell, XXIII. And you with me; and we shall lig upon some lonely shore, Some lodge within the waste sea-dune and hear the waters roar, And see the ships from out the West ; dipping thro’ the foam, And sunshine on that sail at last eA brings our Edwin home. . XXIV. But look, the morning grows apace, al. lights the old church-tower, And lights the clock! the hand poi five—O me—it strikes the hour: | I bide no more, I meet my fate, whates} ills betide ! Arise, my own true sister, come fort! the world is wide. XXYV. And yet my heart is ill at ease, mye are dim with dew, I seem to see a new-dug grave up yon by the yew! If we should never more return, | wander hand in hand - | With breaking hearts, without a frier and in a distant land. XXVI. O sweet, they tell me that the world) hard, and harsh of mind, But can it be so hard, so harsh, as thc that should be kind? 2 That matters not: let come what wi at last the end is sure, 4 And every heart that loves with truth equal to endure. TOMORROW. F; Ter, that yer Honour was spakin’ to? Whin, yer Honour? last year— standin’ here be the bridge, when last yer Honour was here ? in’ yer Honour ye gev her the top of the mornin’, ‘ Tomorra’ says she. Vhat did they call her, yer Honour? They call’d her Molly Magee. am’ yer Honour’s the thrue ould blood that always manes to be kind, jut there’s rason in all things, yer Honour, for Molly was out of her mind. JB hure, an’ meself remimbers wan night | comin’ down be the sthrame, nm it seems to me now like a bit of yisther-day in a dhrame— fere where yer Honour seen her—there ___-was but a slip of a moon, “ut I hard thim—Molly Magee wid her eo batchelor, Danny O’ Roon— ‘Youve been takin’ a dhrop o’ the crathur’ an’ Danny says ‘ Troth, an’ I been -hrinkin’ yer health wid Smee O’Shea at Katty’s shebeen ;1 ut I must be lavin’ ye soon.’ are ye goin’ away ?’ soin’ to cut the Sassenach whate’ he says ‘over the say’ \n’ whin will ye meet me agin?’ an’ I hard him ‘ Molly asthore, (l meet you agin tomorra,” says he, ‘be the chapel-door.’ An’ whin are ye goin’ to lave me?’ ‘OQ’ Monday mornin’’ says he ; \n’ shure thin ye’ll meet me tomorra ‘Tomorra, tomorra, Machree !’ ain Molly’s ould mother, yer Honour, that had no likin’ for Dan, Pd from her cabin an’ tould her to come away from the man, * Ochone re a 1 Grog-shop. TOMORROW. 555 An’ Molly Magee kem flyin’ acrass me, as light as a lark, An’ Dan stood there for a minute, an’ thin wint into the dark. But wirrah! the storm that night—the tundher, an’ rain that fell, An’ the sthrames runnin’ down at the back o’ the glin’ud ’a dhrownded Hell. Ill. But airth was at pace nixt mornin’, an’ Hiven in its glory smiled, As the Holy Mother o’ Glory that smiles at her sleepin’ child— Ethen—she stept an the chapel-green, an’ she turn’d herself roun’ Wid a diamond dhrop in her eye, for Danny was not to be foun’, An’ many’s the time that I watch’d her at mass lettin’ down the tear, For the Divil a Danny was there, yer Honour, for forty year. IV. Och, Molly Magee, wid the red o’ the rose an’ the white o’ the May, An’ yer hair as black as the night, an’ yer eyes as bright as the day ! Achora, yer laste little whishper was sweet as the lilt of a bird ! Acushla, ye set me heart batin’ to music wid ivery word ! An’ sorra the Queen wid her sceptre in sich an illigant han’, An’ the fall of yer foot in the dance was as light as snow an the lan’, An’ the sun kem out of a cloud whiniver ye walkt in the shtreet, An’ Shamus O’Shea was yer shadda, an’ laid himself undher yer feet, An’ I loved ye meself wid a heart and a half, me darlin’, and he ’Ud ’a shot his own sowl dead for a kiss of ye, Molly Magee. V. But shure we wor betther frinds whin I crack’d his skull for her sake, 556 An’ he ped me back wid the best he could give at ould Donovan’s wake— For the boys wor about her agin whin Dan didn’t come to the fore, Ar’ Shamus along wid the rest, but she put thim all to the door, An’, afther, I thried her meself av the bird ’ud come to me call, But Molly, begorrah, ’ud listhen to naither at all, at all. MALS An’ her nabours an frinds ’ud consowl an’ condowl wid her, airly and late, ‘Your Danny,’ they says, ‘niver crasst over say to the Sassenach whate ; He’s gone to the States, aroon, an’ he’s married another wife, An’ ye’ll niver set eyes an the face of the thraithur agin in life! An’ to dhrame of a married man, death alive, is a mortial sin.’ But Molly says ‘1’d his hand-promise, an’ shure he’ll meet me agin.’ Vil. Aw afther her paarints had inter’d glory, an’ both in wan day, She began to spake to herself, crathur, an whishper, an’ say ‘Tomorra, Tomorra!’ an’ Father Mo- lowny he tuk her in han’, ‘Molly, youre manin’,’ he says, dear, av I undherstan’, That ye’ll meet your padrints agin an’ yer Danny O’Roon afore God Wid his blessed Marthyrs an’ Saints ;’ an’ she gev him a frindly nod, ‘Tomorra, Tomorra,’ she says, an’ she didn’t intind to desave, But her wits wor dead, an’ her hair was as white as the snow an a grave. the *me VIII. Arrah now, here last month they wor diggin’ the bog, an’ they foun’ Dhrownded in black bog-wather a corp lyin’ undher groun’. TOMORROW. IX. Yer Honour’s own agint, he says to m™ wanst, at Katty’s shebeen, ‘The Divil take all the black lan’, for: blessin’ ’ud come wid the green! An’ where ’ud the poor man, thin, cu his bit o’ turf for the free a But och! bad scran to the bogs E | they swallies the man intire! | An’ sorra the bog that’s in Hiven wid a the light an’ the glow, e | An’ there’s hate enough, shure, widor thim in the Divil’s kitchen below y A Thim ould blind nagers in Agypt, I har his Riverence say, Could keep their haithen kings in th flesh for the tbe ee day, An’, faix, be the piper o’ Moses, they gq the cat an’ the dog, | But it ’ud ’a been aisier work ay if lived be an Irish bog. = | XI. How-an-iver they laid this body aie foun’ an the grass q Be the chapel-door, an’ the people tj see it that wint in to mass— But a frish gineration had riz, an’ ho} of the ould was few, An’ I didn’t know him meself, an’ nor of the parish knew. XI. | But Molly kem limpin’ up wid her stic!| she was lamed iva knee, Thin a slip of a gossoon call’d, ‘Div, know him, Molly Magee ?? An’ she stood up strait as the Queen | the world—she lifted her head-_ ‘He said he would meet me tomorta| an’ dhropt down dead an the dea} —— Abs Och, Molly, we thought, machree, _ would start back agin into life, | Whin we laid yez, aich be aich, at y) wake like husban’ an’ wife. | iorra the dhry eye thin but was wet for the frinds that was gone ! vorra the silent throat but we hard it cryin’ ‘ Ochone !’ im’ Shamus O’Shea that has now ten childer, hansome an’ tall, lim an’ his childer wor keenin’ as if he had lost thim all. AlV. ‘hin his Riverence buried thim both in | wan grave be the dead boor-tree,! ‘he young man Danny O’Roon wid his ould woman, Molly Magee. XV. fay all the flowers 0’ Jeroosilim blossom an’ spring from the grass, nbrashin’ an’ kissin’ aich other—as ye } did—over yer Crass ! qv the lark fly out o’ the flowers wid his song to the Sun an’ the Moon, tell thim in Hiven about Molly Magee an’ her Danny O’Roon, ill Holy St. Pether gets up wid his kays an’ opens the gate ! w shure, be the Crass, that’s betther | nor cuttin’ the Sassenach whate ‘0 be there wid the Blessed Mother, an’ Saints an’ Marthyrs galore, wy singin’ yer ‘ Aves’ an’ ‘ Pathers’ for iver an’ ivermore. XVI. mW now that I tould yer Honour what- iver I hard an’ seen, er Honour ’ill give me a thrifle to dhrink yer health in potheen. THE SPINSTER’S SWEET- ARTS. I. ‘ILK for my sweet-arts, Bess ! fur it mun | be the time about now Jhen Molly cooms in fro’ the far-end close wi’ her paiails fro’ the cow. 1 Elder-tree, P THE SPINSTER’S SWEET-ARTS. 557 Eh! tha be new to the plaaice—thou’rt gadpin’—doesn’t tha see I calls ’em arter the fellers es once was sweet upo’ me? te Nady to be sewer it be past ’er time. What maikes ’er sa laate ? Goa to the ladne at the back, an’ loodk thruf Maddison’s gaiate ! III. Sweet-arts ! Molly belike may ’a lighted to-night upo’ one. Sweet-arts ! thanks to the Lord that I niver not listen’d to noan ! So I sits ? my oan armchair wi’ my oan kettle theere o’ the hob, An’ Tommy the fust, an’ Tommy the second, an’ Steevie an’ Rob. IV. Rob, coom oop ’ere 0? my knee. Thou sees that i’ spite o’ the men I ’a kep’ thruf thick an’ thin my two ?oonderd a-year to mysen ; Yis ! thaw tha call’d me es pretty es ony lass 1’ the Shere; An’ thou be es pretty a Tabby, but Robby I seed thruf ya theere. Vv. Feyther ’ud saay I wur ugly es sin, an’ I beant not vadin, But I niver wur downright hugly, thaw soom ’ud ’a thowt ma plaain, An’ I wasn’t sa pladin ? pink ribbons, ye said I wur pretty 1’ pinks, An I liked to ’ear it I did, but I bedant sich a fool as ye thinks ; Ye was stroakin ma down wi the ’air, as I be a-stroakin o’ you, But whiniver I loodked 7’ the glass I wur sewer that it couldn’t be true; Niver wur pretty, not I, but ye knaw’d it wur pleasant to ’ear, Thaw it warn’t not me es wur pretty, but my two ’oonderd a-year, 558 VI. D’ya mind the murnin’ when we was a- walkin’ togither, an’ stood By the claay’d-oop pond, that the foalk be sa scared at, i’ Gigglesby wood, Wheer the poor wench drowndid hersen, black Sal, es ’ed been disgraaced ? Ar’ I feel’d thy arm es I stood wur a- creeapin about my waiaist ; An’ me es wur allus afear’d of a man’s sittin’ ower fond, I sidled awaay an’ awaay till I plumpt foot fust 1’ the pond ; And, Robby, I niver ’a liked tha sa well, as I did that daay, Fur tha joompt in thysen, an’ tha hoickt my feet wi’ a flop fro’ the claay. Ay, stick oop thy back, an’ set oop thy taail, tha may gie ma a kiss, Fur I walk’d wi’ tha all the way hoam an’ wur niver sa nigh saayin’ Yis. But wa boadth was i’ sich a clat we was shaamed tocross Gigglesby Greean, Fur a cat may loook at a king thou knaws but the cat mun be clean. Sa we boath on us kep out o’ sight o’ the ‘winders 0’ Gigglesby Hinn— Nady, but the claws o’ tha! quiet ! they pricks clean thruf to the skin— Aw’ wa boath slinkt ’oim by the brokken shed 7’ the laane at the back, Wheer the poodle runn’d at tha once, an’ thou runn’d oop o’ the thack ; An’ tha squeedg’d my ’and 7’ the shed, fur theere we was forced to ’ide, Fur I seed that Steevie wur coomin’, and one o’ the Tommies beside. VII. Theere now, what art’amewin at, Steevie? for owt I can tell— Robby wur fust to be sewer, or I mowt ’a liked tha as well. VIII. But, Robby, I thowt o’ tha all the while I wur chaangin’ my gown, An’ I thowt shall I chaainge my staate ? but, O Lord, upo’ coomin’ down— THE SPINSTER’S SWEET-ARTS: My bran-new carpet es fresh es a mide o’ flowers 1’ Maay— i Why ’edn’t tha wiped thy. shoes ? it we clatted all ower wi’ claay. An’ I could ’a cried ammost, fur I see that it couldn’t be, | An’ Robby I gied tha a raatin that sattle thy coortin o’ me. s An’ Molly an’ me was agreed, as we we a-cleanin’ the floor, That a man bea durty thing an’ a tr oul an’ plague wi’ indoor. 4 But I rued it arter a bit, fur I stuck t tha moor na the sss But I couldn’t ’a lived wi’ a man an’ | knaws it be all fur the best. — ie IX. Nady—let ma strodk tha down till | maakes tha es smooth es silk, But if I ’ed married tha, Robby, thou’) not ’a been worth thy milk, . Thow’d niver ’a cotch’d ony mice but left me the work to do, And ’a taden to the bottle beside, so 1) all that I ’ears be true; But I loovs tha to maiike thysen ‘app’ an’ soa purr awaay, my dear, | Thou ’ed wellnigh purr’d ma awaay fr my oan two ’oonderd a-year. | dG Sweirin agean, you Toms, as ye used ‘| do twelve year sin’! \ Ye niver ’eird Steevie swear ’cep’ it wi at a dog coomin’ in, An’ boath o’ ye mun be fools to be hall a-shawin’ your claws, | Fur I niver cared nothink for neither-| an’ one o” ye dead ye knaws! | Coom give hoaver then, weant ye? | warrant ye soom fine daidy—~ | Theere, lig down—I shall hev to gie ol or tother awaay. Can’t ye taake pattern by Steevie? } shant hev a drop fro’ the paiil. | Steevie be right good manners bang thr ; to the tip o’ the taail. ; xr S.. ; git down wi’tha, wilt tha? let a = Steevie coom oop o’ my knee. iteevie, my lad, thou ’ed very nigh been Wee the Steevie fur me ! Aobby wur fust to be sewer, ’e wur burn an’ bred 7’ the ’ouse, but thou be es ’ansom a tabby es iver _patted a mouse. XII. w I beant not vadin, but I knaws I ’ed led tha a quieter life for her wi’ the hepitaph yonder ! fadithful an’ loovin’ wife !” n’’cos ’o thy farm by the beck, an’ thy windmill oop o’ the croft, ha thowt tha would marry ma, did tha? but that wur a bit ower soft, haw thou was es soiber es dady, wi’ a niced red faace, an’ es clean sa shillin’ fresh fro’ the mint wi’ a bran- new ’ead o’ the Queedan, n’ thy farmin’ es clean es thysen’, fur, Steevie, tha kep’ it sa neat hat I niver not spied sa much es a poppy along wi’ the wheat, the wool of a thistle a-flyin’ an’ seeadin’ tha haated to see; ‘wur es bad es a battle-twig! ’ere ’i my oan blue chaumber to me. y, roob thy whiskers agean ma, fur I could ’a taden to tha well, it fur thy bairns, gor Steevie, a bouncin’ boy an’ a gell. co A ny XIII. 1 thou was es fond o’ thy bairns es I be mysen o’ my cats, it I niver not wish’d fur childer, I hevn’t naw likin’ fur brats ; etty anew when ya dresses ’em oop, an’ they gods fur a walk, sits wi’ their ’ands afoor ’em, an’ doesn’t not ’inder the talk! +t their bottles o’ pap, an’ their mucky bibs, an’ the clats an’ the clouts, of 1 Farwig. THE SPINSTER’S SWEET-ARTS. 550, An’ their mashin’ their toys to pieaces an? maakin’ ma deaf wi’ their shouts, An’ hallus a-joompin’ about ma as if they was set upo’ springs, An’ a haxin’ ma hawkard questions, an’ saayin’ ondecent things, An’ a-callin’ ma ‘hugly’ mayhap to my faace, or a tearin’ my gown— dear! dear! I mun part them Tommies—Steevie git down. Dear! XIV. Ye be wuss nor the men-tommies, you. I tell’d ya, na moor o’ that ! Tom, lig theere o’ the cushion, an’ tother Tom ’ere o’ the mat. XV. Theere! I ha’ master’d ¢hem/ Hed I married the Tommies—O Lord, To loove an’ obaay the Tommies! I couldn’t ’a stuck by my word. To be horder’d about, an’ waaked, when Molly ’d put out the light, By a man coomin’ in wi’ a hiccup at ony hour o’ the night ! An’ the taable stadin’d wi’ ’is aale, an’ the mud o’ ’is boots o’ the stairs, An’ the stink o’ ’is Pipe ‘1 the: ’ouse; an’ the mark o’ ‘is ’edd o’ the chairs! An’ noan o’ my four sweet-arts ’ud ’a let me ’a hed my oan waay, Sa I likes ’em best wi’ taails when they ’evn’t a word to saay. XVI. An’ I sits ’i my ofan little parlour, an’ sarved by my oan little lass, Wi’ my oan little garden outside, an’ my oan bed o’ sparrow-grass, An’ my oan door-poorch wi the wood- bine an’ jessmine a-dressin’ it greean, An’ my oan fine Jackman i’ purple a roabin’ the ’ouse like a Queedan. 560 4 LOCKSLE Y HAL XVII. An’ the little gells bobs to ma hoffens es I be abroad 7’ the laanes, When I gods fur to coomfut the poor es be down wi’ their haaches an’ their padins: An’ a haaf-pot o’ jam, or a mossel o’ meat when it beant too dear, They madkes ma a gradter Laddy nor ’er 1 the mansion theer, Hes ’es hallus to hax of a man how much to spare or to spend; An’ a spinster I be an’ I will be, if soa please God, to the hend. Mew! mew!—Bess wi’ the milk! wh ha maiide our Molly sa laiite? It should ’a been ’ére by seven, an’ thee —it be strikin’ height— | ‘Cushie wur craiized fur ’er cauf’ well—_ ’eard ’er a maikin’ ’er moan, — An’ I thowt to mysen ‘thank God that. hevn’t naw cauf o’ my oan.’ : Theere! B| Set it down! @ Now Robby! You Tommies shall waiit to-nig Till Robby an’ Steevie ’es ’ed their | —an’ it sarves ye right, LOCKSLEY HALL SIXTY YEARS Ae LATE, my grandson! half the morning have I paced these sandy tracts, Watch’d again the hollow ridges roaring into cataracts, Wander’d back to living boyhood while I heard the curlews call, I myself so close on death, and death itself in Locksley Hall. So—your happy suit was blasted—she the faultless, the divine; And you liken—boyish babble—this boy-love of yours with mine. I myself have often babbled doubtless of a foolish past ; Babble, babble; our old England may go down in babble at last, ‘Curse him!’ curse your fellow-victim? call him dotard in your rage? — Eyes that lured a doting boyhood well might fool a dotard’s age. Jilted for a wealthier! wealthier ? yet perhaps she was not wise; I remember how you kiss’d the miniature with those sweet eyes. In the hall there hangs a painting—Amy’s arms about my neck— Happy children in a sunbeam sitting on the ribs of wreck. In my life there was a picture, she that clasp’d my neck had flown; I was left within the shadow sitting on the wreck alone. Yours has been a slighter ailment, will you sicken for her sake? You, not you! your modern amourist is of easier, earthlier make. Amy loved me, Amy fail’d me, Amy was a timid child; But your Judith—but your worldling—she had never driven me wild, _| SIXTY YEARS AFTER. 561 She that holds the diamond necklace dearer than the golden ring, She that finds a winter sunset fairer than a morn of Spring. She that in her heart is brooding on his briefer lease of life, While she vows ‘till death shall part us,’ she the would-be-widow wife. She the worldling born of worldlings—father, mother—be content, Ev’n the homely farm can teach us there is something in descent. Yonder in that chapel, slowly sinking now into the ground, Lies the warrior, my forefather, with his feet upon the hound. Cross’d! for once he sail’d the sea to crush the Moslem in his pride; Dead the warrior, dead his glory, dead the cause in which he died. Yet how often I and Amy in the mouldering aisle have stood, Gazing for one pensive moment on that founder of our blood. There again I stood to-day, and where of old we knelt in prayer, Close beneath the casement crimson with the shield of Locksley—there, All in white Italian marble, looking still as if she smiled, Lies my Amy dead in child-birth, dead the mother, dead the child. Dead—and sixty years ago, and dead her aged husband now— I this old white-headed dreamer stoopt and kiss’d her marble brow. Gone the fires of youth, the follies, furies, curses, passionate tears, Gone like fires and floods and earthquakes of the planet’s dawning years. Fires that shook me once, but now to silent ashes fall’n away. Cold upon the dead volcano sleeps the gleam of dying day. Gone the tyrant of my youth, and mute below the chancel stones, All his virtues—I forgive them—black in white above his bones. Gone the comrades of my bivouac, some in fight against the foe, Some thro’ age and slow diseases, gone as all on earth will go. Gone with whom for forty years my life in golden sequence ran, She with all the charm of woman, she with all the breadth of man, Strong in will and rich in wisdom, Edith, yet so lowly-sweet, Woman to her inmost heart, and woman to her tender feet, Very woman of very woman, nurse of ailing body and mind, She that link’d again the broken chain that bound me to my kind. Here to-day was Amy with me, while I wander’d down the coast, Near us Edith’s holy shadow, smiling at the slighter ghost. Gone our sailor son thy father, Leonard early lost at sea ; Thou alone, my boy, of Amy’s kin and mine art left to me. 562 / LOCKSLEY HALL BS = Gone thy tender-natured mother, wearying to be left alone, Pining for the stronger heart that once had beat beside her own. Truth, for Truth is Truth, he worshipt, being true as he was brave; e Good, for Good is Good, he follow’d, yet he look’d beyond the grave, Wiser there than you, that crowning barren Death as lord of all, a Deem this over-tragic drama’s closing curtain is the pall! it Beautiful was death in him, who saw the death, but kept the deck, ie Saving women and their babes, and sinking with the sinking wreck, — s . . > Gone for ever! Ever? no—for since our dying race began, Od Ever, ever, and for ever was the leading light of man. Those that in barbarian burials kill’d the slave, and slew the wife P Felt within themselves the sacred passion of the second life. fo Indian warriors dream of ampler hunting grounds beyond the night; a Ev’n the black Australian dying hopes he shall return, a white. a Truth for truth, and good for good! The Good, the True, the Pure, the Ju = Take the charm ‘ For ever’ from them, and they crumble into dust. Gone the cry of ‘ Forward, Forward,’ lost within a growing gloom; Lost, or only heard in silence from the silence of a tomb, Half the marvels of my morning, triumphs over time and space, Staled by frequence, shrunk by usage into commonest commonplace! = ‘Forward’ rang the voices then, and of the many mine was one. Let us hush this cry of ‘ Forward’ till ten thousand years have gone. Far among the vanish’d races, old Assyrian kings would flay Captives whom they caught in battle—iron-hearted victors they. Ages after, while in Asia, he that led the wild Moguls, Timur built his ghastly tower of eighty thousand human skulls, Then, and here in Edward’s time, an age of noblest English names, "§ Christian conquerors took and flung the conquer’d Christian into flames. Love your enemy, bless your haters, said the Greatest of the great; _ ‘ Christian love among the Churches look’d the twin of heathen hate. From the golden alms of Blessing man had coin’d himself a curse: — r ( Rome of Czesar, Rome of Peter, which was crueller ? which was worse Fr France had shown a light to all men, preach’d a Gospel, all men’s good; Celtic Demos rose a Demon, shriek’d and slaked the light with blood. Hope was ever on her mountain, watching till the day begun— Crown’d with sunlight—over darkness—from the still unrisen sun. SIXTY VEARS AFTER. 563 Have we grown at last beyond the passions of the primal clan ? ‘ Kill your enemy, for you hate him,’ still, ‘your enemy’ was a man. Have we sunk below them? peasants maim the helpless horse, and drive Innocent cattle under thatch, and burn the kindlier brutes alive. Brutes, the brutes are not your wrongers—burnt at midnight, found at morn, Twisted hard in mortal agony with their offspring, born-unborn, Clinging to the silent mother! Are we devils? are we men? Sweet St. Francis of Assisi, would that he were here again, He that in his Catholic wholeness used to call the very flowers Sisters, brothers—and the beasts—whose pains are hardly less than ours ! Chaos, Cosmos ! Cosmos, Chaos ! who can tell how all will end ? Read the wide world’s annals, you, and take their wisdom for your friend. Hope the best, but hold the Present fatal daughter of the Past, Shape your heart to front the hour, but dream not that the hour will last. Ay, if dynamite and revolver leave you courage to be wise: When was age so cramm/’d with menace? madness? written, spoken lies? Envy wears the mask of Love, and, laughing sober fact to scorn, Cries to Weakest as to Strongest, ‘ Ye are equals, equal-born.’ Equal-born? O yes, if yonder hill be level with the flat. Charm us, Orator, till the Lion look no larger than the Cat, Till the Cat thro’ that mirage of overheated language loom Larger than the Lion,—Demos end in working its own doom. Russia bursts our Indian barrier, shall we fight her? shall we yield? Pause ! before you sound the trumpet, hear the voices from the field. Those three hundred millions under one Imperial sceptre now, Shall we hold them? shall we loose them? take the suffrage of the plow. Nay, but these would feel and follow Truth if only you and you, Rivals of realm-ruining party, when you speak were wholly true. Plowmen, Shepherds, have I found, and more than once, and still could find, Sons of God, and kings of men in utter nobleness of mind, Truthful, trustful, looking upward to the practised hustings-liar ; So the Higher wields the Lower, while the Lower is the Higher. Here and there a cotter’s babe is royal-born by right divine ; Here and there my lord is lower than his oxen or his swine. Chaos, Cosmos ! Cosmos, Chaos! once again the sickening game; Freedom, free to slay herself, and dying while they shout her name. 564 LOCKSLEY HALL Step by step we gain’d a freedom known to Europe, known to all; Step by step we rose to greatness,—thro’ the tonguesters we may fall. You that woo the Voices—-tell them ‘old experience is a fool,’ Teach your flatter’d kings that only those who cannot read can rule. Pluck the mighty from their seat, but set no meek ones in their place; _ Pillory Wisdom in your markets, pelt your offal at her face. Tumble Nature heel o’er head, and, yelling with the yelling street, Set the feet above the brain and swear the brain is in the feet. Bring the old dark ages back without the faith, without the hope, Break the State, the Church, the Throne, and roll their ruins down the slope Authors—essayist, atheist, novelist, realist, rhymester, play your part, Paint the mortal shame of nature with the living hues of Art. Rip your brothers’ vices open, strip your own foul passions bare; ; Down with Reticence, down with Reverence—forward—naked—let them sta re Feed the budding rose of boyhood with the drainage of your sewer; Send the drain into the fountain, lest the stream should issue pure. Set the maiden fancies wallowing in the troughs of Zolaism,— Forward, forward, ay and backward, downward too into the abysm. Do your best to charm the worst, to lower the rising race of men; Have we risen from out the beast, then back into the beast again ? Only ‘dust to dust’ for me that sicken at your lawless din, Dust in wholesome old-world dust before the newer world begin. Heated am I? you—you wonder—well, it scarce becomes mine age— 4 Patience ! let the dying actor mouth his last upon the stage. a Cries of unprogressive dotage ere the dotard fall asleep ? Noises of a current narrowing, not the music of a deep? Ay, for doubtless I am old, and think gray thoughts, for I am gray: After all the stormy changes shall we find a changeless May? After madness, after massacre, Jacobinism and Jacquerie, Some diviner force to guide us thro’ the days I shall not see? When the schemes and all the systems, Kingdoms and Republics fall, Something kindlier, higher, holier—all for each and each for all ? : All the full-brain, half-brain races, led by Justice, Love, and Truth; All the millions one at length with all the visions of my youth? All diseases quench’d by Science, no man halt, or deaf or blind; Stronger ever born of weaker, lustier body, larger mind ? at a SITY VYEZARS ALTER. 565 Earth at last a warless world, a single race, a single tongue— I have seen her far away—for is not Earth as yet so young ?>— Every tiger madness muzzled, every serpent passion kill’d, Every grim ravine a garden, every blazing desert till’d, Robed in universal harvest up to either pole she smiles, Universal ocean softly washing all her warless Isles. Warless ? when her tens are thousands, and her thousands millions, then— All her harvest all too narrow—who can fancy warless men ? Warless ? war will die out late then. Will it ever? late or soon? Can it, till this outworn earth be dead as yon dead world the moon? Dead the new astronomy calls her. . . . On this day and at this hour, In this gap between the sandhills, whence you see the Locksley tower, Here we met, our latest meeting—Amy—-sixty years ago— She and I—the moon was falling greenish thro’ a rosy glow, : Just above the gateway tower, and even where you see her now— Here we stood and claspt each other, swore the seeming-deathless vow. . . . Dead, but how her living glory lights the hall, the dune, the grass ! Yet the moonlight is the sunlight, and the sun himself will pass. Venus near her ! smiling downward at this earthlier earth of ours, Closer on the Sun, perhaps a world of never fading flowers. Hesper, whom the poet call’d the Bringer home of all good things. | All good things may move in Hesper, perfect peoples, perfect kings. Hesper—Venus—were we native to that splendour or in Mars, We should see the Globe we groan in, fairest of their evening stars. Could we dream of wars and carnage, craft and madness, lust and spite, Roaring London, raving Paris, in that point of peaceful light ? Might we not in glancing heavenward on a star so silver-fair, Yearn, and clasp the hands and murmur, ‘ Would to God that we were there’? Forward, backward, backward, forward, in the immeasurable sea, Sway’d by vaster ebbs and flows than can be known to you or me. All the suns—are these but symbols of innumerable man, Man or Mind that sees a shadow of the planner or the plan? Is there evil but on earth? or pain in every peopled sphere ? Well be grateful for the sounding watchword ‘ Evolution’ here, Evolution ever climbing after some ideal good, And Reversion ever dragging Evolution in the mud, 566 LOCKSIEYV VAT 7 What are men that He should heed us? cried the king of sacred song; ‘ Insects of an hour, that hourly work their brother insect wrong, — ; While the silent Heavens roll, and Suns along their fiery way, a All their planets whirling round them, flash a million miles a day. c Many an AZon moulded earth before her highest, man, was born, Many an A‘on too may pass when earth is manless and forlorn, 4 Earth so huge, and yet so bounded—pools of salt, and plots of land—_ Shallow skin of green and azure—chains of mountain, grains of sand! Only That which made us, meant us to be mightier by and by, Set the sphere of all the boundless Heavens within the human eye, Sent the shadow of Himself, the boundless, thro’ the human soul; Boundless inward, in the atom, boundless outward, in the Whole. * * ¥ * * * * Here is Locksley Hall, my grandson, here the lion-guarded gate. Not to-night in Locksley Hall—to-morrow—you, you come so late. Wreck’d—your train—or all but wreck’d? a shatter’d wheel? a vicious bor Good, this forward, you that preach it, is it well to wish you joy? | Is it well that while we range with Science, glorying in the Time, City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime ? There among the glooming alleys Progress halts on palsied feet, Crime and hunger cast our maidens by the thousand on the street. There the Master scrimps his haggard sempstress of her daily bread, ; There a single sordid attic holds the living and the dead. \ There the smouldering fire of fever creeps across the rotted floor, And the crowded couch of incest in the warrens of the poor. Nay, your pardon, cry your ‘ forward,’ yours are hope and youth, but L- Eighty winters leave the dog too lame to follow with the cry, Lame and old, and past his time, and passing now into the night; Yet I would the rising race were half as eager for the light. Light the fading gleam of Even? light the glimmer of the dawn? Aged eyes may take the growing glimmer for the gleam withdrawn. Far away beyond her myriad coming changes earth will be Something other than the wildest modern guess of you and me. Earth may reach her earthly-worst, or if she gain her earthly-best, j Would she find her human offspring this ideal man at rest? ‘ia Forward then, but still remember how the course of Time will swerve, Crook and turn upon itself in many a backward streaming curve. wikdl VEAAS ALTER, 567 Not the Hall to-night, my grandson ! Death and Silence hold their own. Leave the Master in the first dark hour of his last sleep alone. Worthier soul was he than I am, sound and honest, rustic Squire, Kindly landlord, boon companion—youthful jealousy is a liar. Cast the poison from your bosom, oust the madness from your brain. Let the trampled serpent show you that you have not lived in vain. Youthful ! youth and age are scholars yet but in the lower school, Nor is he the wisest man who never proved himself a fool. Yonder lies our young sea-village—Art and Grace are less and less: Science grows and Beauty dwindles—roofs of slated hideousness ! There is one old Hostel left us where they swing the Locksley shield, Till the peasant cow shall butt the ‘ Lion passant’ from his field. Poor old Heraldry, poor old History, poor old Poetry, passing hence, In the common deluge drowning old political common-sense ! Poor old voice of eighty crying after voices that have fled! _ All I loved are vanish’d voices, all my steps are on the dead. All the world is ghost to me, and as the phantom disappears, Forward far and far from here is all the hope of eighty years. * * * * * * % In this Hostel—I remember—lI repent it o’er his grave— Like a clown—by chance he met me—I refused the hand he gave. From that casement where the trailer mantles all the mouldering bricks—’ I was then in early boyhood, Edith but a child of six— While I shelter’d in this archway from a day of driving showers— Peept the winsome face of Edith like a flower among the flowers. Here to-night! the Hall to-morrow, when they toll the Chapel bell ! Shall I hear in one dark room a wailing, ‘I have loved thee well.’ Then a peal that shakes the portal—one has come to claim his bride, Her that shrank, and put me from her, shriek’d, and started from my side— Silent echoes! You, my Leonard, use and not abuse your day, Move among your people, know them, follow him who led the way, Strove for sixty widow’d years to help his homelier brother men, Served the poor, and built the cottage, raised the school, and drain’d the fen. Hears he now the Voice that wrong’d him? who shall swear it cannot be? Earth would never touch her worst, were one in fifty such as he. Ere she gain her Heavenly-best, a God must mingle with the game: Nay, there may be those about us whom we neither see nor name, 568 Felt within us as ourselves, the Powers of Good, the Powers of II], Strowing balm, or shedding poison in the fountains of the Will Follow you the Star that lights a desert pathway, yours or mine. Forward, till you see the highest Human Nature is divine. Follow Light, and do the Right—for man can half-control his doom— Till you find the deathless Angel seated in the vacant tomb. Forward, let the stormy moment fly and mingle with the Past. I that loathed, have come to love him. Gone at eighty, mine own age, and I and you will bear the pall; Then I leave thee Lord and Master, latest Lord of Locksley Hall. PROLOGUE TO GENERAL HAMLEY. Our birches yellowing and from each The light leaf falling fast, While squirrels from our fiery beech Were bearing off the mast, You came, and look’d and loved the view Long-known and loved by me, Green Sussex fading into blue With one gray glimpse of sea; And, gazing from this height alone, We spoke of what had been Most marvellous in the wars your own Crimean eyes had seen; And now—like old-world inns that take Some warrior for a sign That therewithin a guest may make True cheer with honest wine— Because you heard the lines I read Nor utter’d word of blame, I dare without your leave to head These rhymings with your name, Who know you but as one of those I fain would meet again, Yet know you, as your England knows That you and all your men Were soldiers to her heart’s desire, When, in the vanish’d year, You saw the league-long rampart-fire Flare from Tel-el-Kebir Thro’ darkness, and the foe was driven, And Wolseley overthrew Arabi, and the stars in heaven Paled, and the glory grew, PROLOGUE—THE CHARGE OF THE HEAVY BRIGADE. Love will conquer at the last. — THE CHARGE OF THE HEAVY BRIGADE AT BALACLAVA, — OCTOBER 25, 1854. i THE charge of the gallant three hundred, the Heavy Brigade! Down the hill, down the hill, thousa of Russians, Thousands of horsemen, drew tol : valley—and stay’d ; For Scarlett and Scarlett’s ‘three hund were riding by When the points of the Russian lances arose in the sky ; Co And he call’d ‘ Left wheel into line! and they wheel’d and obey’d. — Then he look’d at the host that I halted he knew not why, And he turn’d half round, and he bad his trumpeter sound To the charge, and he rode on ahead, as he waved his blade To the gallant three hundred whose gl will never die— ‘ Follow,’ and up the hill, up the hill, the hill, Follow’d the Heavy Brigade. IT. The trumpet, the gallop, the charge, and the might of the fight ! sae Thousands of horsemen had gather’d there on the height, | With a wing push’d out to the left and a wing to the right, And who shall escape if they close? but he dash’d up alone Thro’ the great gray slope of men, Sway’d his sabre, and held his own Like an Englishman there and then ; Allin a moment follow’d with force Three that were next in their fiery course, Wedged themselves in between horse and horse, Fought for their lives in the narrow gap || they had made— ‘Four amid thousands! and up the hill, up the hill, Gallopt the gallant three hundred, the Heavy Brigade. | III. _ Fell like a cannonshot, Burst like a thunderbolt, Crash’d like a hurricane, Broke thro’ the mass from below, _ Drove thro’ the midst of the foe, Plunged up and down, to and fro, Rode flashing blow upon blow, Have Inniskillens and Greys Whirling their sabres in circles of light ! And some of us, all in amaze, Who were held for a while from the fight, And were only standing at gaze, Nhen the dark-muffled Russian crowd “olded its wings from the left and the right, {nd roll’d them around like a cloud,— i ) mad for the charge and the battle were we, Vhen our own good redcoats sank from sight, uke drops of blood in a dark-gray sea, snd we turn’d to each other, whispering, all dismay’d, ‘Lost are the gallant three hundred of | Scarlett’s Brigade !’ THE CHARGE OF THE HEAVY BRIGADE. 569 IV. ‘Lost one and all’ were the words Mutter’d in our dismay ; But they rode like Victors and Lords Thro’ the forest of lances and swords In the heart of the Russian hordes, They rode, or they stood at bay— Struck with the sword-hand and slew, Down with the bridle-hand drew The foe from the saddle and threw Underfoot there in the fray— Ranged like a storm or stood like a In the wave of a stormy day; Till suddenly shock upon shock Stagger’d the mass from without, Drove it in wild disarray, For our men gallopt up with a cheer and a shout, And the foeman surged, and waver’d, and reel’d Up the hill, up the hill, up the hill, out of the field, And over the brow and away. rock Vi. Glory to each and to all, and the charge that they made! Glory to all the three hundred, and all the Brigade! Note.—The ‘three hundred’ of the ‘ Heavy Brigade’ who made this famous charge were the Scots Greys and the 2nd squadron of Inniskil- lings ; the remainder of the ‘Heavy Brigade’ subsequently dashing up to their support. The ‘three’ were Scarlett’s aide-de-camp, Elliot, and the trumpeter and Shegog the orderly, who had been close behind him. EPILOGUE. IRENE. Not this way will you set your name A star among the stars. POET. What way? 570 LO VIRGTL IRENE, You praise when you should blame The barbarism of wars. A juster epoch has begun. POET. Yet tho’ this cheek be gray, And that bright hair the modern sun, Those eyes the blue to-day, You wrong me, passionate little friend. I would that wars should cease, I would the globe from end to end Might sow and reap in peace, And some new Spirit o’erbear the old, Or Trade re-frain the Powers From war with kindly links of gold, Or Love with wreaths of flowers. Slav, Teuton, Kelt, I count them all My friends and brother souls, With all the peoples, great and small, That wheel between the poles. But since, our mortal shadow, IIl To waste this earth began— Perchance from some abuse of Will In worlds before the man Involving ours—he needs must fight To make true peace his own, He needs must combat might with might, Or Might would rule alone ; And who loves War for War’s own sake Is fool, or crazed, or worse; But let the patriot-soldier take His meed of fame in verse; Nay—tho’ that realm were in the wrong For which her warriors bleed, It still were right to crown with song The warrior’s noble deed— A crown the Singer hopes may last, For so the deed endures ; But Song will vanish in the Vast; And that large phrase of yours ‘A Star among the stars,’ my dear, Is girlish talk at best ; Tor dare we dally with the sphere As he did half in jest, Old Horace? ‘I will strike’ said he ‘The stars with head sublime,’ But scarce could see, as now we see, The man in Space and Time, So drew perchance a happier lot Than ours, who rhyme to-day, The fires that arch this dusky dot— Yon myriad-worlded way— The vast sun-clusters’ gather’d blaze, World-isles in lonely skies, . Whole heavens within themselves, amaze Our brief humanities ; And so does Earth; for Homer’s fame, Tho’ carved in harder stone— . The falling drop will make his name As mortal as my own. IRENE. No! POET. o Let it live then—ay, till when? Earth passes, all is lost In what they prophesy, our wise men, Sun-flame or sunless frost, And deed and song alike are swept Away, and all in vain As far as man can see, except The man himself remain ; And tho’, in this lean age forlorn, Too many a voice may cry That man can have no after-morn, Not yet of these am I. The man remains, and whatsoe’er He wrought of good or brave Will mould him thro’ the cycle-year That dawns behind the grave. And here the Singer for his Art Not all in vain may plead ‘The song that nerves a nation’s heart, Is in itself a deed,’ ie TO 'WVIRGIEs WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF THE MANTUANS FOR THE NINETEENTH | CENTENARY OF VIRGIL’S DEATH. 1 ROMAN VIRGIL, thou that singest Ilion’s lofty temples robed in fire, | ne a | Poe 4 Ilion falling, Rome arising, wars, and filial faith, and Dido’s pyre; . Ds _ Landscape-lover, lord of language i more than he that sang the Works | and Days, _ All the chosen coin of fancy flashing out from many a golden phrase ; III. Thou that singest wheat and woodland, tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd ; ‘All the charm of all the Muses often flowering in a lonely word; IV. Poet of the happy Tityrus piping underneath his beechen bowers ; Poet of the poet-satyr | whom the laughing shepherd h 4 bound with flowers ; Vi Chanter of the Pollio, glorying in the blissful years again to be, Summers of the snakeless meadow, unlaborious earth and oarless sea; VI. Thou that seést Universal Nature moved by Mind; Thou majestic in thy sadness at the doubtful doom of human kind; Universal VII. Light among the vanish’d ages; star that gildest yet this phantom shore; Solden branch amid the shadows, kings and realms that pass to rise no more; LAE DPA PROPANT, VIIl. Now thy Forum roars no longer, fallen every purple Ceesar’s dome— Tho’ thine ocean-roll of rhythm sound for ever of Imperial Rome— TX, Now the Rome of slaves hath perish’d, and the Rome of freemen holds her place, I, from out the Northern Island sunder’d once from all the human race, X. I salute thee, Mantovano, I that loved thee since my day began, Wielder of the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of man. GHEODPEADSERO PHT. 182-. I, DEAD! And the Muses cried with a stormy cry ‘Send them no more, for evermore, Let the people die.’ Il. Dead ! ‘Is it Ae then brought so low ?’ And a careless people flock’d from the fields With a purse to pay for the show. III. Dead, who had served his time, Was one of the people’s kings, Had labour’d in lifting them out of slime, And showing them, souls have wings ! 572 IV. Dumb on the winter heath he lay. His friends had stript him bare, And roll’d his nakedness everyway That all the crowd might stare. Vv. A storm-worn signpost not to be read, And a tree with a moulder’d nest, On its barkless bones, stood stark by the dead ; And behind him, low in the West, VIE With shifting ladders of shadow and light, And blurr’d in colour and form, The sun hung over the gates of Night, And glared at a coming storm. VII. Then glided a vulturous Beldam forth, That on dumb death had thriven; They call’d her ‘ Reverence’ here upon earth, And ‘The Curse of the Prophet’ in Heaven. VIII. She knelt—‘ We worship him ’—all but wept— ‘So great so noble was he!’ She clear’d her sight, she arose, she swept The dust of earth from her knee. IX. ‘Great! for he spoke and the people heard, And his eloquence caught like a flame From zone to zone of the world, till his Word Had won him a noble name. X. Noble! he sung, and the sweet sound ran Thro’ palace and cottage door, For he touch’d on the whole sad planet of man, The kings and the rich and the poor; THE DEAD FROPLET. XT. And he sung not alone of an old sw But a sun coming up in his ri Great and noble—O yes—but yet— For man is a lover of Truth, Sau s And bound to follow, wherever she go Stark-naked, and up or down, Thro’ her high hill- passes of stai snow, Or the foulest sewer of the towne XIII. Noble and great—O ay—but then, — Tho’ a prophet should have his di Was he noblier-fashion’d than other n Shall we see to it, land you? _ XIV. For since he would sit on a Prop seat, ‘ As a lord of the Human soul, We needs must scan him from head LO. feet \ Were it but for a wart or a mole? XV. His wife and his child stood by him in tears, : But she—she push’d them aside, — ‘Tho’ a name may last for a thou years, - Yet a truth is a truth,’ she cried. XVI. a And she that had haunted his pal AY still, a Had often truckled and cower’d When he rose in his wrath, and hae yielded her will i To the master, as overpower'd, XVII. She tumbled his helpless corpse about ‘Small blemish upon the skin But I think we know what is fair Is often as foul within,’ XVIII. _ She crouch’d, she tore him part from part, And out of his body she drew The red ‘Blood-eagle’! of liver and \ heart ; She held them up to the view; XIX. She gabbled, as she groped in the dead, And all the people were pleased ; _*See, what a little heart,’ she said, ‘ And the liver is half-diseased !’ XX. She tore the Prophet after death, ' And the people paid her well. _Lightnings flicker’d along the heath; _ One shriek’d ‘ The fires of Hell !’ EARLY SPRING. I. ONCE more the Heavenly Power Makes all things new, _ And domes the red-plow’d hills With loving blue ; The blackbirds have their wills, The throstles too. II. Opens a door in Heaven ; | From skies of glass A Jacob’s ladder falls | On greening grass, _ And o’er the mountain-walls Young angels pass, OWE Before them fleets the shower, And burst the buds, _ And shine the level lands, And flash the floods ; | The stars are from their hands Flung thro’ the woods, i i Old Viking term for lungs, liver, etc., when om by the conqueror out of the body of the 7 onquered. BARLEY SPRING-——-MIDNIGHT. aT Te The woods with living airs How softly fann’d, Light airs from where the deep, All down the sand, Is breathing in his sleep, Heard by the land. WE O follow, leaping blood, The season’s lure! O heart, look down and up Serene, secure, Warm as the crocus cup, Like snowdrops, pure! VI. Past, Future glimpse and fade Thro’ some slight spell, A gleam from yonder vale, Some far blue fell, And sympathies, how frail, In sound and smell! VII. Till at thy chuckled note, Thou twinkling bird, The fairy fancies range, And, lightly stirr’d, Ring little bells of change From word to word. VIII. For now the Heavenly Power Makes all things new,. And thaws the cold, and fills The flower with dew ; The blackbirds have their wills, The poets too, PREFATORY POEM TO MY BROTHER S®SONN EES: Midnight, June 30, 1879. I MIDNIGHT—in no midsummer tune The breakers lash the shores : 574 st ‘“FRATER AVE ATOUE VALE’—-HELEN SOC) Fae The cuckoo of a joyless June Is calling out of doors : And thou hast vanish’d from thine own To that which looks like rest, _ True brother, only to be known By those who love thee best. 1aG Midnight—and joyless June gone by, And from the deluged park The cuckoo of a worse July Is calling thro’ the dark : But thou art silent underground, And o’er thee streams the rain, True poet, surely to be found When Truth is found again. Ill. And, now to these unsummer’d skies The summer bird is still, Far off a phantom cuckoo cries From out a phantom hill ; And thro’ this midnight breaks the sun Of sixty years away, The light of days when life begun, The days that seem to-day, When all my griefs were shared with thee, As all my hopes were thine— As all thou wert was one with me, May all thou art be mine! ‘FRATER AVE ATQUE VALE,’ Row us out from Desenzano, to your Sirmione row ! So they row’d, and there we landed—‘ O venusta Sirmio !’ There to me thro’ all the groves of olive in the summer glow, There beneath the Roman ruin where the purple flowers grow, Came that ‘ Ave atque Vale’ of the Poet’s hopeless woe, Tenderest of Roman poets nineteen- hundred years ago, ‘Frater Ave atque Vale ’—as we wander'd to and fro Gazing at the Lydian laughter of ‘the Garda Lake below Sweet Catullus’s all-but-island, od silvery Sirmio ! te HELEN’S TOWER.! 4 HELEN’s TowkR, here I stand, & Dominant over sea and land. Son’s love built me, and I hold — Mother’s love in letter’d gold. { Love is in and out of time, . I am mortal stone and lime. Would my granite girth were 4 As either love, to last as long! I should wear my crown entire To and thro’ the Doomsday fire, — And be found of angel eyes é In earth’s recurring Paradise. Pp 4 EPITAPH ONSLORD STRAT. | FORD DE REDCLIFFE; In WESTMINSTER ABBEY.. : Tuou third great Canning, stand among our best And noblest, now thy long day’s work hath ceased, Here silent in our Minster of the West Who wert the voice of England in the | East. EPITAPH . ‘ ON GENERAL GORDON, r For A CENOTAPH. WARRIOR of God, man’s friend, not iid below, But somewhere dead far in the waste Soudan, Thou livest in all hearts, for all men iiow This earth has borne no simpler, noble: man. 1 Written at the request of my friend, Lord Dufferin. mreitAPH ON CAXTON. In St. MARGARET’S, WESTMINSTER. FIAT Lux (his motto). _ Tuy prayer was ‘ Light—more Light— | while Time shall last !’ _ Thou sawest a glory growing on the night, _ But not the shadows which that light would cast, : | “Till shadows vanish i in the Light of Light. ;| metO THE DUKE OF ARGYLL. 0 PATRIOT Statesman, be thou wise to know The limits of resistance, and the bounds ij ' Determining concession ; still be bold t Not only to slight praise but suffer scorn ; And be thy heart a fortress to maintain 1 The day against the moment, and the year “Against the day; heard Thro’ all the yells and counter-yells of | feud And faction, and thy will, a power to | make This ever-changing world of circumstance, In changing, chime with never-changing : Law. thy voice, a music HANDS ALL ROUND. i First pledge our Queen this solemn night, Then drink to England, every guest; That man’s the best Cosmopolite _ Who loves his native country best. May freedom’s oak for ever live | With stronger life from day to day; Chat man’s the true Conservative _ Who lops the moulder’d branch away. Hands all round! _ God the traitor’s hope confound ! EPITAPH ON CAXTON—FREEDOM. 575 To this great cause of Freedom drink, my friends, And the great name of England, round and round. To all the loyal hearts who long To keep our English Empire whole! To all our noble sons, the strong New England of the Southern Pole! To England under Indian skies, To those dark millions of her realm! To Canada whom we love and prize, Whatever statesman hold the helm. Hands all round! God the traitor’s hope confound ! To this great name of England drink, my friends, And all her glorious empire, round and round. To all our statesmen so they be True leaders of the land’s desire! To both our Houses, may they see Beyond the borough and the shire! We sail’d wherever ship could sail, We founded many a mighty state; Pray God our greatness may not fail Through craven fears of being great. Hands all round! God the traitor’s hope confound! To this great cause of Freedom drink, my friends, And the great name of England, round and round, FREEDOM. I. O THOU so fair in summers gone, While yet thy fresh and virgin soul Inform’d the pillar’d Parthenon, The glittering Capitol; Il. So fair in southern sunshine bathed, But scarce of such majestic mien As here with forehead vapour-swathed In meadows ever green; 576 III. For thou—when Athens reign’d and Rome, Thy glorious eyes were dimm’d with pain To mark in many a freeman’s home The slave, the scourge, the chain ; ° IV. O follower of the Vision, still In motion to the distant gleam, Howe’er blind force and brainless will May jar thy golden dream Vv. Of Knowledge fusing class with class, Of civic Hate no more to be, Of Love to leaven all the mass, Till every Soul be frees Vi. Who yet, like Nature, wouldst not mar By changes all too fierce and fast This order of Her Human Star, This heritage of the past ; VII. O scorner of the party cry That wanders from the public good, Thou—-when the nations rear on high _ Their idol smear’d with blood, VIIl. ‘ And when they roll their idol down—- Of saner worship sanely proud ; Thou loather of the lawless crown As of the lawless crowd; 1X. How long thine ever-growing mind Hath still’d the blast and strown the wave, Tho’ some of late would raise a wind Yo sing thee to thy grave, FREEDOIE— TOC, PRINCESS BEATRICE. x. . Men loud against all forms of power—_ Unfurnish’d brows, tempestuous © tongues— 3 Expecting all things in an hour— Brass mouths and iron lungs ! TO H:RiH. PRINCESS BEATRICE, Two Suns of Love make day of human life, Which else with all its pains, and griefs, and deaths, Were utter darkness— one, the Suna dawn That brightens thro’ the Mother’s tender eyes, And warms the child’s awakening would —and one The later-rising Sun of spousal Lovell . Which from her household orbit draws the child To move in other spheres. weeps | At that white funeral of the single life, : Her maiden daughter’s marriage; 4 her tears Are half of pleasure, half of pain—the child Is happy—ev’n in leaving her / but Thou, True daughter, whose all- faithful, filial eyes Have seen the loneliness of earthly tha | Wilt neither quit the widow’d Cr nor let This later light of Love have risen in vain, | But moving thro’ the Mother’s home, between 1 The two that love thee, lead a summel | life, Sway’d by each Love, and swaying te each Love, Like some conjectured planet in mi heaven 1 Between two Suns, and drawing dow from both Thelightand genial warmth of double aay. : The Mother | DTV RE EIT. 52, THE FLEET! I. You, you, zf you shall fail to under- = stand What England is, and what her all-in- all, On you will come the curse of all the land, Should this old England fall Which Nelson left so great. wer 1 The speaker said that ‘he should like to be assured that other outlying portions of the ‘Empire, the Crown colonies, and important coaling stations were being as promptly and as thoroughly fortified as the various capitals of the self-governing colonies. He was credibly in- formed this was not so. It was impossible, also, not to feel some degree of anxiety about the efficacy of present provision to defend and pro- tect, by means of swift well-armed cruisers, the immense mercantile fleet of the Empire. A third ‘source of anxiety, so far as the colonies were _ concerned, was the apparently insufficient provi- sion for the rapid manufacture of armaments and their prompt despatch when ordered to their colonial destination. Hence the necessity for _ manufacturing appliances equal to the require- nents, not of Great Britain alone, but of the whole Empire. But the keystone of the whole was the necessity for an overwhelmingly powerful _ leet and efficient defence for all necessary coaling stations. This was as essential for the colonies as for Great Britain. It was the one condition ‘or the continuance of the Empire. All that _ Continental Powers did with respect to armies England should effect with her navy. It was _ »ssentially a defensive force, and could be moved vapidly from point to point, but it should be equal o all that was expected from it. It was to strengthen the fleet that colonists would first eadily tax themselves, because they realised how ‘ssential a powerful fleet was to the safety, not only of that extensive commerce sailing in every ea, but ultimately to the security of the distant dortions of the Empire. Who could estimate the oss involved in even a brief period of disaster to he Imperial Navy? Any amount of money imely expended in preparation would be quite nsignificant when compared with the possible alamity he had referred to.’ -xtract from Sir \raham Berry's Speech at the Colonial Insti- ute, oth November 1886, It; His isle, the mightiest Ocean-power on earth, Our own fair isle, the lord of every sea— Her fuller franchise—what would that be worth— Her ancient fame of Free— Were she .. . . a fallen state? Il. Her dauntless army scatter’d, and so small, Her island-myriads fed from alien lands— The fleet of England is her all-in-all ; Her fleet is in your hands, And in her fleet her Fate. IV. You, you, that have the ordering of her fleet, Zf you should only compass her dis- grace, When all men starve, the wild mob’s million feet Will kick you from your place, But then too late, too late. OPENING. OF Aico NDTAN AND COLONIAL RE XHIEBI- TIONS DYo THE OUREN. Written at the Request of the Prince of Wales. I. WELCOME, welcome with one voice ! In your welfare we rejoice, Sons and brothers that have sent, From isle and cape and continent, Produce of your field and flood, Mount and niine, and primal wood; Works of subtle brain and hand, And splendours of the morning land, Gifts from every British zone ; Britons, hold your own! a Ne 578 PORTS AND THEIR BIBLIOGRAPHIES. IT. May we find, as ages run, The mother featured in the son; And may yours for ever be That old strength and constancy Which has made your fathers great Tn our ancient island State, And wherever her flag fly, Glorying between sea and sky, Makes the might of Britain known; Britons, hold your own ! TODS Britain fought her sons of yore— Britain fail’d; and never more, Careless of our growing kin, Shall we sin our fathers’ sin, Men that in a narrower day-— Unprophetic rulers they— Drove from out the mother’s nest That young eagle of the West To forage for herself alone ; Britons, hold your own ! IV. Sharers of our glorious past, Brothers, must we part at last ? Shall we not thro’ good and ill Cleave to one another still ? Britain’s myriad voices call, ‘Sons, be welded each and all, Had swampt the sacred Roste te Ls Into one imperial whole, One with Britain, heart and 50 One life, one flag, one fleet, one TI Britons, hold.your own! _ i. POETS AND THEIR B GRAPHIES. OLD poets foster’d under friend ier sk Old Virgil who would wit they say, ant At dawn, and lavish all the day To make ‘tie wealthier in Hi eyes; - ' ae And you, old popular Horace, wise ras Adviser of the nine-years-ponde And you, that wear a wreath of bay, 7 Catullus, whose dead songster nev If, glancing downward on rt I sphere That once had roll’d you ; round the Sun, ; You see your Art still shui human shelves, You should be jubilant that you fle here uy Before the Love of Letters,-overdo themselves. a The vessel puffs her sa There gloom the dark broad seas.” coe &€£ € *€ ori Ne NEARY: A DRAMA. DRAMATIS PERSONA. QuEEN Mary. Pup, King of Naples and Sicily, afterwards King of Spain. THE PrINcEss ELIzaABETH. REGINALD POLE, Cardinal and Papal Legate. Smon RENARD, Spanish Ambassador. Le SrEuR DE NoAILies, French Ambassador. Tuomas CRANMER, Archbishop of Canterbury. Epwarp Courtenay, Lard of Devon. Lorp WILLIAMS OF THAME. EpmunD Bonner, Sishop of London. Str THomas Wyatt Str THOMAS STAFFORD Str RaLtpH BaGENHALL. Sir Henry BEDINGFIELD. THE DuKE oF ALVA THE CouNT DE FERIA PETER Martyr. ViLLA GaRCIA. CAPTAIN BRETT ANTHONY KNYVETT PETERS, Gentleman of Lord Howard. RocEr, Servant to Noatlles. Soto. OLp Noxes and NOKES. Lapy CLARENCE ALICE Joan Tin \ two Country Wives. men, etc. Ek, | SCENE I.—ALDGATE RICHLY DECORATED, | CRowD. MARSHALMEN. Marshalman. Stand back, keep a uw lane! When will her Majesty iS, sayst thou? why now, even now ; ‘Werefore draw back your heads and your Sir Nicuotas Heatu, Archbishop of York ; Lord Chancellor after Gardiner. Lorp WILLIAM Howarb, afterwards Lord Howard, and Lord High Admiral. LorpD PAGET. STEPHEN GARDINER, Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor. Lorp PETRE. Tuomas THIRLBY, Bishop of Ely. ; Insurrectionary Leaders. Sir RoBerT SOUTHWELL. Srr WILLIAM CECIL. Sir THomas Wuite, Lord Mayor of London. attending on Philip. FATHER COLE. FATHER BOURNE. \ Adherents of Wyatt. WiuiaM, Servant to Wyatt. STEWARD OF HOUSEHOLD 70 the Princess Elizabeth. MARCHIONESS OF EXETER, Mother of Courtenay. Lapy MaGpaALen Dacres I Ladies in Watting to the Queen. Marp oF Honour fo the Princess Elizabeth. ds and other Attendants, Members of the Privy Council, Members of Parliament, Two Gentle- men, Aldermen, Citizens, Peasants, Ushers, Messengers, Guards, Pages, Gospellers, Marshal- horns before I break them, and make what noise you will with your tongues, so it be not treason. Long live Queen Mary, the lawful and legitimate daughter of Harry the Eighth! Shout, knaves ! Citizens. Long live Queen Mary! First Citizen. That’s a hard word, legitimate ; what does it mean? Second Citizen. It means a bastard. Third Citizen. Nay, it meanstrue-born, 580 First Citizen. Why, didn’t the Par- liament make her a bastard ? Second Citizen. No; it was the Lady Elizabeth. Third Cttezen. that was after. first Cutizen. bastard ? Second Citizen. ‘'Troth, they be both bastards by Act of Parliament and Council. Third Cztizen. Ay, the Parliament can make every true-born man of us a bastard. Old Nokes, can’t it make thee a bastard ? thou shouldst know, for thou art as white as three Christmasses. Old Nokes (dreamily). Who's a-pass- ing? King Edward or King Richard ? Third Citizen. No, old Nokes. Old Nokes. It’s Harry! Third Citizen. It’s Queen Mary. Old Nokes. The blessed Mary’s a- passing ! [Halls on his knees. Vokes. Let father alone, my masters ! he’s past your questioning, Third Citizen. Answer thou for him, then! thou’rt no such cockerel thyself, for thou was born i’ the tail end of old Harry the Seventh. Vokes. Eh! that was afore bastard- making began. I was born true man at five in the forenoon i’ the tail of old Harry, and so they can’t make me a bastard. Third Citizen. But if Parliament can make the Queen a bastard, why, it follows all the more that they can make thee one, who art fray’d 7 the knees, and out at elbow, and bald o’ the back, and bursten at the toes, and down at heels. Nokes. I was born of a true man and a ring’d wife, and I can’t argue upon it ; but I and my old woman ’ud burn upon it, that would we. Marshalman, What are you cackling of bastardy under the Queen’s own nose? I'll have you flogg’d and burnt too, by the Rood I will. first Citizen. Rood. Whew! Second Citizen, That was after, man ; Then which is the He swears by the Hark ! the trumpets. ‘know. QUEEN MARY. ACT | [Zhe Procession passes, Mary and Elizabeth vzding side by side, and adtsappears under the gate. Citizens. Long live Queen Mary! down with all traitors! God say Grace ; and death to Northumberla . [Zxeunt Manent Two GENTLEMEN, — First Gentleman. By God’s light a noble creature, right royal ! Second Gentleman. She looks come ier than ordinary to- day ; ; but to my m the Lady Elizabeth is the more noble i royal. First Gentleman. I mean the Lady Elizabeth. Did you hear (I have © daughter in her service who reported i that she met the Queen at Wanstead w five hundred horse, and the Queen ( some say they be much divided) took hand, call’d her sweet sister, and ki not her alone, but all the ladies of following. ; i Second Gentleman. Ay, that was her hour of joy; there will be plenty sunder and unsister them again: © Gardiner for one, who is to be mac Lord Chancellor, and will pounce lik wild beast out of his cage to wo Cranmer. first Gentleman. And furtherme my daughter said that when there ros talk of the late rebellion, she spoke e of Northumberland pitifully, and of good Lady Jane as a poor innocent ch who had but obeyed her father; furthermore, she said that no one in| time should be burnt for heresy. b: Second Gentleman. Well, sir, I i for happy times. b First Gentleman. There is but « thing against them. I know not if you i Second Gentleman. I suppose you — touch upon the rumour that Charles, ' master of the world, has offer’d he son Philip, the Pope and the Devil. ; trust it is but a rumour. “a First Gentleman. She is going NOW . SCENE II. to the Tower to loose the prisoners there, and among them Courtenay, to be made Earl of Devon, of royal blood, of splendid feature, whom the council and all her people wish her to marry. May it be so, for we are many of us Catholics, but few Papists, and the Hot Gospellers will go mad upon it. Second Gentleman. Was she _ not betroth’d in her babyhood to the Great Emperor himself ? | First Gentleman. old. Second Gentleman. And again to her cousin Reginald Pole, now Cardinal ; _ but I hear that he too is full of aches and _ broken before his day. first Gentleman. O, the Pope could dispense with his Cardinalate, and his achage, and his breakage, if that were all: ' will you not follow the procession ? Second Gentleman. No; I have seen enough for this day. first Gentleman. Well, I shall follow ; if I can get near enough I shall judge _ with my own eyes whether her Grace in- _ cline to this splendid scion of Plantagenet. [Zxeunt, Ay, but he’s too SCENE II, A -RooM IN LAMBETH PALACE. Cranmer. To Strasburg, Antwerp, Frankfort, Zurich, Worms, . Geneva, Basle—our Bishops from their be sees Or fled, they say, or flying — Poinet, . Easlow, Scory, Coverdale; besides Deans Of Christchurch, Durham, Exeter, and Wells— “Ailmer and Bullingham, and hundreds more ; | So they report : I shall be left alone. No: Hooper, Ridley, Latimer will not fly. | Bale, the Lintey PETER MARTYR. Peter Martyr. Fly, Cranmer! were there nothing else, your name QUEEN MARY. A 581 Stands first of those who sign’d the Letters Patent That gave her royal crown to Lady Jane. Cranmer. Stand first it may, but it was written last : Those that are now her Privy Council, sign’d Before me: nay, the Judges had pro- nounced That our young Edward might bequeath the crown Of England, putting by his father’s will. Yet I stood out, till Edward sent for me. The wan boy-king, with his fast-fading eyes Fixt hard on mine, his frail transparent hand, Damp with the sweat of death, and griping mine, Whisper’d me, if I loved him, not to yield His Church of England to the Papal wolf And Mary; then I could no more—I sign’d. Nay, for bare shame of inconsistency, She cannot pass her traitor council by, To make me headless. Peter Martyr. That might be forgiven. I tell you, fly, my Lord. You do not own The bodily presence in the Eucharist, Their wafer and perpetual sacrifice : Your creed will be your death. Cranmer. Step after step, Thro’ many voices crying right and left, Have I climb’d back into the primal church, And stand within the porch, and Christ with me: My flight were such a scandal to the faith, The downfall of so many simple souls, I dare not leave my post. Peter Martyr. But you divorced Queen Catharine and her father ; hence, her hate Will burn till you are burn’d. Cranmer. I cannot help it. The Canonists and Schoolmen were with me. ‘Thou shalt not wed thy brother’s wife.’ —'Jis written, ‘They shall be childless.’ was born, True, Mary 582 But France would not accept her for a bride As being born from incest ; wrought Upon the king ; and child by child, you know, Were momentary sparkles out as quick Almost as kindled ; and he brought his doubts And fearstome. Peter, I'll swear for him He ad believe the bond incestuous. But wherefore am I trenching on the and this time That should already have seen your steps a mile From me and Lambeth? God be with you! Go. Peter Martyr. Ah, but how fierce a letter you wrote against Their superstition when they slander’d you For setting up a mass at Canterbury To please the Queen. Cranmer. It was a wheedling monk Det up the mass. Leter Martyr. Lord. But you so bubbled over with hot terms Of Satan, liars, blasphemy, Antichrist, I know it, my good She never will forgive you. Fly, my Lord, fly ! Cranmer. JI wrote it, and God grant me power to burn ! Leter Martyr. They have given me a safe conduct : for all that I dare not stay. I fear, I fear, I see you, Dear friend, for the last time ; farewell, and fly. Cranmer. Fly and farewell, and let me die the death. [Zxz¢ Peter Martyr. Enter OLD SERVANT, O, kind and gentle master, the Queen’s Officers Are here in force to take you to the Tower. Cranmer, Ay, gentle friend, admit them. I will go. I thank my God it is too late to fly. [Axeunt. QUEEN MARY. nord SCENE IJI.—StT. Paut’s Cross, FATHER BOURNE zx the pulpit. A crowd. MARCHIONESS OF EXETER, COUR NAY. Zhe SIEUR DE NOAILLES his man ROGER in front of the stage. Hubbub. ‘g Noailles, Hast thou let fall those se papers in the palace ? Roger. Ay, sir. Noailles. ‘There will be no peace for Mary till Elizabeth lose her head.’ Roger. Ay, sir. Noailles. And the other, ‘Long I Elizabeth the Queen ! i Roger. Ay, sir; she needs must tread _ upon them. 7 Noatlles. Well. 4 These beastly swine make such a gruntin here, I cannot catch what Father Bourne saying. Roger. Quiet a moment, my masters; hear what the shaveling has to say 8 himself. Crowd. Wush—hear ! Bourne. —and so this unhappy land long divided in itself, and sever’d fr the faith, will return into the one true fold, seeing that our gracious Virgin Qu hath—— | Crowd. No pope! no pope! Roger (to those about him, mim Bourne). —hath sent for the holy leg of the holy father the Pope, Ca Pole, to give us all that holy abso which ; First Citizen. Old Bourne to the Second Citizen. Holy absolution - Inquisition ! Third Citizen. Down with the Pp. [Zu Bourne. grid now that your bishop, Bonner, who hath lain so under bonds for the faith— [Zu Noailles. Friend Roger, steal the u mM among the crowd, And get the swine to shout Elizabetl h. _ §$CENE III. _ Yon gray old Gospeller, souras midwinter, - Begin with him. _ Roger (goes). By the mass, old friend, _ we'll have no pope here while the Lady _ Elizabeth lives. _ Gospeller. Art thou of the true faith, fellow, that swearest by the mass ? _ oger. Ay, that am I, new converted, _ but the old leaven sticks to my tongue , yet. _ First Citizen. Ue says right ; _ mass we'll have no mass here. Voices of the crowd. Peace! hear him; let his own words damn the Papist. From _ thine own mouth I judge thee —tear him _ down ! Bourne. —and since our Gracious - Queen, let me call her our second Virgin _Mary, hath begun to re-edify the true ' temple First Citizen. Virgin Mary! we'll have " no virgins here—we’ll have the Lady Elizabeth ! [Swords are drawn, a knife ts hurled and sticks tn the pulpit. The mob throng to the pulpit stairs. _ Marchionessof Exeter. Son Courtenay, wilt thou see the holy father Murdered before thy face? up, son, and save him ! They love thee, and thou canst not come | to harm. Courtenay {in the pulpit). Shame, shame, my masters ! are you Eng- lish-born, ‘And set yourselves by hundreds against one? Crowd. A Courtenay! a Courtenay ! [4 train of Spantsh servants crosses at the back of the stage. WVoailles. These birds of passage come before their time: Stave off the crowd upon the Spaniard there. : Roger. My masters, yonder’s fatter } game for you 7) Than this old gaping gurgoyle : | there— The Prince of Spain coming to wed our | Queen ! by the look you QUEEN MARY. 583 After him, boys! and pelt him from the city. [They seize stones and follow the Spaniards. Lexeunt on the other side Marchioness of Exeter and Attendants. LVoailles (to Roger). Stand from me. If Elizabeth lose her head— That makes for France. And if her people, anger’d thereupon, Arise against her and dethrone the Queen— That makes for France. And if I breed confusion anyway— That makes for France. Good-day, my Lord of Devon ; A bold heart yours to beard that raging mob ! Courtenay. My mother said, Go up ; and up I went. I knew they would not do me any wrong, For I am mighty popular with them, Noailles. Noatlles. You look’d a king. Courtenay. Why not? Iam - king’s blood. Noatlles. And in the whirl of change may come to be one. Courtenay. Ah! LVoatlles. But does your gracious Queen entreat you kinglike ? Courtenay. ’Fore God, I think she entreats me like a child. Noatlles. You've but a dull life in this ~ maiden court, I fear, my Lord? Courtenay. | ae | SCENE Iv. Elizabeth. My Lord, the hatred of another to us Is no true bond of friendship. | Courtenay. Might it not _ Be the rough preface of some closer bond ? Elizabeth. My Lord, you late were | loosed from out the Tower, _ Where, like a butterfly in a chrysalis, _ You spent your life; that broken, out : you flutter _ Thro’ the new world, go zigzag, now would settle - Upon this flower, now that ; but all things | here _ At court are known ; you have solicited _ The Queen, and been rejected. Courtenay. Flower, she ! _ Half faded! but you, cousin, are fresh and sweet As the first flower no bee head ever tried. Lilizabeth. Are you the bee to try me? 4 why, but now I called you butterfly. Courtenay. You did me wrong, I love not to be called a butterfly : _ Why do you call me butterfly ? | Llizabeth. Why do you goso gay then? Courtenay. Velvet and gold. This dress was made me as the Earl of Devon To take my- seat in; royal? Lilizabeth. So royal that the Queen forbad you wearing it. Courtenay. I wear it then to spite her. looks it not right LElizabeth. My Lord, my Lord ; ‘I see you in the Tower again. Her Majesty ‘Hears you affect the Prince—prelates kneel to you.— Courtenay. Iam the noblest blood in Europe, Madam, _ A Courtenay of Devon, and her cousin. Lilizabeth. She hears you make your boast that after all ‘She means to wed you. ; Lord. _ Courtenay. Wow folly? a great party : in the state Wills me to wed her. i | Folly, my good QUEEN MARY. 585 Liizaleth. Failing her, my Lord, Doth not as great a party in the state Will you to wed me? Courtenay. Lilizabeth. Even so, fair lady. You know to flatter ladies. Courtenay. Nay, I meant True matters of the heart. Llizabeth. My heart, my Lord, Is no great party in the state as yet. Courtenay. Great, said you? nay, you shall be great. I love you, Lay my life in your hands. Can you be close ? Elizabeth. Can you, my Lord? Courtenay. Close as a miser’s casket. Listen : The King of France, Noailles the Am- bassador, The Duke of Suffolk and Sir Peter Carew, Sir Thomas Wyatt, I myself, some others, Have sworn this Spanish marriage shall not be. If Mary will not hear us—well—conjec- tire— Were I in Devon with my wedded bride, The people there so worship me—Your ear ; You shall be Queen. Lilizabeth. You speak too low, my Lord ; I cannot hear you. Courtenay. ll repeat it. Llizabeth. No! Stand further off, or you may lose your head. Courtenay. Ihave a head to lose for your sweet sake. Lilizabeth. Wave you, my Lord? Best keep it for your own. Nay, pout not, cousin. Not many friends are mine, except indeed Among the many. I believe you mine ; And so you may continue mine, farewell, And that at once. Linter MARY, behind. Mary. Whispering—leagued together To bar me from my Philip. Courtenay. Pray—consider— 586 Elizabeth (seeing the Queen). Well, that’s a noble horse of yours, my Lord. I trust that he will carry you well to-day, And heal your headache. Courtenay. You are wild; what head- ache ? Heartache, perchance ; not headache. Elizabeth (aside to Courtenay). © Are you blind? [Courtenay sees the Queen and exit. Fixit Mary. Linter LORD WILLIAM HOWARD. fToward. “Nas that my Lord of Devon? do not you Be seen in corners with my Lord of Devon. He hath fallen out of favour with the Queen. She fears the Lords may side with you and him Against her marriage; therefore is he dangerous. And if this Prince of fluff and feather come To woo you, niece, he is dangerous every- way. Lilizabeth. Not very dangerous that way, my good uncle. floward. But your own state is full of danger here. The disaffected, heretics, reformers, Look to you as the one to crown their ends, Mix not yourself with any plot I pray you ; Nay, if by chance you hear of any such, Speak not thereof—no, not to your best friend, Lest you should be confounded with it. Still— Perinde ac cadaver—as the priest says, You know your Latin—quiet as a dead body. What was my Lord of Devon telling you? Llizabeth. Whether he told me any- thing or not, I follow your good counsel, gracious uncle. Quiet as a dead body. QUEEN MARY. Howard. You do righ I do not care to know; but this I you, Tell Courtenay nothing. Chancellor a (I count it as a kind of virtue in hinge He hath not many), as a mastiff dog — May love a puppy cur for no more ree Than that the twain have been tied together, Thus Gardiner—for the two were fell low- prisoners . So many years in yon accursed Towe: Hath taken to this Courtenay. Loo The: : > x it, niece, He hath no fence when Gardiner q ues: tions him ; ie All oozes out ; yet him — because t know hun The last White Rose, the last Planta (Nay, there is Cardinal Pole, too), people Claim as their natural leader—ay, som sa That you shall marry him, make him K belike. ; Elizabeth. Do they say so, g uncle ? eae foward, Ay, soca niece re a You should be plain and open with me niece. ‘ You should not play upon me. iy Lilizabeth. No, good uncle, Linter GARDINER. ‘a Gardiner. The Queen would see your Grace upon the moment. a, Elizabeth. Why, my lord Bishop? Gardiner. I think she means to coun sel your withdrawing | To Ashridge, or some other country ho Llizabeth. Why, my lord Bishop! Gardiner. J dobut bring the me: know no more. 4 Your Grace will hear her reasons — ‘fron H herself. Elizabeth. °Tis mine own wish before the word Was spoken, for in truth I had me crave SCENE V. _ Permission of her Highness to retire To Ashridge, and pursue my studies there. Gardiner. Madam, to have the wish before the word Is man’s good Fairy—and the Queen is ours. I left her with rich jewels in her hand, | Whereof ’tis like enough she means to make A farewell present to your Grace. Lilizabeth. My Lord, _Thave the jewel of a loyal heart. Gardiner. I doubt it not, Madam, most loyal. [Bows low and exit. Howard. See, This comes of parleying with my Lord of Devon. Well, well, you must obey; and I myself Believe it will be better for your welfare. Your time will come. Lilizabeth. I think my time will come. Uncle, Tam of sovereign nature, that I know, Not to be quell’d ; and I have felt within | me Stirrings of some great doom when God’s { just hour _ Peals—but this fierce old Gardiner—his big baldness, That irritable forelock which he rubs, ‘His buzzard beak and deep-incavern’d eyes Half fright me. _ Howard. You've a bold heart ; | it so. ’ He cannot touch you save that you turn traitor ; And so take heed I pray you—you are one Who love that men should smile upon you, niece. They’d smile you into treason—some of them. Llizabeth. I spy the rock beneath the smiling sea. But if this Philip, the proud Catholic prince, And this bald priest, and she that hates me, seek is that lone house, to practise on my life, 3y poison, fire, shot, stab— keep i QUEEN MARY. 587 floward. They will not, niece. Mine is the fleet and all the power at sea— Or will be ina moment. If they dared To harm you, I would blow this Philip and all Your trouble to the dogstar and the devil. Lilizabeth. To the Pleiads, uncle; they have lost a sister. floward, But why say that? what have you done to lose her ? Come, come, I will go with you to the Queen. [Axeunt. SCENE V. A ROOM IN THE PALACE, ALICE. Mary (kissing the miniature). Most goodly, Kinglikeand an Emperor’s son, — A king to bey—is he not noble, girl? Alice. Goodly enough, your Grace, and yet, methinks, I have seen goodlier. Mary. Ay ; some waxen doll Thy baby eyes have rested on, belike ; All red and white, the fashion of our land. But my good mother came (God rest her soul) Of Spain, and I am Spanish in myself, And in my likings. Alice, By your Grace’s leave Your royal mother came of Spain, but took To the English red and white. royal father (For so they say) was all pure lily and rose In his youth, and like a lady. MARY wth PHILIP’S mzniature. Your Mary. O, just God! Sweet mother, you had time and cause enough To sicken of his lilies and his roses. Cast off, betray’d, defamed, divorced, forlorn ! And then the King—that traitor past forgiveness, The false archbishop fawning on him, married 588 The mother of Elizabeth—a heretic Ev’n as sheis; but God hath sent me here To take such order with all heretics That it shall be, before I die, as tho’ My father and my brother had not lived. What wast thou saying of this Lady Jane, Now in the Tower ? Alice. Why, Madam, she was passing Some chapel down in Essex, and with her Lady Anne Wharton, and the Lady Anne Bow’d to the Pyx; but Lady Jane stood ey Stiff as the very backbone of heresy. And wherefore bow ye not, says Lady Anne, To him within there who made Heaven and Earth ? I cannot, and I dare not, tell your Grace What Lady Jane replied. Mary. But I will have it. Alice. She said—pray pardon me, and pity her— She hath harken’d evil counsel—ah! she said, The baker made him. Mary. Monstrous! blasphemous ! She ought to burn. Hence, thou (Zxzt Alice). No—being traitor Her head will fall: shall it? she is but a child. We do not kill the child for doing that His father whipt him into doing—a head So full of grace and beauty ! would that mine Were half as gracious! O, my lord to be, My love, for thy sake only. I am eleven years older than he is. But will he care for that ? No, by the holy Virgin, being noble, But love me only: then the bastard sprout, My sister, is far fairer than myself. Will he be drawn to her ? No, being of the true faith with myself. Paget is for him—for to wed with Spain Would treble England— Gardiner is against him ; The Council, people, Parliament against him ; But I will have him! hated me 3 My hard father QUEEN MARY. — y My brother rather hated me than loved ; My sister cowers and hates me. Hol | Virgin, Plead with thy blessed Son ; grant me ny | prayer : Give me my Philip ; and we two will lead The living waters of the Faith again Back thro’ their widow’d channel here, and watch The parch’d banks rolling incense, as of old, To heaven, and kindled with the palms of Christ ! Linter USHER. Who waits, sir ? Usher. Madam, the Lord Chancel Mary. Bid him come in. (£n¢@r GARDINER.) Good morning, my good Lord. [Zxct Usher. Gardiner. That every morning of your Majesty May be most good, is every morninig’s prayer Of your most loyal subject, Stephen Gardiner. i Mary. Come you to tell me this, my Lord ? | Gardiner. And more. : Your people have begun to learn a worth. ! Your pious wish to pay King Edward’s - debts, Your lavish household curb’d, and the remission Of half that subsidy levied on the people, Make all tongues praise and all hearts | beat for you. I’d have you yet more loved: the realm is poor, | The exchequer at neap-tide: we might — withdraw ‘ Part of our garrison at Calais. Mary. Calaisay | Our one point on the main, the ag of France ! Tam Queen of England ; take mine eyes mine heart, . But do not lose me Calais. SCENE V. Gardiner. Do not fear it. _ Of that hereafter. I say ‘your Grace is loved. _ That I may keep you thus, who am your friend _ And ever faithful counsellor, might I speak ? Mary. Ican forespeak your speaking. | Would I marry _ Prince Philip, if all England hate him ? | That is _ Your question, and I front it with another: Is it England, or a party? Now, your answer. Gardiner. My answer is, I wear be- . neath my dress A shirt of mail: my house hath been assaulted, _ And when I walk abroad, the populace, ' With fingers pointed like so many daggers, Stab me in fancy, hissing Spain and | Philip ; _ And when I sleep, a hundred men-at- | arms | Guard my poor dreams for England. | Men would murder me, _ Because they think me favourer of this | marriage. Mary. And that were hard upon you, my Lord Chancellor. Gardiner. But our young Earl of Devon— Mary. Earl of Devon ? _I freed him from the Tower, placed him | at Court ; I made him Earl of Devon, and—the fool— He wrecks his health and wealth on courtesans, And rolls himself in carrion like a dog. Gardiner. More like a school-boy that | hath broken bounds, | Sickening himself with sweets. | Mary. I will not hear of him. Good, ihe, they will revolt: but I am Tudor, | And shall control them. | Gardiner. —T will help you, Madam, Even to the utmost. All the church is grateful. QUEEN MARY. 589 You have ousted the mock priest, re- pulpited The shepherd of St. rood again, Peter, raised the And brought us back the mass. I am all thanks To God and to your Grace: yet I know well, Your people, and I go with them so far, Will brook nor Pope nor Spaniard here to play he, tyrant, or church. Mary (showing the picture). Is this the face of one who plays the tyrant ? Peruse it; is it not goodly, ay, and gentle? Gardiner. Madam, methinks a cold face and a haughty. And when your Highness talks of Cour- tenay— Ay, true—a goodly one. life Were half as goodly (aszde). Mary. What is that you mutter? Gardiner, Oh, Madan, take it bluntly ; marry Philip, And be stepmother of a score of sons ! The prince is known in Spain, in Flanders, in commonwealth or I would his ha! For Philip— Mary. You offend us; you may leave us. You see thro’ warping glasses. Gardiner. If your Majesty— Mary. Ihave sworn upon the body and blood of Christ I'll none but Philip. Gardiner, Wath your Grace so sworn? Mary. Ay, Simon Renard knows it. Gardiner. News to me! It then remains for your poor Gardiner, So you still care to trust him somewhat less Than Simon Renard, event In some such form as least may harm your Grace. Mary. ll have the scandal sounded to the mud. I know it a scandal. to compose the 590 ‘Gardiner. All my hope is now It may be found a scandal. Mary. You offend us. Gardiner (aside). _ These princes are like children, must be physick’d, The bitter in the sweet. I have lost mine office, It may be, thro’ mine honesty, like a fool. [ Exit. Linter USHER. Mary. Who waits? Usher. The Ambassador from France, your Grace. Mary (sits down). Bid him come in. Good morning, Sir de Noailles. [Hxzt Usher. Noailles (entering). A happy morning to your Majesty. Mary. And I should some time have a happy morning ; I have had none yet. What says the King your master ? Noailles. Madam, my master hears with much alarm, That you may marry Philip, Prince of Spain— Foreseeing, with whate’er unwillingness, That if this Philip be the titular king Of England, and at war with him, your Grace And kingdom will be suck’d into the war, Ay, tho’ you long for peace ; wherefore, my master, If but to prove your Majesty’s goodwill, Would fain have some fresh treaty drawn between you. Mary. Why some fresh treaty? where- fore should I do it? Sir, if we marry, we shall still maintain All former treaties with his Majesty. Our royal word for that ! and your good master, Pray God he do not be the first to break them, Must be content with that; and so, fare- well. Noazlles (going, returns). I would your answer had been other, Madam, For I foresee dark days. QUEEN MARY. ACT I, - “a : Mary. And so do I, sir 5 Your master works against me in the dark. I do believe he holp Northumberland — Against me. ae Noailles. Nay, pure phantasy, your Grace. i Why should he move against you? Mary. Will you hear why? Mary of Scotland,—for I have not own’d My sister, and I will not,—after me Is heir of England ; and my royal father, To make the crown of Scotland one with ours, Had mark’d her for my brother Edward’s bride ; Ay, but your king stole her a babe from Scotland In order to betroth her to your Dauphin. See then : Mary of Scotland, married to your Dauphin, Would make our England, France ; Mary of England, joining hands with Spain, Would be too strong for France. Yea, were there issue born to her, Spain and we, One crown, might rule the world. There lies your fear. | That is your drift. You play at hideand seek. Show me your faces ! Noatlles. Madam, I am amazed: French, I must needs wish all good things for France. That must be pardon’d me ; but I protest Your Grace’s policy hath a farther flight Than mine into the future. We but seek Some settled ground for peace to stand — upon. | Mary. Well, we will leave all this, sir, to our council. Have you seen Philip ever ? LVoatlles. Mary. Is this like Philip ? Noailles. Ay, but nobler-looking. Mary. “ath he the large ability of the Emperor ? LVoatlles. No, surely. Only once. — ; SCENE V. Mary. Ycanmake allowance for thee, _ Thou speakest of the enemy of thy king. | Noailles. Make no allowance for the | naked truth. _ Heis every way a lesser man than Charles ; _ Stone-hard, ice-cold—no dash of daring in him. ; Mary. If cold, his life is pure. _ LNoailles. Why (smzling), no, indeed. _ Mary. Sayst thou? Noailles. A very wanton life indeed (smiling). _ Mary. Your audience is concluded, sir. [Zxzt Noailles. You cannot _ Learn a man’s nature from his natural foe. 4 LEinter USHER. Who waits ? Usher. ‘The Ambassador of Spain, your Grace. [Evxce. Enter SIMON RENARD. Mary (rising to meet him). Thou art ever welcome, Simon Renard. Hast thou Brought me the letter which thine Emperor promised Long since, a formal offer of the hand _ Of Philip ? _ Renard. Nay, your Grace, it hath not reach’d me. I know not wherefore—some mischance of flood, And broken bridge, or spavin’d horse, or wave And wind at their old battle: he must have written. Mary. But Philip never writes me one poor word, Which in his absence had been all my | wealth. Strange in a wooer ! Renard. Yet I know the Prince, So your king-parliament suffer him to land, Yearns to set foot upon your island shore. Mary. God change the pebble which his kingly foot ) First presses into some more costly stone QUEEN MARY. 591 Than ever blinded eye. I'll have one mark it And bring it me. firelike ; I'll set it round with gold, with pearl, with diamond. Let the great angel of the church come with him ; Stand on the deck and spread his wings T’ll have it burnish’d for sail! God lay the waves and strow the storms at sea, And here at land among the people! O Renard, I am much beset, I am almost in despair. Paget is ours. Gardiner perchance is ours ; But for our heretic Parliament— Renard. O Madam, You fly your thoughts like kites. master, Charles, Bad you go softly with your heretics here, Until your throne had ceased to tremble. Then Spit them like larks for aught I care. Besides, When Henry broke the carcase of your church To pieces, there were many wolves among My you Who dragg’d the scatter’d limbs into their den. The Pope would have you make them render these ; So would your cousin, Cardinal Pole ; ill counsel ! These let them keep at present ; stir not et This matter of the Church lands. At his coming Your star will rise. Mary. My star! a baleful one. I see but the black night, and hear the wolf, What star ? Renard. Yourstar willbe your princely son, Heir of this England and the Netherlands ! And if your wolf the while should howl for more, 592 We'll dust him from a bag of Spanish gold. I do believe, I have dusted some already, That, soon or late, your Parliament is ours. Mary. Why do they talk so foully of your Prince, Renard ? Renard. The lot of Princes. To sit high Is to be lied about. : Mary. They call him cold, Haughty, ay, worse. Renard. Why, doubtless, Philip shows Some of the bearing of your blue blood— still All within measure—nay, it well becomes him. Mary. Wath he the large ability of his father? — Renard. Nay, some believe that he will go beyond him. Mary. Is this like him? Renard. Ay, somewhat ; Philip Is the most princelike Prince beneath the sun. This is a daub to Philip. Mary. Of a pure life? Renard. Asan angel among angels. Yea, by Heaven, The text—Your Highness knows it, ‘ Whosoever Looketh after a woman,’ would not graze The Prince of Spain. You are happy in him there, Chaste as your Grace ! Mary. I am happy in him there. Renard. And would be altogether happy, Madam, So that your sister were but look’d to closer. You have sent her from the court, but then she goes, I warrant, not to hear the nightingales, But hatch you some new treason in the woods. Mary. We have our spies abroad to catch her tripping, And then if caught, to the Tower. Renard, The Tower ! the block ! but your QUEEN MARY. The word has turn’d your Highne the thing Was no such scarecrow in your fa time. . I have heard, the tongue es qu with the jest ; When the head leapt—so oa Ea do think © To save your crown that it must co m e€ to this. Mary. No, Renard; it must come to this. Renard. Not yet; but your old Traitors of the Tower Why, when you put Northumberland to death, The sentence having past upon t all, ‘ Spared you the Duke of Suffolk, Gu nild- ford Dudley, Ev’n that young girl who dared to: vi your crown? : | Mary. Dared? nay, not so; the child — obey’d her father. Spite of her tears her father forced i Eon | her. Renard. Good Madam, when the { Roman wish’d to reign, He slew not him alone who wore purple, But his assessor in the throne, percha A child more innocent than Lady Jat Mary. 1 am English Queena Roman Emperor. . Renard. Yet too much mercy isa want of mercy, And wastes more life. fire, or this j Will smoulder and re-flame, and burn throne | Where you should sit with Philip he will not come | Till she be gone. Mary. Indeed, if that were tru For Philip comes, one hand in mine and one a Steadying the tremulous a of | the Church— But no, no, no. what faint Stamp oil ‘th ve Farewell. I am some | | SCENE v. = With our long talk. Tho’ Queen, I am i not Queen Of mine own heart, which every now and then | Beats me half dead: yet stay, this golden | chain— _ My father on a birthday gave it me, _ And I have broken with my father—take _ And wear it as memorial of a morning ~ Which found me full of foolish doubts, | and leaves me As hopeful. Renard (aside). all follies Whew—the folly of Is to be love-sick for a shadow. (Aloud) Madam, ‘This chains me to your service, not with gold, , But dearest links of love. Farewell, and trust me, . Philip is yours. [ Zxzt. Mary. Mine—but not yet all mine. Enter USHER. Usher, Your Council is in Session, please your Majesty. _ Mary. Sir, let them sit. time to breathe. No, say I come. (Zxz¢ Usher.) by boldness once. The Emperor counsell’d me to fly to Flanders. I would not ; but a hundred miles I rode, ‘Sent out my letters, call’d my friends | together, Struck home and won. ‘a when the Council would not crown me—thought To bind me first by oaths I could not keep, And keep with Christ and conscience— was it boldness Or weakness that won there? when I, their Queen, fast myself down upon my knees before I must have I won them, And those nar men brake into woman- tears, Evn Gardiner, all amazed, and in that passion Lg ‘) save me my Crown. OUELEN MARY. 593 LEinter ALICE. Girl; hast thou ever heard Slanders against Prince Philip in our Court ? Alice. What slanders? I, your Grace ; no, never, Mary. Nothing ? Alice. Never, your Grace. Mary. See that you neither hear them nor repeat ! Alice (aside). Good Lord! but I have heard a thousand such. Ay, and repeated them as often—mum ! Why comes that old fox- Fleming back again ? Enter RENARD. Renard. Madam, I scarce had left your Grace’s presence Before I chanced upon the messenger Who brings that letter which we waited for— The formal offer of Prince Philip’s hand. It craves an instant answer, Ay or No. Mary. An instant Ay or No! the Council sits. Give it me quick. Alice (stepping before her). ness is all trembling. Mary. Make way. [Zxzt ento the Council Chamber. Your High- Alice. O, Master Renard, Master Renard, If you have falsely painted your fine Prince ; Praised, where you should have blamed him, I pray God No woman ever love you, Master Renard. It breaks my heart to hear her moan at night As tho’ the nightmare never left her bed. Renard. My pretty maiden, tell me, did you ever Sigh for a beard ? Alice. That’s not a pretty question, Renard. Not prettily put? I mean, my pretty maiden, A pretty man for such a pretty maiden. 2Q 594 Alice. My Lord of Devon is a pretty man. I hate him. then? Renard. ‘Then, pretty maiden, you should know that whether A wind be warm or cold, it serves to fan A kindled fire. Alice. According to the song. Well, but if I have, what His friends would praise him, I believed ’em, His foes would blame him, and I scorn’d ’em, His friends—as Angels I received ’em, His foes—the Devil had suborn’d ’em. Renard. Peace, pretty maiden. I hear them stirring in the Council Chamber. Lord Paget’s ‘Ay’ and yet, They are all too much at odds to close at once In one full-throated No ! comes. is sure—who else? Her Highness Linter MARY. Alice. How deathly pale !—a chair, your Highness. [Zringing one to the Queen. Renard. Madam, The Council ? Mary. Ay! My Philip is all mine. [Szuks into chair, half fainting. At leat: SCENE JI.—ALINGTON CASTLE. Sir Thomas Wyatt. 1 do not hear from Carew or the Duke Of Suffolk, and till then I should not move. The Duke hath gone to Leicester ; Carew stirs ~ In Devon: that fine porcelain Courtenay, Save that he fears he might be crack’d in using, (I have known a semi-madman in my time So fancy-ridd’n) should be in Devon too. QUEEN MARY. ACT II, Enter WILLIAM. News abroad, William ? William. None so new, Sir Thomal as and none so old, Sir Thomas. No new news that Philip comes to wed Mary, no old news that all men hate it. Old Si Thomas would have hated it. The bells are ringing at Maidstone. Doesn’t you worship hear ? Wyatt. Ay, for the Saints are come to reign again. Most like it is a Saint’s-day. There’s no call . As yet for me; so in this pause, before The mine be fired, it were a pious work To string my father’s sonnets, left about Like loosely-scatter’d jewels, in fair order, And head them with a lamer thyme of of mine, To grace his memory. William. Ay, why not, Sir Thomas? — He was a fine courtier, he ; Queen Ann loved him. All the women loved him, I loved him, I was in Spain with him. I couidn’t eat in Spain, I couldn’t sleep in Spain. I hate Spain, Sir Thomas. Wyatt. But thou could’st drink in Spain if I remember. , @ William. Sir Thomas, we may grant the wine. Old Sir Thomas ala granted the wine. Wyatt. Hand me the casket with 2 my father’s sonnets. . William. ‘Ay_sonnets_ 2 Se i of the old Court, old Sir Thomas. [Z. Wyatt. Courtier of many courts, loved the more His own gray towers, plain life letter’d peace, < To read and rhyme in solitary fields, — The lark above, the nightingale below, And answer them in song. The sire begets 4 Not half his likeness in the son, I fail Where he was fullest : yet—to wr i down. [He ues. h Lee-enter WILLIAM. William. There zs news, there zs news, SCENE I. QUEEN MARY. 595 and no call for sonnet-sorting now, nor for sonnet-making either, but ten thousand men on Penenden Heath all calling after your worship, and your worship’s name heard into Maidstone market, and your worship the first man in Kent and Chris- tendom, for the Queen’s down, and the world’s up, and your worship a-top of it. Wyatt. Inverted Alsop — mountain out of mouse. Say for ten thousand ten—and pothouse knaves, Brain-dizzied with a draught of morning ale. Linter ANTONY KNYVETT. William. Here’s Antony Knyvett. Knyvett. Look you, Master Wyatt, Tear up that woman’s work there. Wyatt. No; not these, _ Dumb children of my father, that will speak _ When I and thou and all rebellions lie ' Dead bodies without voice. Song flies you know ® For ages. Knyvett, Tut, your sonnet’s a flying ant, _ Wing’d for a moment. Wyatt. Well, for mine own work, [Zearing the paper. It lies there in six pieces at your feet ; _ For all that I can carry it-in my head. Knyvett. If you can carry your head upon your shoulders. Wyatt. I fear you come to carry it off my shoulders, _ And sonnet-making’s safer. Knyvett. Why, good Lord, Write you as many sonnets as you will. _ Ay, but not now; what, have you eyes, ears, brains ? | This Philip and the black-faced swarms of Spain, ‘The hardest, cruellest people in the world, Come locusting upon us, eat us up, Confiscate lands, goods, money— Wyatt, Wyatt, Wake, or the stout old island will become Arotten limb of Spain. Theyroar for you On Penenden Heath, a thousand of them —more— All arm’d, waiting a leader; there’s no glory Like his who saves his country : sit Sing-songing here ; but, if I’m any judge, By God, you are as poor a poet, Wyatt, As a good soldier. and you Wyatt. You as poor a critic As an honest friend: you stroke me on one cheek, Buffet the other. Come, you bluster, Antony ! You know I know all this. I must not move Until I hear from Carew and the Duke. I fear the mine is fired before the time. Knyvett (showing a paper). But here’s some Hebrew. Faith, I half forgot it. can you make it English? The Queen stands up, and speaks for hi he own self ; And all men cry, She is queenly, she goodly. Yet she’s no goodlier; tho’ my | Lord Mayor here, By his own rule, he hath been so bold 1 to-day, Should look more goodly than the rest 0 us. White. Goodly? I feel most goodill heart and hand, And strong to throw ten Wyatts and ¢ ail Kent. 4 Ha! ha! sir; but you jest; I love ia jest q In time of danger shows the pulses even. Be merry! yet, Sir Ralph, you loka but ‘| sad. I dare avouch you’d stand up for yourse! ae Tho’ all the world should bay like wintes wolves. | Bagenhall, Who knows? the m i proven by the hour, ; White. The man should make — hour, not this the man ; And Thomas White will prove thi Thomas Wyatt, And he will prove an Iden to this Cad And he will play the Walworth to t Wat ; Come, sirs, we prate ; hence all—gather your men— 4 Myself must bustle. Wyatt comes fo Southwark ; I'll have the drawbrided hewn into} ‘the Thames, And see the citizens arm’d. Good day ; good day. [Zx7t W i Bagenhall. One of much outa bluster. . floward. For all that, Most honest, brave, and skilful ; and his wealth : al A fountain of perennial alms—his fault So thoroughly to believe in his own, s i, | ‘ | ws SCENE III. Bagenhall, Yet thoroughly to believe in one’s own self, So one’s own self be thorough, were to do Great things, my Lord. foward. Bagenhall. It may be. I have heard ~ One of your Council fleer and jeer at him. floward. The nursery-cocker’d child will jeer at aught | That may seem strange beyond his nursery. _ The statesman that shall jeer and fleer at men, Makes enemies for himself and for hisking ; _ And if he jeer not seeing the true man _ Behind his folly, he is thrice the fool ; And if he see the man and still will jeer, He is child and fool, and traitor to the State. / Who is he? let me shun him. Bagenhall. Nay, my Lord, _ He is damn’d enough already. floward, I must set | The guard at Ludgate. Fare you well, Sir Ralph. Bagenhall, ‘Whoknows?’ Iam for England. But who knows, | That knows the Queen, the Spaniard, and the Pope, ' Whether I be for Wyatt, or the Queen ? { [Zxeunt. SCENE III.—Lonpon BRIDGE. _ Enter SIR THOMAS WYATT and BRETT. Wyatt. Brett, when the Duke of Norfolk moved against us Thou cried’st ‘A Wyatt!’ and flying to our side Left his all bare, for which I love thee, Brett. Have for thineasking aught that Icangive, For thro’ thine help we are come to | London Bridge ; But how tocross it balks me. I fear we cannot. | SBrett. Nay, hardly, save by boat, swimming, or wings. Wyatt. Last night I climb’d into the gate-house, Brett, QUEEN MARY. —60r And scared the gray old porter and his wife. And then I crept along the gloom and saw They had hewn the drawbridge down into the river. It roll’d as black as death ; and that same tide Which, coming with our coming, seem’d to smile And sparkle like our fortune as thou saidest, Ran sunless down, and moan’d against the piers. But o’er the chasm I saw Lord William Howard By torchlight, and his guard; four guns gaped at me, Black, silent mouths: had Howard spied me there And made them speak, as well he might have done, Their voice had left me none to tell you this. What shall we do? Brett. On somehow. To go back Were to lose all. Wyatt. On over London Bridge We cannot: stay we cannot; there is ordnance On the White Tower and on the Devil’s Tower, And pointed full at Southwark ; we must round By Kingston Bridge. Brett. Ten miles about. Wyatt. Ev’n so. But I have notice from our partisans Within the city that they will stand by us If Ludgate can be reach’d by dawn to- morrow. Enter one of \WYATT’S men. Man. Sir Thomas, I’ve found this paper; pray your worship read it; I know not my letters; the old priests taught me nothing. Wyatt (reads). ‘Whosoever will ap- prehend the traitor Thomas Wyatt shall have a hundred pounds for reward.’ Man, Isthat it? That’s a big lot of money. 602. Wyatt. Ay, ay, my friend; not read it? *tis not written Half plain enough. Give me a piece of paper ! [ Writes ‘THOMAS WYATT’ large. There, any man can read that. [Stecks «tt in hts cap. Brett. But that’s foolhardy. Wyatt. No! boldness, which will give my followers boldness. Enter MAN with a prisoner. Man. We found him, your worship, a plundering o’ Bishop Winchester’s house ; he says he’s a poor gentleman. Wyatt. Gentleman! a thief! Go hang him. Shall we make Those that we come to serve our sharpest foes ? Brett. Sir Thomas— Wyatt. Hang him, I say. Brett. Wyatt, but now you promised me a boon. Wyatt. Ay, and I warrant this fine fellow’s life. Brett. once in Kent. He’s poor enough, has drunk and gambled out All that he had, and gentleman he was. We have been glad together ; let him live. Wyatt, We has gambled for his life, and lost, he hangs. No, no, my word’s my word. poor gentleman ! Gamble thyself at once out of my sight, Or I will dig thee with my dagger. Away ! Women and children ! Take thy Enter a Crowd of WOMEN and Children. First Woman. O Sir Thomas, Sir Thomas, pray you go away, Sir Thomas, or youll make the White Tower a black ’un for us this blessed day. He’ll be the death on us; and you'll set the Divil’s Tower a-spitting, and he’ll smash all our bits o’ things worse than Philip o’ Spain. Second Woman. Don’t ye now go to think that we be for Philip o’ Spain. Third Woman. No, we know that ye QUEEN MARY. Ev’n so; he was my neighbour . ACTY be come to kill the Queen, and we’ pray for you all on our bended kne But o’ God’s mercy don’t ye kill 1 Queen here, Sir Thomas ; look ye, little Dickon, and little Robin, and Jenny—though she’s but a side-cou: and all on our knees, we pray you to kil the Queen further off, Sir Thomas. _ Wyatt. My friends, I have not com : to kill the Queen Or here or there: I come to save you al And Ill go further off. . Crowd. Thanks, Sir Thomas, we be beholden to you, and we'll pray for on our bended knees till our lives’ e Wyatt. Be happy, I am your fr To Kingston, forward ! [2nee it. SCENE IV.—Room IN THE Ca HOUSE OF WESTMINSTER PALACE, - MARY, ALICE, GARDINER, Reni LADIES. q Gardiner, Their cry is, Philip nex shall be king. 4 Mary. Word Pembroke in comm at A. of all our force Will front their cry and shatter them in into dust. ; Alice. Was not Lord Pembroke 3 iy Northumberland ? O madam, if this Pembroke should be false ? Mary. No, girl; most brave and loy yal, brave and loyal. His breaking with Northumberland ss ok Northumberland. | At the park gate he hovers. itt our guards. — = These Kentish ploughmen cannot br eak the guards. vs Linter MESSENGER. Messenger. Wyatt, your Grace, ha broken thro’ the guards And gone to Ludgate. Gardiner. Madam, I eee That all is lost; but we can save yo Grace. a ij i i The river still is free. I do beseech you, There yet is time, take boat and pass to | Windsor. Mary. I pass to Windsor and I lose i. my crown. _ Gardiner. Pass, then, I pray your Highness, to the Tower. Mary. I shall but be their prisoner in the Tower. Cries without. The traitor! treason ! Pembroke ! Ladies. Treason ! treason ! Mary. Peace. False to Northumberland, is he false to me? ‘Bear witness, Renard, that I live and die ‘The true and faithful bride of Philip—A sound pa feet and voices thickening hither— blows— [Etark, there is battle at the palace gates, And I will out upon the gallery. - Ladies. No, no, your Grace; see there the arrows flying. Mary. Jam Harry’s daughter, Tudor, and not Fear. | [Goes out on the gallery. The guards are all driven in, skulk into corners Like rabbits to their holes. A gracious guard ‘Truly ; ; Shame on them! they have shut the gates ! Finter SIR ROBERT SOUTHWELL. Southwell. The porter, please your Grace, hath shut the gates On friend and foe. Your gentlemen-at- arms, If this be not your Grace’s order, cry To have the gates set wide again, and they With their good battleaxes will do you right Against all traitors. Mary. They are the flower of England ; set the gates wide. [Zx7¢ Southwell. QUEEN MARY. 603 Linter COURTENAY. Courtenay. All lost, all lost, all yielded! A barge, a barge ! The Queen must to the Tower. Mary. Whence come you, sir? Courtenay. From Charing Cross ; the rebels broke us there, And I sped hither with what haste I might To save my royal cousin. Mary. Where is Pembroke ? Courtenay. I left him somewhere in the thick of it, Mary. Left him and fled; and thou that would’st be King, And hast nor heart nor honour. I myself Will down into the battle and there bide The upshot of my quarrel, or die with those That are no cowards and no Courtenays. Courtenay. I do not love your Grace should call me coward. LEinter another MESSENGER. Messenger. Over, your Grace, all crush’d ; the brave Lord William Thrust him from Ludgate, and the traitor flying To Temple Bar, there by Sir Maurice Berkeley Was taken prisoner. Mary. To the Tower with 42m / Messenger. “Tis said he told Sir Maurice there was one Cognisant of this, and party thereunto, My Lord of Devon. Mary. To the Tower with 472m / Courtenay. O la, the Tower, the Tower, always the Tower,. I shall grow into it—I shall be the Tower. Mary. Your Lordship may not have so long to wait. Remove him ! Courtenay. La, to whistle out my life, And carve my coat upon the walls again ! [Zxzt Courtenay guarded. Messenger. Also this Wyatt did con- fess the Princess Cognisant thereof, and party thereunto. Mary. What? whom—whom did you say ? 604 QUEEN MARY. Aor Messenger. Elizabeth, Your Royal sister. Mary. To the Tower with her / My foes are at my feet and I am Queen. {Gardiner and her Ladies kneel to her. Gardiner (rising). There let them lie, your footstool! (Aszde.) Can I strike Elizabeth ?—not now and save the life Of Devon: if I save him, he and his Are bound to me—may strike hereafter. (Aloud.) Madam, What Wyatt said, or what they said hesaid, Cries of the moment and the street— Mary. He said it. Gardiner. Your courts of justice will - determine that. Renard (advancing). I trust by this your Highness will allow Some spice of wisdom in my telling you, When last we talk’d, that Philip would not come Till Guildford Dudley and the Duke of Suffolk, And Lady Jane had left us. Mary. They shall die. Renard. And your so loving sister ? Mary. She shall die. My foes are at my feet, and Philip King. [Axeunt, AG Pall t: SCENE I.—TueE ConbDwvirT IN GRACE- CHURCH, Painted with the Nine Worthies, among them King Henry VILL. holding a book, on it inscribed ‘ Verbum Dei.’ Enter SIR RALPH BAGENHALL and SIR THOMAS STAFFORD. Bagenhall. A hundred here and hundreds hang’d in Kent. The tigress had unsheath’d her nails at last, And Renard and the Chancellor sharpen’d them. In every London street a gibbet stood. They are down to-day. Here by this house was one ; The traitor husband dangled at the doc And when the traitor wife came out f bread To still the petty treason therewithin, Her cap would brush his heels. | Stafford. It is Sir Ralph And muttering to himself as heretofore. Sir, see you aught up yonder ? Bagenhall. I miss someth ling The tree that only bears dead fruit is gone Stafford. What tree, sir? Bagenhall. Well, the tree Virgil, sir, That bears not its own apples. Stafford. What ! the gallows Bagenhall. Sir, this dead fruit ripening overmuch, : And had to be removed lest living Spain — Should sicken at dead England. Stafford. Not so dead, But that a shock may rouse her. Bagenhall. I a ve Sir Thomas Stafford ? ; Stafford, I am ill disgui Bagenhall. Well, are you not in here ? “7 Stafford. I think so. I came to feel the pulse of Engle d,. whether “s It beats hard at this marriage. Did you see it? Bagenhall. Stafford, I am a sad ma 1 and a serious. = Far liefer had I in my country hall Been reading some old book, with old hound Couch’d at my hearth, and mine old f of wine Bs, Beside me, than have seen it: yet Isawit. — Stafford. Good, was it splendid? Bagenhall, Ay, if Dukes, and And Counts, and sixty Spanish cavall Some six or seven Bishops, diamo pearls, That royal commonplace too, cloth of gt Could make it so. a Stafford. And what was Maty’s dr Bagenhall, Good faith, I was tee for the woman To mark the dress. She wore red shot ig 7 SCENE I. Stafford. Red shoes ! | Bagenhall. Scarlet, as if her feet were wash’d in blood, As if she had waded in it. Stafford. Were your eyes So bashful that you look’d no higher? Bagenhall. A diamond, And Philip’s gift, as proof of Philip’s love, Who hath not any for any,—tho’ a true | one, _Blazed false upon her heart. Stafford. But this proud Prince— Bagenhall. Nay, he is King, you know, the King of Naples. The father ceded Naples, that the son Being a King, might wed a Queen—O he Flamed in brocade—white satin his trunk- hose, Inwrought with silver,—on his neck a collar, Gold, thick with diamonds; hanging down from this ‘The Golden Fleece—and round his knee, misplaced, Our English Garter, studded with great | emeralds, aes. I know not what. Have you had enough Of all this gear? Stafford. Ay, since you hate the tell- | ing it. ‘How look’d the Queen ? _ Bagenhall, No fairer for her jewels. And 1 could see that as the new-made couple Came from the Minster, moving side by side Beneath one canopy, ever and anon She cast on him a vassal smile of love, Which Philip with a glance of some dis- taste, Or so methought, return’d. I may be wrong, sir. This marriage will not hold. Stafford. I think with you. ‘The King of France will help to break it. Bagenhall. France ! We once had half of France, and hurl’d our battles Into the heart of Spain; but England now QUEEN MARY. 605 Is but a ball chuck’d between France and Spain, His in whose hand she drops ; Bolingbroke Had holpen Richard’s tottering throne to stand, Could Harry have foreseen that all our nobles Would perish on the civil slaughter-field, And leave the people naked to the crown, And the crown naked to the people; the crown Female, too ! Can save us. think, Never to rise again. Stafford. You are too black-blooded. I’d make a move myself to hinder that : I know some lusty fellows there in France. Bagenhall, You would but make us weaker, Thomas Stafford. Wyatt was a good soldier, yet he fail’d, And strengthen’d Philip. Stafford. Did not his last breath Clear Courtenay and the Princess from the charge Of being his co-rebels ? Bagenhall. Ay, but then What sucha one as Wyatt says is nothing: We have no men among us. The new Lords Are quieted with their sop of Abbeylands, And ev’n before the Queen’s face Gardiner buys them With Philip’s gold. no-courage ! Why, ev’n the haughty prince, Northum- berland, The leader of our Reformation, knelt And blubber’d like a lad, and on the scaffold Recanted, and resold himself to Rome. Stafford. I swear you do your country wrong, Sir Ralph. I know a set of exiles over there, Dare-devils, that would eat fire and spit it out At Philip’s beard: already. Harry of Sir, no woman’s regimen We are fallen, and as I , All greed, no faith, they pillage Spain ys 606 QUEEN MARY. ACT HI. The French King winks at it. An hour by Peers of the Realm, Officers of will come . State, etc. Cannon shot off. — When they will sweep her from the seas. Crowd. Philip and Mary, Philip and No men? Mary ! Did not Lord Suffolk die like a true man? | Long live the King and Queen, Philip Is not Lord William Howard a true man? and Mary! Yea, you yourself, altho’ you are black- blooded : And I, by God, believe myself a man. Ay, even in the church there is a man— Cranmer. Fly would he not, when all men bad him fly. And what a letter he wrote against the Pope ! There’s a brave man, if any. Bagenhall, Ay; if it hold. Crowd (coming on). God save their Graces ! Stafford. Bagenhall, I see The Tudor green and white. (Zrumzpets.) They are coming now. And here’s a crowd as thick as herring- shoals. Bagenhall. Be limpets to this pillar, or we are torn : Down the strong wave of brawlers. Crowd. God save their Graces ! [Procession of Trumpeters, Javelin- men, etc.; then Spanish and Llemish Nobles intermingled. Stafford. WNorth seeing, Bagenhall! These black dog-Dons Garb themselves bravely. long-face there, Looks very Spain of very Spain ? Bagenhall. The Duke Of Alva, an iron soldier. Stafford. And the Dutchman, Now laughing at some jest ? Bagenhall. William of Orange, William the Silent. Stafford. ‘Nhy do they call him so? Bagenhall. He keeps, they say, some secret that may cost Philip his life. Stafford. But then he looks so merry. Bagenhall, J cannot tell you why they call him so. [Zhe King and Queen pass, attended Who’s the Stafford. They smile as if content with one another. Bagenhall. A smile abroad is oft a scowl at home. [King axd Queen pass on. Procession. first Citizen. I thought this Philip had been one of those black devils of Spain, but he hath a yellow beard. Second Citizen, Not red like Iscariot’s, First Citizen. Lake a carrot’s, as thou say’st, and English carrot’s better than Spanish licorice; but I thought he wasa beast. Third Citizen. Certain I had heard that every Spaniard carries a tail like a devil under his trunk-hose. ‘Tailor. Ay, but see what trunk-hoses! Lord ! they be fine; I never stitch’d none such. They make amends for the tails. Fourth Citizen. Tut! every Spanish | priest will tell you that all English heretics have tails. fifth Citizen. Death and the Deyil— if he find I have one— Fourth Citizen. Lo! thou hast call’d them up! here they come—a pale horse for Death and Gardiner for the Deyil. Enter GARDINER (turning back from the procession). Gardiner. Knave, wilt thou wear thy cap before the Queen? Man. My Lord, I stand so squeezed among the crowd I cannot lift my hands unto my head. Gardiner. Knock off his cap there, some of you about him ! See there be others that can use their hands. Thou art one of Wyatt’s men? Man. No, my Lord, no. Gardiner. Thy name, thou knave? Man. I am nobody, my Lord. Gardiner (shouting). God’s passion } knave, thy name? . | { | SCENE I. Man. I have ears to hear. Gardiner. Ay, rascal, if I leave thee ears to hear. Find out his name and bring it me (éo Attendant). Attendant, Ay, my Lord. Gardiner, Knave, thou shalt lose thine ears and find thy tongue, And shalt be thankful if I leave thee that. [Comzng before the Conduit. The conduit painted—the nine worthies —ay ! But then what’s here? King Harry with a scroll. , Ha—Verbum Dei—verbum—word of God! God’s passion! do you know the knave that painted it ? Attendant. I do, my Lord. Gardiner. Tell him to paint it out, And put some fresh device in lieu of it— - A pair of gloves, a pair of gloves, sir ; ha? : _ There is no heresy there. ~ Alttendant. I will, my Lord ; _ The man shall paint a pair of gloves. I am sure (Knowing the man) he wrought it igno- | rantly, _ And not from any malice. | Gardiner. Word of God In English ! over this the brainless loons That cannot spell Esaias from St. Paul, Make themselves drunk and mad, fly out and flare ' Into rebellions. Il have their bibles _ burnt. The bible is the priest’s. Ay! fellow, what ! Stand staring at me! shout, you gaping rogue ! Man. I have, my Lord, shouted till I am hoarse. Gardiner. What hast thou shouted, knave? Man. Long live Queen Mary! Gardiner. Knave, there be_ two. There be both King and Queen, _ Philip and Mary. Shout ! QUEEN MARY. 607 Man. Nay, but, my Lord, The Queen comes first, Mary and Philip. Gardiner. Shout, then, Mary and Philip ! Man. Mary and Philip ! Gardiner. Now, Thou hast shouted for thy pleasure, shout for mine ! Philip and Mary ! Man. Must it be so, my Lord? Gardiner. Ay, knave. Man. Philip and Mary! Gardiner. I distrust thee. Thine is a half voice and a lean assent. What is thy name? Man. Sanders. Gardiner. What else ? Man. Zerubbabel. Gardiner. Where dost thou live? Man. In Cornhill. Gardiner, Where, knave, where? Man. Sign of the Talbot. Gardiner. Come to me to-morrow.— Rascal !—this land is like a hill of fire, One crater opens when another shuts. But so I get the laws against the heretic, Spite of Lord Paget and Lord William Howard, And others of our Parliament, revived, I will show fire on my side—stake and fire— Sharp work and short. easily cow’d. Follow their Majesties. [Axtt. The crowd following. Bagenhall. As proud as Becket. Stafford. You would not have him murder’d as Becket was ? Bagenhall, _No—murder fathers mur- der: but I say There is no man—there was one woman with us— It was a sin to love her married, dead I cannot choose but love her. The knaves are Stafford. Lady Jane? Crowd (going off). God save their Graces ! Stafford. Did you see her die? Bagenhall, No, no; her innocent blood had blinded me. 608 QUEEN MARY. ACT IIL You call me too black- blooded —true enough Her dark dead blood is in my heart with mine. If ever I cry out against the Pope Her dark dead blood that ever moves with mine Will stir the living tongue and make the ~ cry. Stafford. Yet doubtless you can tell me how she died? BLagenhall, Seventeen—and knew eight languages—in music Peerless—her needle perfect, and her learning Beyond the churchmen ; yet so meek, so modest, So wife-like humble to the trivial boy Mismatch’d with her for policy! I have heard She would not take a last farewell of him, She fear’d it might unman him for his end. She could not be unmann’d—no, nor outwoman’d— Seventeen—a rose of grace ! Girl never breathed to rival such a rose ; Rose never blew that equall’d such a bud. Stafford. Pray you go on. Bagenhall. She came upon the scaffold, And said she was condemn’d to die for treason ; She had but follow’d the device of those Her nearest kin: she thought they knew the laws. But for herself, she knew but little law, And nothing of the titles to the crown ; She had no desire for that, and wrung her hands, And trusted God would save her thro’ the blood Of Jesus Christ alone. Stafford. Pray you go on. Bagenhall, Then knelt and said the Miserere Mei— But all in English, mark you; rose again, And, when the headsman pray’d to be forgiven, Said ‘You will give me my true crown at last, But do it quickly ;’ then all wept but — she, Who changed not colour when she saw the block, ‘Will you take } But ask’d him, childlike : it off | Before I lay me down?’ ‘No, madam,’ | he said, . Gasping ; and’ when her innocent eyes — were bound, She, with her poor blind hands feeling— 7 ‘where is it ? q Where is it??’—You must fancy that which follow’d, If you have heart to do it! Crowd (in the distance). their Graces ! Stafford. ‘Their Graces, our disgraces! God confound them ! ; Why, she’s grown bloodier! when I = | | God save was here, . This was against her conscience—would be murder ! 1 Bagenhall, The ‘Thou shalt do no murder,’ which God’s hand Wrote on her conscience, Mary rubb’d- out pale— She could not make it white—and over that, Traced in the blackest text of Hell— ‘Thou shalt !’ > | And sign’d it—Mary ! Stafford. Philip and the Pope = | Must. have sign’d too. I hear this Legate’s coming To bring us absolution from the Pope. The Lords and Commons will bow dem before him— 4 Sir Ralph ? .). Bagenhall, And why should I be — bolder than the rest, a Or honester than all ? Stafford. But, sir, if 1a cards ; a And that a puff would do it—then if I a And others made that move I touch@ upon, _Back’d by the power of France, and | landing here, Came with a sudden splendour, shout, and show, _ And dazzled men and deafen’d by some _ bright Loud venture, and the people so unquiet— And I the race of murder’d Buckingham— Not for myself, but for the kingdom— Sir, I trust that you would fight along with us. Bagenhall. No; you would fling your lives into the gulf. Stafford. But if this Philip, as he’s like to do, Left Mary a wife-widow here alone, Set up a viceroy, sent his myriads hither To seize upon the forts and fleet, and make us A Spanish province ; would you not fight then ? Bagenhall, think I should fight then. _ Stafford. Iam sure of it. Hist ! there’s the face coming on here of one Who knows me. I must leave you. | Fare you well, You'll hear of me again. Bagenhal, Upon the scaffold. [Axeunt. SCENE II.—Room IN WHITEHALL PALACE. Mary. Anzter PHILIP and CARDINAL POLE. fole. Ave Maria, gratia plena, Bene- dicta tu in mulieribus. Mary. Loyal and royal humblest thanks. Had you a pleasant voyage up the river? fole. We had your royal barge, and that same chair, Or rather throne of purple, on the deck. _ Our silver cross sparkled before the prow, The ripples twinkled at their diamond- dance, | The boats that follow’d, were as glowing- 82y cousin, i QUEEN MARY. 609 As regal gardens; and your flocks of swans, As fair and white as angels; and your shores Wore in mine eyes the green of Paradise. My foreign friends, who dream’d us blanketed In ever-closing fog, were much amazed To find as fair a sun as might have flash’d Upon their lake of Garda, fire the Thames ; Our voyage by sea was all but miracle ; And here the river flowing from the sea, Not toward it (for they thought not of our tides), Seem’d as a happy miracle to make glide— In quiet—home your banish’d country- man. Mary. We heard that you were sick in Flanders, cousin. A dizziness. And how came you Pole. Mary. round again? The scarlet thread of Rahab saved her life ; And mine, a little letting of the blood. Mary. Well? now? Pole. Ay, cousin, as the heathen giant Had but to touch the ground, his force return’d— Thus, after twenty years of banishment, Feeling my native land beneath my foot, I said thereto: ‘ Ah, native land of mine, Thou art much beholden to this foot of mine, That hastes with full commission from the Pope To absolve thee from thy guilt of heresy. Thou hast disgraced me and attainted me, And mark’d me ev’n as Cain, and I return As Peter, but tobless thee: make me well.’ Methinks the good land heard me, for to- day My heart beats twenty, when I see you, cousin. Ah, gentle cousin, since your Herod’s death, How oft hath Peter knock’dat Mary’sgate! ZR Pole. 610 QUEEN MARY. And Mary would have risen and let him in, But, Mary, there were those within the house Who would not have it. Mary. True, good cousin Pole ; And there were also those without the | house Who would not have it. Pole. I believe so, cousin. State-policy and church- “policy are con- joint, But Janus-faces looking diverse ways. I fear the Emperor much misvalued me. But allis well; ’twas ev’n the will of God, Who, waiting till the time had ripen’d, now, Makes me his mouth of holy greeting. ‘ Hail, Daughter of God, and saver of the faith. Sit benedictus fructus ventris tui !’ Mary. Ah, heaven ! Pole. Unwell, your Grace ? Mary. No, cousin, happy— Happy to see you; never yet so happy Since I was crown’d. Pole. Sweet cousin, you forget That long low minster where you gave your hand To this great Catholic King. Philip. Well said, Lord Legate. Mary. Nay, not well said; I thought of you, my liege, Ev’n as I spoke. Philip. Ay, Madam; my Lord Paget Waits to present our Council tothe Legate. Sit down here, all; Madam, between us you. Lo, now you are enclosed with boards of cedar, Our little sister of the Song of Songs ! You are doubly fenced and shielded sitting here Between the two most high-set thrones on earth, The Emperor’s highness happily symboll’d by The King your husband, Holiness By mine own self. Mary. True, cousin, I am happy. Pole. the Pope’s houses . To take this absolution from your lipall ' And be regather’d to the Papal fold? _ Pole. In Britain’s calendar the bright- _ est day = Beheld our rough forefathers break the Gods, 2 And clasp the faith in Christ ; but after t aya Mary. Then these shall meet upor St. Andrew’s day. Enter PAGET, who presents the Conan | ‘Dumb show. a Pole. Taman old man wearied with my journey, Ev’n with my joy. Permit me to witht draw. To Lambeth ? Philip. Cranmer. It was not meet the heretic swine should | live In Lambeth. Mary. There or anywhere, or at all. — Philip. We have had it swept and — garnish’d after him. | Not for the seven devils to enter — in? Philip. No, for we trust they paral in the swine. Ay, Lambeth has ousted Pole. Pole. True, and I am the snes of the Pope. Farewell, your Graces. Philip. Nay, not here—to me; I will go with you to the waterside. Pole. Not be my Charon to the counter — side ? 3 Philip. No, my Lord Legate, the Lord Chancellor goes. And unto no dead world ; bat | Lambeth palace, Henceforth a centre of the living faite q [Zxeunt Philip, Pole, Paget, ae ‘a Pole. Manet Mary. Mary. Ue hath awaked! he bath awaked ! oe SCENE ITI. He stirs within the darkness ! Oh, Philip, husband ! now thy love tomine Will cling more close, and those bleak manners thaw, That make me shamed and tongue-tied in my love. The second Prince of Peace— The great unborn defender of the Faith, Who will avenge me of mine enemies— He comes, and my star rises. The stormy Wyatts and Northumberlands, The proud ambitions of Elizabeth, And all her fieriest partisans—are pale Before my star ! The light of this new learning wanes and dies : _ The ghosts of Luther and Zuinglius fade Into the deathless hell which is their doom Before my star ! His sceptre shall go forth from Ind toInd! His sword shall hew the heretic peoples | a down ! _ His faith shall clothe the world that will be his, _ Like universal air and sunshine! Open, Ye everlasting gates! The King is here !— _ My star, my son! Linter PHILIP, DUKE OF ALVA, etc. Oh, Philip, come with me ; Good news have I to tell you, news to make Both of us happy—ay, the Kingdom too. _ Nay come with me—one moment ! Philip (to Alva). More than that : There-was one here of late—William the Silent They call him—he is free enough in talk, But tells me nothing. You will be, we trust, Sometime the viceroy of those aie He must deserve his surname better. | » Alva. Ay, sir ; Inherit the Great Silence. Philip. True ; the provinces Are hard to rule and must be hardly ruled ; Most fruitful, yet, indeed, an empty rind, All hollow’d out with stinging heresies ; ‘And for their heresies, Alva, they will fight; ‘You must break them or they break you. QUEEN MARY. 611 Alva (proudly). The first. Phili~. Good! . Well, Madam, this new happiness of mine? [Axeunt. Enter THREE PAGES. first Page. News, mates! a miracle, a miracle ! news ! The bells must ring ; Te Deums must be sung ; The Queen hath felt the motion of her ' babe ! Second Page. Ay; but see here! first Page. See what ? Second Page. This paper, Dickon. I found it fluttering at the palace gates :— ‘The Queen of England is delivered of a dead dog !’ Third Page. These are the things that madden her. Fie upon it! first Page. Ay; but I hear she hath a dropsy, lad, Or a high-dropsy, as the doctors call it. Third Page. Fie on her dropsy, so she have a dropsy ! I know that she was ever sweet to me. first Page. For thou and thine are Roman to the core. Third Page. So thou and thine must be otake heed! first Page. Not I, And whether this flash of news be false or true, So the wine run, and there be revelry, Content am I. Let all the steeples clash, Till the sun dance, as upon Easter Day. [Axeunt. SCENE III.—GREAT HALL IN WHITEHALL. At the far end a dais. On this three chatrs, two under one canopy for MARY and PHILIP, another on the right of these for POLE. Under the dats on POLE’s side, ranged along the wall, sit all the Spiritual Peers, and along the wall opposite, all the Temporal. The Commons on cross benches in front, a line of approach to the dais between 612 QUEEN MARY. ACT III, them. In the foreground, SIR RALPH BAGENHALL and other Members of the Commons. First Member, St. Andrew’s day ; sit close, sit close, we are friends. Is reconciled the word ? the Pope again ? It must be thus; and yet, cocksbody ! how strange That Gardiner, once so one with all of us Against this foreign marriage, should have yielded So utterly !—strange! but stranger still that he, So fierce against the Headship of the Pope, Should play the second actor in this pageant That brings him in; such a cameleon he! Second Member. This Gardiner turn’d his coat in Henry’s time ; The serpent that hath slough’d will slough again. Third Member. Tut, then we all are serpents. Second Member. Speak for yourself. Third Member. Ay, and for Gardiner ! being English citizen, How should he bear a bridegroom out of Spain ? The Queen would have him! English churchman How should he bear the headship of the Pope? The Queen would have it! that are wise Shape a necessity, as a sculptor clay, To their own model. Second Member, wise being Statesmen Statesmen that are Take truth herself for model. What say you? [Zo Sir Ralph Bagenhall. Bagenhall. We talk and talk. first Member. Ay, and what use to talk ? Philip’s no sudden alien—the Queen’s husband, He’s here, and king, or will be—yet cocksbody ! So hated here! I watch’d a hive of late ; My seven-years’ friend was with me, my young boy ; Out crept a wasp, with half the swarm — behind. ‘ Philip !’ says he. For infant treason. . Third Member. But they say that bees, — If any creeping life invade their hive __ Too gross to be thrust out, will build him round, I had to cuff the rogue _And bind him in from harming of their combs. And Philip by these articles is bound From stirring hand or foot to wrong the realm. | Second Member. By bonds of beeswa like your creeping thing ; 4 But your wise bees had stung him first . to death. é Third Member. Hush, hush ! = | | You wrong the Chancellor: the clauses added To that same treaty which the emperor © sent us Were mainly Gardiner’s: that no foreigner _ Hold office in the household, fleet, forts, army ; | That if the Queen should die withoug a | child, | The bond between the kingdoms be dissolved ; | That Philip should not mix us any way With his French wars— Second Member. Ay, ay, but what security, & Good sir, for this, if Philip Third Member. Peace—the Queen, Philip, and Pole. [Ad rise, and stom Enter MARY, PHILIP, and POLE. | [Gardiner conducts them to the three chairs of state. Philip sits on the Queen’s /ef/t, Pole on her right. — Gardiner. Our short-lived sun, before | his winter plunge, a Laughs at the last red leaf, and Andrews Day. J after years More solemn than of old ? SCENE III. Philip. Madam, my wish Echoes your Majesty’s. Pole. It shall be so. Gardiner. Mine echoes both your Graces’; (aszde) but the Pope— _ Can we not have the Catholic church as well Without as with the Italian? if we cannot, Bray then the Pope. My lords of the upper house, And ye, my masters, of the lower house, Do ye stand fast by that which ye resolved? Voices. We do. Gardiner. And be you all one mind to supplicate The Legate here for pardon, and acknow- : ledge _ The primacy of the Pope? Votces. We are all one mind. Gardiner. ‘Then must J play the vassal to this Pole. [A side. [He draws a paper from under his robes and presents tt to the King and Queen, who look through it and return tt to him; then ascends . a tribune, and reads. We, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, _ And Commons here in Parliament as- | sembled, _ Presenting the whole body of this realm Of England, and dominions of the same, Do make most humble suit unto your | Majesties, _In our own name and that of all the state, _ That by your gracious means and inter- . cession _ Our supplication be exhibited To the Lord Cardinal Pole, sent here as Legate From our most Holy Father Julius, Pope, _ And from the Apostolic see of Rome ; | And do declare our penitence and grief For our long schism and disobedience, | | Either in making laws and ordinances _ Against the Holy Father’s primacy, _ Or else by doing or by speaking aught Which might impugn or prejudice the same ; _ By this our supplication promising, _ As well for our own selves as all the realm, QUEEN MARY. 613 That now we be and ever shall be quick, Under and with your Majesties’ autho- rities, To do to the utmost all that in us lies Towards the abrogation and repeal Of all such laws and ordinances made ; Whereon we humbly pray your Majesties, As persons undefiled with our offence, So to set forth this humble suit of ours That we the rather by your intercession May from the Apostolic see obtain, Thro’ this most reverend Father, absolu- tion, And full release from danger of all censures Of Holy Church that we be fall’n into, So that we may, as children penitent, Be once again received into the bosom And unity of Universal Church ; And that this noble realm thro’ after years May in this unity and obedience Unto the holy see and reigning Pope Serve God and both your Majesties. Voices. Amen. [AZ sit. [He again presents the petition to the King azd Queen, who hand it reverentially to Pole. Pole (sitting). This is the loveliest day that ever smiled On England. All her breath should, incenselike, Rise to the heavens in grateful praise of Him Who now recalls her to His ancient fold. Lo! once again God to this realm hath given A token of His more especial Grace ; For as this people were the first of all The islands call’d into the dawning church Out of the dead, deep night of heathen- dom, So now are these the first whom God hath given Grace to repent and sorrow for their schism ; And if your penitence be not mockery, Oh how the blessed angels who rejoice Over one saved do triumph at this hour In the reborn salvation of a land So noble. [A pause. 614 For ourselves we do protest That our commission is to heal, not harm ; We come not to condemn, but reconcile ; We come not to compel, but call again ; We come not to destroy, but edify ; Nor yet to question things already done ; These are forgiven—matters of the past— And range with jetsam and with offal thrown Into the blind sea of forgetfulness. [4 ause. Ye have reversed the attainder laid on us By him who sack’d the house of God ; and we, Amplier than any field on our poor earth Can render thanks in fruit for being sown, Do here and now repay you sixty-fold, A hundred, yea, a thousand thousand-fold, With heaven for earth. [Resingand stretching forth his hands. All kneel but Sir Ralph Bagenhall, who rises and remains standing. The Lord who hath redeem’d us With His own blood, and wash’d us from our sins, To purchase for Himself a stainless bride ; He, whom the Father hath appointed Head Of all his church, He by His mercy absolve you ! ' [A pause. And we by that authority Apostolic Given unto us, his Legate, by the Pope, Our Lord and Holy Father, Julius, God’s Vicar and Vicegerent upon earth, Do here absolve you and deliver you And every one of you, and all the realm And its dominions from all heresy, All schism, and from all and every cen- sure, Judgment, and pain accruing thereupon ; And also we restore you to the bosom And unity of Universal Church. [ Zurning to Gardiner. Our letters of commission will declare this plainlier. [Queen heard sobbing. Cries of Amen! Amen! Some of the Members embrace one another. All but Sir Ralph Bagenhall fass out tnto the neighbouring chapel, whence ts heard the Te Deum. QUEEN MARY. Bagenhall. We strove against the papacy from the first, In William’s time, in our first Edward’s — time, And in my master Henry’s time ; but now, The unity of Universal Church, . Mary would have it; and this Gardiner follows ; The unity of Universal Hell, Philip would have it ; and this Gardiner follows ! A Parliament of imitative apes ! Sheep at the gap which Gardiner takes, who not 7 | Believes the Pope, nor any of a | believe— These spaniel-Spaniard English of ane time, Who rub their fawning noses in the r | For that is Philip’s gold-dust, and adore This Vicar of their Vicar. Would I ae | been ; Born Spaniard! I had held my head up © then. | I am ashamed that I am Bagenhall, English. Enter OFFICER. Officer. Sir Ralph Bagenhall ! Bagenhall, What of that? . Officer. You were the one sole man in 3 either house 4 Who stood upright when both the houses — fell. 4 Bagenhall, The houses fell ! Officer. I mean the houses kne Before the Legate. } Bagenhall. Do not scrimp yo phrase, But stretch it wider ; 3 say when Englane fell. on Officer. I say you were the one sole man who stood. Bagenhall. 1am the one solemanm either house, = Perchance in England, loves her likea Officer. Well, you one man, because — you stood upright, a Her Grace the Queen commands you 10 _ the Tower. 4 | SCENE Iv. Bagenhall, As traitor, or as heretic, or for what ? Officer. If any man in any way would be The one man, he shall be so to his cost. Bagenhall, What! will she have my head ? Officer. A round fine likelier. Your pardon. [Calling to Attendant. By the river to the Tower. [/Zxeuzz. SCENE IV.—WuiTEHALL. A Room IN THE PALACE. MARY, GARDINER, POLE, PAGET, BONNER, éfc. Mary. The King and I, my Lords, now that all traitors _ Against our royal state have lost the heads Wherewith they plotted in their treason- ous malice, Have talk’d together, and are well agreed _ That those old statutes touching Lollard- ism To bring the heretic to the stake, should be No longer a dead letter, but requicken’d. One of the Council. Why, what hath fluster’d Gardiner ? how he rubs - His forelock ! Paget. I have changed a word with him In coming, and may change a word again. Gardiner. Madam, your Highness is . our sun, the King And you together our two suns in one ; And so the beams of both may shine upon us, ‘The faith that seem’d to droop will feel your light, Lift head, and flourish; yet not light ; alone, + There must be heat—there must be heat enough To scorch and wither heresy to the root. iF or what saith Se ‘Compel them to come in.’ . And what saith Paul ? were cut a ‘That trouble you.’ Let the dead letter live! ‘IT would they QUEEN MARY. 615 Trace it in fire, that all the louts to whom Their A B C is~darkness, clowns and grooms May read it ! so you quash rebellion too, For heretic and traitor are all one: ‘Two vipers of one breed—anamphisbena, Each end a sting: Let the dead letter burn ! faget. Yet there be some disloyal Catholics, And many heretics loyal ; heretic throats Cried no God-bless-her to the Lady Jane, But shouted in Queen Mary. So there be Some traitor-heretic, there is axe and cord. To take the lives of others that are loyal, And by the churchman’s pitiless doom of fire, Were but a thankless policy in the crown, Ay, and against itself; for there are many. Mary. If we could burn out heresy, my Lord Paget, We reck not tho’ we lost this crown of England— Ay! tho’ it were ten Englands ! Gardiner. Right, your Grace. Paget, you are all for this poor life of ours, And care but little for the life to be. Paget. I have some time, for curious- ness, my Lord, Watch’d children playing at cher life to be, And cruel at it, killing helpless flies ; Such is our time—all times for aught I know. Gardiner. We kill the heretics that sting the soul— They, with right reason, flies that prick the flesh. Paget. They had not reach’d right reason ; little children ! They kill’d but for their pleasure and the power They felt in killing. Gardiner, A spice of Satan, ha! Why, good ! what then? granted !—we are fallen creatures ; Look to your Bible, Paget! we are fallen. Paget. Tam but of the laity, my Lord Bishop, And may not read your Bible, yet I found 616 QUEEN MARY. ACT II, One day, a wholesome scripture, ‘ Little children, Love one another.’ Gardiner, Did you find a scripture, ‘I come not to bring peace but a sword’? The sword Is in her Grace’s hand to smite with. Paget, You stand up here to fight for heresy, You are more than guess’d at as a heretic, And on the steep-up track of the true faith Your lapses are far seen. Paget. The faultless Gardiner ! Mary. You brawl beyond the ques- tion ; speak, Lord Legate ! Pole. Indeed, I cannot follow with your Grace : Rather would say—the shepherd doth not kill The sheep that wander from his flock, but sends His careful dog to bring them to the fold. Look to the Netherlands, wherein have been Such holocausts of heresy ! to what end? For yet the faith is not established there. Gardiner. The end’s not come. Pole. No—nor this way will come, Seeing there lie two ways to every end, A better and a worse—the worse is here To persecute, because to persecute Makes a faith hated, and is furthermore No perfect witness of a perfect faith In him who persecutes: when men are tost On tides of strange opinion, and not sure Of their own selves, they are wroth with their own selves, And thence with others ; then, who lights the faggot ? Not the full faith, no, but the lurking doubt. Old Rome, that first made martyrs in the Church, Trembled for her own gods, for these were trembling — But when did our Rome tremble ? Paget. Did she not In Henry’s time and Edward’s ? Pole. What, my Lord ! The Church on Peter’s rock? never ! I have seen = A pine in Italy that cast its shadow | Athwart a cataract ; The cataract shook the shadow. mind, The cataract typed the headlong plunge and fall : Of heresy to the pit : the pine was Rome, | | You see, my Lords, = It was the shadow of the Church that firm stood the pine= _ To m y | trembled ; ‘a Your church a but the shadow of a church, | Wanting the Papal mitre. Gardiner (muttering). a. Here be tropes. _ Pole. : And tropes are good to clothe a _ naked truth, | And make it look more seemly. Gardiner. Tropes nonitle | Pole. You are hard to please. Then — without tropes, my Lord, | An overmuch severeness, I repeat, f | When faith is wavering makes the waverer pass . Into more settled hatred of the doctrines _ Of those who rule, which hatred by and by — Involves the ruler (thus there springs to — light That Centaur of a monstrous Common- weal, The traitor-heretic) then tho’ some may _ quail, Yet others are that dare the stake and fire, _ And their strong torment bravely boris begets An admiration and an indignation, And hot desire to imitate ; so the plague — Of schism spreads ; were there but three or four ~ i Of these misleaders, yet I would not say Burn ! and we cannot burn whole towns; a they are many, a As my Lord Paget says. Gardiner. Yet my Lord Cardinal fole. Yam your Legate; please you let me finish. Methinks that under our Queen’s regimen We might go softlier than with crimson _ rowel . a | i\ i BN | SCENE IV. And streaming lash. When Herod- Henry first Began to batter at your English Church, This was the cause, and hence the judg- ment on her. She seethed with such adulteries, and the lives Of many among your churchmen were so foul That heaven wept and earth blush’d. I would advise That we should thoroughly cleanse the Church within Before these bitter statutes be requicken’d. _ So after that when she once more is seen _ White as the light, the spotless bride of Christ, _ Like Christ himself on Tabor, possibly The Lutheran may be won to her again ; Till when, my Lords, I counsel tolerance. Gardiner. What, if a mad dog bit | your hand, my Lord, ~ Would you not chop the bitten finger off, - Lest your whole body should madden . with the poison ? I would not, were I Queen, tolerate the heretic: + No, not an hour. The ruler of a land _ Is bounden by his power and place to see _ His people be not poison’d. Tolerate . them ! _ Why? do they tolerate you? Nay, many of them | Would burn—have burnt each other ; call they not The one true faith, a loathsome idol- ! worship ? » Beware, Lord Legate, of a heavier crime _ Than heresy is itself ; beware, I say, _ Lest men accuse you of indifference To all faiths, all religion; for you know | Right well that you yourself have been supposed . Tainted with Lutheranism in Italy. Pole (angered). But you, my Lord, beyond all supposition, In clear and open day were congruent With that vile Cranmer in the accursed lie Of good Queen Catharine’s divorce—the spring QUEEN MARY. 617 Of all those evils that have flow’d upon us? For you yourself have truckled to the tyrant, And done your best to bastardise our Queen, For which God’s righteous judgment fell upon you In your five years of imprisonment, my Lord, Under young Edward. Who so bolster’d MP The gross King’s headship of the Church, or more Denied the Holy Father! Gardiner. Ha! what! eh? But you, my Lord, a polish’d gentleman, A bookman, flying from the heat and tussle, You lived among your vines and oranges, ‘In your soft Italy yonder! You were sent for, You were appeal’d to, but you still preferr’d Your learned leisure. As for what I did I suffer’>d and repented. You, Lord Legate And Cardinal-Deacon, have not now to_ learn That ev’n St. Peter in his time of fear Denied his Master, ay, and thrice, my Lord. But not for five-and-twenty years, my Lord. Gardiner. Ha! good! it seems then I was summon’d hither But to be mock’d and baited. friend Bonner, And tell this learned Legate he lacks zeal. The Church’s evil is not as the King’s, Cannot be heal’d by stroking. The mad bite Must have the cautery—tell him—and at once. What would’st thou do hadst thou his power, thou That layest so long in heretic bonds with me ; Would’st thou not burn and blast them root and branch? Pole. Speak, 618 QUEEN MARY. ACT II, Bonner. Ay, after you, my Lord. Gardiner. Nay, God’s passion, before me! speak ! Bonner. Tam on fire until I see them flame. Gardiner. Ay, the psalm - singing weavers, cobblers, scum— But this most noble prince Plantagenet, Our good Queen’s cousin—dallying over seas Even when his brother’s, nay, his noble mother’s, Head fell— Pole. Peace, madman ! Thou stirrest up a grief thou canst not fathom. Thou Christian Bishop, thou Lord Chan- cellor Of England! no more rein upon thine anger Than any child ! ashamed That I was for a moment wroth at thee. Thou mak’st me much Mary. come for counsel and ye give me feuds, Like dogs that set to watch their master’s gate, Fall, when the thief is ev’n within the walls, To worrying one another. My Lord Chancellor, You have an old trick of offending us ; And but that you are art and part with us In purging heresy, well we might, for this Your violence and much roughness to the Legate, shut you from our Cousin Pole, You are fresh from brighter lands. tire with me. His Highness and myself (so you allow us) Will let you learn in peace and privacy What power this cooler sun of England hath In breeding godless vermin. Heaven That you may see according to our sight. Come, cousin. [Zveunt Queen and Pole, etc. Have counsels. Re- And pray Pole has the Plantagenet Gardiner. face, But not the force made them our mightiest kings. Fine eyes—but melancholy, irresolute— A fine beard, Bonner, a very full fine beard. a But a weak mouth, an indeterminate— Bonner. Well, a weak mouth, per- chance. Gardiner. And not like thine To gorge a heretic whole, roasted or raw. Bonner. And if he go not with ee Gardiner, - Our bashful Legate, shw'stine how Ag flush’d ? . Touch him upon his old heretical talk, — He’ll burn a diocese to prove his ortho doxy. . And let him call me truckler. In thos times, a Thou knowest we had to dodge, or cua or die ; | I kept my head for use of Holy Charel & | And see you, we shall have to dodge _ again, c And let the Pope trample our rights, an plunge His foreign fist into our island Church To plump the leaner pouch of Italy. | For a time, for a time. Why ? that these statutes may be pu force, ; And that his fan may thoroughly purg his floor. Bonner. So then you hold the Pope- Gardiner. I hold the Po What do I hold him? what do I hol the Pope? .- on Come, come, the morsel stuck —this | Cardinal’s fault— I have gulpt it down. the Pope, Utterly and altogether for the Pope, The Eternal Peter of the changeless chair Crown’d slave of slaves, and mitred king of kings, I am-whall for SCENE V. QUEEN MARY. 619 _ God upon earth! what more? what would | To test their sect. you have? Hence, let’s be gone. Linter USHER. me - Usher. Well that you be not gone, My ‘Lord. The Queen, most wroth at first with you, Is now content to grant you full forgive- ness, So that you crave full pardon of the Legate. I am sent to fetch you. Gardiner. Doth Pole yield, sir, ha! Did you hear ’em ? were you by ? Usher. TI cannot tell you, _ His bearing is so courtly-delicate ; _ And yet methinks he falters: their two Graces - Do so dear-cousin and royal-cousin him, ' So press on him the duty which as Legate _ He owes himself, and with such royal smiles— Gardiner. Smiles that burn men. | Bonner, it will be carried. | He falters, ha? fore God, we change and change ; - Men now are bow’d and old, the doctors tell you, _ At three-score years ; then if we change at all _ We needs must do it quickly ; it is an age _ Of brief life, and brief purpose, and brief patience, _ As I have shown to-day. If Pole be like to turn. Cranmer, Your more especial love, hath turn’d so often, _He knows not where he stands, which, . if this pass, | We two shall have to teach him ; look to it, -Cranmerand Hooper, Ridley and Latimer, Rogers and Ferrar, for their time is come, Their hour is hard at hand, their ‘ dies Ire,’ Their ‘dies Illa,’ which will test their sect. | I feel it but a duty—you will find in it ‘Pleasure as well as duty, worthy Bonner, — Tam sorry for it Our old friend let ?em | Sir, I attend the Queen Tocrave most humble pardon—of her most Royal, Infallible, Papal Legate-cousin. [Zxeunt, SCENE V.—WoobDsTock. ELIZABETH, LADY IN WAITING. Llizabeth. So they have sent poor Courtenay over sea. Lady, And banish’d us to Woodstock, and the fields. The colours of our Queen are green and white, These fields are only green, they make me gape. Elizabeth. There’s whitethorn, girl. Lady. Ay, for an hour in May. But court is always May, buds out in masques, Breaks into feather’d merriments, and flowers In silken pageants. Why do they keep us here ? Why still suspect your Grace ? Llizabeth. Hard upon both. [Writes on the window with a diamond. Much suspected, of me Nothing proven can be. Quoth Elizabeth, prisoner. Lady. What hath your written ? Elizabeth. A true rhyme. Lady. Cut with a diamond; so to last like truth. Llizabeth. Ay, if truth last. Lady. But truth, they say, will out, So it must last. It is not like a word, That comes and goes in uttering. Llizabeth. Truth, a word ! The very Truth and very Word are one. But truth of story, which I glanced at, girl, Is like a word that comes from olden days, And passes thro’ the peoples: every tongue Alters it passing, till it spells and speaks Quite other than at first. Lady. I do not follow. Lilizabeth, ow many names in the long sweep of time Highness 620 That so foreshortens greatness, may but hang On the chance mention of some fool that once Brake bread with us, perhaps: poor chronicle Is but of glass. Sir Henry Bedingfield May split it for a spite. Lady. God grant it last, And witness to your Grace’s innocence, Till doomsday melt it. Ltlizabeth. Or a second fire, Like that which lately crackled underfoot And in this very chamber, fuse the glass, And char us back again into the dust We spring from. Never peacock against rain Scream’d as you did for water. Lady. And I got it. I woke Sir Henry—and he’s true to you— I read his honest horror in his eyes. Lilizabeth. Ory true to you? Lady. Sir Henry Bedingfield ! I will have no man true to me, your Grace, But one that pares his nails; to me? the clown ! Elizabeth. Out, girl! you wrong a noble gentleman. Lady. For, like his cloak, his man- ners want the nap And gloss of court; but of this fire he says, Nay swears, it was no wicked wilfulness, Only a natural chance. Elizabeth. A chance—perchance One of those wicked wilfuls that men make, Nor shame to call it nature. They hunt my blood. ' range Among the pleasant fields of Holy Writ I might despair. But there hath some and my Nay, I know Save for my daily one come ; The house is all in movement. Hence, and see. [Axzt Lady. Milkmaid (singing without). Shame upon you, Robin, Shame upon you now ! Kiss me would you? with my hands Milking the cow? OUEEN MARY. — * seri Daisies grow again, Kingcups blow again, And you came and kiss’d me milking the cow. Robin came behind me, ~ Kiss’d me well I vow; Cuff him could 1? with my liands Milking the cow? Swallows fly again, Cuckoos cry again, And you came and kiss’d me milking the cow. 5 Come, Robin, Robin, q Come and kiss me now; Help it can 1? with my hands Milking the cow? Ringdoves coo again, All things woo again. Come behind and kiss me milking the cow! ; Elizabeth. Right honest and red- cheek’d ; Robin was violent, And she was crafty—a sweet violence, And a sweet craft. I would I were a milkmaid, ‘eS. To sing, love, marry, churn, brew, bake, and din: , Then have my simple headstone by the | church, 4 And all things lived and ended honestly I could not if I would. I am Ha daughter : Gardiner would have my head. They ar not sweet, The violence and the craft that do avid The world of nature ; what is weak must lies The lionneeds but roar to guard his young} The lapwing lies, says ‘here’ when they are there. Threaten the child ; you did it:’ What weapon hath the child, save his soft tongue, To say ‘I did not?’ and my rod’s the block I never lay my head upon the pillow But that I think, ‘ Wilt thou lie there « morrow ?’ I1ow oft the falling axe, that never fel : Hath shock’d me back into the dayligh truth That it may fall to-day ! black, dead ‘T’ll scourge you. if Those da mf SCENE V. _ Nights in the Tower; dead—with the fear of death Too dead ev’n for a death-watch ! of a bell, Stroke of a clock, the scurrying of a rat Affrighted me, and then delighted me, For there was life—And there was life in death— The little murder’d princes, in a pale light, Rose hand in hand, and whisper’d, ‘come away ! The civil wars are gone for evermore : Thou last of all the Tudors, come away ! With us is peace!’ The last? It was a dream ; IT must not dream, not wink, but watch. She has gone, ~ Maid Marian to her Robin—by and by _ Both happy! afox may filchahen by night, _ And make a morning outcry in the yard; But there’s no Renard here to ‘ catch her tripping.’ _ Catch me who can; yet, sometime I have wish’d _ That I werecaught, and kill’dawayat once } Out of the flutter. The gray rogue, | Gardiner, _ Went on hisknees, and pray’d me toconfess In Wyatt’s business, and to cast myself _ Upon the good Queen’s mercy ; ay, when, : my Lord? _ God save the Queen ! Toll My jailor— Enter SIR HENRY BEDINGFIELD. Bedingfield. One, whose bolts, _ That jail you from free life, bar you from death. _ There haunt some Papist ruffians hereabout - Would murder you. | E£lizabeth. I thank you heartily, sir, » But I am royal, tho’ your prisoner, _ And God hath blest or cursed me with a | nose— _ Your boots are from the horses. — ~Bedingfield. Ay, my Lady. When next there comes a missive from the Queen It shall be all my study for one hour _ To rose and lavender my horsiness, | Before I dare to glance upon your Grace. QUEEN MARY. 621 Elizabeth. A missive from the Queen: last time she wrote, I had like to have lost my life: it takes my breath: O God, sir, do you look upon your boots, Are you so small a man? Help me: what think you, Is it life or death? Bedingfield. J thought not on my boots ; The devil take all boots were ever made Since man went barefoot. See, I lay it here, For I will come no nearer to your Grace ; [Laying down the letter. And, whether it bring you bitter news or sweet, And God hath given your Grace a nose, or not, I'll help you, if I may. Elizabeth. Your pardon, then ; It is the heat and narrowness of the cage That makes the captive testy ; with free wing The world were all one Araby. me now, Will you, companion to myself, sir? Bedingfield. Will I? With most exceeding willingness, I will ; You know I never come till I be call’d. P2272, is there Leave Llizabeth. It lies there folded: venom in it? A snake—and if I touch it, it may sting. Come, come, the worst ! Best wisdom is to know the worst at once. [Reads : ‘It is the King’s wish, that you should wed Prince Philibert of Savoy. You are to come to Court on the instant 5 and think of this in your coming. ‘MARY THE QUEEN.’ Think ! I have many thoughts ; I think there may be birdlime here for me ; I think they fain would have me from the realm ; I think the Queen may never bear a child ; 622 QUEEN MARY. I think that I may be some time the - Queen, Then, Queen indeed: no foreign prince or priest Should fill my throne, myself upon the steps. I think I will not marry anyone, Specially not this landless Philibert Of Savoy ; but, if Philip menace me, I think that I will play with Philibert, — As once the Holy Father did with mine, Before my father married my good mother, — For fear of Spain. Linter LADY. Lady. Grace, I feel so happy: fl O Lord! your Grace, your it seems that we shall y These bald, blank fields, and dance into the sun That shines on princes. Llizabeth. Yet, a moment since, I wish’d myself the milkmaid singing here, To kiss and cuff among the birds and flowers— A right rough life and healthful. Lady. But the wench Hath her own troubles ; she is weeping now $ For the wrong Robin took her at her word. Then the cow kick’d, and all her milk was spilt. Your Highness such a milkmaid ? Lilizabeth. I had kept My Robins and my cows in sweeter order Had I been such. Lady (slyly). Robin ? Elizabeth. Come, come, you are chill here ; you want the sun That shines at court ; make ready for the journey. Pray God, we ’scape the sunstroke. Ready at once. [Axeunt, And had your Grace a SCENE VI.—Lonpon. A Room IN THE PALACE. a LORD PETRE and LORD WILLIAM ’ HOWARD. You cannot see the Ques 7) Renard denied her, Ev’n now to me. % Howard. Their Flemish go- petra y And all-in-all. I came to thank he Majesty _ i Petre. Petre. Only now perhagl Because the Queen hath been three days in tears For Philip’s going—like the wild hedge- — rose a Of a soft winter, possible, not probabiaa : However you have prov’n it. J Howard. I must see i Enter RENARD. Renard. My Lords, you cannot see her Majesty. Howard, Why then the King! for I would have him bring it 7 Home to the leisure wisdom of his Queen, Before he go, that since these statutes past, Gardiner out-Gardiners Gardiner in his_ heat, ‘ Bonner cannot out-Bonner his own sci Beast !—but they play with fire as chil- dren do, io. And burn the house. I know that these are breeding A fierce resolve and fixt heart-hate in niet | Against the King, the Queen, the Holy " Father, — os The faith itself. CanInotseehim? Renard. Not now. . | And in all this, my Lord, her Majesty — e Is flint of flint, you may strike fire from her, - Not hope to melt her. I will give your message. oe [Exeunt Petre and Hoa = ‘ 4 ¥ SCENE VI. Linter PHILIP (musing). Phili~. She will not have Prince Philibert of Savoy, I talk’d with her in vain—says she will live And die true maid—a goodly creature too. Would se had been the Queen! yet she must have him ; She troubles England: that she breathes in England Is life and lungs to every rebel birth That passes out of embryo. Simon Renard !— This Howard, whom they fear, what was he saying ? . Renard. “What your imperial father said, my liege, To deal with heresy gentlier. burns, And Bonner burns; and it would seem this people Care more for our brief life in their wet Gardiner land, . _ Than yours in happier Spain. I told my Lord _ He should not vex her Highness; she would say | These are the means God works with, that His church _ May flourish. Philip. Ay, sir, but in statesmanship ' To strike too soon is oft to miss the blow. _ Thou knowest I bad my chaplain, Castro, preach _ Against these burnings. Renard, And the Emperor Approved you, and when last he wrote, declared _ His comfort in your Grace that you were bland And affable to men of all estates, In hope to charm them from their hate of Spain. Lhilip. In hope to crush all heresy under Spain. _ But, Renard, I am sicker staying here Than any sea could make me passing hence, _ Tho’ I be ever deadly sick at sea. _ So sick am I with biding for this child. QUEEN MARY. 623 Is it the fashion in this clime for women To go twelve months in bearing of a child ? The nurses yawn’d, the cradle gaped, they led Processions, chanted litanies, clash’d their bells, Shot off their lying cannon, and her priests Have preach’d, the fools, of this fair prince to come ; Till, by St. James, I find myself the fool. Why do you lift your eyebrow at me thus? Renard. I never saw your Highness moved till now. Philip. So weary am I of this wet land of theirs, And every soul of man that breathes therein. Renard. My liege, we must not drop the mask before The masquerade is over— Philip. — Have I dropt it? I have but shown a loathing face to you, Who knew it from the first. Linter MARY. Mary (aside). With Renard. Still Parleying with Renard, all the day with Renard, And scarce a greeting all the day for me— And goes to-morrow. [Axzt Mary. Philip (to Renard, who advances to him), Well, sir, is there more? Renard (who has perceived the Queen). May Simon Renard speak a single word ? Philip. Ay. keenard. And be forgiven for it ? Philip. Simon Renard Knows me too well to speak a single word That could not be forgiven. Renard. Well, my liege, Your Grace hath a most chaste and loving wife. Philip. Why not? The Queen of Philip should be chaste. Renard. Ay, but, my Lord, you know what Virgil sings, Woman is various and most mutable. 624 Philip. She play the harlot ! never. Renard. No, sire, no, Not dream’d of by the rabidest gospeller. There was a paper thrown into the palace, ‘The King hath wearied of his barren bride.’ She came upon it, read it, and then rent it, With all the rage of one who hates a truth He cannot but allow. have you— What should I say, I cannot pick my words— Be somewhat less—majestic to your Queen. Philip. AmI to change my manners, Simon Renard, Because these islanders are brutal beasts ? Or would you have me turn a sonneteer, And warble those brief-sighted eyes of hers ? Renard. Brief-sighted tho’ they be, I have seen them, sire, When you perchance were trifling royally With some fair dame of court, suddenly fill With such fierce fire—had it been fire indeed It would have burnt both speakers. Philip. Ay, and then ? Renard. Sire, might it not be policy in some matter Of small importance now and then to Sire, I would cede A point to her demand ? Philip. Well, I am going. Renard. For should her love when you are gone, my liege, - Witness these papers, there will not be wanting Those that will urge her injury—should her love— And I have known such women more than one— Veer to the counterpoint, and jealousy Hath in it an alchemic force to fuse Almost into one metal love and hate,— And she impress her wrongs upon her Council, And these again upon her Parliament— QUEEN MARY. We are not loved here, and would b then perhaps Not so well holpen in our wars wit France, As else we might be—here she comes. Enter MARY. Mary. Nay, must you go indeed ? Philip. Mary. The parting of a husband and a wife Is like the cleaving of a heart ; Will flutter here, one there. Philip. You say true, Madam, Mary. The Holy Virgin will not have me yet | Lose the sweet hope that I may bean a prince. If such a prince were born and you nae here ! Philip. 1 should be here if such a prince were born. Mary. But must you go? Philip. Madam, you know my father, Retiring into cloistral solitude To yield the remnant of his years to heaven, Will shift the yoke and weight of all the world From off his neck to mine. Brussels. But since mine absence will not be for long, | Your Majesty shall go to Dover with me, © And wait my coming back, Mary. To Dover? no, I am too feeble. I will go to Greenwich, So you will have me with you ; and there watch a All that is gracious in the breath of © heaven | Draw with your sails from our poor ia and pass And leave me, Philip, with my prayers: for you. Philip. And doubtless I shall profit by your prayers. Mary. Methinks that would you tarry one day more one half” We meet at Madam, I muse 4 | SCENE I. i news was sudden) I could mould myself _ To bear your going better; will you do it? Lhilip. Madam, a day may sink or save a realm. Mary. A day may save a heart from breaking too. Philip. Well, Simon Renard, shall we stop a day? Renard. Your Grace’s business will not suffer, sire, For one day more, so far as I can tell. Philip. Then one day more to please “her Majesty. Mary. The sunshine sweeps across my life again. O if I knew you felt this parting, Philip, As Ido! _ Lhilip. By St. James I do protest, Upon the faith and honour of a Spaniard, lam vastly grieved to leave your Majesty. Simon, is supper ready? Renard. I saw the covers laying. Philip. Let us have it. Ay, my liege, [ Lxeunt, Wr TV. SCENE JI.—A Room IN THE PALACE, MARy, CARDINAL POLE. a Mary. What have you there ? Pole. So please your Majesty, A long petition from the foreign exiles To spare the life of Cranmer. Bishop Thirlby, And my Lord Paget and Lord William Howard, Brave, j in the same cause, hearing of your Grace. © Hath henot written himself—infatuated— To sue you for his life ? Mary. His life? Oh, no; Not sued for that—he knows it were in vain. ‘But so much of the anti-papal leaven Works i in him yet, he hath pray’d me not to sully QUEEN MARY. 625 Mine own prerogative, and degrade the realm By seeking justice at a stranger’s hand Against my natural subject. King and Queen, To whom he owes his loyalty after God, Shall these accuse him to a foreign prince? Death would not grieve him more. I cannot be True to this realm of England and the Pope Together, says the heretic. Pole. And there errs ; As he hath ever err’d thro’ vanity. A secular kingdom is but as the body Lacking a soul ; and in itself a beast. The Holy Father in a secular kingdom Is as the soul descending out of heaven Into a body generate. Mary. Write to him, then. Pole. JI will. Mary. And sharply, Pole. Pole. Here come the Cranmerites ! Enter THIRLBY, LORD PAGET, LORD WILLIAM HowArD, Howard. Wealth to your Grace! Good morrow, my Lord Cardinal ; We make our humble prayer unto your Grace That Cranmer may withdraw to foreign parts, Or into private life within the realm. In several bills and declarations, Madam, He hath recanted all his heresies. Paget. Ay, ay; if Bonner have not forged the bills. [Aszde. Mary. Did not More die, and Fisher? he must burn. Hloward. He hath recanted, Madam. Mary. The better for him. He burns in Purgatory, not in Hell. Howard. Ay, ay, your Grace ; but it was never seen That any one recanting thus at full, As Cranmer hath, came to the fire on earth. Mary. It will be seen now, then. Thirlby. O Madam, Madam ! I thus implore you, low upon my knees, as 626 QUEEN MARY. ACT IV. To reach the hand of mercy to my friend. I have err’d with him ; with him I have recanted. What human reason is there why my friend Should meet with lesser mercy than my- self ? Mary. My Lord of Ely, this. After a riot We hang the leaders, let their following go. Cranmer is head and father of these here- sies, New learning as they call it ; yea, may God Forget me at most need when I forget Her foul divorce—my sainted mother— No !— foward. Ay, ay, but mighty doctors doubted there. The Pope himself waver’d; and more than one Row’d in that galley—Gardiner to wit, Whom truly I deny not to have been Your faithful friend and trusty councillor. Hath not your Highness ever read his book, His tractate upon True Obedience, Writ by himself and Bonner ? Mary. I will take Such order with all bad, heretical books That none shall hold them in his house and live, Henceforward. No, my Lord. Howard, Then never read it. The truth is here. Your father was a man Of such colossal kinghood, yet so cour- teous, Except when wroth, you scarce could meet his eye And hold your own ; indeed, You held it less, or not at all. I say, Your father had a will that beat men down ; Your father had a brain that beat men down— fole. Not me, my Lord. floward. No, for you were not here ; You sit upon this fallen Cranmer’s throne ; and were he wroth And it would more become you, my Lord Legate, To join a voice, so potent with her High- ness, E To ours in plea for Cranmer than to stand On naked self-assertion.. . Mary. All your voices | Are waves on flint. The heretic must — burn. b Floward. Yet once he saved your Majesty’s own life ; Stood out against the King in your behalf, At his own peril. ‘¢ Mary. I know not if he did; And if he did I care not, my Lord Howard, — My life is not so happy, no such boon, _ That I should spare to take a hoa : priest’s, Who saved it or not saved. Why do you vex me? Se Faget. Yet to save Cranmer were to serve the Church, Your Majesty’s I mean ; he is effaced, Self-blotted out; so swentadee in os honour, He can but creep down into some dark hole Like a hurt beast, and hide himself and die ; But if you burn him,—well, your High- ness knows The saying, ‘ Martyr’s blood—seed of the Church.’ Mary. Of the true Church ; but his is none, nor will be. You are too politic for me, my Lord Paget. And if he have to live so loath’d a life, It were more merciful to burn him now. Thirlby. O yet relent 9G} Mac 4 if you knew him ad As I do, ever gentle, and so gracious, t With all his learning— Te Mary. Yet a heretic still. — His learning makes his burning the 7 just. Thirlby. So worshipt of all those that * came across him ; The stranger at his hearth, and all as house— As | SCENE II. Mary, His children and his concubine, belike. Thirlby. To do him any wrong was to beget Akindness from him, forhis heart was rich, Of such fine mould, that if you sow’d therein The seed of Hate, it blossom’d Charity. Pole. ‘After his kind it costs him nothing,’ there’s An old world English adage to the point. These are but natural graces, my good Bishop, Which in the Catholic garden are as flowers, But on the heretic dunghill only weeds. floward, Such weeds make dunghills gracious. Mary. Enough, my Lords. It is God’s will, the Holy Father’s will, And Philip’s will, and mine, that he should burn. He is pronounced anathema. Floward. Farewell, Madam, God grant you ampler mercy at your call Than you have shown to Cranmer. [- [ Zxeunt Lords. Pole. After this, Your Grace will hardly care to overlook This same petition of the foreign exiles For Cranmer’s life. Mary. Make out the writ to-night. [Exeunt. | SCENE II.—Oxrorp. CRANMER IN PRISON. Cranmer. Last night, I dream’d the faggots were alight, _ And that myself was fasten’d to the stake, _ And found it all a visionary flame, _ Cool as the light in old decaying wood ; _ And then King Harry look’d from out a cloud, » And bad me have good courage; and I heard An angel cry ‘There is more joy in Heaven,’— _ And after that, the trumpet of the dead. [ Zrumpets without. QUEEN MARY, 627 Why, there are trumpets blowing now: what is it ? Linter FATHER COLE. Cole. Cranmer, I come to question you again ; Have you remain’d in the true Catholic faith I left you in? Cranmer. In the true Catholic faith, By Heaven’s grace, I am more and more confirm’d. Why are the trumpets blowing, Father Cole? Cole. Cranmer, it is decided by the Council That you to-day should read your recant- ation Before the people in St. Mary’s Church. And there be many heretics in the town, Who loathe you for your late return to Rome, And might assail you passing through the Street, And tear you piecemeal: so you have a guard. Cranmer, Or seek to rescueme. I thank the Council. Cole. Do you lack any money? Cranmer. Nay, why should I? The prison fare is good enough for me. Cole. Ay, but to give the poor. Cranmer. Hand it me, then! I thank you. Cole. For a little space, farewell ; Until I see you in St. Mary’s Church. [ Zxzt Cole. Cranmer. It is against all precedent to burn One who recants; they mean to pardon me. To give the poor—they give the poor who die. Well, burn me or not burn me I am Hxt; It is but a communion, not a mass: A holy supper, not a sacrifice ; No man can make his Maker— Villa Garcia. 628 Enter VILLA GARCIA. Villa Garcia. Pray you write out this paper for me, Cranmer. Cranmer. "Wave I not writ enough to satisfy you ? Villa Garcia. It is the last. Cranmer. Give it me, then. [He writes. Villa Garcta, Now sign. Cranmer. I have sign’d enough, and I will sign no more. Villa Garcia. It isno more than what you have sign’d already, The public form thereof. Cranmer. It may be so; I sign it with my presence, if I read it. Villa Garcia. But this is idle of you. Well, sir, well, You are to beg the people to pray for you; Exhort them to a pure and virtuous life ; Declare the Queen’s right to the throne ; confess Your faith before all hearers ; and retract That Eucharistic doctrine in your book. Will you not sign it now? Cranmer. No, Villa Garcia, Isign no more. Will they have mercy on me? Villa Garcta. Have you good hopes of mercy! So, farewell. [2 xzz. Cranmer. Good hopes, not theirs, have I that I am fixt, Fixt beyond fall; however, hours, After the long brain-dazing colloquies, And thousand-times recurring argument Of those two friars ever in my prison, When left alone in my despondency, Without a friend, a book, my faith would in strange seem Dead or half-drown’d, or else swam heavily Against the huge corruptions of the Church, Monsters of mistradition, old enough To scare me into dreaming, ‘ what am I, Cranmer, against whole ages?’ was it so, Oram I slandering my most inward friend, To veil the fault of my most outward foe— QUEEN MARY. ACT 1Y. 4 The soft and tremulous coward inthe flesh? O higher, holier, earlier, purer church, — I have found thee and not leave thee any more. 3 It is but a communion, not a mass— No sacrifice, but a life-giving feast ! (Writes.) So, so; this will I say—thus will I pray. [Puts up the ate Enter BONNER. Bonner. Good day, old friend ; what E you Jook somewhat worn ; And yet it is a day to test your health Ev’n at the best: I scarce have spoken with you , Since when?—your degradation. At your trial { Never stood up a bolder man than you ; You would not cap the Pope’s commis- sioner— Your learning, and your stoutness, and your heresy, “s Dumbfounded half of us. So, after that St We had to dis-archbishop and unlord, And make you simple Cranmer once again. = The common barber clipt your hair, andI Scraped from your finger-points the holy oil 5 Bi, And worse than all, you had to kneel to me $ Which was not pleasant for you, Master Cranmer. Bs Now you, that would not recognise the Pope, And you, that would not own the Real Presence, Have found a real presence in the stake, , Which frights you back into the ancient faith ; ; And so you have recanted to the Papell | How are the mighty fallen, Master Cranmer ! Cranmer. You have been more fier against the Pope than I; 4 But why fling back the stone he strikes me with ? [Aside O Bonner, if I ever did you kindness— Power hath been given you to try faith by fire— SCENE III. Pray you, remembering how yourself have changed, Be somewhat pitiful, after I have gone, To the poor flock—to women and to children— That when I was archbishop held with me. Bonner. Ay—gentle as they call you . —live or die! Pitiful to this pitiful heresy ? I must obey the Queen and Council, man. Win thro’ this day with honour to your- self, And [ll say something for you—-so— good-bye. [Zxzt. Cranmer. This hard coarse man of old hath crouch’d to me Till I myself was half ashamed for him. Enter THIRLBY. Weep not, good Thirlby. Thirlby. Oh, my Lord, my Lord! My heart is nosuch block as Bonner’s is: Who would not weep? Cranmer. Why do you so my-lord me, - Who am disgraced ? Thirlby. On earth; but saved in heaven By your recanting. Cranmer. Will they burn me, Thirlby ? Thirlby. Alas, they will; these burn- 2 ings will not help The purpose of the faith; but my poor voice _ Against them is a whisper to the roar _ Of a spring-tide. Cranmer. And they will surely burn me? Thirlby. Ay; and besides, will have you in the church _ Repeat your recantation in the ears _ Of all men, to the saving of their souls, _ Before your execution. May God help you > Thro’ that hard hour! Cranmer. And may God bless you, Thirlby ! _ Well, theyshall hear my recantation there. [Zit Thirlby. Disgraced, dishonour’d !—not by them, . indeed, QUEEN MARY. Be wet as his were? 629 By mine own self—by mine own hand ! O thin-skinn’d hand and jutting veins, *twas you That sign’d the burning of poor Joan of Kent ; But then she was a witch. You have written much, But you were never raised to plead for Frith, Whose dogmas I have reach’d: he was deliver’d To the secular arm to burn; and there was Lambert ; Who can foresee himself? truly these burnings, As Thirlby says, are profitless to the burners, And help the other side. You shall burn too, Burn first when I am burnt. Fire—inch by inch to die in agony! Latimer Had a brief end—not Ridley. Hooper burn’d Three-quarters of an hour. Will my faggots It is a day of rain. I will not muse upon it. My fancy takes the burner’s part, and makes The fire seem even crueller than it is. No, I not doubt that God will give me strength, Albeit I have denied him. Enter SOTO and VILLA GARCIA. Villa Garcia. We are ready To take you to St. Mary’s, Master Cranmer. Cranmer. And TI: lead on; ye loose me from my bonds. [ Lxeunt. SCENE III.—St. Mary’s CHURCH. CoLE 72 the Pulpit, LORD WILLIAMS oF THAME presiding. LORD WILLIAM HowarpbD, Lorp PAGET, and others. CRANMER enters between SOTO and 630 VILLA GARCIA, and the whole Choir strike up ‘Nunc Dimittis.” CRANMER as set upon a Scaffold before the people. Cole. Behold him— [A pause: people in the By i People. Oh, unhappy sight ! Llirst Protestant. See how the tears run down his fatherly face. Second Protestant. James, didst thou ever see a carrion crow Stand watching a sick beast before he dies? first Protestant. Him perch’d up there? I wish some thunderbolt Would make this Cole a cinder, pulpit and all. Behold him, brethren: he hath cause to weep !— So have we all: weep with him if ye will, Yet It is expedient for one man to die, Yea, for the people, lest the people die. Yet wherefore should he die that hath return’d To the one Catholic Universal Church, Repentant of his errors ? Protestant murmurs. Cole. Cole. Ay, tell us that. Those of the wrong side will despise the man, Deeming him one that thro’ the fear of death Gave up his cause, except he seal his faith In sight of all with flaming martyrdom. Cranmer. Ay. Cole. Ye hear him, and albeit there may seem According to the canons pardon due To him that so repents, yet are there causes Wherefore our Queen and Council at this time Adjudge him to the death. He hath been a traitor, A shaker and confounder of the realm ; And when the King’s divorce was sued at Rome, He here, this heretic metropolitan, As if he had been the Holy Father, sat And judged it. Did I call him heretic? QUEEN MARY, The triumph of St. Andrew on his cross, A huge heresiarch ! never was it known — That any man so writing, preaching so, So poisoning the Church, so long con tinuing, Hath found his pardon ; therefore he mus die, . For warning and example. Other reason There be for this man’s ending, vi our Queen y And Council at this present deem it not Expedient to be known. Protestant murmurs. Cole. I warrant you, Take therefore, all, example by this man, a For if our Holy Queen not pardon him, — Much less shall others in like coma escape, That all of you, the highest as the | lowest, 4 May learn there is no power against the q Lord. ; There stands a man, once of so hig q degree, Pe | Chief prelate of our Church, archbishop, first o7 In Council, second person in the realm, Friend for so long time of a mighty King; — And now ye see downfallen and debased Irom councillor to caitiff—fallen so low, — The leprous flutterings of the byway,scum And offal of the city would not change — Estates with him ; in brief, so miserable, — There is no hope of better left for him, _ No place for worse. ey Yet, Cranmer, be thou glad. This is the work of God. Heis glorified In thy conversion: lo! thouart reclaim’d; He brings thee home: nor fear but that to-day Thou shalt receive the penitent thiefs award, 7 And be with Christ the Lord in Paradiog | Remember how God made the fierce fire — seem To those three children like a pleasant — dew. Remember, too, The patience of St. Lawrence in the fire. _ SCENE III. QUEEN MARY. 631 _ Thus, if thou call on God and all the saints, _ God will beat down the fury of the flame, Or give thee saintly strength to undergo. _ And for thy soul shall masses here be sung _ By every priest in Oxford. Pray for him. Cranmer. Ay, one and all, dear brothers, pray for me; Pray with one breath, one heart, one soul for me. And now, lest anyone among you doubt The man’s conversion and remorse of . heart, _ Yourselves shall hear him speak. Speak, Master Cranmer, Fulfil your promise made me, and pro- Cole. claim Your true undoubted faith, that all may i, hear. Cranmer. And that I will. O God, | Father of Heaven ! _O Son of God, Redeemer of the world ! O Holy Ghost! proceeding from them both, _ Three persons and one God, have mercy on me, _ Most miserable sinner, wretched man. I have offended against heaven and earth _ More grievously than any tongue can tell. _ Then whither should I flee for any help? _ Iam ashamed to lift my eyes to heaven, _ And I can find no refuge upon earth, Shall I despair then?—God forbid! O God, For thou art merciful, refusing none _ That come to Thee for succour, unto Thee, Therefore, I come; humble myself to Thee ; Saying, O Lord God, although my sins be great, For thy great mercy have mercy! O God the Son, Not for slight faults alone, when thou | becamest _ Man in the Flesh, was the great mystery wrought ; _O God the Father, not for little sins Didst thou yield up thy Son to human death ; But for the greatest sin that can be sinn’d, Yea, even such as mine, incalculable, Unpardonable,—sin against the light, The truth of God, which I had proven and known. Thy mercy must be greater than all sin. Forgive me, Father, for no merit of mine, But that Thy name by man be glorified, And Thy most blessed Son’s, who died for man. Good people, every man at time of death Would fain set forth some saying that may live After his death and better humankind ; For death gives life’s last word a power to live, ; And, like the stone-cut epitaph, remain After the vanish’d voice, and speak to men. God grant me grace to glorify my God! And first I say it is a grievous case, Many so dote upon this bubble world, Whose colours in a moment break and fly, They care for nothing else. What saith St. John:— =. ‘Love of this world is hatred against God.’ Again, I pray you all that, next to God, You do unmurmuringly and willingly Obey your King and Queen, and not for dread Of these alone, but from the fear of Him Whose ministers they be to govern you. Thirdly, I pray you all to live together Like brethren ; yet what hatred Christian men Bear to each other, seeming not as brethren, But mortal foes! But do you good to all As much as in you lieth. Hurt no man more Than you would harm your loving natural brother Of the same roof, same breast. If any do, Albeit he think himself at home with God, Of this be sure, he is whole worlds away. ‘QUEEN MARY. What sort of Protestant murmurs. brothers then be those that lust To burn each other ? Williams. Peace among you, there ! Cranmer. Fourthly, to those that own exceeding wealth, Remember that sore saying spoken once By Him that was the truth, ‘ How hard it is For the rich man to enter into Heaven ;’ Let all rich men remember that hard word. I have not time for more: if ever, now Let them flow forth in charity, seeing now The poor so many, and all food so dear. Long have I lain in prison, yet have heard Of all their .wretchedness. poor, Ye give to God. poor. And now, and forasmuch as I have come To the last end of life, and thereupon Hangs all my past, and all my life to be, Either to live with Christ in Heaven with g°¥5 Or to be still in pain with devils in hell ; And, seeing in a moment, I shall find [Pointing upwards. Heaven or else hell ready to swallow me, [Pointing downwards. I shall declare to you my very faith Without all colour. Cole. Hear him, my good brethren. Cranmer. Ido believe in God, Father of all ; In every article of the Catholic faith, And every syllable taught us by our Lord, His prophets, and apostles, in the Testa- ments, Both Old and New. Cole. Be plainer, Master Cranmer. Cranmer. And now I come to the great cause that weighs Upon my conscience more than anything Or said or done in all my life by me ; For there be writings I have set abroad Against the truth I knew within my heart, Written for fear of death, to save my life, If that might be ; the papers by my hand Give to the He is with us in the [Holding out his right ia a Written and sign’d—I here renounce them — all ; if And, since my hand offended, havin written Against my heart, my hand shall first be burnt, So I may come to the fire. [Dead a Protestant murmurs. First Protestant. J knew it would a so. ; Second Protestant. Our prayers = heard ! = Third Protestant, God bless him! bi Catholic murmurs. out upon him ! Liar ! dissembler! traitor! to the fred Out upon aa Williams (ratsing his voice). You know that you recanted all you said Touching the sacrament in that same book You wrote against my Lord of Winches ten; . Dissemble ‘not $ play the plain Christal man. Cranmer. Alas, my Lord, I have been a man loved plainness all my life ; I did dicen but the hour has come — For utter truth and plainness ; ve I say, I hold by all I wrote within that book. Moreover, As for the Pope I count him Antichall With all his devil’s doctrines ; and refuse, Reject him, and abhor him. I have said. [Cries on all sides, ‘Pull him down Away with him!’ ._ Cole. Ay, stop the heretic’s mouth ! Hale him away ! Williams. Harm him not, harm him not ! have him to the fim ! [CRANMER ves out between Ti hal Friars, smiling; hands are reach to him from the crowd. LORD. Witt1am Howarp and LORD PAGET are left alone in the ht | _ SCENE III. Paget. The nave and aisles all empty as a fool’s jest! here’s Lord William Howard. What, my Lord, ' You have not gone to see the burning ? Howard. Fie ! To stand at ease, and stare as at a show, And watch a good man burn. Never again. I saw the deaths of Latimer and Ridley. Moreover, tho’ a Catholic, I would not, For the pure honour of our common nature, _ Hear what I might—another recantation Of Cranmer at the stake. Paget. You’d not hear that. He pass’d out smiling, and he walk’d | upright ; _ His eye was like a soldier’s, whom the general He looks to and he leans on as his God, _ Hath rated for some backwardness and bidd’n him _-Charge one against a thousand, and the man _ Hurls his soil’d life against the pikes and | dies. | Howard. Vet that he might not after all those papers _ Of recantation yield again, who knows ? No, Faget. Papers of recantation! Think you then That Cranmer read all papers that he sign’d ? ; Wor sign’d all those they tell us that he sign’d ? | Bg I trow not: and you shall see, my Lord, That Howsoever hero-like the man _ Dies in the fire, this Bonner or another _ Will in some lying fashion misreport _ His ending to the glory of their church. And you saw Latimer and Ridley die? _ Latimer was eighty, was he not ? his best _ Of life was over then. fToward. His eighty years + Look’d somewhat crooked on him in his frieze ; ) But after they had stript him to his shroud, » He stood upright, a lad of twenty-one, QUEEN MARY. 633 And gather’d with his hands the starting flame, And wash’d his hands and all his face therein, Until the powder suddenly blew him dead. Ridley was longer burning ; but he died As manfully and boldly, and, ’fore God, I know them heretics, but right English ones. If ever, as heaven grant, we clash with Spain, Our Ridley-soldiers and our Latimer- sailors Will teach her something. Paget. Your mild Legate Pole Will tell you that the devil helpt them thro’ it. [4 murmur of the Crowd in the distance. Hark, how those Roman wolfdogs how] and bay him ! floward. Might it not be the other side rejoicing In his brave end ? Paget. They are too crush’d, toc broken, They can but weep in silence. Lfloward. Ay, ay, Paget, They have brought it in large measure on themselves. Have I not heard them mock the blessed Host In songs so lewd, the beast might roar his claim To being in God’s image, more than they? Have I not seen the gamekeeper, the groom, . Gardener, and huntsman, in the parson’s place, The parson from his own spire swung out dead, And Ignorance crying in the streets, and all men Regarding her ? the fire On their own heads: yet, Paget, I do hold ‘The Catholic, if he have the greater right, Hath been the crueller. I say they have drawn 634 Paget. Action and re-action, The miserable see-saw of our child-world, Make us despise it at odd hours, my Lord. Heaven help that this re-action not re-act Yet fiercelier under Queen Elizabeth, So that she come to rule us. Howard. The world’s mad. Paget. My Lord, the world is like a drunken man, Who cannot move straight to his end— but reels Now to the right, then as far to the left, Push’d by the crowd beside—and under- foot An earthquake ; for since Henry for a doubt— Which a young lust had clapt upon the back, Crying, ‘ Forward !’—set our old church rocking, men Have hardly known what to believe, or whether They should believe in anything; the currents So shift and change, they see not how they are borne, Nor whither. I conclude the King a beast ; Verily a lion if you will—the world A most obedient beast and fool—myself Half beast and fool as appertaining to it ; Altho’ your Lordship hath as little of each -Cleaving to your original Adam-clay, As may be consonant with mortality. floward. We talk and Cranmersuffers. The kindliest man I ever knew ; see,.see, I speak of him in the past. Unhappy land ! Hard-natured Queen, half-Spanish in herself, And grafted on the hard-grain’d stock of Spain— Her life, since Philip left her, and she lost Her fierce desire of bearing him a child, Hath, like a brief and bitter winter’s day, Gone narrowing down and darkening to a close. There will be more conspiracies, I fear. QUEEN MARY. ACT IV Paget. Ay, ay, beware of France, * Howard. O Paget, Paget ! I have seen heretics of the poorer sort, — Expectant of the rack from day to day, - To whom the fire were welcome, lying chain’d In breathless dungeons over steaming sewers, Fed with rank bread that crawl’d upon the tongue, And putrid water, every drop a worm, Until they died of rotted limbs ; and then Cast on the dunghill naked, and become Hideously alive again from head to heel, Made even the carrion-nosing mongms vomit Pa With hate and horror. ; Paget. Nay, you sicken me To hear you. Howard. Fancy-sick; these things are done, Done right against the promise of this Queen Twice given. Paget. No faith with heretics, my Lord ! Hist ! there be two old gossips oes lers, I take it ; stand behind the pillar here ; I warrant you they talk about the burning. Enter TWO OLD WOMEN. after her T1B, Joan. Why, it be Tib! 7tb. I cum behind tha, gall, and couldn’t make tha hear. Eh, the wind and the wet! What a day, what a day! nigh upo’ judgement daay loike. Pwoaps be pretty things, Joan, but they wunt set ? the Lord’s cheer o’ that daay. Joan. I must set down myself, Tib; it be a var waay vor my owld legs up vro’ Islip. Eh, my rheumatizy be that bad howiver be I to win to the burnin’. 7ib. I should saay ’twur ower by now. I’d ha’ been here avore, but Dumble wur blow’d wi’ the wind, and Dumble’s the best milcher in Islip. Joan. Our Daisy’s as good ’z her. Zib. Noa, Joan. JOAN, and SCENE III. Our Daisy’s butter’s as good ’z hern. Noa, Joan. Our Daisy’s cheeses be better. Ttb. Noa, Joan. Joan. h, then ha’ thy waay wi’ me, Tib ; ez thou hast wi’ thy owld man. Zib. Ay, Joan, and my owld man wur up and*awaay betimes wi’ dree hard eggs for a good pleace at the burnin’ ; and barrin’ the wet, Hodge ’ud ha’ been a-harrowin’ o’ white peasen i’ the outfield - —and barrin’ the wind, Dumble wur _ blow’d wi’ the wind, so ’z we was forced to stick her, but we fetched her round at last. Thank the Lord therevore. Dum- ble’s the best milcher in Islip. Joan. ‘Yhouw’s thy way wi’ man and beast, Tib. I wonder at tha’, it beats me! Eh, but I do know ez Pwoaps and vires be bad things ; tell ’ee now, I heerd summat as summun towld summun 0’ owld Bishop Gardiner’s end; there wur an owld lord a-cum to dine wi’ un, and a wur so owld a couldn’t bide vor his dinner, but a had to bide howsomiver, _ ivor ‘I wunt dine,’ says my Lord Bishop, says he, ‘not till I hears ez Latimer and Ridley be a-vire ;? and so they bided on and on till vour o’ the clock, till his man cum in post vro’ here, and tells un ez the -vire has tuk holt. ‘Now,’ says the Bishop, says he, ‘we'll gwo to dinner ;’ and the owld lord fell to ’s meat wi’ a _ will, God bless un! but Gardiner wur Joan. Ti. Joan. ~ struck down like by the hand o’ God _ ayore a could taste a mossel, and a set ' un all a-vire, so ’z the tongue on un cum _a-lolluping out o’ ’is mouth as black as a rat. Thank the Lord, therevore. Paget. ‘The fools ! 716. Ay, Joan; and Queen Mary gwoes on a-burnin’ and a-burnin’, to get _her baaby born ; but all her burnins’ ill _ never burn out the hypocrisy that makes _the water in her. There’s nought but _ the vire of God’s hell ez can burn out | that. Joan. Paget. Thank the Lord, therevore. The fools ! QUEEN MARY. 635 7ib. A-burnin’, and a-burnin’, and a-makin’ o’ yolk madder and madder ; but tek thou my word vor’t, Joan,—and I bean’t wrong not twice i’ ten year—the burnin’ o’ the owld archbishop ’ll burn the Pwoap out o’ this ’ere land vor iver and iver. floward. Out of the church, you brace of cursed crones, Or I will have you duck’d! (Women hurry out.) Said I not right ? For how should reverend prelate or throned prince Brook for an hour such brute malignity ? Ah, what anacrid winehas Luther brew’d ! Paget. Pooh, pooh, my Lord! poor garrulous country-wives. Buy you their cheeses, and they’ll side with you ; You cannot judge the liquor from the lees. ffoward. 1 think that in some sort we may. But see, Linter PETERS. Peters, my gentleman, an honest Catholic, Who follow’d with the crowd to Cran- mer’s fire. One that would neither misreport nor lie, Not to gain paradise: no, nor if the Pope, Charged him to do it—he is white as death. Peters, how pale you look! you bring the smoke Of Cranmer’s burning with you. Peters. Twice or thrice The smoke of Cranmer’s burning wrapt me round, floward. Peters, you Catholic, but English. Did he die bravely? Tell me that, or leave All else untold. Peters. bravely. Howard. ‘Then tell me all. Paget. Ay, Master Peters, tell us. Peters. You saw him how he past among the crowd ; And ever as he walk’d the Spanish friars Still plied him with entreaty and reproach : But Cranmer, as the helmsman at the helm know me My Lord, he died most 636 Steers, ever looking to the happy haven Where he shall rest at night, moved to his death ; And I could see that many silent hands Came from the crowd and met his own; and thus, When we had come where Ridley b burnt with Latimer, He, with a cheerful smile, as one whose mind Is all made up, in haste put off the rags They had mock’d his misery with, and all in white, His long white beard, which he had never shaven Since Henry’s death, down-sweeping to the chain, Wherewith they bound him to the stake, he stood More like an ancient father of the Church, Than heretic of these times; and still the friars Plied him, but Cranmer only shook his head, Or answer’d them in smiling negatives ; Whereat Lord Williams gave a sudden cry :— ‘Make short ! make short !’ lit the wood. Then Cranmer lifted his left hand to heaven, And thrust his right into the bitter flame ; And crying, in his deep voice, more than once, ‘This hath offended — this Meee hand !’ So held it till it all was burn’d, before The flame had reach’d his body ; I stood near Mark’d him—he never uttered moan of pain : He never stirr’d or writhed, but, like a statue, Unmoving in the greatness of the flame, Gave up the ghost ; and so past martyr- and so they like— Martyr I may not call him—past—but whither ? Faget. To purgatory, man, to purga- tory. QUEEN MARY. ACT Peters. Nay, but, my Lord, he denie purgatory. Paget. Why then. to heaven, and God © ha’ mercy on him. Hloward. Paget, despite his fearful heresies, I loved the man, and needs must moan for him ; O Cranmer ! . Faget. But your moan is useless now: — Come out, my Lord, it is a world of fools. — [Axeunt. ACKAe SCENE JI.—LONDON. HALL IN THE- PALACE. = QUEEN, SIR NICHOLAS HEATH. Fleath. Madam, I do assure you, that it must be look’d — to: Calais is but ill-garrison’d, in Guisnes Are scarce two hundred men, and the French fleet Rule in the narrow seas. It must be look’d to, If war should fall between yourself ae France 3 Or you will lose your Calais. Mary. It shall be look’d to; F I wish you a good morning, good Sif Nicholas : Here is the King. [x7 Heath, Enter PHILIP. Philip. Sir Nicholas tells you true, And you must look to Calais when I go. Mary. Go? must you go, indeed— againcse soon ? Why, nature’s licensed vagabond, the swallow, That might live always in the sun’s warm heart, a Stays longer here in our poor north than yous—— =| Knows where he nested—ever comes again. | Philip, And, Madam, so shall 1. | SCENE I. Mary. O, will you? will you? _ Iam faint -with fear that you will come no more. Lhilip. Ay, ay; but many voices call me hence. Mary. Voices—I hear unhappy ru- mours—nay, I say not, I believe. you _ Dearer than mine that should be dearest . to you? _ Alas, my Lord! what voices and how many ? Philip. The voices of Castille and Aragon, _ Granada, Naples, Sicily, and Milan, — The voices of Franche-Comté, and the Netherlands, The voices of Peru and Mexico, _ Tunis, and Oran, and the Philippines, And all the fair spice-islands of the | East. Mary (admiringly). You are the mightiest monarch upon earth, I but a little Queen: and, so indeed, _ Need you the more. : Philip. A little Queen ! but when ~ Icame towed your majesty, Lord Howard, ' Sending an insolent shot that dash’d the | seas Upon us, made us lower our kingly flag _ To yours of England. What voices call Mary. Howard is all English ! _ There is no king, not were he ten times | king, Ten times our husband, but must lower his flag To that of England in the seas of England. Philip. Is that your answer ? Mary. Being Queen of England, IT have none other. Philip. So. _ Mary. But wherefore not Helm the huge vessel of your state, my | liege, _Here by the side of her who loves you most ? Philip. No, Madam, no! acandle in the sun OUEEN MARY. 637 Is all but smoke—a staf beside the moon Is all but lost ; your people will not crown me— Your people are as cheerless as your clime ; Hate me aud mine: witness the brawls, the gibbets. Here swings a Spaniard—there an Eng- lishman ; The peoples are unlike as their com- plexion ; Yet will I be your swallow and re- ticn—— But now I cannot bide. Mary. Not to help me? They hate me also for my love to you, My Philip ; and these judgments on the land— Iiarvestless autumns, horrible agues, plague— Lhilifp. The blood and sweat of heretics at the stake Is God’s best dew upon the barren field. Burn more! Mary. stay ? Philip. Wave I not said ? came to sue Your Council and yourself to declare war. ; Mary. Sir, there are many English in your ranks To help your battle. I will, I will; and you will ‘Madam, I Lhiltp. So far, good. I say I came to sue your Council and your- self To declare war against the King of France. Mary. Not to see me? Lhilip. Ay, Madam, to see you. Unalterably and pesteringly fond ! [A szde. But, soon or late you must have war with France ; King Henry warms your traitors at his hearth. Carew is there, and Thomas Stafford there. Courtenay, belike— Mary. A fool and featherhead ! 638 Philip. Ay, but they use his name. In brief, this Henry Stirs up your land against you to the intent That you may lose your English heritage. And then, your Scottish namesake marry- ing The Dauphin, he would weld France, England, Scotland, Into one sword to hack at Spain and me. Mary. And yet the Pope is now colleagued with France ; You make your wars upon him down in Italy :— Philip, can that be well? Philip. Content you, Madam ; You must abide my judgment, and my father’s, Who deems it a most just and holy war.. The Pope would cast the Spaniard out of Naples : He calls us worse than Jews, Moors, Saracens, The Pope has pushed his horns beyond his mitre— Beyond his province. Now, Duke Alva will but touch him on the horns, And he withdraws; and of his holy head— For Alva is true church— No hair is harm’d. me here? Mary. Alas! the Council will not hear of war. They say your wars are not the wars of England. They will not lay more taxes on a land So hunger-nipt and wretched ; and you know The crown is poor. We have given the church-lands back : - The nobles would not; nay, they clapt their hands Upon their swords when ask’d ; therefore God Is hard upon the people. done ? Sir, I will move them in your cause again, son of the true Will you not help and What’s to be QUEEN MARY. ACT Y. And we will raise us loans and subsidies ‘ Among the merchants ; and Sir Thomas Gresham Will aid us. Jews. Philip. Madam, my thanks, Mary. And you will stay your going ? | Philip. And further to discourage and lay lame F The plots of France, altho’ you love ms not, You must proclaim Elizabeth your heir. She stands between you and the Queen of Scots. Mary. The Queen of Scots at least is _ Catholic. Philip. Ay, Madam, Catholic; but I will not have The King of France the King of England too. Mary. But she’s a heretic, and, es I am gone, Brings the new learning back. Philip. It must be done, You must proclaim Elizabeth your heir. Mary. Then it is done; but you will stay your going Somewhat beyond your settled purpose ? Philip. No! Mary. What, not one day? Philip, You beat upon the rock. Mary. And I am broken there. Lhilip. Is this a place To wail in, Madam? what! a public hall. Go in, I pray you. Mary. Do not seem so changed. Say go; but only say it lovingly. Phili~. You do mistake. I am not one to change. I never loved you more. There is Antwerp and the Mary. Sire, I obey you. Come quickly. Philip. Ay. [Zxit Mary. Enter COUNT DE. FERIA. Feria (aside). The Queen in tears! Philip. Feria ! Hast thou not mark’d—come closer to mine ear— | SCENE II. How doubly aged this Queen of ours hath grown Since she lost hope of bearing us a child ? feria. Sire, if your Grace hath mark’d it, so have I. Lhilif. Vast thou not likewise mark’d Elizabeth, How fair and royal—like a Queen, in- deed ? Feria. Allow me the same answer as before— he if your Grace hath mark’d her, so have I. Lhilip. Good, now; methinks my Queen is like enough To leave me by and by. feria. To leave you, sire? Philip. I mean not like to live. Elizabeth— To Philibert of Savoy, as you know, We meant to wed her; but I am not 4 sure She will not serve me better—so my Queen Would leave me—as—my wife. . Leria. Sire, even so. Philip. She will not have Prince Philibert of Savoy. Feria. No, sire. Philtp. I have to pray you, some odd time, ) To sound the Princess carelessly on this ; ) Not as from me, but as your phantasy ; | And tell me how she takes it. | feria, Sire, I will.. Philip. Y am not certain but that Philibert _ Shall be the man; and I shall urge his : suit 1 | Upon the Queen, because I am _ not certain : \ You understand, Feria. 8 86- Feeria. Sire, I do. Philip. And if you be not secret in this matter, - You understand me there, too? Feria. Sire, I do. Philip. Youmust be sweet and supple, like a Frenchman. QUEEN MARY. 639 She is none of those who loathe the honeycomb. [ Axzt Feria. LEinter RENARD. Renard. My liege, I bring you goodly tidings. Philip. Well? Renard. There well be war with France, at last, my liege ; Sir Thomas Stafford, a bull-headed ass, Sailing from France, with thirty English- men, Hath taken Scarboro’ Castle, north of York; Proclaims himself protector, and affirms The Queen has forfeited her right to reign By marriage with an alien—other things As idle; a weak Wyatt! Little doubt This buzz will soon be silenced; but the Council (I have talk’d with some already) are for war. This is the fifth conspiracy hatch’d in France ; They show their teeth upon it ; and your Grace, So you will take advice of mine, should stay Yet for awhile, to shape and guide the event. Philip. Good! Renard, I will staythen. . Renard, Also, sire, Might I not say—to please your wife, the Queen ? Philip. Ay, Renard, if you care to put it so, [Lxeunt, SCENE II.—A RooM IN THE PALACE, MARY, sztting: arosetn her hand. LADY CLARENCE. ALICE 7x the background. Mary. Wook ! I have play’d with this poor rose so long I have broken off the head. Lady Clarence. Your Grace hath been More merciful to many a rebel head That should have fallen, and may rise again. 640 Mary. There were not many hang’d for Wyatt’s rising. Lady Clarence. Nay, not two hundred. Mary. I could weep for them And her, and mine own self and all the world. Lady Clarence. your Grace ? For her? for whom, Enter USHER. Usher. The Cardinal. Linter CARDINAL POLE. (MARY vises.) Mary. Reginald Pole, what news hath plagued thy heart ? What makes thy favour like the bloodless head Fall’n on the block, and held up by the hair ? Philip >— Pole. As ever. Mary. Ay, and then as cold as ever. Is Calais taken ? Pole. Cousin, there hath chanced A sharper harm to England and to Rome, Than Calais taken. Julius the Third Was ever just, and mild, and father-like ; But this new Pope Caraffa, Paul the Fourth, Not only reft me of that legateship Which Julius gave me, and the legate- ship Annex’d to Canterbury—nay, but worse— And yet I must obey the Holy Father, And so must you, good cousin ;—worse than all, A passing bell toll’d in a dying ear— He hath cited me to Rome, for heresy, Before his Inquisition. No, Philip is as warm in life Mary. I knew it, cousin, But held from you all papers sent by Rome, That you might rest among us, till the Pope, To compass which I wrote myself to Rome, Reversed his doom, and that you might not seem To disobey his Holiness. QUEEN MARY. ACT V. Pole. He hates Philip ; He is all Italian, and he hates the Spaniard ; He cannot dream that Zadvised the war He strikes thro’ me at Philip and your- — self. a Nay, but I know it of old, he hates me ~ too ; a. So brands me in the stare of Christendom a A heretic ! 3 Now, even now, when bow’d before ai time, * The house half-ruin’d ere the lease be out 5 _ When I should guide the Church in peace — at home, After my twenty years of banishment, And all my lifelong labour to uphold The primacy—a heretic. Long ago, When I was ruler in the patrimony, I was too lenient to the Lutheran, 2 And I and learned friends among our — selves = Would freely canvass certain Luther 4 isms. What then, he knew I was no Latheran, 4 A heretic ! | He drew this shaft against me to thi j head, | When it was thought I might be chosen | Pope, “ But then withdrew it. In full consistory, a When I was made Archbishop, he 4 approved me. oe And how should he have sent me Lean hither, Deeming me heretic? and what heresy since ? But he was evermore mine enemy, And hates the Spaniard—fiery-choleric, — A drinker of black, strong, volcanic wines, That ever make him fierier. I, a heretic? Your Highness knows that in pursuing heresy I have gone beyond your late Lord Chancellor, — q He cried Enough! enough! before his death. — Gone beyond him and mine own natural man > 9 > SCENE IL | (It was God’s cause) ; so far they call me | now, _ The scourge and butcher of their English | church. Mary. Wave courage, your reward is Heaven itself. They groan amen ; they swarm into the fire _ Like flies—for what? no dogma. : know nothing ; _ They burn for nothing. | Mary. You have done your best. Pole. ave done my best, and as a faithful son, _ That all day long hath wrought his father’s work, When back he comes at evening hath the | door - Shut on him by the father whom he . loved, His early follies cast into his teeth, And the poor son turn’d out into the Pole. They street To sleep, to die—I shall die of it, cousin. Mary. I pray you be not so dis- consolate ; I still will do mine utmost with the Pope. Poor cousin ! Have not I been the fast friend of your life Since mine began, and it was thought we two Might make one flesh, and cleave unto each other As man and wife ? Pole. Ah, cousin, I remember How I would dandle you upon my knee At lisping-age. I watch’d you dancing once With your huge father; he look’d the Great Harry, You but his cockboat; prettily you did it, And innocently. One flesh in happiness, no happiness here ; But now we are made one flesh in misery ; QUEEN MARY. No—we were not made 641 Our bridemaids are not lovely—Dis- appointment, Ingratitude, Injustice, Evil-tongue, Labour-in-vain. Mary. Surely, not all in vain. Peace, cousin, peace! I am sad at heart myself. fole. Our altar is a mound of dead men’s clay, Dug from the grave that yawns for us beyond ; And there is one Death stands behind the Groom, And there is one Death stands behind the Bride— Mary. Wave you been looking at the ‘Dance of Death’? No; but these libellous papers which I found Strewn in your palace. the Pope Pointing at me with ‘ Pole, the heretic, Thou hast burnt others, do thou burn thyself, Or I will burn thee ;’ see !— ‘We pray continually for the death Of our accursed Queen and Cardinal Pole, Look you here— and this other ; Foley This last—I dare not read it her. [Aszae. Mary. Away !_ Why do you bring me these? I thought you knew me better. I never read, I tear them; they come back upon my dreams. The hands that write them should be burnt clean off As Cranmer’s, and the fiends that utter them Tongue-torn with pincers, lash’d to death, or lie Famishing in black cells, while famish’d rats Eat them alive. these ? Do you mean to drive me mad ? er Loe, I had forgotten How these poor libels trouble you. Your pardon, Why do they bring me Zar 642 QUEEN MARY, Sweet cousin, and farewell! ‘O bubble world, Whose colours in a moment break and fly !? Why, who said that? I know not— true enough ! [Puts up the papers, all but the last, which falls. Lxztt Pole. Alice. If Cranmer’s spirit were a mocking one, And heard these two, there might be sport for him. [ Aside. Mary. Clarence, they hate me; even while I speak There lurks a silent dagger, listening In some dark closet, some long gallery, drawn, And panting for my blood as I go by. Lady Clarence. Nay, Madam, there be loyal papers too, And I have often found them. Mary. Find me one ! Lady Clarence. Ay, Madam; but Sir Nicholas Heath, the Chancellor, Would see your Highness. . Mary. Wherefore should I see him ? Lady Clarence. Well, Madam, he may bring you news from Philip. Mary. So, Clarence. Lady Clarence. up your hair ; It tumbles all abroad. Mary. And the gray dawn Of an old age that never will be mine Is all the clearer seen. No, no; what matters ? Forlorn Iam, and let me look forlorn. Let me first put Enter StR NICHOLAS HEATH. fleath. I bring your Majesty such grievous news I grieve to bring it. taken. Mary. What traitor spoke? let my cousin Pole. Seize him and burn him for a Lutheran. fleath. Her Highness is unwell. I will retire. - Lady Clarence. Madam, your Chan- cellor, Sir Nicholas Heath. Madam, Calais is Here, Mary. Sir Nicholas! I am stunn’d —Nicholas Heath ? Methought some traitor smote me on the . head. a 4 What said you, my good Lord, that our . brave English =. Had sallied out from Calais and driven y back : The Frenchmen from their trenches? Fleath. Alas! ne That gateway to the mainland over which — Our flag hath floated for two hundred years Ge Is France again. ee Mary. So; but it is not lost— _ e Not yet. Send out: let England as a old Rise lionlike, strike hard and deep into The prey they are rending from her—ay, and rend | The renders too. and make Musters in all the counties ; gather all From sixteen years to sixty ; collect the fleet ; | Let every craft that carries sail and gun Steer toward Calais. Guisnes is not taken yet ? | Heath, Guisnes is not taken yet. Mary. There yet is hope. fleath. Ah, Madam, but your people are so cold ; | I do much fear that England will not care. Methinks there is no manhood left among | us. Mary. Send out ; stir abroad : | Tell my mind to the Council—to the | Send out, send out, I am too weak to — | Parliament : Proclaim it to the winds. Thou art cold thyself Ne To babble of their coldness. O vou i were My father for an hour! Away now— Quick ! _ [ait Heath. Py I hoped I had served God with all my — might ! It seems I have not. Ah! much heresy — My | Shelter’d in Calais. 4 Saints, I have rebuilt — | SCENE II. QUEEN MARY. 643 a Your shrines, set up your broken images; Be comfortable to me. Suffer not That my brief reign in England be de- famed Thro’ all her angry chronicles hereafter By loss of Calais. Grant me Calais. Philip, We have made war upon the Holy Father All for your sake: what good could come of that ? Lady Clarence. No, Madam, against the Holy Father ; You did but help King Philip’s war with France, Your troops were never down in Italy. not Mary. Yama byword. Heretic and rebel Point at me and make merry. Philip gone ! And Calais gone! Time that I were gone too ! Lady Clarence. Nay, if the fetid gutter had a voice And cried I was not clean, what should I care? Or you, for heretic cries? And I believe, _ Spite of your melancholy Sir Nicholas, Your England is as loyal as myself. Mary (seeing the paper dropt by Pole). There! there! another paper! Said you not Many of these were loyal? Shall I try If this be one of such? Lady Clarence. Detitibe; let it be. God pardon me! I have never yet found one. [Aszde. Mary (reads). ‘Your people hate you as your husband hates you.’ _ Clarence, Clarence, what have I done? | what sin ) Beyond all grace, all pardon? : | of God, Mother ~ Thou knowest never woman meant so well, And fared so ill in this disastrous world. _ My people hate me and desire my death. Lady Clarence. No, Madam, no. Mary. My husband hates me, and desires my death. Lady Clarence. are libels. Mary. Ihate myself, and I desire my death. Clarence. Long live your Majesty! Shall Alice sing you One of her pleasant songs? Alice, my child, Bring us your lute (Alice gves). say the gloom of Saul Was lighten’d by young David’s harp. Mary. Too young ! And never knew a Philip. No, Madam ; these Lady They Re-enter Alice. Give me the lute. He hates me! (She sings.) Hapless doom of woman happy in betrothing ! Beauty passes like a breath and love is lost in loathing : Low, my ‘lute; speak low, my lute, but say the world is nothing— Low, lute, low! Love will hover round the flowers when they first awaken ; Love will fly the fallen leaf, and not be over- taken ; Low, my lute! oh low, my lute! we fade and are forsaken— Low, dear lute, low ! Take it away ! not low enough for me! Alice. Your Grace hath a low voice. Mary. How dare you say it? Even for that he hates me. A low voice Lost in a wilderness where none can hear ! A voice of shipwreck on a shoreless sea! A low voice from the dust and from the grave (Setting on the ground). low enough now ? Alice. Good Lord! how grim and ghastly looks her Grace, With both her knees drawn upward to her chin. There was an old-world tomb beside my father’s, There, am I 644 And this was open’d, and the dead were found Sitting, and in this fashion ; she looks a corpse. Enter LADY MAGDALEN DACRES. Lady Magdalen. Madam, the Count de Feria waits without, In hopes to see your Highness. Lady Clarence (pointing toMary). Wait he must— Her trance again. hears, And may not speak for hours. Lady Magdalen. Unhappiest Of Queens and wives and women! Alice (in the foreground with Lady Magdalen). And all along Of Philip. Lady Magdalen. Not so loud! Clarence there Sees ever such an aureole round the Queen, It gilds the greatest wronger of her peace, Who stands the nearest to her. Alice. Ay, this Philip ; I used to love the Queen with all my heart— God help me, but methinks I love her less For such a dotage upon such a man. I would I were as tall and strong as you. Lady Magdalen. I seem half-shamed at times to be so tall. Alice. You are the stateliest deer in all the herd— Beyond his aim—but I am small and scandalous, And love to hear bad tales of Philip. Lady Magdalen. Why? I never heard him utter worse of you Than that you were low-statured. Alice. Does he think Low stature is low nature, or all women’s Low as his own? Lady Magdalen. the nail. This coarseness is a want of phantasy. It is the low man thinks the woman low ; Sin is too dull to see beyond himself. She neither sees nor Our There you strike in QUEEN MARY. Ee + Alice. Ah, Magdalen, sin is bol as well as dull. a How dared he? Lady Magdalen. are bold. Poor lads, they see not what the genera al sees, A risk of utter ruin. I am ot Beyond his aim, or was not. a Alice. Who? Not you? Tell, tell me ; save my credit with myself. Lady Magdalen. I never breathed it to a bird in the eaves, Would not for all the stars and maiden n moon Our drooping Queen should know ! id Hampton Court ge | My window look’d upon the corridor ; — | And I was robing ;—this poor throat F. q mine, 4 Barer than I should wish a man to see it,— When he we speak of drove the windo ‘ee | back, | And, like a thief, push’d in his royal hand ; a But by God’s ‘providence a good stout staff — | Lay near me; and you know me strong Bs of arm ; * I do believe I lamed his Majesty’ s , For a day or two, tho’, give the Devil his due, I never found he bore me any spite. Alice. J would she could have wedded that poor youth, : My Lord of Devon—light enough, God Stupid soldiers § | knows, And mixt with Wyatt’s rising—and the boy Not out of him—but neither cold, coarse, cruel, And more than all—no Spaniard. Lady Clarence. Not so loud. Lord Devon, girls! what are you whis- pering here ? a Alice. Probing an old state- sect — how it chanced q That this young Earl was sent on foreigi on travel, Not lost his head. SCENE II. Lady Clarence. against him. Alice. Nay, Madam; did not Gardiner intercept A. letter which the Count de Noailles wrote To that dead traitor Wyatt, with full proof Of Courtenay’s treason? What became of that ? Lady Clarence. Some say that Gardi- ner, out of love for him, Burnt it, and some relate that it was lost When Wyatt sack’d the Chancellor’s house in Southwark. Let dead things rest. Alice. Ay, and with him who died Alone in Italy. Lady Clarence. Much changed, I hear, Had put off levity and put graveness on. The foreign courts report him in his manner Noble as his young person and old shield. It might be so—but all is over now ; He caught a chill in the lagoons of Venice, And died in Padua. Mary (looking up suddenly). the true faith ? Lady Clarence. Ay, Madam, happily. Mary. Happier he than I. Lady Magdalen. Itseems her Highness hath awaken’d. Think you That I might dare to tell her that the Count Mary. Iwill see no man hence for evermore, Saving my confessor and my cousin Pole. Lady Magdalen. It is the Count de Feria, my dear lady. Mary. ; What Count ? Lady Magdalen. 'The Count de Feria, from his Majesty King Philip. Mary. Philip! quick! loop up my hair! Throw cushions on that seat, and make it throne-like. Arrange my dress—the gorgeous Indian shawl That Philip brought me in our happy days !— There was no proof Died in QUEEN MARY. 645 That covers all. So—am I somewhat Queenlike, Bride of the mightiest sovereign upon earth ? Lady Clarence. Ay, so your Grace would bide a moment yet. Mary. No, no, he brings a letter. I may die Before I readit. Let me see him at once. Linter COUNT DE FERIA (£neels). feria, I trust your Grace is well. (Aszde) How her hand burns ! Mary. I am not well, but it will better me, Sir Count, to read the letter which you bring. feria. Madam, I bring no letter. Mary. How ! no letter? feria. Wis Highness is so vex’d with strange affairs— Mary. That his own wife is no affair of his. Feria. Nay, Madam, nay! he sends his veriest love, And says, he will come quickly. Mary. Doth he, indeed ? You, sir, do you remember what you said When last you came to.England ? feria. Madam, I brought My King’s congratulations ; it was hoped Your Highness was once more in happy state To give him an heir male. Mary. Sir, you said more ; You said he would come quickly. I had horses On all the road from Dover, day and night ; On all the road from Harwich, night and day ; But the child came not, and the husband came not ; And yet he will come quickly. . . Thou hast learnt Thy lesson, and I mine. need For Philip so to shame himself again. Return, And tell him that I know hecomesnomore, There is no 646 Tell him at last I know his love is dead, And that I am in state to bring forth death— Thou art commission’d to Elizabeth, And not to me! feria. Mere compliments and wishes. But shall I take some message from your Grace? Mary. Tell her to come and close my dying eyes, And wear my crown, and dance upon my grave. feria. Then I may say your Grace will see your sister ? Your Grace is too low-spirited. Air and sunshine. I would we had you, Madam, in our warm Spain. You droop in your dim London. Mary. Have him away ! I sicken of his readiness. Lady Clarence. My Lord Count, Her Highness is too ill for colloquy. feria (kneels, and kisses her hand), I wish her Highness better. (Aszde) How her hand burns! [A xezzzt. SCENE III.—A Housk NEAR LONDON. ELIZABETH, STEWARD OF THE HOUSE- HOLD, ATTENDANTS. Lilizabeth. ‘There’s half an. angel wrong’d in your account ; Methinks I am all angel, that I bear it Without more ruffling. Cast it o’er again. Steward. I were whole devil if I wrong’d you, Madam. [Axzt Steward. Attendant. The Count de Feria, from the King of Spain. Llizabeth. Ah!—let him enter. you need not go: [Zo her Ladies, Remain within the chamber, but apart. We'll have no private conference. Wel- come to England ! Nay, QUEEN MARY. ACT y Linter FERIA. Feria. Fair island star ! a Lilizabeth. Ishine! What else, Sir Count ? Feria. As far as France, and into Philip’s heart. My King would know if you be faily served, And lodged, and treated. Llizabeth. You see the lodgings sir, I am well-served, and am in ever Most loyal and most grateful to the Queen. feria. You should be grateful to my ny master, too. He spoke of this ; and unto him you owe That Mary hath acknowledged you hes heir. Elizabeth. No, not to her nor hima but to the people, Who know my right, and love me, as love a The people! whom God aid ! = feria. You will be Queen, , And, were I Philip— ie. Elizabeth. Wherefore pause yO what ? feria. Nay, but I speak from mine own self, not him ; Your royal sister cannot last ; your rand Will be much coveted ! What a delicate | one ! Our Spanish ladies have none such—and_ “be: there, wll Were you in Spain, this fine fair gossamer I am much beholden to the King, your | master. PALACE. A light burning within. night passing. Voices of the First. Is not yon light in the Queen’s chamber ? Second. They say she’s dying. First. So is Cardinal Pole. May the great angels join their wings, and make Down for their heads to heaven! Second, Amen, -. Come on; [Axeunt. Ay; Two OTHERS. first. There’s the Queen’s light. I hear she cannot live. Second. God curse her and her Legate! Gardiner burns Already ; but to pay them full in kind, The hottest hold in all the devil’s den Were but a sort of winter ; sir, in Guern- sey, I watch’d a woman burn; and in her agony The mother came upon her—a child was born— And, sir, they hurl’d it back into the fire, That, being but baptized in fire, the babe Might be in fire for ever. Ah, good neighbour, There should be something fierier than fire To yield them their deserts. first. Your wish, and further. Amen to all 648 A Third Votce, Deserts! Amen to what? Whose deserts? Yours? You have a gold ring on your finger, and soft raiment about your body ; and is not the woman up yonder sleeping after all she has done, in peace and quietness, on a soft bed, in a closed room, with light, fire, physic, tendance ; and I have seen the true men of Christ lying famine-dead by scores, and under no ceiling but the cloud that wept on them, not for them. first. Friend, tho’ so late, it is not safe to preach. You had best go home. What are you? Third. What amI? One who cries continually with sweat and tears to the Lord God that it would please Him out of His infinite love to break down all kingship and queenship, all priesthood and prelacy; to cancel and abolish all bonds of human allegiance, all the magis- tracy, all the nobles, and all the wealthy ; and to send us again, according to His promise, the one King, the Christ, and all things in common, as in the day of the first church, when Christ Jesus was King. first. Tf ever I heard a madman,— let’s away ! Why, you long-winded Sir, you go beyond me. I pride myself on being moderate. Good night! Go home. Besides, you curse so loud, The watch will hear you. at once. Get you home [Axeunt. SCENE V.—-LONDON. THE PALACE. A RooM IN A Gallery on one side. The moonlight streaming through a vrange of windows on the wall opposite. MARy, Labpy CLARENCE, LADY MAGDALEN DACRES, ALICE. QUEEN facing the Gallery. A writing-table in front. QUEEN comes to the table and writes and goes again, pacing the Gallery. Lady Clarence. Mine eyes are dim: what hath she written ? read. QUEEN MARY. Alice, § € am dying, Philip ; come to me.’ Lady Magdalen. There—upand dow wn, poor lady, up and down. Alice. And how her shadow crosses one by one ee The moonlight casements pattern ‘a on the wall, K Following her like her sorrow. — Se turns again. + [Queen sz/s and writes, and goes again. Lady Clarence. What hath she writte 4 now? Alice. Nothing's ; but ‘come, come, come,’ and all awry, ; And blotted by her tears. This cannot q last. [Queen returns. Mary. Iwhistle to the bird has brea D cage, | And all in vain. [Sztting io Calais gone—Guisnes gone, toa Philip gone ! * Lady Clarence. Dear Madam, Pala is but at the wars ; ie I cannot doubt but that he comes again ; And he is with you in a measure still. I never look’d upon so fair a likeness As your great King in armour there, his _ hand Pt Upon his helmet. aR [Pointing to the portrait of Philip o7 1 4 the wall, Mary. Doth he not lowke noble? I had heard of him in battle over seas, And I would have my warrior all in arms. He said it was not courtly to stand ny q helmeted Before the Queen. He had his gracio us moment, : Altho’ you’ll not believe me. How he — smiles a As if he loved me yet ! 4 Lady Clarence. And so he does. 4 Mary. He never loved me—nay, he could not love me. It was his father’s policy against Fran os I am eleven years Clnee than he, | Poor boy ! [ Weeps. Alice. That wasa ioe boy of twe seven ; [A sede SCENE V. Poor enough in God’s grace! Mary. —And all in vain ! The Queen of Scots is married to the Dauphin, And Charles, the lord of this low world, is gone ; And all his wars and wisdoms past away ; And in a moment I shall follow him. Lady Clarence. Nay, dearest Lady, see your good physician. Mary. Drugs—but he knows they cannot help me—says That rest is all—tells me I must not think— That I must rest—I shall rest by and by. Catch the wild cat, cage him, and when he springs And maims himself against the bars, say Srest ‘Why, you must kill him if you would have him rest— _ Dead or alive you cannot make him happy. Lady Clarence. Your Majesty has lived so pure a life, _ And done such mighty things by Holy | Church, I trust that God will make you happy yet. | Mary. What is the strange thing happiness? Sit down here: _ Tell me thine happiest hour. Lady Clarence. I will, if that ' May make your Grace forget yourself a little. _ There runs a shallow brook across our field _ For twenty miles, where the black crow flies five, _ And doth so bound and babble all the way _ As if itself were happy. It was May-time, _ And I was walking with the man I loved. Tloved him, but I thought I was not loved. _And both were silent, letting the wild brook - Speak for us—till he stoop’d and gather’d one _ From out a bed of thick forget-me-nots, _ Look’d hard and sweet at me, and gave . it me. I took it, tho’ I did not know I took it, _ And put it in my bosom, and all at once I felt his arms about me, and his lips QUEEN MARY. 649 Mary. O God! I have been too slack, too slack ; There are Hot Gospellers even among our guards— Nobles we dared not touch. We have but burnt The heretic priest, workmen, and women and children. Wet, famine, ague, fever, storm, wreck, wrath,— We have so play’d the coward; but by God’s grace, We'll follow Philip’s leading, and set up The Holy Office here—garner the wheat, And burn the tares with unquenchable fire ! Burn !— Fie, what a savour! tell the cooks to close The doors of all the offices below. Latimer ! Sir, we are private with our women here— Ever a rough, blunt, and uncourtly fel- low— Thou light a torch that never will go out ! ’Tis out—mine flames. Holy Father Has ta’en the legateship from our cousin Pole— Was that well done? and poor Pole pines of it, AsI do, tothe death. I am but a woman, I have no power.—Ah, weak and meek old man, Seven-fold dishonour’d even in the sight Women, the Of thine own sectaries—No, no. No pardon !— Why that was false: there is the right hand still Beckons me hence. Sir, you were burnt for heresy, not for treason, Remember that! ’twas I and Bonner did its And Pole; we are three to one—Have you found mercy there, Grant it me here: and see, he smiles and goes, Gentle as in life. Alice. Madam, who goes? King Philip ? 650 QUEEN MARY. Mary. No, Philip comes and goes, but never goes. Women, when I am dead, Open my heart, and there you will find written Two names, Philip and Calais; open his, — So that he have one,— You will find Philip only, policy, policy, — Ay, worse than that—not one hour true to me! Foul maggots crawling in a fester’d vice ! Adulterous to the very heart of Hell. Hast thou a knife ? Alice. Ay, Madam, but o’ God’s mercy — Mary. Fool, think’st thou I would peril mine own soul By slaughter of the body? I could not, girl, Not this way—callous with a constant stripe, Unwoundable. The knife ! Alice. Take heed, take heed ! The blade is keen as death. Mary. This Philip shall not Stare in upon me in my haggardness ; Old, miserable, diseased, Incapable of children. Come thou down. [Cuts out the picture and throws it down. Lie there. (Wazls) O God, I have kill’d my Philip ! Alice. No, Madam, you have but cut the canvas out; We can replace it. Mary. All is well then ; rest— I will to rest ; he said, I must have rest. [Cries of ‘ Elizabeth’ zx the street. A cry! What’s that ? Elizabeth ? revolt ? A new Northumberland, another Wyatt ? I'll fight it on the threshold of the grave. ; Lady Clarence. Madam, your royal sister comes to see you. Mary. J will not see her. Who knows if Boleyn’s daughter be my sister ? I will see none except the priest. Your arm. [Zo Lady Clarence. O Saint of Aragon, with that sweet vam smile Among thy patient wrinkles—Help me hence. [Exeunt. The PRIEST passes. Enter ELIZABETH ~ and SIR WILLIAM CECIL. ‘: Lilizabeth. Good counsel yours— way? No, that way there are voices. too late ? Cecil . . . God guide me lest I lose the ae [Zxzt Elizabeth. — Many points weather’d, ma perilous ones, .. At last a harbour opens; but therein Sunk rocks—they need fine steering— much it is ? To benor mad, nor bigot—have a mind— Nor let Priests’ talk, or dream of worlds to be, Miscolour things touches For him, or him—sunk rocks; no pas sionate faith— But—if let be—balance and compromise ; Brave, wary, sane to the heart of her—a Cectl, about her—sudden Tudor School’d by the shadow of deathaaan Boleyn, too, Glancing across the Tudor—not so well. Lénter ALICE. How is the good Queen now ? Alice. Away from Philip. Back in her childhood—prattling to her mother. Of her betrothal to the Emperor Charles, And childlike-jealous of him again—and once She thank’d her father sweetly for i book | Against that godless German. Ah, those days ; Were happy. It was never merry world In England, since the Bible came among us. - SCENE V. Cecil. And who says that? Alice. It is a saying among the Catholics. Cecil. It never will be merry world in England, _ Till all men have their Bible, rich and es poor. Ale. The Queen is dying, or you dare not say it. Linter ELIZABETH. Lilizabeth. The Queen is dead. Cecil. Then here she stands! my homage. Lilizabeth. She knew me, and ac- knowledged me her heir, Pray’d me to pay her debts, and keep the Faith ; Then claspt the cross, and pass’d away in peace. I left her lying still and beautiful, More beautiful than in life. Why would you vex yourself, Poor sister? Sir, I swear I have no heart To be your Queen. To reign is restless fence, OUEEN MARY. 651 Tierce, quart, and trickery. Peace is with the dead. Her life was winter, for her spring was nipt: And she loved much: pray God she be forgiven. Cecil, Peace with the dead, who never were at peace ! Yet she loved one so much—I needs must say— That never English monarch dying left England so little. Lilizabeth, But with Cecil’s aid And others, if our person be secured From traitor stabs— we will make England great. Enter PAGET, and other LORDS OF THE COUNCIL, SIR RALPH BAGENHALL, CGS Lords. God save Elizabeth, the Queen of England ! Bagenhall, God save the Crown! the Papacy is no more. Paget (aside), Are we so sure of that? Acclamation. God save the Queen ! HAR O Laas A DRAMA. To His EXcELLENCY THE RIGHT HON, LORDSi Yio Viceroy and Governor-General of India. de Rou,—Edward Freeman’s History of the Norman Conquest, and your father’s Historical Roma: treating of the same times, have been mainly helpful to me in writing this Drama. Your fa dedicated his ‘ Harold’ to my father’s brother ; allow me to dedicate my ‘ Harold’ to yourself. — A. TENNYSON. SHOW-DAY AT BATTLE ABBEY, 13876. A GARDEN here—May breath and bloom of spring— The cuckoo yonder from an English elm Crying ‘with my false egg I overwhelm The native nest :’ and fancy hears the ring Of harness, and that deathful arrow sing, And Saxon battleaxe clang on Norman helm. Here rose the dragon-banner of our realm : Here fought, here fell, our Norman-slander’d king. O Garden blossoming out of English blood ! O strange hate-healer Time! We stroll and stare Where might made right eight hundred years ago ; Might, right ? ay good, so all things make for good— But he and he, if soul be soul, are where Each stands full face with all he did below. DRAMATIS PERSONAE. Kinc EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. STIGAND, created Archbishop of Canterbury by the Antipope Benedict. ALDRED, Archbishop of Vork. THE NorMan BisHop oF LONDON. Haroip, Zari of Wessex, afterwards King of England Tostic, Earl of Northumbria Sons of Gurtu, Lari of East Anglia ; Godwin. Leorwin, Lari of Kent and Essex WULFNOTH Count WiLLiam or NorRMANDY. * WILLIAM RuFus. WitiiamM Ma tet, a Norman Noble.\ Epwin, Earl of Mercia Sons of AUfgar of Morcar, Larl of Northumbria after Tostig ; Mercia. GAMEL, a Northumbrian Thane. Guy, Count of Ponthieu. . Ror, a Ponthieu Fisherman. HucH Marocot, a Norman Monk. Oscop azd ATHELRIC, Canons front Walthant. ¢ THE QUEEN, Edward the Confessor’s Wife, Daughter of Godwin. ALpDwyTH, Daughter of Alfear and Widow of Griffyth, King of Wales. Evitn, Ward of King Edward. Courtiers, Earls and Thanes, Men-at-Arms, Canons of Waltham, Fishermen, etc. 1... quidam partim Normannus et Anglus Compater Heraldi. (Guy of Amiens, 587.) SCENE I. HAROLD. 653 HX Os iam Fi SCENE I.—Lonpon. PALACE. THE KING’s (A comet seen through the open window. ) ALDWYTH, GAMEL, COURTIERS falking together. First Courtier. Lo! there once more —this is the seventh night ! Yon grimly - glaring, treble - brandish’d _ scourge Of England ! Second Courtier. first Courtier. star That dances in it as mad with agony ! Third Courtier. Ay, like a spirit in Hell who skips and flies To right and left, and cannot scape the flame. Second Courtier.. Steam’d upward from the undescendible Abysm. first Courtier. Or floated downward from the throne Of God Almighty. Aldwyth. Gamel, son of Orm, What thinkest thou this means ? Gamel. War, my dear lady ! Aldwyth. Doth this affright thee ? Gamel. Mightily, my dear lady ! Aldwyth. Stand by me then, and look upon my face, Not on the comet. Horrible ! Look you, there’s a (Enter MORCAR.) Brother ! why so pale? Morcar. It glares in heaven, it flares upon the Thames, The people are as thick as bees below, _ They hum like bees,—they cannot speak | —for awe ; _ Look to the skies, then to the river, strike _ Their hearts, and hold their babies up to it. I think that they would Molochize them : too, To have the heavens clear. Aldwyth. They fright not me. (Znter LEOFWIN, after him GURTH.) Ask thou Lord Leofwin what he thinks of this ! Morcar. Lord Leofwin, dost thou believe, that these Three rods of blood-red fire up yonder mean The doom of England and the wrath of Heaven ? Lishop of London (passing). Did ye not cast with bestial violence Our holy Norman bishops down from all Their thrones in England? I alone remain. Why should not Heaven be wroth ? Leofwin, With us, or thee? Lishop of London. Did ye not outlaw your archbishop Robert, Robert of Jumiéges—well-nigh murder him too? Is there noreason for the wrath of Heaven? Leofwin. Why then the wrath of Heaven hath three tails, The devil only one. [Zxzt Bishop of London. (Enter ARCHBISHOP STIGAND.) Ask our Archbishop. Stigand should know the purposes of Heaven. Stigand. Not I. Icannot read the face of heaven ; Perhaps our vines will grow the better for it. Leofwin (laughing). He can but read the king’s face on his coins. Stigand. Ay, ay, young lord, ¢here the king’s face is power. Gurth. O father, mock not at a public fear, But tell us, is this pendent hell in heaven A harm to England? Stigand, Ask it of King Edward ! And he may tell thee, 7 am a harm to England. Old uncanonical Stigand—ask of me Who had my pallium from an Antipope ! Not he the man—for in our windy world What’s up is faith, what’s down is heresy. 654 Our friends, the Normans, holp to shake his chair. I have a Norman fever on me, son, And cannot answer sanely . . . What it means ? Ask our broad Earl. [ Pointing to WAROLD, who enters. Flarold (seeing Gamel). Hail, Gamel, son of Orm ! Albeit no rolling stone, my good friend Gamel, Thou hast rounded since we met. life at home Is easier than mine here. not Work-wan, flesh-fallen ? Gamel. Art thou sick, good Earl? ffarold, Sick as an autumn swallow for a voyage, Sick for an idle week of hawk and hound Beyond the seas—a change! When camest thou hither ? Gamel. To-day, good Earl. fTarold. Is the North quiet, Gamel ? Gamel. Nay, there be murmurs, for thy brother breaks us With over-taxing—quiet, ay, as yet— Nothing as yet. Thy Look ! am I Harold. Stand by him, mine old friend, Thou art a great voice in Northumber- land ! Advise him: speak him sweetly, he will hear thee. He is passionate but honest. Stand thou by him ! More talk of this to-morrow, if yon weird sign Not blast us in our dreams.— Well, father Stigand— [Zo Stigand, who advances to him. Stigand (pointing to the comet), War there, my son? is that the doom of England ? fTarold, Why not the doom of all the world as well ? For all the world sees it as well as Eng- land. These meteors came and went before our day, HAROLD. Not harming any: more Than French or Norman. . worst that follows Things that seem jerk’d out of the common ' rut & Of Nature is the hot religious fool, ; Who, seeing war in heaven, for heaven's: - credit Makes it on earth: but look, where Edward draws “ A faint foot hither, leaning upon Tostig, He hath learnt, to love our Tostig much of late. Leofwin. And he hath learnt, aceiti the tiger in him, Z To sleek and supple himself to the King’s hand. ; Gurth. I trust the kingly touch that cures the evil 4 May serve to charm the tiger out of hist Leofwin. He hath as much of cat as tiger in him. - Our Tostig loves the hand and not the man. flarold. Nay! it threatens us ao War? the ; Better die than lie! Enter KING, QUEEN, and TOSTIG. Edward. In heaven signs ! Signs upon earth! signs everywhere ! your Priests ; Gross, worldly, simoniacal, unlearn’d! They scarce can read their Psalter ; and your churches | Uncouth, unhandsome, while in Norman- land : God speaks thro’ abler voices, as He dwells Instatelier shrines. I saynot this, as being Half Norman-blooded, nor as some have held, : Because I love the Norman better ai But dreading God’s revenge upon es realm For narrowness and coldness: it For the last time perchance, before 1 go To find thesweet refreshment of the Saints. | I have lived a life of utter purity: r I have builded the great church of 7 al Peteré if - and I ay SCENE I. I have wrought miracles—to God the glory— And miracles will in my name be wrought _ Hereafter.—I have fought the fight and 20s I see the flashing of the gates of pearl— And it is well with me, tho’ some of you Have scorn’d me—ay—but after I am gone Woe, woe to England! I have had.a vision ; The seven sleepers in the cave at Ephesus Have turn’d from right to left. fTarold. My most dear Master, What matters? let them turn from left to right And sleep again. Tostig. Too hardy with thy king! A life of prayer and fasting well may see Deeper into the mysteries of heaven Than thou, good brother. Aldwyth (aside), Sees he into thine, That thou wouldst have his promise for the crown? Edward. Tostig says true; my son, thou art too hard, _ Not stagger’d by this ominous earth and heaven : _ But heaven and earth are threads of the same loom, _ Play into one another, and weave the web That may confound thee yet. Flarold. Nay, I trust not, _ For I have served thee long and honestly. Edward. I know it, son; I am not thankless: thou _ Hast broken all my foes, lighten’d for me The weight of this poor crown, and left me time _ And peace for prayer to gain a better one. _ Twelve years of service! England loves thee for it. _ Thou art the man to rule her ! Aldwyth (aside). So, not Tostig ! flarold. And after those twelve years a boon, my king, _ Respite, a holiday: thyself wast wont To love the chase: thy leave to set my feet -» On board, and hunt and hawk beyond 1% the seas ! HAROLD. 655 Edward. What with this flaming _ horror overhead ? ffarold. Well, when it passes then. Edward. Ay if it pass. Go not to Normandy— go not to Nor- mandy. ffarold. And wherefore not, my king, to Normandy ? Is not my brother Wulfnoth hostage there For my dead father’s loyalty to thee? I pray thee, let me hence and bring him home. Edward. Not thee, my son: some other messenger. ffarold. And why not me, my lord, to Normandy ? Is not the Norman Count thy friend and mine ? Edward. I pray thee, do not go to Normandy. ffarold. Because my father drove the Normans out Of England ?—That was many a summer gone— Forgotten and forgiven by them and thee. Edward. WUarold, I will not yield thee leave to go. ffarold. Why then to Flanders. I will hawk and hunt In Flanders. Edward. Be there not fair woods and fields In England ? Saints Pilot and prosper all thy wandering out And homeward. Tostig, I am faint again, Son Harold, I will in and pray for thee. [Exit, leaning on ‘Tostig, and followed by Stigand, Morcar, and Courtiers. fTarold. What lies upon the mind of our good king That. he should harp Normandy? Queen. Brother, the king is wiser than he seems ; And Tostig knows it; Tostig loves the king. Harold. And love should know ; and —be the king so wise,— Wilful, wilful. Go—the. this way on 656 HAROLD. Then Tostig too were wiser than he seems. I love the man but not his phantasies. (Re-enter TOSTIG.) Well, brother, . When didst thou hear from thy North- umbria ? Tostig. When did I hear aught but this ‘ When’ from thee? Leave me alone, brother, with my Northumbria : She is my mistress, let me look to her! The King hath made me Earl; make me not fool ! Nor make the King a fool, who made me Earl ! Harold. No, Tostig—lest I make myself a fool Who made the King who made thee, make thee Earl. Tostig. Why chafe me then? knowest I soon go wild. Gurth. Come, come ! as yet thou art not gone so wild But thou canst hear the best and wisest of us. flarold. So says old Gurth, not I: yet hear ! thine earldom, Tostig, hath been a kingdom. Their old crown Is yet a force among them, a sun set But leaving light enough for Alfgar’s house To strike thee down by—nay, this ghastly glare May heat their fancies. Tostig. My most worthy brother, Thouart the quietest man inall the world— Ay, ay and wise in peace and great in war— Pray God the people choose thee for their king ! But all the powers of the house of Godwin Are not enframed in thee. Harold. Thank the Saints, no ! But thou hast drain’d them shallow by thy tolls, And thou art ever here about the King : Thine absence well may seem a want of care. Cling to their love ; for, now the sons of Godwin Thou Like the rough bear beneath the tre good brother, Waits till the man let go. Tostig. Harold. How goes it then with thy Northumbria? Well? % Tostig. And wouldst thou that it went aught else than well ? ¥ ffarold. I would it went as well ; aS with mine earldom, Leofwin’s and Gurth’s. Tostig. Ye govern milder men. Gurth. We have made them milder by just government. Tostig. Ay, ever give yourselves yous own good word. 2 Leofwin. An honest gift, by all the Saints, if giver 5 And taker be but honest ! but they bribe | Each other, and so often, an honest world Will not believe them. y fTarold. I may tell thee, Tostig, I heard from thy Northumberland to-day. — Tostig. From spies of thine to y oa my nakedness In my poor North! A blind saber, yet. Tostig. Crush it at _ With all the power I have !—I must— i will !— a Crush it half-born! Fool still? or wis: dom there, Bed My wise head-shaking Harold ? ee | Harold. Make not thou — The nothing something. Wisdom vie a in power And wisest, should not frown as Power but ‘stile a As kindness, watching all, till the true must ' Shall make her strike as Power: he when to strike— O Tostig, O dear brother—If they pra Rein in, not lash them, lest they rear and run And break both neck and axle. Tostig. Good again SCENE I. Good counsel tho’ scarce needed. Pour not water In the full vessel running out at top To swamp the house. Leofwin. Nor thou be a wild thing ' Out of the waste, to turn and bite the hand Would help thee from the trap. Tostig. Thou playest in tune. Leofwin. To the deaf adder thee, that wilt not dance However wisely charm/’d. Tostig. No more, no more ! Gurth. I likewise cry ‘no more.’ Unwholesome talk For Godwin’s house ! hast a tongue ! Tostig, thou look’st as thou wouldst spring upon him. St. Olaf, not while I am by! come, _ Join hands, let brethren dwell in unity ; Let kith and kin stand close as our shield-wall, Who breaks us then? I say, thou hast a tongue, _ And Tostig is not stout enough to bear it. Vex him not, Leofwin. Tostig. No, I am not vext,— Altho’ ye seek to vex me, one and all. _ Ihave to make report of my good earldom To the good king who gave it—not to you— _ Not any of you.—I am not vext at all. flarold. ‘The king? the king is ever at his prayers ; In all that handles matter of the state Iam the king. Tostig. That shalt thou never be If I can thwart thee. FTarold. Brother, brother! Tostig. Away ! [Zxzt Tostig. Queen. Spite of this grisly star ye three must gall Poor Tostig. ° _ Leofwin. Tostig,.sister, galls himself ; He cannot smell a rose but pricks his nose jeerinst the thorn, and rails against the rose. Leofwin, thou Come, HAROLD. 657 Queen. Iam the only rose of all the stock That never thorn’d him; Edward loves him, so Ye hate him. Harold always hated him. Why—how they fought when boys—and, Holy Mary ! How Harold used to beat him ! fLarold. Why, boys will fight. Leofwin would often fight me, and I beat him. Even old Gurth would fight. I had much ado To hold mine own against old Gurth. Old Gurth, We fought like great states for grave cause ; but Tostig— —for a nothing — The boy would fist me hard, and when we fought I conquer’d, and he loved me none the less, Till thou wouldst get him all apart, and tell him That where he was but worsted, he was wrong’d. Ah! thou hast taught the king to spoil him too ; Now the spoilt child sways both. Take heed, take heed ; Thou art the Queen ; ye are boy and girl no more: Side not with Tostig in any violence, Lest thou be sideways guilty of the violence. Queen. Come fall not foul onme. I leave thee, brother. flarold. Nay, my good sister— [Zxeunt Queen, Harold, Gurth, and Leofwin. Aldwyth. Gamel, son of Orm, What thinkest thou this means? [Pointing to the comet. Gamel. War, my dear lady, War, waste, plague, famine, all maligni- ties. Aldwyth. It means the fall of Tostig from his earldom. Gamel. That were too small a matter for a comet ! 2U 658 Aldwyth. It means the lifting of the house of Alfgar. _ Gamel, Too small! a comet would not show for that ! Aldwyth. Not small for thee, if thou canst compass it. Gamel. Thy love? Aldwyth. As much as I can give thee, man ; This Tostig is, or like to be, a tyrant ; Stir up thy people: oust him! Game. And thy love? Aldwyth. As muchas thou canst bear. Game. I can bear all, And not be giddy. Aldwyth. Nomore now: to-morrow. SCENE II.—IN THE GARDEN. THE KiInGc’s HousE NEAR LONDON. SUNSET. Edith. Mad for thy mate, passionate nightingale... but stay a moment ; ffe can but stay a moment: he is going. I fain would hear him coming! . . . near me .. near, Somewhere—To draw him nearer with a charm Like thine to thine. (Szng7ng.) Love is come with a song and a smile, Welcome Love with a smile and a song : Love can stay but a little while. Why cannot he stay? They call him away : Ye do him wrong, ye do him wrong ; Love will stay for a whole life long. Enter HAROLD. flarold. The nightingales in Havering- atte- Bower Sang out their loves Edward’s prayers Were deafen’d and he pray’d them dumb, and thus { dumb thee too, my wingless nightingale ! [Avssing her. so loud, that HAROLD. Lidith. Thou art my music ! their wings were mine * To follow thee to Flanders! Must thou go? - Flarold. Not must, but will. I but for one moon. Edith. Leaving so many foes in Edward’s hall on To league against thy weal. The i dy Aldwyth Was here to-day, and an she touch on thee, She stammer’d in her hate; she hates thee, Pants for thy blood. Well, I have given hee I am sure Flarold. . cause— a I fear no woman. PS Ldith. Hate not one who felt Some pity for thy hater! Iamsure Her morning wanted sunlight, she + : praised a The convent and lone life—within th er | “pale— q Beyond the passion. Edward, At least methonght she held with hol Edward, That marriage was half sin. Harold. A lesson wortl Finger and thumb—thus (saps fi jingers). And my answer to it— See here—an interwoven H and E! — Take thou this ring; I will demand ward 2 From Edward when I come again. Ay, _ would she? ae She to shut up.my blossom in the dar Thotart #zy nun, thy cloister in mine ar Edith (taking the ring). Yea, Earl Tostig— Harold. That’s a truer fea For if the North take fire, I shouldbe bac I shall be, soon enough. } Ladith. Ay, but last night An evil dream that ever came and went Hlarold. A gnat that vext thy pillo Had I been by, I would have spoil’d his horn. what was it ? ‘Nay—she held wit 4 My gitl, + b SCENE II. HAROLD. 659 Ladith. Oh! that thou wert not going ! For so methought it was our marriage- morn, And while we stood together, a dead man Rose from behind the altar, tore away My marriage ring, and rent my bridal veil ; And then I turn’d, and saw the church all fill’d With dead men upright from their graves, and all The dead men made at thee to murder thee, But thou didst back thyself against a pillar, And strike among them with thy battle- axe— There, what a dream ! Harold. Well, well—a dream— no more ! Edith. Did not Heaven speak to men in dreams of old? ffarold. Ay—well—of old. thee what, my child ; Thou hast misread this merry dream of thine, Taken the rifted pillars of the wood _ For smooth stone columns of the sanc- tuary, The shadows of a hundred fat dead deer For dead men’s ghosts. True, that the battle-axe Was out of place; it should have been the bow.— Come, thou shalt dream no more such dreams ; I swear it, By mine own eyes—and these two sap- phires—these Twin rubies, that are amulets against all The kisses of all kind of womankin@ In Flanders, till the sea shall roll me back To tumble at thy feet. I tell Ldith. That would but shame me, Rather than make me vain. The sea may roll Sand, shingle, shore-weed, not the living rock Which guards the land. Harold. Except it be a soft one, And undereaten to the fall. Mine amulet... This last... upon thine eyelids, to shut in A happier dream. Sleep, sleep, and thou shalt see My grayhounds fleeting like a beam of light, And hear my peregrine and her bells in heaven ; And other bells on earth, which yet are heaven’s ; Guess what they be. Lidith. He cannot guess who knows, Farewell, my king. ffarold, Not yet, but then—my queen. [Exeunt. Enter ALDWYTH from the thicket. Aldwyth. The kiss that charms thine eyelids into sleep, Will hold mine waking. Hate him? I could love him More, tenfold, than this fearful child can do; Griffyth I hated: why not hate the foe Of England? Griffyth when I saw him flee, as Chased deer-like up his mountains, all the blood That should have only pulsed for Griffyth, beat For his pursuer. I love him or think I love him. If he were King of England, I his queen, I might be sure of it. Nay, I do love him.— She must be cloister’d somehow, lest the king Should yield his ward to Harold’s will. What harm ? She hath but blood enough to live, not love.— When Harold goes and Tostig, shall I play The craftier Tostig with him ? fawn upon him ? Chime in with all? ‘O thou more saint than king !” And that were true enough. ‘O blessed relics !” ‘O Holy Peter!’ If he found me thus, 660 Harold might hate me ; he is broad and honest, Breathing an easy gladness . . . not like Aldwyth ... For which I strangely love him. Should not England Love Aldwyth, if she stay the feuds that part The sons of Godwin from the sons of Alfgar By such a marrying? Courage, noble Aldwyth ! Let all thy people bless thee ! Our wild Tostig, Edward hath made him Earl: he would be king :— The dog that snapt the shadow, dropt the bone.— I trust he may do well, this Gamel, whom I play upon, that he may play the note Whereat the dog shall howl and run, and Harold Hear the king’s music, all alone with him, Pronounced his heir of England. I see the goal and half the way to it.— Peace-lover is our Harold for the sake Of England’s wholeness—so—to shake the North With earthquake and disruption—some division— Then fling mine own fair person in the gap A sacrifice to Harold, a peace-offering, A scape-goat marriage—all the sins of both The houses on mine head—then a fair life And bless the Queen of England. Morcar (coming from the thicket). thou assured By this, that Harold loves but Edith ? Aldwyth. Morcar ! Why creep’st thou like a timorous beast of prey Out of the bush by night ? Morcar. I follow’d thee. Aldwyth. Follow my lead, and I will make thee earl. Morcar. What lead then ? Aldwyth. Thou shalt flash it secretly Among the good Northumbrian folk, that I— Art HAROLD. ACT IL That Harold loves me—yea, and presenti j That I and Harold are betroth’d—and last— Perchance that Harold wrongs me ; tho’ I would not a That it should come to that. Morcar. I will both fash And thunder for thee. Aldwyth. I said ‘ secretly ;? It is the flash that murders, the poor _thunder Never harm’d head. Morcar. But thunder may bring down That which the flash hath stricken. Aldwyth. Down with Tostig ! That first of all—And when doth Harol d go? a Morcar. To-morrow—first to Bosham then to Flanders. Aldwyth. Not to come back tll Tostig shall have shown . 4 And redden’d with his people’s blood the | teeth : yy That shall be broken by us—yea, and. thou Chair’d in his place. dream thyself Their chosen Earl. [Zxit Aldwyth. — Morcar. Earl first, and after that Who knows I may not dream myself their Good-night, oa king ! AGE IL SCENE I.—S£EASHORE. PONTHIEU. NIGHT. a HARoLp and his Men, wrecked. Hlarold. Friends, in that last inhos : pitable plunge Our boat hath burst her ribs ;: bam ours are whole ; I have but bark’ d my hands. Attendant. I dug mine into My old fast friend the shore, and cling! ing thus Felt the remorseless outdraught of t the deep Haul like a great strong fellow at my leg gS, SCENE I. And then I roseand ran, The blast that came So suddenly hath fallen as suddenly— Put thou the comet and this blast to- gether— ffarold. Put thou thyself and mother- wit together. Be not a fool ! (Znter Fishermen wth torches, HAROLD going up to one of them, ROLF.) Wicked sea-will-o’-the-wisp ! Wolf of the shore! dog, with thy lying lights Thou hast betray’d us on these rocks of / thine ! Rolf. Ay, but thou liest as loud as the black herring-pond behind thee. We be fishermen ; I came to see after my nets. flarold. To drag us into them. Fishermen? devils ! Who, while ye fish for men with your false fires, Let the great Devil fish for your own souls. Rolf. Nay then, we be liker the blessed Apostles ; ¢rey were fishers of men, Father Jean says. HTarold. TJ had liefer that the fish had swallowed me, Like Jonah, than have known there were such devils. What’s to be done? [Zo his Men—goes apart with them. Fisherman. Rolf, what fish did swallow Jonah? Rolf. A whale! Fisherman. Then a whale to a whelk we have swallowed the King of England. I saw him over there. Look thee, Rolf, when I was down in the fever, she was down with the hunger, and thou didst stand by her and give her thy crabs, and set her up again, till now, by the patient Saints, she’s as crabb’d as ever. Rolf. And I'll give her my crabs again, when thou art down again. Fisherman. YI thank thee, Rolf. Run ) thou to Count Guy ; he is hard at hand. _ Tell him what hath crept into our creel, _-and he will fee thee as freely as he will HAROLD. 661 wrench this outlander’s ransom out of him—and why not? for what right had he to get himself wrecked on another man’s land ? olf. Thou art the human-heartedest, Christian -charitiest of all crab-catchers. Share and share alike ! [Axze. ffarold (to Fisherman). Fellow, dost thou catch crabs ? fisherman. As few as I may in a wind, and less than I would in a calm. Ay! flTarold. havea mind that thou shalt catch no more. Fisherman. How? fTarold. J have a mind to brain thee with mine axe. fisherman. Ay, do, do, and our great Count-crab will make his nippers meet in thine heart ; he’ll sweat it out of thee, he’ll sweat it out of thee. Look, he’s here! He’ll speak for himself! Hold thine own, if thou canst ! Enter GUY, COUNT OF PONTHIEU. fTarold. Guy, Count of Ponthieu ? Guy. Harold, Earl of Wessex ! fTarold. ‘Thy villains with their lying lights have wreck’d us ! Guy. Art thou not Earl of Wessex ? fLarold, In mine earldom A man may hang gold bracelets on a bush, And leave them for a year, and coming back Find them again. Guy. Thou art a mighty man In thine own earldom ! fTarold, Were such murderous liars In Wessex—if I caught them, they should hang Cliff-gibbeted for sea-marks ; our sea-mew Winging their only wail! Guy. Ay, but my men Hold that the shipwreckt are accursed of God ;— What hinders me to hold with mine own men? Harold. The Christian manhood of the man who reigns ! 662 Guy. Ay, rave thy worst, but in our oubliettes Thou shalt or rot or ransom. Hale him hence! [Zo one of his Attendants. Fly thou to William; tell him we have Harold. SCENE II.—BAVEDX... PALACE. COUNT WILLIAM avd WILLIAM MALET. William. We hold our Saxon wood- cock in the springe, But he begins to flutter. As I think He was thine host in England when I went To visit Edward. Malet. Yea, and there, my lord, To make allowance for their rougher fashions, I found him all a noble host should be. William. Thou art his friend: thou know’st my claim on England Thro’ Edward’s promise: we have him in the toils. And it were well, if thou shouldst let him feel, How dense a fold of danger nets him round, So that he bristle himself against my will. Malet. What would I do, my lord, if ‘I were you? William. What wouldst thou do? Malet. My lord, he is thy guest. Welliam. Nay, by the splendour of God, no guest of mine. He came not to see me, had past me by To hunt and hawk elsewhere, save for the fate Which hunted 427 when that un-Saxon blast, And bolts of thunder moulded in high heaven To serve the Norman purpose, drave and crack’d His boat on Ponthieu beach ; where our friend Guy Had wrung his ransom from him by the rack, LAROLD. AC “_ But that I stept between and purchased him, ; Translating his captivity from Guy To mine own hearth at Bayeux, where he sits F My ransom’d prisoner. Malet. Well, if not with gold, With golden deeds and iron strokes the ut brought Thy war with Brittany to a goodlier dom Than else had been, he paid his ransom back. William. So that henceforth they ar not like to league With Harold against me. ; Malet. > A marvel, how He from the liquid sands of Coesnon _ Haled thy shore-swallow’d, armour’ d Normans up To fight for thee again ! William. Perchance against Their saver, save thou save him from a himself, . Malet. But I should let him home again, my lord. ; William. Simple! let fly the bird 3 within the hand, . To catch the bird again within the busta No. Smooth thou my way, before he clash with me; I want his voice in England for the crown, I want thy voice with him to bring hin ih round ; And being brave he must be subtly cow’ d, And being truthful wrought upon to swear Vows that he dare not break. Engla Ad our own > Thro’ Harold’s help, he shall be my ¢ dear friend r As well as thine, and thou thyself sha It have Large lordship there of landsand territor a . Malet. J knew thy purpose; he and Wulfnoth never e Have met, except in public ; shall they y meet as In private? I have often talk’d ith Wulfnoth, ‘2 SCENE II. And stuff’d the boy with fears that these may act On Harold when they meet. William. Then let them meet ! Malet. I can but love this noble, honest Harold. Wilham. Love him! why not? thine is a loving office, I have commission’d thee to save the man: Help the good ship, showing the sunken rock, Or he is wreckt for ever. Enter WILLIAM RUFUS. William Rufus. Father. William. Well, boy. William Rufus. They have taken .away the toy thou gavest me, The Norman knight. William. Why, boy? Witham Rufus. Because I broke The horse’s leg—it was mine own to break ; [like to have my toys, and break them too. William. Well, thou shalt have another Norman knight ! Witham Rufus. And may I break his legs ? Wilham. Yea,—get thee gone ! William Rufus. Tl tell them I have had my way with thee. [Zxz2. Malet. I never knew thee check thy will for ought Save for the prattling of thy little ones. William. Who shall be kings of England. Iam heir Of England by the promise of her king. Malet. But’ there the great na choose their king, The choice of England is the voice of England. William. Iwill be king of England by the laws, _ The choice, and voice of England. Malet. Can that be? William. The voice of any people is | the sword _ That guards them, or the sword that beats | them down. HAROLD. 663 Here comes the would-be what I will bey west kinglicetias Wt Tho’ scarce at ease ; for, save our meshes break, More kinglike he than like to prove a king. (Enter HAROLD, musing, with his eyes on the ground.) He sees me not—and yet he dreams of me. wilt thou fly my falcons this fair day? They are of the best, strong-wing’d against the wind. fTarold (looking up suddenly, having caught but the last word). Which way does it blow? Witham. Blowing for England, ha? Not yet. Thou hast not learnt thy quarters here. The winds so cross and jostle among these towers. flarold. Count of the Normans, thou hast ransom’d us, Maintain’d, and entertain’d us royally ! Wiliam. And thou for us hast fought as loyally, Which binds us friendship-fast for ever ! Harold. Good ! But lest we turn the scale of courtesy Earl, By too much pressure on it, I would fain, Since thou hast promised Wulfnoth home with us, Be home again with Wulfnoth. William. Stay—as yet Thou hast but seen how Norman hands can strike, But walk’d our Norman field, scarce touch’d or tasted The splendours of our Court. Flarold. I am in no mood: I should be as the shadow of a cloud Crossing your light. William. Nay, rest a week or two, And we will fill thee full of Norman sun, And send thee back among thine island mists With laughter. 664 Harold. Count, I thank thee, but had rather Breathe the free wind from off our Saxon downs, Tho’ charged with all the wet of all the west. William. Why if thou wilt, so let it be—thou shalt. That were a graceless hospitality To chain the free guest to the banquet- board ; To-morrow we will ride with thee to Harfleur, And see thee shipt, and pray in thy behalf For happier homeward winds than that which crack’d Thy bark at Ponthieu, —yet to us, in faith, A happy one—whereby we came to know Thy valour and thy value, noble earl. Ay, and perchance a happy one for thee, Provided—I will go with thee to-mor- ~ row—- Nay—but there be conditions, easy ones, So thou, fair friend, will take them easily. Finter PAGE. Page. My lord, there is a post from over seas With news for thee. [Zxz¢t Page. Wiliam. Come, Malet, let us hear ! [Axeunt Count William azd Malet. ffarold, Conditions? What condi- tions ? pay him back His ransom? ‘easy’—that were easy— nay— No money-lover he! King? ‘I pray you do not go to Normandy.’ And fate hath blown me hither, bound me too With bitter obligation to the Count— What said the Have I not fought it out? What did he mean ? There lodged a gleaming grimness in his eyes, Gave his shorn smile the lie. The walls oppress me, And yon huge keep that hinders half the heaven. Free air ! free field ! HTAROLD. _ ACT TI a [Moves to go out. A Man-at-arms follows him. A fTarold (to the Man-at-arms). I need thee not. Why dost thou follow me? Man-at-arms. I have the commands to follow thee. flarold. What then? Am Jin cana in this court ? Man-at-arms. I cannot tell. the Count’s commands. Hlarold. Stand out of earshot thent and keep mevstill In eyeshot. Man-at-arms. Count’s Yea, lord Harold. [Withdra IS. flarold. And arm’d men ~ Ever keep watch beside my chamber door, And if I walk within the lonely wood. There is an arm’d man ever glides behind! (Znter MALET.) Why am I follow’d, haunted, harass’d, watch’d ? 4 See yonder ! 4 [Pointing to the Man-at- arms. Malet. ’Tis the good Count’s care for thee ! | The Normans love thee not, nor thaw the Normans, Or—so they deem. Harold. But wherefore is the win Which way soever the vane-arrow swing Ey Not ever fair for England? Why ea =a now He said (thou heardst him) that I must not hence : Save on conditions. Malet. So in truth he aa Harold. Malet, thy mother was an Englishwoman ; At There somewhere beats an English pulse in thee ! Bs : a Malet. Well—for my mother’s sak ee I love your England, ~ But for my father I love Normandy. — Harold. Speak for thy mother’s sake, and tell me true. a Malet. Then for my mother’s sake, and England’s sake SCENE II. That suffers in the daily want of thee, Obey the Count’s conditions, my good friend. flarold. How, Malet, if they be not honourable ! Malet. Seem to obey them. Flarold. Better die than lie ! Malet. Choose therefore whether thou wilt have thy conscience White as a maiden’s hand, or whether England Be shatter’d into fragments. FTarold. News from England ? Malet. Morcar and Edwin have stirr’d up the Thanes 7 Against thy brother Tostig’s governance ; And all the North of Humber is one storm. Flarold. I should be there, Malet, I should be there ! Malet. And Tostig in his own hall on suspicion Hath massacred the Thane that was his guest, Gamel, the son of Orm: and there be more As villainously slain. Lfarold. The wolf! the beast ! Ill news for guests, ha, Malet! More? What more? What do they say? did Edward know of this ? Malet. They say, his wife was know- ing and abetting. ffarold. They say, his wife !—To marry and have no husband Makes the wife fool. My God, I should be there. _ Tl hack my way to the sea. Malet. Thou canst not, Harold ; - Our Duke is all between thee and the sea, Our Duke is all about thee like a God ; _ All passes block’d. Obey him, speak him fair, _ For he is only debonair to those _ That follow where he leads, but stark as | death To those that cross him.— Look thou, | here is Wulfnoth ! I leave thee to thy talk with him alone ; HAROLD. 665 How wan, poor lad! how sick and sad for home! [Zxit Malet. fTarold (muttering). Go not to Nor- mandy—go not to Normandy ! (Enter WULFNOTH.) Poor brother ! still a hostage ! Wulfnoth. Yea, and I Shall see the dewy kiss of dawn no more Make blush the maiden-white of our tall cliffs, Nor mark the sea-bird rouse himself and hover Above the windy ripple, and fill the sky With free sea-laughter—never—save indeed Thou canst make yield this iron-mooded Duke To let me go. Harold. Why, brother, so he will ; But on conditions. Canst thou guess at them ? Wulfnoth. Draw nearer,—I was in the corridor, I saw him coming with his brother Odo The Bayeux bishop, and I hid myself. fTarold. They did thee wrong who made thee hostage ; thou Wast ever fearful. Waulfnoth. heard him— ‘This Harold is not of the royal blood, Can have no right to the crown,’ and Odo said, ‘Thine is the right, for thine the might ; he is here, And yonder is thy keep.’ Flarold. No, Wulfnoth, no. Wulfnoth. And William laugh’d and swore that might was right, Far as he knew in this poor world of ours— And he spoke—1l ‘Marry, the Saints must go along with us, And, brother, we will find a way,’ said he— Yea, yea, he would be king of England. fLarold. Never! Wulfnoth. Yea, but thou must not this way answer zm. 666 Harold. Is it not better still to speak the truth ? Wulfnoth. Not here, or thou wilt never hence nor I: For in the racing toward this golden goal He turns not right or left, but tramples flat Whatever thwarts him; hast thou never heard His savagery at Alencon,—the town Hung out raw hides along their walls, and cried ‘Work for the tanner.’ Harold. That had anger’d me Had I been William. Wulfnoth. Nay, but he had prisoners, He tore their eyes out, sliced their hands away, And flung them streaming o’er the battle- ments Upon the heads of those who walk’d within— O speak him fair, Harold, for thine own sake. Harold. Your Welshman says, ‘The Truth against the World,’ Much more the truth against myself. Wulfnoth. Thyself ? But for my sake, oh brother! oh! for my sake! flarold. Poor Wulfnoth! do they not entreat thee well? Wulfnoth. see the blackness of my dungeon loom Across their lamps. of revel, and beyond The merriest murmurs of their banquet clank The shackles that will bind me to the wall. Harold. Too fearful still ! Wulfnoth. Oh no, no—speak him fair ! Call it to temporize ; and not to lie ; Harold, I do not counsel thee to lie. The man that hath to foila murderous aim May, surely, play with words, fTarold, Words are the man. Not evn for thy sake, brother, would I lie, Wulfnoth. Then for thine Edith ? HAROLD. FTarold. There thou prick’st me deep. a Wulfnoth. And for our Mother Eng- _ land ? ye fTarold. Deeper still. ‘ Wulfnoth. And deeper still the deep- — . down oubliette, a Down thirty feet below the smiling oa In blackness—dogs’ food thrown Upon thy head. And over thee the suns arise and set, And the lark sings, the sweet stars come — Jie as and go, ~ And men are at their markets, in their — fields, ‘% And woo their loves and have forgotten — s thee 5 And thou art upright 1 in thy living grave, . Where there is barely room to shift thy — side, And all thine England hath forgotten thee ; And he our lazy-pious Norman King, 5 With all his Normans round him once — again, Counts his old beads, and hath forgotten — thee. Hlarold. Thou art of my blood, and so methinks, my boy, Thy fears infect me beyond reason. Peace ! Wulfnoth. And then our fiery Tostig, ~ while thy hands Are palsied here, if his Northumbrians— rise And hurl him from them,—I have heard the Normans Count upon this confusion—may he not , make A league with William, so to bring him back ? Harold. That lies within the shadow of the chance. Wulfnoth. And like a river in flood | thro’ a burst dam Descends the ruthless Norman—our good King Kneels mumbling some old bone—our — helpless folk Are wash’d away, wailing, in their own blood— SCENE II. flarold. Wailing! not warring? Boy, thou hast forgotten That thou art English. Wulfnoth. Thenourmodest women— I know the Norman license—thine own Edith— ffarold. No more! I will not hear thee— William comes. Wulfnoth. 1 dare not well be seen in talk with thee. Make thou not mention that I spake with thee. [Moves away to the back of the stage. Enter WILLIAM, MALET, and Officer. Officer. We have the man that rail’d against thy birth. William. Tear out his tongue. Officer. He shall not rail again. He said that he should see confusion fall On thee and on thine house. William. Tear out his eyes, And plunge him into prison. Officer. It shall be done. [Zxzt Officer. Wilham. Look not amazed, fair earl! Better leave undone Than do by halves—tongueless and eye- less, prison’d— ffarold. Better methinks have slain the man at once ! William. We have respect for man’s immortal soul, We seldom take man’s life, except in war ; It frights the traitor more to maim and blind. flarold. In mine own land I should have scorn’d the man, Or lash’d his rascal back, and let him go. William. Andlethimgo? Toslander thee again ! Yet in thine own land in thy father’s day They blinded my young kinsman, Alfred ay, Some said it was thy father’s deed. LfTarold. They lied. Witham. But thou and he—whom at thy word, for thou Art known a speaker of the truth, I free From this foul charge— HAROLD. 667 flarold. Nay, nay, he freed himself By oath and compurgation from the charge. The king, the lords, the people clear’d him of it. William. But thou and he drove our good Normans out From England, and this rankles in us yet. Archbishop Robert hardly scaped with life. ffarold. Archbishop Robert! Robert the Archbishop ! Robert of Jumiéges, he that— Malet. Quiet! quiet! flarold. Count! if there sat within the Norman chair A ruler all for England—one who fill’d All offices, all bishopricks with English— We could not move from Dover to the Humber Saving thro’ Norman bishopricks—I say Ye would applaud that Norman who should drive The stranger to the fiends ! William. Why, that is reason ! Warrior thou art, and mighty wise withal ! Ay, ay, but many among our Norman lords Hate thee for this, and press upon me— saying God and the sea have given thee to our hands— To plunge thee into life-long prison here :— Yet I hold out against them, as I may, Yea—would hold out, yea, tho’ they should revolt— For thou hast done the battle in my cause ; I am thy fastest friend in Normandy. Flarold, 1 am doubly bound to thee Pen tithis. berso: Witham. And I would bind thee - more, and would myself Be bounden to thee more. Harold. Then let me hence With Wulfnoth to King Edward. William. So we will. We hear he hath not long to live. fTarold. It may be. William. Why then the heir of England, who is he ? 668 Harold. The Atheling is nearest to the throne. William. But sickly, slight, witted and a child, Will England have him king? flarold. It may be, no. Wiliam. And hath King Edward not pronounced his heir ? ffarold. Not that I know. William. When he was here in Normandy, He loved us and we him, because we found him A Norman of the Normans. fTarold. So did we. Wilham. A gentle, gracious, pure and saintly man ! And grateful to the hand that shielded him, He promised that if ever he were king In England, he would give his kingly voice To me as his successor. Knowest thou this ? fTarold. Willian. cousin, And that my wife descends from Alfred ? fLarold. Ay. William. Who hath a better claim then to the crown So that ye will not crown the Atheling? ffarold. None that I know... if that but hung upon King Edward’s will. William. Wilt claim? Malet (aside to Harold). Be careful of thine answer, my good friend. Wulfnoth (aside to Harold). Oh! half- I learn it now. Thou knowest I am his thou uphold my Harold, for my sake and for thine own! flarold. Ay... if the king have not revoked his promise. Witham. But hath he done it then? fTarold. Not that I know. William. Good, good, and thou wilt help me to the crown? ffarold. Ay... if the Witan will consent to this. Witham. Thou art the mightiest voice in England, man, HAROLD. Thy voice will lead the Witan—shall I have it ? Wulfnoth (aside to Hatoldyt Oh! pe if thou love thine Edith, Harold. Ay, if— 7 Malet (aside to Harold). Thine ‘if ~ will sear thine eyes out—ay. William. I ask thee, wilt thou help ) me to the crown ? And I will make thee my great Earl of Earls, Foremost in England and in Normand ; Thou shalt be verily king—all but the = name— For I shall most sojourn in Normandy ; And thou be my vice-king in Englaaaa | Speak. ¥ Wulfnoth (aside to Harold). Ay, brother—for the sake of Engle d j —ay. ‘ = fTarold. My lord— a. Take heal Malet (aside to Harold). now. = Harold. Ay. a William. I am content, For thou art truthful, and thy woul thy i q bond. To-morrow will we ride with thee to a3 Harfleur. [Axit William. | Malet. Warold, I am thy friend, one life with es And even as I should bless thee savi a mine, I thank thee now for having saved thyself. _ [Zit Malet. Harold. For having lost myself to save myself, Said ‘ay’ when I meant ‘no,’ lied like a lad That rane the pendent some ‘ay’ for ‘no’! . Ay ! No !—he hath not bound me by oath— Is ‘ay’ an oath? is ‘ay’ strong as oath ? Or is it the same sin to break my word As break mine oath? He call’d my wo my bond! " He is a liar who knows I am a liar, SCENE II. HAROLD. 669 And makes believe that he believes my | Woven into the gold. Swear thou on this! word— The crime be on his head—not bounden —no. [Suddenly doors are flung open, dis- covering in an inner hall COUNT WILLIAM 77 his state robes, seated upon his throne, between two Bishops, ODO OF BAYEUX being one; in the centre of the hall an ark covered with cloth of gold; and on either side of wt the Norman barons. Linter a JAILOR before William’s throne. Welliam (to Jailor). Knave, hast thou let thy prisoner scape ? Sailor. Sir Count, He had but one foot, he must have hopt away, Yea, some familiar spirit must have help’d him. William. Woe knave to thy familiar and to thee ! Give me thy keys. Nay let them lie. wait my will. [Zhe Jailor stands aside. William (to Harold). Hast thou such trustless jailors in thy North? flarold. Ne have few prisoners in mine earldom there, So less chance for false keepers. William. We have heard Of thy just, mild, and equal governance ; Honour to thee! thou art perfect in all honour ! Thy naked word thy bond! confirm it now Before our gather’d Norman baronage, | For they will not believe thee—as I believe. [Descends from his throne and stands by the ark. Let all men here bear witness of our bond ! [Beckons to Harold, who advances, [They fall clashing. Stand there and - Enter MALET behind him. Lay thou thy hand upon this golden pall! Behold the jewel of St. Pancratius flarold. What should I swear? Why should I swear on this? William (savagely). Swear thou to help me to the crown of England. Malet (whispering Harold). My friend, thou hast gone too far to palter now. Wulfnoth (whispering Harold). Swear thou to-day, to-morrow is thine own. fTarold. J swear to help thee to the crown of England... According as King Edward promises. Witham. ‘'Thoumust swear absolutely, noble Earl. Malet (whispering). Delay is death to thee, ruin to England. Waulfnoth (whispering). Swear, dear- est brother, I beseech thee, swear ! flarold ( putting his hand on the jewel). I swear to help thee to the crown of England. William. Thanks, truthful Earl; I did not doubt thy word, But that my barons might believe thy word, And that the Holy Saints of Normandy When thou art home in England, with thine own, Might strengthen thee in keeping of thy word, I made thee swear.—Show him by whom he hath sworn. [Zhe ¢wo Bishops advance, and raise the cloth of gold. The bodies and bones of Saints are seen lying in the ark. The holy bones of all the Canonised From all the holiest shrines in Normandy ! Harold. Worrible! [Zhey let the cloth fall again. William. Ay, for thou hast sworn an oath Which, if not kept, would make the hard earth rive To the very Devil’s horns, the bright sky cleave To the very feet of God, and send her hosts 670 Of injured Saints to scatter sparks of plague Thro’ all your cities, blast your infants, dash The torch of war among your standing corn, Dabble your hearths with your own blood. —Enough ! Thou wilt not break it ! the King — Thy friend—am grateful for thine honest oath, Not coming fiercely like a conqueror, now, But softly as a bridegroom to his own. For I shall rule according to your laws, And make your ever-jarring Earldoms move To music and in order—Angle, Jute, Dane, Saxon, Norman, help to build a throne Out-towering hers of France. . . wind is fair For England now. . . be merry. To-morrow will I ride with thee to Harfleur. [Zxeunt William and all the Norman barons, etc. flarold. To-night we will be merry— and to-morrow — Juggler and bastard—bastard—he hates that most— William the tanner’s bastard ! he heard me! O God, that I were in some wide, waste field With nothing but my battle-axe and him To spatter his brains ! rive, gulf in These cursed Normans—yea and mine I, the Count— The To-night we will Would Why let earth own self. Cleave heaven, and send thy saints that I may say Ev’n to their faces, ‘If ye side with William Ye are not noble.’ How their pointed fingers Glared at me! Am I Harold, Harold, son HAROLD. Of our great Godwin? mine arms, My limbs—they are not mine—they are 4 a liars I mean to be a liar—I am not bound— an : Lo! I touch a Stigand shall give me absolution for it— — Did the chest move ? did it move? I am utter craven ! O Wulfnoth, Wulfnoth, brother, thou hast betray’d me ! Wulfnoth. Forgive me, brother, I will live here and die. Enter PAGE. Page. My lord! the Duke awaits thee at the banquet. ffarold. Where they eat dead men’s flesh, and drink their blood. fage. My lord— fTarold. I know your Norman cookery is so spiced, It masks all this. Page. My lord ! thou art white as death. Harold. With looking on the dead. Am I so white ? Thy Duke will seem the darker. T follow. Hence, [Zxeunt, ACEI SCENE I.—THE KI1Nnc@’s PALACE, LONDON. Kinc Epwarp dying on a couch, and by him standing the QUEEN, HAROLD, ARCHBISHOP STIGAND, GURTH, LEOFWIN, ARCHBISHOP ALDRED. ALDWYTH, aud EDITH. Stigand. Sleeping or dying there? If this be death, Then our great Council wait to crown thee King— Come hither, I have a power ; ; [ Zo Harold. They call me near, for I am close to thee And England—-I, old shrivell’d Stigand, 1, Dry as an old wood-fungus on a dead tree, — I have a power ! SCENE I. HAROLD. 671 See here this little key about my neck ! There lies a treasure buried down in Ely: If e’er the Norman grow too hard for thee, Ask me for this at thy most need, son Harold, At thy most need—not sooner. flarold. So IJ will. Stigand. Red gold—a hundred purses —yea, and more! If thou canst make a wholesome use of these To chink against the Norman, I do believe My old crook’d spine would bud out two young wings To fly to heaven straight with. Flarold. Thank thee, father ! Thou art English, Edward too is English now, He hath clean repented of his Normanism. Stigand. Ay, as the libertine repents who cannot Make done undone, when thro’ his dying sense Shrills ‘lost thro’ thee.’ They have built their castles here ; Our priories are Norman; the Norman adder Hath bitten us; we are poison’d: our dear England Is demi-Norman. He !— [Pomting to King Edward, sleeping. fTarold. I would I were As holy and as passionless as he ! That I might rest as calmly! Look at him— The rosy face, and long down-silvering beard, The brows unwrinkled as a summer mere,— Stigand. A summer mere with sudden wreckful gusts From a side-gorge. Passionless? How he flamed When Tostig’s anger’d earldom flung him, nay, . He fain had calcined all Northumbria ) To one black ash, but that thy patriot passion Siding with our great Council against Tostig, Out-passion’d his! Holy? ay, ay, for- sooth, ; A conscience for his own soul, not his realm 3 . A twilight. conscience lighted thro’ a chink ; Thine by the sun; nay, by some sun to be, When all the world hath learnt to speak the truth, And lying were self-murder by that state Which was the exception. ffarold. That sun may God speed ! Stigand. Come, Harold, shake the cloud off ! Fareld. Can I, father ? Our Tostig parted cursing me and Eng- land ; Our sister hates us for his banishment ; He hath gone to kindle Norway against England, And Wulfnoth is alone in Normandy. For when I rode with William down to Harfleur, ‘Wulfnoth is sick,’ he said; ‘he cannot follow ;’ Then with that friendly-fiendly smile of his, ‘We have learnt to love him, let him a little longer Remain a hostage for the loyalty Of Godwin’s house.’ As far as touches Wulfnoth I that so prized plain word and naked truth Have sinn’d against it—all in vain. Leofwin. Good brother, By all the truths that ever priest hath preach’d, Of all the lies that ever men have lied, Thine is the pardonablest. flarold. May be so! I think it so, I think I am a fool To think it can be otherwise than so. Stigand, Tut, tut, I have absolved thee: dost thou scorn me, Because I had my Canterbury pallium, From one whom they dispoped ? Harold. No, Stigand, no! 672 Stigand. Is naked truth actable in true life ? I have heard a saying of thy father Godwin, That, were a man of state nakedly true, Men would but take him for the craftier liar. Leofwin. Be men less delicate than the Devil himself? I thought that naked Truth would shame the Devil The Devil is so modest. Gurth. He never said it ! Leofwin. Be thou not stupid-honest, brother Gurth! fTarold. Better to be a liar’s dog, and hold My master honest, than believe that lying And ruling men are fatal twins that cannot Move one without the other. Edward wakes !— Dazed—he hath seen a vision. Ledward. The green tree! Then a great Angel past along the highest Crying ‘the doom of England,’ and at once He stood beside me, in his grasp a sword Of lightnings, wherewithal he cleft the tree From off the bearing trunk, and hurl’d it from him Three fields away, and then he dash’d and drench’d, He dyed, he soak’d the trunk with human blood, And brought the sunder’d tree again, and set it Straight on the trunk, that thus baptized in blood Grew ever high and higher, beyond my seeing, And shot out sidelong boughs across the deep That dropt themselves, and rooted in far isles Beyond my seeing : rose And past again along the highest crying ‘The doom of England !’—Tostig, raise my head! [Falls back senseless. and the great Angel HAROLD. flarold (raising him). serve for Tostig! Queen. Harold served Tostig so ill, he cannot serve for Tostig ! Ay, raise his head, for thou hast laid it low! The sickness of our saintly king, for whom é My prayers go up as fast as my tears fall, I well believe, hath mainly drawn itself — From lack of Tostig—thou hast banish’d him. g fTarold. Nay—but the council, and the king himself, Let Harold Queen. Thou hatest him, hatest him. Harold (coldly). Ay—Stigand, unriddle . This vision, canst thou ? Stigand. Dotage ! | Edward (starting up). tis finish’d. I have built the Lord a house—the Lord hath dwelt _ | In darkness. I have built the Lord a — house— \s Palms, flowers, pomegranates, golden i cherubim y With twenty-cubit wings from wall to : wall— ¥$ I have built the Lord a house—sing, — Asaph ! clash The cymbal, Heman ! blow the ua ra priest ! = Fall, cloud, and fill the house—lo! my _ two pillars, 7 Jachin and Boaz !— | [Seeing Harold and Gurth. — Harold, Gurth,—where am I? Where is the charter of our Westminster? Stigand, It lies beside thee, king, upon thy bed. | 4 Edward. Sign, sign at once—take, sign it, Stigand, Aldred ! Sign it, my good son Harold, Gurth, and Leofwin, ; Sign it, my queen ! a. All. We have sign’d it. Edward. It is finish’d ! The kingliest Abbey in all Christian lands, The lordliest, loftiest minster ever built To Holy Peter in our English isle ! SCENE I. Let me be buried there, and all our kings, And all our just and wise and holy men That shall be born hereafter. It is finish’d ! Hast thou had absolution for thine oath? [Zo Harold. ffarold. Stigand hath given me abso- _ ~ lution for it. Edward. Stigand is not canonical enough To save thee from the wrath of Norman Saints. Stigand. Norman enough ! no Saints of England To help us from their brethren yonder ? Edward. Prelate, The Saints are one, but those of Nor- manland Are mightier than our own. Ask it of Aldred. [Zo Harold. Aldred. It shall be granted him, my | king ; for he _ Who vows a vow to strangle his own mother Is guiltier keeping this, than breaking it. : Edward. O friends, I shall not over- live the day. Stigand. Why then the throne is ' empty. Who inherits ? | Fortho’ we benot bound by the king’s voice | In making of a king, yet the king’s voice Be there ' Is much toward his making. Who inherits ? | Edgar the Atheling ? > ££dward. No, no, but Harold. I love him: he hath served me: none but he Can rule all England. Yet the curse is on him For swearing falsely by those blessed bones ; He did not mean to keep his vow. fTarold. Not mean To make our England Norman. Edward, There spake Godwin, Who hated all the Normans; but their Saints |) Have heard thee, Harold. | Edith. Oh! my lord, my king! _ He knew not whom he sware by. HAROLD. 673 Edward. Yea, I know He knew not, but those heavenly ears have heard, Their curse is on him; wilt thou bring another, Edith, upon his head ? Ldith. No, no, not I. Ldward. Why then, thou must not wed him. | Flarold, Wherefore, wherefore ? Ldward. O-son, when thou didst tell me of thine oath, I sorrow’d for my random promise given To yon fox-lion. I did not dream then I should be king.—My son, the Saints are virgins ; They love the white rose of virginity, The cold, white lily blowing in her cell : I have been myself a virgin ; and I sware To consecrate my virgin here to heaven— The silent, cloister’d, solitary life, A life of life-long prayer against the curse That lies on thee and England. Flarold. No, no, no. Edward. Treble denial of the tongue of flesh, Like Peter’s when he fell, and thou wilt have To wail for it ike Peter. O my son! Are all oaths to be broken then, all pro- mises Made in our agony for help from heaven? Son, there is one who loves thee: and a wife, What matters who, so she be serviceable In all obedience, as mine own hath been: God bless thee, wedded daughter. [Layzng his hand on the Queen’s head. Queen. Bless thou too That brother whom I love beyond the rest, My banish’d Tostig. Edward. All the sweet Saints bless him ! Spare and forbear him, Harold, if he comes ! And let him pass unscathed ; he loves me, Harold ! Be kindly to the Normans left among us, Who follow’d me for love ! and dear son, swear 2x 674 When thou art king, to see my solemn vow Accomplish’d. flarold. Way, dear lord, for I have sworn Not to swear falsely twice. Edward. Thou wilt not swear ? Flarold. I cannot. Edward. Then on thee remains the curse, Harold, if thou embrace her: and on thee, Edith, if thou abide it, — [Zhe King swoons ; Edith falls and kneels by the couch. Stigand. He hath swoon’d ! Death? . 2eno; as yeteagbreath, fLarold, Look up! look up! Edith ! Aldred. Confuse her not; she hath begun Her life-long prayer for thee. Aldwyth. O noble Harold, I would thou couldst have sworn. ffarold. For thine own pleasure ? Aldwyth. No, but to please our dying king, and those Who make thy good their own—all England, Earl. Aldred. I would thou couldst have sworn. Our holy king Hath given his virgin lamb to Holy Church To save thee from the curse. fTarold. Alas ! poor man, fTis promise brought it on me. Aldred. O good son ! That knowledge made him all the care- fuller To find a means whereby the curse might glance From thee and England. FLarold. Father, we so loved— Aldred. The more the love, the mightier is the prayer ; The more the love, the more acceptable The sacrifice of both your loves to heaven, No sacrifice to heaven, no help from heaven ; That runs thro’ all the faiths of all the world. HAROLD. ACT IIt, And sacrifice there must be, for the king Is holy, and hath talk’d with God, and seen A shadowing horror; there are signe ‘in L heaven— fTarold. Your comet came and veal Aldred. And signs on earth ! Knowest thou Senlac hill? Harold. I know all a A good entrenchment for a perilous hour Aldred. Pray God that come not rt suddenly ! ! There is one Who passing by that hill three nights S ago— He shook so that he ‘scarce could out with it— | Heard, heard— i Harold. The wind in his hair? — Aldred. A ghostly horn Blowing continually, and faint battle-= hymns, And cries, and clashes, and the groans of men ; : And dreadful shadows strove upon they hill, And dreadful lights crept up from out the marsh— e Corpse-candles gliding over nameless graves— ffarold, At Senlac? Aldred. Senlac. Edward (waking). Senlac! Sanguelac, The Lake of Blood ! . Stigand. ‘This lightning before death Plays on the word,—and Normanizes too! Harold. Hush, father, hush ! 2 4 Ledward. Thou uncanonical fool, Wilt ¢how play with the thunder? North and South 5 Thunder together, showers of blood are blown Before a never ending blast, and hiss — Against the blaze they cannot quench—a lake, A sea of blood—we are drown’d in bloo d —for God Has fill’d the quiver, and Death has drawn the bow— Sanguelac ! Sanguelac! the arrow ! the arrow ! [Di Pr SCENE IT. Stigand. It is the arrow of death in his own heart— And our great Council wait to crown thee King. SCENE II.—IN THE GARDEN. KING’s HouSsSE NEAR LONDON. THE Edith. Crown’d, crown’d and lost, crown’d King—and lost to me! (Szrgzn2g. ) Two young lovers in winter weather, None to guide them, Walk’d at night on the misty heather; Night, as black as a raven’s feather ; Both were lost and found together, None beside them. That is the burthen of it—lost and found Together in the cruel river Swale ' Ahundred years ago ; and there’s another, Lost, lost, the light of day, To which the lover answers lovingly ‘I am beside thee.’ Lost, lost, we have lost the way. ‘Love, I will guide thee.’ Whither, O whither ? into the river, Where we two may be lost together, And lost for ever? ‘Oh! never, oh! never, Tho’ we be lost and be found together.’ Some think they loved within the pale forbidden By Holy Church: but who shall say? the truth Was lost in that fierce North, where ¢hey were lost, Where all good things are lost, where Tostig lost The good hearts of his people. Harold ! It is (Enter HAROLD.) Harold the King! Flarold. Call me not King, but Harold. Edith. Nay, thou art King! HAROLD. 675 flarold. Thine, thine, or King or chur] ! My girl, thou hast been weeping: turn not thou Thy face away, but rather let me be King of the moment to thee, and command That kiss my due when subject, which will make My kingship kinglier to me than to reign King of the world without it. Leadtth. Ask me not, Lest I should yield it, and the second curse Descend upon thine head, and thou be only King of the moment over England. flarold, Edith, Tho’ somewhat less a king to my true self Than ere they crown’d me one, for I have lost Somewhat of upright stature thro’ mine oath, Yet thee I would not lose, and sell not thou Our living passion for a dead man’s dream ; Stigand believed he knew not what he spake. Oh God! I cannot help it, but at times They seem to me too narrow, all the faiths Of this grown world of ours, whose baby eye Saw them sufficient. This curse, and scorn it. - light !— And on it falls the shadow of the priest ; Fool and wise, I fear But a little Heaven yield us more! for better, Woden, all Our cancell’d warrior-gods, our grim Walhalla, Eternal war, than that the Saints at peace The Holiest of our Holiest one should be This William’s fellow-tricksters ;—better die Than credit this, for death is death, or else Lifts us beyond the lie. Kiss me—thou art not A holy sister yet, my girl, to fear There might be more than brother in my kiss, And more than sister in thine own. 676 HAROLD. ACT Ill, Edith. I dare not. Gurth. Against St. Valery Hlarold. Scared by the church— | And William. % _ €Love for a whole life long’ Harold. Well then, we will to the When was that sung? North. i Edith, Here to the nightingales. Gurth. Ay, but worse news: th Harold. Their anthems of no church, how sweet they are! Nor kingly priest, nor priestly king to cross Their billings ere they nest. Edith. They are but of spring, They fly the winter change—not so with us— No wings to come and go. fTarold. But wing’d souls flying Beyond all change and in the eternal distance To settle on the Truth. Ldith. They are not so true, They change their mates. Flarold. Do they? I did not know it. Lath. They say thou art to wed the Lady Aldwyth. flarold. They say, they say. Edith. If this be politic, And well for thee and England—and for her— Care not for me who love thee. Gurth (calling). Harold, Harold ! Harold. The voice of Gurth ! (Zuzter GURTH.) Good even, my good brother ! Gurth. Good even, gentle Edith. _ Ladith. Good even, Gurth. Gurth. Ill news hath come! Our hapless brother, Tostig— He, and the giant King ‘of Norway, Harold Hardrada— Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Orkney, Are landed North of Humber, and ina field So packt with carnage that the dykes and brooks Were bridged and damm/’d with dead, have overthrown Morcar and Edwin. fTarold. fight. How blows the wind? Well then, we must “om William sent to Rome, Swearing thou swarest falsely by his) Saints : The Pope and that Archdeacon Hilde- brand His master, heard him, and have sent him eee A holy gonfanon, and a blessed hair Of Peter, and all France, all Burgundy, — Poitou, all Christendom is raised against | thee ; He hath eared thee, and all those who fight for thee, And given thy realm of England to thel bastard. FTarold. a! ha! Edith. Oh! laugh not! . and ghastly in the glonm And shadowing of this double thunder- cloud * That lours on England—laughter ! ! ffarold. No, not strange ! This was old human laughter in old Rome Before a Pope was born, when that which reign’d Call’d itself God.—A lcindly rendering Of ‘Render nnto)/Czesar es ee The Good Shepherd ! Take this, and render that. Gurth. They have taken Vork. Ffarold. ‘The Lord was God and came as man—the Pope e Is man and comes as God.—York taken? Gurth. Yea, Tostig hath taken York ! y . Strange a Edith, Harold, To York then. Hadst thou been braver, I had bette r braved All—but I love thee and thou me—and that a Remains beyond all chances and all churches, And that thou knowest. Edith, Ay, but take back thy ring: SCENE I. HAROLD. 677 It burns my hand—a curse to thee and me. I dare not wear it. [Proffers Harold the ring, which he takes Harold. ButI dare. God with thee! [Zxeunt Harold and Gurth. Edith. The King hath cursed hin, if he marry me ; The Pope hath cursed him, marry me or no! God help me! I know nothing—can but ey For Harold—pray, pray, pray—no help but prayer, A breath that fleets beyond this iron world, And touches Him that made it. ACT IV. SCENE I.—In NorTHUMBRIA. ARCHBISHOP ALDRED, MORCAR, EDWIN, and Forces. Luter HAROLD. The standard of the golden Dragon of Wes- sex preceding him. Harold. What! are thy people sullen from defeat ? Our Wessex dragon flies beyond the Humber, No voice to greet it. Edwin. Let not our great king Believe us sullen—only shamed to the quick Before the king—as having been so bruised By Harold, king of Norway; but our help Is Harold, king of England. Pardon us, thou ! Our silence is our reverence for the king! Flarold. Yarl of the Mercians ! if the truth be gall, Cram me not thou with honey, when our | good hive Needs every sting to save it. Voices. Aldwyth ! Aldwyth ! flarold. Why cry thy people on thy | sister’s name ? Morcar. She hath won upon our people thro’ her beauty, And pleasantness among them. Voices. Aldwyth, Aldwyth ! ffarold. ‘They shout as they would have her for a queen. Morcar. She hath followed with our host, and suffer’d all. FTarold. What would ye, men? Voice. Our old Northumbrian crown, And kings of our own choosing. flarold. Your old crown Were little help without our Saxon carles Against Hardrada. Votce. Little ! we are Danes, Who conquer’d what we walk on, our own field. fTarold. Theyhave been plotting here! [Aszde. Voice. He calls us little ! Harold. 'The kingdoms of this world began with little, A hill, a fort, a city—that reach’d a hand Down to the field beneath it, ‘ Be thou mine,’ Then to the next, ‘Thou also!’ field Cried out ‘I am mine own ;’ another hill Or fort, or city, took it, and the first Fell, and the next became an Empire. Voice. Yet If the Thouart but a West Saxon: weare Danes! fTarold. My mother isa Dane, and I am English ; There is a pleasant fable in old books, Ye take a stick, and break it; bind ascore All in one faggot, snap it over knee, Ye cannot. Voice. Hear King Harold ! he says true ! fTarold, ‘Would ye be Norsemen ? Voices. No! Farold. Or Norman ? Votces. No! Harold, Snapnot thefaggot-band then. Voice. That is true ! Voice. Ay, but thou art not kingly, only grandson To Wulfnoth, a poor cow-herd. Harold. This old Wulfnoth Would take me on his knees and tell me tales Of Alfred and of Athelstan the Great 678 Who drove you Danes ; and yet he held that Dane, Jute, Angle, Saxon, were or should be all One England, for this cow-herd, like my father, Who shook the Norman scoundrels off the throne, Had in him kingly thoughts—a king of men, Not made but born, like the great king of all, A light among the oxen. Voice. That is true ! Voice. Ay, and I love him now, for mine own father Was great, and cobbled. Voice. Thou art Tostig’s brother, Who wastes the land. ffarold. This brother comes to save Your land from waste; I saved it once before, For when your people banish’d Tostig hence, And Edward would have sent a host against you, Then I, who loved my brother, bad the king Who doted on him, sanction your decree Of Tostig’s banishment, and choice of Morcar, To help the realm from scattering. Voice. King ! thy brother, If one may dare to speak the truth, was wrong’d. Wild was he, born so: against him Had madden’d tamer men. Morcar. Thou art one of those Who brake into Lord Tostig’s treasure- house And slew two hundred of his following, And now, when Tostig hath come back with power, Are frighted back to Tostig. Old Thane. Ugh! Plots and feuds! This is my ninetieth birthday. Can ye not Be brethren ? Alfgar, but the plots Godwin still at feud with HAROLD. Plots And Alfgar hates King Harold. - and feuds ! This is my ninetieth birthday ! Harold. Old man, Hatolat Hates nothing ; not Azs fault, if our two houses | Be less than brothers. Voices. Aldwyth, Harold, Aldwyth i Hlarold. Again! Morcar ! Edwin t e What do they mean? Edwin. So the good king would deign to lend an ear Not overscornful, we might chance—per- chance— To guess their meaning. Morcar. Thine own meaning, Harold Tomakeall England one, tocloseall feuds, » Mixing our bloods, that thence a king may rise Half-Godwin and half Alfgar, one to rule! All England beyond question, beyond quarrel. fTarold. “Who sow’d this fancy here among the people ? Morcar. Who knows what sows itcelty among the people? 4 A goodly flower at times. E fLarold. The Queen of Walesa : Why, Morcar, it is all but duty in her To hate me; I have heard she hates me. — Morcar. No! For I can swear to that, but cannot swear That these will follow thee against theg Norsemen, If thou deny them this. 3 fFlarold. Morcar and Edwin, When will ye cease to plot against my house ? Edwin. The king can scarcely dream a that we, who know His prowess in the mountains of the West, Should care to plot against him in the North. Morcar. Who dares arraign us, king, of such a plot ? Harold. Veheardone witness even now Morcar. he craven ! There is a faction risen again for Tostig, Since Tostig came with Norway not love. SCENE I. fTarold. Morcar and Edwin, will ye, if I yield, Follow against the Norseman ? Morcar. Surely, surely ! flarold. Morcar and Edwin, will ye upon oath, Help us against the Norman ? Morcar. With good will ; Yea, take the Sacrament upon it, king. ffarold. Where is thy sister ? Morcar. Somewhere hard at hand. Call and she comes. [One goes out, then enter Aldwyth. ffarold. J doubt not but thou knowest Why thou art summon’d. Aldwyth. Why ?—I stay with these, Lest thy fierce Tostig spy me out alone, And flay me all alive. Harold, Canst thou love one Who did discrown thine husband, unqueen thee ? Didst thou not love thine husband ? Aldwyth. Oh! my lord, The nimble, wild, red, wiry, savage king— That was, my lord, a match of policy. Harold. Was it? I knew him brave: he loved his land: he fain Had made her great: his finger on her harp (I heard him more than once) had in it Wales, Her floods, her woods, her hills: had I been his, I had been all Welsh. Aldwyth. Oh, ay—all Welsh—and yet I saw thee drive him up his hills—and women Cling to the conquer’d, if they love, the more ; If not, they cannot hate the conqueror. We never—oh ! good Morcar, speak for us, His conqueror conquer’d Aldwyth. Ffarold. Goodly news ! Morcar. Doubt it not thou! Since Griffyth’s head was sent To Edward, she hath said it. fTarold. I had rather HAROLD. 679 She would have loved her husband. Aldwyth, Aldwyth, Canst thou love me, thou knowing where I love ? : Aldwyth. I can, my lord, for mine own sake, for thine, For England, for thy poor white dove, who flutters Between thee and the porch, but then would find Her nest within the cloister, and be still. Hlarold. Canst thou love one, who cannot love again? Aldwyth. Full hope have I that love will answer love. ffTarold. ‘Then in the name of the great God, so be it ! Come, Aldred, join our hands before the hosts, That all may see. [Aldred joznus the hands of Harold and Aldwyth and blesses them. Voices. Warold, Harold and Aldwyth! Hlarold. Set forth our golden Dragon, let him flap The wings that beat down Wales! Advance our Standard of the Warrior, Dark among gems and gold; and thou, brave banner, Blaze like a night of fatal stars on those Who read their doom and die. Where lie the Norsemen? on the Der- went ? ay At Stamford-bridge. Morcar, collect thy men; Edwin, my friend— Thou lingerest.—Gurth, — Last night King Edward came to me in dreams— The rosy face and long down-silvering beard— He told me I should conquer :— I am no woman to put faith in dreams. (Zo his army). Last night King Edward came to me in dreams, And told me we should conquer. Voices. Forward ! Forward! Harold and Holy Cross ! Aldwyth. The day is won! 680 SCENE II.—A PLAIN. BEFORE THE BATTLE OF STAMFORD-BRIDGE. HAROLD and his Guard. Harold. Who is it comes this way ? Tostig ? (Axter TOsTIG with a | small force.) O brother, What art thou doing here? Tostig. I am foraging | For Norway’s army. Flarold. J could take and slay thee. Thou art in arms against us. Tostig. Take and slay me, For Edward loved me. Harold. "Edward bad me spare thee. Tostig. join’d with thee To drive me outlaw’d. me, I say, Or I shall count thee fool. Flarold. Take thee, or free thee, Free thee or slay thee, Norway will have war ; No man would strike with Tostig, save for Norway. Thou art nothing in thine England, save for Norway, Who loves not thee but war. thou here, Trampling thy mother’s bosom into blood? Tostig. She hath wean’d me from it with such bitterness. I come for mine own Earldom, my Northumbria ; Thou hast given it to the enemy of our house. Harold. Northumbria threw thee off, she will not have thee, Thou hast misused her: and, O crowning crime ! T[ast murder’d thine own guest, the son of Orm, — Gamel, at thine own hearth. Tostig. The slow, fat fool ! He drawl’d and prated so, I smote him suddenly, I knew not what I did. Morcar. — I hate myself for all things that I do. Take and slay What dost He held with HAROLD. I hate King Edward, for he } ACT I v. : Harold, And Morcar holds with us, Come back with him. Know what thou dost ; and we may find ’ for thee, % So thou be chasten’d by thy banishment, Some easier earldom. Tostig. What for Norway then > | He looks for land among us, he and his. _ fTarold. Seven feet of English =< or something more, . Seeing he is a giant. Tostig. That sounds of Godwin. 4 Harold. Come thou back, and be a Once more a son of Godwin. Bs] Tostig (turns away). brother, O Harold— flarold (laying his hand on Tostig’s shoulder). Nay then, come thea back to us ! Tostig (after a pause turning to him), Never shall any man say that I, that Tostig Conjured the mightier Harold from North To do the battle for me here in England, Then left him for the meaner ! thee !— Thou hast no passion for the House of Godwin— Thow hast but cared to make thyself a a king— Thou hast sold me for a cry.— Thou gavest thy voice against me in the — Council— I hate thee, and despise thee, and defy thee. Farewell for ever ! [Exit. Harold. On to Stamford-bridge! That is noble ! O brother | SCENE III. a AFTER THE BATTLE OF STAMFORD- BRIDGE. BANQUET. HAROLD and ALDWYTH. LEOFWIN, Morcar, EDWIN, other Earls and Thanes. Voices. Tail! Harold! Aldwythll hail, bridegroom and bride ! SCENE III. Aldwyth (talking with Harold). swer them thou! Is this our marriage-banquet? Would the wines Of wedding had been dash’d into the cups Of victory, and our marriage and thy glory Been drunk together! these poor hands but sew, Spin, broider—would that they were man’s to have held The battle-axe by thee ! ffarold. There was a moment When being forced aloof from all my An- guard, And striking at Hardrada and his mad- men I had wish’d for any weapon. Aldwyth. Why art thou sad ? fTarold. J have lost the boy who play’d at ball with me, With whom I fought another fight than this Of Stamford-bridge. Aldwyth. Ay! ay! thy victories Over our own poor Wales, when at thy side He conquer’d with thee. flarold. No—the childish fist That cannot strike again. Aldwyth. Thou art too kindly. Why didst thou let so many Norsemen . hence? Thy fierce forekings had clench’d their pirate hides _ To the bleak church doors, like kites upon a barn. ffarold. Is there so great a need to tell thee why? Aldwyth. Yea, am I not thy wife? Voices. Hail, Harold, Aldwyth! _) Bridegroom and bride ! Aldwyth. Answerthem! [70 Harold. Ffarold (to all). Earls and Thanes ! Full thanks for your fair greeting of my | bride ! _) Earls, Thanes, and all our countrymen! | | the day, Our day beside the Derwent will not shine ') Less than astar among the goldenest hours Of Alfred, or of Edward his great son, HAROLD. 681 Or Athelstan, or English Ironside Who fought with Knut, or Knut who coming Dane Died English. Every man about his king Fought like a king ; the king like his own man, No better; one for all, and all for one, One soul! and therefore have we shatter’d back The hugest wave from Norseland. ever yet Surged on us, and our battle-axes broken The Raven’s wing, and dumb’d his carrion croak From the gray sea for ever. Many are gone— Drink to the dead who died for us, the living Who fought and would have died, but happier lived, If happier be to live ; they both have life In the large mouth of England, till her voice Die with the world. Hail—hail! Morcar. May all invaders perish like Hardrada ! All traitors fail like Tostig ! [4 drink but Harold. Aldwyth. Thy cup’s full! Harold. 1 saw the hand of Tostig cover it. Our dear, dead, traitor-brother, Tostig, him Reverently we buried. Friends, had I been here, Without too large self-lauding I must hold The sequel had been other than his league With Norway, and this battle. Peace be with him ! He was not of the worst. If there be those At banquet in this hall, and hearing me— For there be those I fear who prick’d the lion To make him spring, that sight of Danish blood Might serve an end not English—peace with them Likewise, if ‘hey can be at peace with what God gave us to divide us from the wolf! 682 Make not is not Aldwyth (asede to Harold). our Morcar sullen: it wise. Harold. “ail to the living who fought, the dead who fell ! Voices. Hail, hail! First Thane. How ran that answer which King Harold gave To his dead namesake, when he ask’d for England ? Leofwin. ‘Seven feet of English earth, or something more, Seeing he is a giant !’ first Thane. Then for the bastard Six feet and nothing more ! Leofwin. Ay, but belike Thou hast not learnt his measure. first Thane. By St. Edmund I over-measure him. Sound sleep to the man Here by dead Norway without dream or dawn ! Second Thane. What is he bragging still that he will come To thrust our Harold’s throne from under him ? » My nurse would tell me of a molehill crying To a mountain ‘Stand aside and room for me!’ First Thane. Let him come! let him come. Here’s to him, sink or swim ! [Drinks. Second Thane. God sink him! first Thane. Cannot hands which had the strength To shove that stranded iceberg off our shores, And send the shatter’d North again to sea, Scuttle his cockle-shell? What’s Brun- anburg To Stamford-bridge ? a war-crash, and so | hard, So loud, that, by St. Dunstan, old St. Thor By God, we thought him dead—but our old Thor Heard his own thunder again, and woke and came HAROLD. ACT IV. Among us again, and mark’d the sons. of those Who made this Britain England, break the North : Mark’d how the war-axe swang, Heard how the war-horn sang, 4 Mark’d how the spear-head sprang, Heard how the shield-wall rang, Iron on iron clang, Anvil on hammer bang— Hammer on anvil, Old dog, Second Thane. hammer on anvil. Thou art drunk, old dog! First Thane. ‘Too drunk to fight with thee ! Second Thane... Fight thou with chine i own double, not with me, 4 Keep that for Norman William ! ) first Thane. Down with William } - Third Thane. The washerwoman’s brat ! ues. Fourth Thane. The tanner’s bastard! Fifth Thane. ‘The Falaise byblow! [Enter a Thane, from Pevensey, ne ter’d with mud. Flarold. Ay, but what late oucstil 4 As haggard as a fast of forty days, a And caked and plaster’d with a hundred mires, Hath stumbled on our cups? Thane from Pevensey. My lord the King William the Norman, for the win had changed— Hlarold. J felt it in the middle of that ; fierce fight At Stamford-bridge. William hath landed, | ha? | Thane from Pevensey. Landed at Pevensey—I am from Pevensey— Hath wasted all the land at Pevensey— Hath harried mine own cattle—God com a found him ! I have ridden night and day from Peva n- sey— A thousand ships—a hundred thousan od men— Thousands of horses, like as many lions SCENE III. Neighing and roaring as they leapt to land— ffarold. Wow oft in coming hast thou broken bread ? ; Thane from Pevensey. Some thrice, or so. Harold. Bring not thy hollowness On our full feast. Famine is fear, were it but Of being starved. Sit down, sit down, and eat, And, whenagainred-blooded, speak again; (Aside.) The men that guarded Eng- land to the South Were scatter’d to the harvest. . . . No power mine ' To hold their force together. . . . Many are fallen At Stamford-bridge . .. the people stupid-sure Sleep like their swine. . North at once I could not be. . in South and (Aloud.) Gurth, Leofwin, Morcar, Edwin ! (Pointing to the revellers.) The curse of England! these are drown’d in wassail, _ And cannot see the world but thro’ their wines ! Leave them! and thee too, Aldwyth, | must I leave— Harsh is the news! hard isour honeymoon! Thy pardon. (T7urning round to his attendants.) Break the banquet Dp hy & fottr | _ And thou, my carrier-pigeon of black news, Cram thy crop full, but come when thou art call’d. [Zaz¢ Harold. 24 68 bon ‘} SCENE I.—A Tent on a Mounn, . FROM WHICH CAN BE SEEN THE FIELD OF SENLAC. -) Haro1n, sitting; by him standing HUGH — MAaArcor¢he Monk, GuRTH, LEOFWIN. fTarold. Refer my cause, my crown to Rome! . . . The wolf HAROLD. 683 Mudded the brook and predetermined all. Monk, Thou hast said thy say, and had my constant ‘No’ For all but instant battle. Margot. Wear me again—for the last time. Arise, Scatter thy people home, descend the hill, Lay hands of full allegiance in thy Lord’s And crave his mercy, for the Holy Father Hath given this realm of England to the Norman. Hlarold. ‘Then for the last time, monk, I ask again When had the Lateran and the Holy I hear no more. Father To do with England’s choice of her own king ? Margot. Earl, the first Christian Ceesar drew to the East To leave the Pope dominion in the West. He gave him all the kingdoms of the West. ffarold, So!—did he?—Earl—I have a mind to play The William with thine eyesight and thy tongue. Earl—ay—thou art but a messenger of William. I am weary—go: make me not wroth with thee ! Margot. Mock-king, I am the mes- senger of God, His Norman Daniel! Mene, Mene, Tekel! Is thy wrath Hell, that I should spare to cry, Yon heaven is wroth with thee? Hear me again ! Our Saints have moved the Church that moves the world, And all the Heavens and very God: they heard— They know King Edward’s promise and thine—thine. Harold. Should they not know free England ‘crowns herself ? Not know that he nor I had power to promise ? Not know that Edward cancell’d his own promise ? 684 And for my part therein—Back to that juggler, [Resing. Tell him the Saints are nobler than he dreams, Tell him that God is nobler than the Saints, And tell him we stand arm’d on Senlac Hill, And bide the doom of God. Margot. Hear it thro’ me. The realm for which thou art forsworn is cursed, The babe enwomb’d and at the breast is cursed, The corpse thou whelmest with thine | earth is cursed, The soul who fighteth on thy side is cursed, The seed thou sowest in thy field is cursed, The steer wherewith thou plowest thy field is cursed, The fowl that fleeth o’er thy field is cursed, And thou, usurper, liar— Harold. Out, beast monk ! [Lifting his hand to strike him. Gurth stops the blow. I ever hated monks. Margot. I am but a voice Among you: murder, martyr me if ye will— Harold. Thanks, Gurth! The simple, silent, selfless man Is worth a world of tonguesters. (Zo Margot.) Get thee gone ! He means the thing he says. See him out safe ! Leofwin. He hath blown himself as red as fire with curses. An honest fool! Follow me, honest fool, But if thou blurt thy curse among our folk, I know not—I may give that egg-bald head The tap that silences. Flarold. See him out safe. [Zxeunt Leofwin and Margot. Gurth. Thou hast lost thine even temper, brother Harold ! ffarold. Waltham, my foundation For men who serve the neighbour, not themselves, HAROLD. | Whatever chance, but leave this day to Gurth, when I past by |} | Vying a tress against our golden fern, I cast me down prone, praying; an when I rose, They told me that the Holy Rood hat d lean’d And bow’d above me; whether that whick h held it Had weaken’d, and the Rood itself were bound To that necessity which binds us down Whether it bow’d at all but in their fancy 5 Or if it bow’d, whether it symbol’d ruin Or glory, who shall tell? but they were sad, And somewhat sadden’d me. Gurth. Yet if a fear, Or shadow of a fear, lest the strange , a Saints y By whom thou swarest, should have power a to balk Thy puissance in this fight with him, who made And heard thee swear—brother—Z have not sworn— 4 If the king fall, may not the kingdom fallen But if I fall, I fall, and thou art king ; a And, if I win, I win, and thou art king; — Draw thou to London, there make strength — to breast me. Leofwin (entering). And waste isa z land about thee as thou goest, And be thy hand as winter on the field, To leave the foe no forage. fTarold. Noble Gurth 1! ‘- Best son of Godwin! If I fall, I fall— The doom of God! How should t people fight fa When the king flies? And, Leofwin art thou mad? q How should the King of England wa the fields , Of England, his own people ?—No gla is r yet m4 Of the Northumbrian helmet on the — heath? = Leofwin. No, but a shoal of vi upon the heath, And someone saw thy willy-nilly nun 1) See all be sound and whole. SCENE I. flarold, WVying a tear with our cold dews, a sigh With these low-moaning heavens. her be fetch’d. We have parted from our wife without reproach, Tho’ we have pierced thro’ all her practices; And that is well. Leofwin. I saw her even now: She hath not left us. fTarold. Nought of Morcar then ? Gurth. Nor seen, nor heard ; thine, William’s or his own As wind blows, or tide flows: belike he Let watches, | If this war-storm in one of its rough rolls Wash up that old crown of Northumber- land. fTarold. J married her for Morcar—a sin against The truth of love. Evil for good, it seems, Is oft as childless of the good as evil For evil. Leofwin. Good for good hath borne at times A bastard false as William. fTarold. Ay, if Wisdom Pair’d not with Good. But I am some- what worn, A snatch of sleep were like the peace of God. Gurth, Leofwin, go once more about the hill— _ What did the dead man call it—Sanguelac, The lake of blood ? Leofwin. A lake that dips in William _ As well as Harold. fTarold. Like enough. I have seen The trenches dug, the palisades uprear’d ' And wattled thick with ash and willow- wands ; _ Yea, wrought at them myself, Go round once more ; No Norman horse _ Can shatter England, standing shield by shield ; _ Tell that again to all. Gurth. I will, good brother. fA ROLD. 685 Flarold. Our guardsman hath but toil’d his hand and foot, I hand, foot, heart and head. Some wine! (One pours wine into a goblet which he hands to Harold.) Too much ! What? we must use our battle-axe to- day. Our guardsmen have slept well, since we came in? Leofwin. Ay, slept and snored. Your second-sighted man That scared the dying conscience of the king, Misheard their snores for groans. are up again And chanting that old song of Brunanburg Where England conquer’d. flarold. ‘That is well. What is he doing ? Leofwin. Praying for Normandy ; Our scouts have heard the tinkle of their bells, ffarold, And our old songs are prayers for England too! But by all Saints— Leofwin. Barring the Norman ! fTLarold. Nay, Were the great trumpet blowing dooms- day dawn, I needs must rest. Call when the Norman moves— [Lxeunt all, but Harold. No horse—thousands of horses—our shield wall— Wall—break it not—break not—break— [ Sleeps. Viston of Edward. Son Harold, I thy king, who came before To tell thee thou shouldst win at Stam- ford-bridge, Come yet once more, from where I am at peace, Because I loved thee in my mortal day, To tell thee thou shalt die on Senlac hill— Sanguelac ! a Vision of Wulfnoth. ©O brother, from my ghastly oubliette I send my voice across the narrow seas— They The Norman, 686 No more, no more, dear brother, never- more— Sanguelac ! Vision of Tostig. O brother, unbrotherlike to me, Thou gavest thy voice against me in my life, I give my voice against thee from the grave— Sanguelac ! Vision of Norman Saints. O hapless Harold ! King but for an hour! Thou swarest falsely by our blessed bones, We give our voice against thee out of most heaven ! Sanguelac ! Sanguelac! The arrow! the arrow ! fTarold (starting up, battle-axe in hand). Away ! My battle-axe against your voices. Peace! The king’s last word—‘the arrow!’ I shall die— I die for England then, who lived for England— What nobler? men must die. I cannot fall into a falser world— I have done no man wrong. Tostig, poor brother, Art ¢hou so anger’d ? Fain had I kept thine earldom in thy hands Save for thy wild and violent will that wrench’d All hearts of freemen from thee. I could do No other than this way advise the king Against the race of Godwin. Is it possible That mortal men should bear their earthly heats Into yon bloodless world, and threaten us thence Unschool’d of Death ? art revenged— I left our England naked to the South Thus then thou To meet thee inthe North. The Norse- man’s raid Hath helpt the Norman, and the race of Godwin Hath ruin’d Godwin. No—our waking thoughts HAROLD. Suffer a stormless shipwreck in the pools Of sullen slumber, and arise again Disjointed: only dreams—where mine own self Takes part against ie ! Why? fom spark Of self-disdain born in me when I sware P Falsely to him, the falser Norman, over — His gilded ark of mummy-saints, by who m 4 a I knew not that I sware;=onot for my- self— = For England—yet not wholly— fey. (Enter EDITH.) Edith, Edith, , Get thou into thy cloister as the king Will’dit: be safe: Count the per] ury-mongering ha Hath made too good an use of Holy _ 4 Church To break her close! God of truth Fill all thine hours with peace !—A lying devil Hath haunted me—mine oath—my wife —I fain Had made my marriage nota lie; I could | not: ei There the — ° ” of Thou art my bride! and thou in after years Praying perchance for this poor soul of mine Ed In cold, white cells beneath an icy moon— This memory to thee!—and this to England, My legacy of war against the Pope From child to child, from Pope to Pope, from age to age, Till the sea wash her level with her shores, .Or till the Pope be Christ’s. Enter ALDWYTH. Away from him ! Aldwyth (to Edith). Zadith. Iwill... LThavenot spokemy to the king ‘ One word ; and one I must. Farewell ! z [Going. b. - fTarold. Not yet. Stay. te. Edith. To what use? a : ag . J SCENE I. HAROLD. 687 flarold. The king commands thee, woman ! (Zo Aldwyth.) Have thy two brethren sent their forces in? Aldwyth. Nay, I fear not. Harold. ‘Then there’s no force in thee! Thou didst possess thyself of Edward’s ear To part me from the woman that I loved ! Thou didst arouse the fierce Northum- brians ! Thou hast been false to England and to me !— As... insomesort... I have been false to thee. Leave me. No more—Pardon on both sides—Go! Aldwyth. Alas, my lord, I loved thee. fTarold (bitterly). With a love Passing thy love for Griffyth ! wherefore now Obey my firstand lastcommandment. Go! Aldwyth. O Harold! husband! Shall we meet again ? flarold. After the battle—after the battle. Go. Aldwyth. Igo. (Aside.) That I could stab her standing there ! [Zxzt Aldwyth. Lidith. Alas, my lord, she loved thee. Harold. Never ! never! Lidith. 1 saw it in her eyes! Harold. I see it in thine. And not on thee—nor England—fall God’s doom ! Ledith. On thee? on me. art England! Alfred Was England. Ethelred was nothing. England Is but her king, and thou art Harold ! Flarold, Edith, The sign in heaven—the sudden blast at sea— My fatal oath—the dead Saints—the dark dreams— The Pope’s Anathema—the Holy Rood That bow’d to me at Waltham—Edith, if I, the last English King of England— Ldith. No, First of a line that coming from the people, And chosen by the people— And thou ffarold, And fighting for And dying for the people— Laith. Living ! living ! Harold. Yea so, good cheer! thou art Harold, I am Edith! Look not thus wan ! Edith. What matters how I look ? Have we not broken Wales and Norse- land ? slain, Whose life was all one battle, incarnate war, Their giant-king, a mightier man-in-arms Than William. flarold. Ay, my girl, no tricks in him— No bastard he! when all was lost, he yell'd, And bit his shield, and dash’d it on the ground, And swaying his two-handed sword about him, Two deaths at every swing, ran in upon us And died so, and I loved him as I hate This liar who made me liar. If Hate can = kills And Loathing wield a Saxon battle-axe— Edith. Waste not thy might before the battle ! Harold. No, And thou must hence. Stigand will see thee safe, And so—Farewell. [He zs going, but turns back. The ring thou darest not wear, I have had it fashion’d, see, to meet my hand. [Harold shows the ring which is on his finger. Farewell ! [He zs going, but turns back again. I am dead as Death this day to ought of earth’s Save William’s death or mine. Edith. Thy death !—to-day ! Ts it not thy birthday ? flarold., Ay, that happy day! A birthday welcome! happy days and many ! One—this ! [ They embrace, 688 HAROLD. Look, I will bear thy blessing into the battle And front the doom of God. Norman cries (heard in the distance). Ha Rou! Ha Rou! Enter GURTH. Gurth. Harold. The Norman moves ! Harold and Holy Cross ! [Zxeunt Harold and Gurth. Enter STIGAND. Stigand. Our Church in arms—the lamb the lion—not Spear into pruning-hook—the counter way— helm; and crozier, battle-axe, Abbot Alfwig, Leofric, and all the monks of Peterboro’ Strike for the king; but I, old wretch, old Stigand, With hands too limp to brandish iron— Cowl, and yet I have a power—would Harold ask me for 1it— I have a power. Ldith. What power, holy father ? Stigand. Power now from Harold to command thee hence And see thee safe from Senlac. Edith. I remain ! Stigand. Yea, so will I, daughter, until I find Which way the battle balance. I can see it From where we stand: and, live or die, I would I were among them ! Canons from Waltham (singing without). Salva patriam Sancte Pater, Salva Fili, Salva Spiritus, Salva patriam, Sancta Mater, ! 1 The a throughout these Latin hymns should be sounded broad, as in ‘ father.’ Laith. Are those the blessed angels quiring, father? Stigand. No, daughter, but the cano out of Waltham, The king’s foundation, that have follow’d him. Ldith. wall of shields Firm as thy cliffs, palisades ! What is that whirring sound ? Stigand. Edith. he safe ? O God of battles, make their strengthen their The Norman arrow ! Look out upon the battle—is — Stigand. The king of England stands between his banners. He glitters on the crowning of the hill. God save King Harold ! —chosen by his people — 3 Edith. And fighting for his people ! q Stigand. There is onel@ Come as Goliath came of yore—he flings His brand in air and catches it again, He is chanting some old warsong. Lidith. And no David — To meet him? Stigand, Ay, there springs a Saxon on him, Falls—and another falls. Laith. Have mercy on us! Stigand. Lo! our good Gurth hath smitten him to the death. Ldith. Harold ! Canons (singing). Hostis in Angliam Ruit preedator, Illorum, Domine, Scutum scindatur ! Hostis per Angliae Plagas bacchatur ; Casa crematur, Pastor fugatur Grex trucidatur— Stigand. Edith, Canons (singing). Illos trucida, Domine, Illorum scelera Poena sequatur ! So perish all the enemies of — Ay, good father. SCENE f. English cries. Cross ! Stigand. Our javelins Answertheirarrows. All the Norman foot Are storming up the hill. The range of knights Sit, each a statue on his horse, and wait. Linglish cries. Harold and God Al- mighty ! Lorman cries. Harold and Holy Out! out! Ha Rou! Ha Rou! Canons (singing). Eques cum pedite Preepediatur ! Tlorum in lacrymas Cruor fundatur ! Pereant, pereant, Anglia precatur. Stigand. Look, daughter, look. Laith. Nay, father, look for me / Stigand. Our axes lighten with a single flash About the summit of the hill, and heads And arms are sliver’d off and splinter’d by Their lightning—and they fly—the Nor- meng fdith. Stigand, O father, have we won the day ? Stigand. No, daughter, no—they fall behind the horse— Their horse are thronging to the bar- ricades ; I see the gonfanon of Holy Peter Floating above their helmets—ha ! he is down ! Edith. Wedown! Who down? Stigand. The Norman Count is down. Edith. So perish all the enemies of England ! Stigand. No, no, he hath risen again - » ‘“—— Three horses had I slain beneath me: twice I thought that all was lost. knew battle, And that was from my boyhood, never et— F No, by the splendour of God—have I fought men Like Harold and his brethren, and his ss guard Of English. Fell where he stood. and, pray God My Normans may but move as true with me i To the door of death. Of one self-stock 4 at first, Make them again one people—Norman, English ; = And English, Norman; we should have — a hand To grasp the world with, and a foot to stamp it. . Praise the Saints. No more blood ! I am king of England, so they thwart me not, And I will rule according to their lawal (Zo Aldwyth.) Madam, we will entreat thee with all honour. Aldwyth. My punishment is more : than I can bear, Al Singel a Every man about his king They loved him: Flat. It is over. Bet sleet TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR, Pitre! HONOURABLE EARL OF SELBORNE. My DEAR SELBORNE—To you, the honoured Chancellor of our own day, I dedicate this dramatic memorial of your great predecessor ;—which, altho’ not intended in its present form to meet the exigencies of our modern theatre, has nevertheless—for so you have assured me—won your appro- bation.—Ever yours, TENNYSON. DRAMATIS PERSONA. Henry II. (sou of the Earl of Anjou). Tuomas BeEcxeEt, Chancellor of England, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. GiLBERT Fouiot, Bishop of London. RocEr, Archbishop of York. Bishop of Hereford. Hivary, Bishop of Chichester. JocEtyn, Bishop of Salisbury. JOHN oF SALISBURY : HERBERT OF BosHAM Sriends of Becket. WALTER Map, reputed author of ‘Golias, Latin poems against the priesthood. Kine Louis oF FRANCE. GEOFFREY, soz of Rosamund and Henry. Grim, a monk of Cambridge. Str REGINALD FITZURSE Str RIcHARD DE Brito Srr WiLLtiamM DE TRACY Sir HuGuH DE MorviLLe Der Broc or SALTWOOD CASTLE. Lorp LEICESTER. PHILIP DE ELEEMOSYNA. Two KnicHut TEMPLARS. Joun or Oxrorp (called the Swearer). ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE, Queen of England (divorced from Louis of France). RoSAMUND DE CLIFFORD. MARGERY. the four knights of the King’s household, enemtes of Becket. Knights, Monks, Beggars, etc. PROLOGUE. Henry. But we must have a mightier man than he A Castle in Normandy. Interior of the | For his successor. Flall. Roofs of a City seen thro’ Becket. Have you thought of one? Windows. Henry. A cleric lately poison’d his own mother, HENRY avd BECKET af chess. And being brought before the courts of Henry. So then our good Archbishop the Church, Theobald They but degraded him. I hope they Lies dying. whipt him. Becket. I am grieved to know as | I would have hang’d him. much. Becket. It is your move. 694 BECKET. flenry. Well—there. [JZoves. The Church in the pell-mell of Stephen’s time Hath climb’d the throne and clutch’d the crown; But by the royal customs of our realm The Churchshould hold her baronies of me, Like other lords amenable to law. T’ll have them written down and made the law. Becket. My liege, I move my bishop. flenry. And if I live, No man without my leave shall excom- municate My tenants or my household. Becket. flenry. No man without my leave shall cross the seas To set the Pope against me—I pray your almost pardon. Becket. _Well—will you move? flenry. There. [JZoves. Becket. _Check—you move so wildly. Henry. ‘There then ! [AZoves. Becket. Why—there then, for you see ‘my bishop Hath brought your king to a standstill. | You are beaten. Flenry (kicks over the board). Why, there then—down go bishop and king together. I loathe being beaten; had I fixt my fancy Upon the game I should have beaten thee, But that was vagabond. Becket. Where, my liege? Phryne, Or Lais, or thy Rosamund, or another ? Henry. My Rosamund is no Lais, Thomas Becket ; And yet she plagues me too—no fault 1 in her— But that.I fear the Queen would have her life. Becket. Put her away, put her away, my liege! Put her away into a nunnery! Safe enough there from her to whom thou art bound With Look to your king. : By Holy Church. And wherefore should she seek 4 The life of Rosamund de Clifford more — Than that of other paramours of thine? — flenry. How dost thou know I am not wedded to her ? ; Becket. How should I know? Hlenry. That is my secret, Thomas. Becket. State secrets should be patent 4 to the statesman Who serves and loves his king, and whom the king q Loves not as statesman, but true lover and friend. fTenry. Come, come, thou art but deacon, not yet bishop, E No, nor archbishop, nor my confessor — yet. a I would to God thou wert, for I should : find , An easy father confessor in thee. 4 Becket. St. Denis, that thou shouldst > not. I should beat = Thy ane as my bishop hath beater ‘ Henry Hell take thy bishop then, = and my kingship too! 4 Come, come, I love thee and I know ~ thee, I know thee, a A doter on white pheasant-flesh at feasts, a A sauce-deviser for thy days of fish, cw A dish-designer, and most amorous stad Of good old red sound liberal Gascon wine: Will not thy body rebel, man, if thou — flatter it ? Becket. That palate is insane which cannot tell a A good dish from a bad, new wine from alt ; flenry. Well, who loves wine “= woman. a Becket. So I do. ae Men are God’s trees, and women are God’s flowers ; 4 And when the Gascon wine mounts to my head, q The trees are all the statelier, and the” flowers Are all the fairer, .- a ¥ co | . ap iI a | PROLOGUE, Henry. And thy thoughts, thy fancies? Bechet. Good dogs, my liege, well train’d, and easily call’d Off from the game. Henry. Save for some once or twice, When they ran down the game and worried it. Becket. No, my liege, no !—not once —in God’s name, no! Henry. Nay, then, I take thee at thy word—believe thee The veriest Galahad of old Arthur’s hall. And so this Rosamund, my true heart- wife, Not Eleanor—she whom I love indeed As a woman should be loved—Why dost thou smile So dolorously? Becket. My good liege, if a man Wastes himself among women, how should he love A woman, as a woman should be loved? Henry. Wow shouldst thou know that never hast loved one? Come, I would give her to thy care in England When I am out in Normandy or Anjou. Bechet. My lord, I am your subject, not your flenry. Pander. God’s eyes! I know all that—not my purveyor Of pleasures, but to save a life—her life; Ay, and the soul of Eleanor from hell- fire. I have built a secret bower in England, Thomas, pb A nest in a bush. Becket. And where, my liege? Flenry (whispers). Thine ear. Becket. That’s lone enough. Henry (laying paper on table). This chart here mark’d ‘ Her Bower,’ Take, keep it, friend. See, first, a circ- ling wood, A hundred pathways running everyway, And then a brook, a bridge; and after that This labyrinthine brickwork maze in maze, BECKET. 695 And then another wood, and in the midst A garden and my Rosamund. Look, this line—~ The rest you see is colour’d green—but this Draws thro’ the chart to her. Becket. This blood-red line ? flenry. Ay! blood, perchance, except thou see to her. Becket. And where is she? _in her English nest ? Henry. ‘WNould God she were—no, here within the city. We take her from her secret bower in Anjou And pass her to her secret bower in England. She is ignorant of all but that I love her. Becket. _ My liege, I pray thee let me hence: a widow And orphan child, whom one of thy wild barons flenry. Ay, ay, but swear to see to her in England. Becket. Well, well, I swear, but not to please myself. Flenry. Whatever come between us ? Becket. What should come Between us, Henry ? flenry. Nay—lI know not, Thomas. Becket. What need then? Well— whatever come between us. [Gorng. Henry. Amoment! thou didst help me to my throne In Theobald’s time, and after by thy There . wisdom Hast kept it firm from shaking; but now I, For my realm’s sake, myself must be the wizard To raise that tempest which will set it trembling Only to base it deeper. I, true son Of Holy Church—no croucher to the Gregories That tread the kings their children under- heel— Must curb her; and the Holy Father, while 696 BRECK: This Barbarossa butts him from his chair, Will need my help—be facile to my hands. Now is my time. be flashes And fulminations from the side of Rome, An interdict on England—I will have My young son Henry crown’d the King of England, That so the Papal bolt may pass by England, As seeming his, not mine, and fall abroad. Tl have it done—and now. Becket. Surely too young Even for this shadow of a crown; and tho’ I love him heartily, I can spy already A strain of hard and headstrong in him. Say, The Queen should play his kingship against thine! flenry. Iwill not think so, Thomas. Who shall crown him ? Canterbury is dying. Becket. The next Canterbury. Henry. And who shall he be, my friend Thomas? Who? Becket. Name him; the Holy Father will confirm him. flenry (lays his hand on Becket’s shoulder), Here! Becket. Mock me not. even a monk. Thy jest-—-no more. this a sleeve For an archbishop ? flenry. But the arm within Is Becket’s, who hath beaten down my foes. Becket. arm. Hlenry. I lack a spiritual soldier, Thomas— A man of this world and the next to boot. Becket. There’s Gilbert Foliot. FHlenry. He! too thin, too thin. Thou art the man to fill out the Church robe; Your Foliot fasts and fawns too much for me. Yet—lest there should I am not Why —1look—is King, Church, and State to him but foils To set that precious jewel, Roger of York e No. q King Stephen’s brother! And [ll have no more Anselms. Of thy whole kingdom waits me: let Take thou mine answer in bare common. LVolo episcopart. Archiepiscopari, my good friend, Is quite another matter. Make me archbishop! Some three or four poor priests a thou- Fitter for this grand function. God’s favour and king’s favour might so clash That thou and I——_ That were a jest indeed ! 4 flenry. Thou angerest me, man: [I do not jest. J Enter ELEANOR and SiR REGINALD © A soldier’s, not a spiritual | chart with the red line! her bower} whose bower ? Becket’s: _ Eleanor. PROLOGUE, = Becket. flenry. Roger of York. Roger is Roger of Vork a where Becket. Henry of Winchester? Henry. Him who crown’d Stephen— No; too royal for me. 7 Becket. Sire, the busta me go. Henry. Answer me first. Becket. Then for thy barren jest place-— fTenry. Ay, but Volo A more awful onal Why, my liege, Becket. I know sand times Me arch- bishop! FITZURSE. Eleanor (singing). Over! the swe summer closes, ; The reign of the roses is donee ae Henry (to Becket, who zs going). Thow shalt not go. I have not ended with thee. Eleanor (seeing chart on table). This Henry. The chart is not mine, but take it, Thomas. Becket ! O—ay—and theal PROLOGUE. - chessmen on the floor—the king’s crown broken! Becket hath beaten thee again —and thou hast kicked down the board. I know thee of old. Hlenry. True enough, my mind was set upon other matters. Lleanor. What matters? matters ? love matters ? flenry. My love for thee, and thine for me. Eleanor. Over! the sweet summer closes, The reign of the roses is done; Over and gone with the roses, And over and gone with the sun. Here; but our sun in Aquitaine lasts longer. I would I were in Aquitaine again—your north chills me. Over! the sweet summer closes, And never a flower at the close; Over and gone with the roses, And winter again and the snows. That was not the way I ended it first— but unsymmetrically, preposterously, illo- gically, out of passion, without art—like a song of the people. Will you have it? The last Parthian shaft of a forlorn Cupid at the King’s left breast, and all left-handedness and under-handedness. And never a flower at the close, Over and gone with the roses, Not over and gone with the rose. State True, one rose will outblossom the rest, one rose ina bower. I speak after my fancies, for I am a Troubadour, you know, and won the violet at Toulouse; but my voice is harsh here, not in tune, a nightingale out of season; for marriage, rose or no rose, has killed the golden violet. Becket. Madam, you do ill to scorn wedded love. Eleanor. Soldo. Louis of France loved me, and I dreamed that I loved Louis of France: and I loved Henry of England, and Henry of England dreamed that he loved me; but the marriage-gar- land withers even with the putting on, the bright link rusts with the breath of BECKET: 697 the first after-marriage kiss, the harvest moon is the ripening of the harvest, and the honeymoon is the gall of love; he dies of his honeymoon. I could pity this poor world myself that it is no better ordered. Tlenryae Weadt is she;“my-“Queen? What, altogether? Let me swear nay to that by this cross on thy neck. God's eyes! what a lovely cross! what jewels! Eleanor. Dothit please you? Take it and wear it on that hard heart of yours —there. [Gzves zt to him. fenry (puts zton). On this left breast before so hard a heart, To hide the scar left by thy Parthian dart. Eleanor, Has my simple song set you jingling? Nay, if I took and trans- lated that hard heart into our Provengal facilities, I could so play about it with the rhyme—— Henry. That the heart were lost in the rhyme and the matter in the metre. May we not pray you, Madam, to spare us the hardness of your facility ? Eleanor. The wells of Castaly are not wasted upon the desert. We did but jest. Henry. There’s no jest on the brows of Herbert there. What is it, Herbert? LEtnter HERBERT OF BOSHAM. Herbert. My liege, the good Arch- bishop is no more. flenry. Peace to his soul ! Herbert. left him with peace on his face—that sweet other-world smile, which will be reflected in the spiritual body among the angels. But he longed much to see your Grace and the Chancellor ere he past, and his last words were a commendation of Thomas Becket to your Grace as his successor in the archbishop- rick. Hlenry. Ha, Becket! thou remem- berest our talk ! Becket. My heart is full of tears—I have no answer. Flenry. Well, well, old men must die, or the world would grow mouldy, 698 would only breed the past again. Come to me to-morrow. Thou hast but to hold out thy hand. Meanwhile the revenues are mine, A-hawking, a-hawk- ing! If I sit, I grow fat. [Leaps over the table, and exit. Becket. He did prefer me to_ the chancellorship, Believing I should ever aid the Church— But have I done it? He commends me now From out his grave to this archbishop- rick. flerbert. A dead man’s dying wish should be of weight. Becket. His should. Come with me. Let me learn at full The manner of his death, and all he said. [Axeunt Herbert axd Becket. Ltleanor. Fitzurse, that chart with the red line—thou sawest it—her bower. fitzurse. Rosamund’s ? Eleanor. Ay—there lies the secret of her whereabouts, and the King gave it to his Chancellor. fitzurse. To this son of a London merchant—how your Grace must hate him. Eleanor. Hate him? as brave a soldier as Henry and a goodlier man: but thou—dost thou love this Chancellor, that thou hast sworn a voluntary alle- giance to him ? Fitzurse. Not for my love toward him, but because he had the love of the King. How should a baron love a beggar on horseback, with the retinue of three kings behind him, outroyalling royalty? Besides, he holp the King to break down our castles, for the which I hate him, Eleanor. For the which I honour him. Statesman not Churchman he. A great and sound policy that: I could embrace him for it: you could not see the King for the kinglings. fitzurse. Ay, but he speaks to a noble as tho’ he were a churl, and to a churl as if he were a noble. Eleanor. Pride of the plebeian! BECKET. oe Fitzurse. And this plebeian like tobe __ Archbishop ! 2% Eleanor. True, and I have an in- herited loathing of these black sheep of the Papacy. Archbishop? I can see further into a man than our hot-headed _ Henry, and if there ever come feud - between Church and Crown, and I do not then charm this secret out of our — loyal Thomas, I am not Eleanor. 2 fitzurse. Last night I followed a woman in the city here. Her face was veiled, but the back methought was Rosamund—his paramour, thy rival, I can feel for thee. Eleanor. mour—trival ! ba Thou feel for me !—para- King Louis had no para- i. mours, and I loved him none the more, Va Henry had many, and I loved him none : 4 the less—now neither more nor less—not ag at all; the cup’s empty. I would she © were but his paramour, for men tire of — a their fancies; but I fear this one fancy — hath taken root, and borne blossom too, : and she, whom the King loves indeed, is 4 a power in the State. Rival !—ay, and when the King passes, there may come a _ crash and embroilment as in Stephen’s time ; and her children—canst thou not ——that secret matter which would heat the King against thee (zwhzspers him and — he starts). Nay, that is safe with meas with thyself: but canst thou not—thou art drowned in debt—thou shalt have our love, our silence, and our gold—canst _ thou not—if thou light upon her—free — me from her? Fitzurse. Well, Madam, I have loved — her in my time. Eleanor. No, my bear, thou hast not. My Courts of Love would have held thee” guiltless of love—the fine attractions and — repulses, the delicacies, the subtleties. Fitzurse. Madam, I loved according to the main purpose and intent of nature. Eleanor. J warrant thee! thouw wouldst hug thy Cupid till his ribs cracked—enough of this. Follow me this Rosamund day and night, whither- soever she goes; track her, if thou canst, SCENE I. even into the King’s lodging, that I may (clenches her fist)—may at least haye my cry against him and her,—and thou in thy way shouldst be jealous of the King, for thou in thy way didst once, what shall I call it, affect her thine own self. Fitzurse. Ay, but the young colt winced and whinnied and flung up her heels ; and then the King came honeying about her, and this Becket, her father’s friend, like enough staved us from her. Eleanor. Us! Fitzurse. Yea, by the Blessed Virgin ! There were more than I buzzing round the blossom—De Tracy—even that flint De Brito. Eleanor. Carry her off among you ; run in upon her and devour her, one and all of you; make her as hateful to herself and to the King, as she is to me. Fitzurse. I and all would be glad to wreak our spite on the rosefaced minion of the King, and bring her to the level of the dust, so that the King Eleanor. Let her eat it like the serpent, and be driven out of her para- dise. BCL. SCENE I.—BECKET’S HOUSE IN LONDON. Chamber barely furnished, BECKET unrobing. HERBERT OF BOSHAM and SERVANT. Servant. Shall I not help your lord- ship to your rest ? Becket. Friend, am I so much better than thyself That thou shouldst help me ? wearied out With this day’s work, get thee to thine own bed. Leave me with Herbert, friend. [Hct Servant. Help me off, Herbert, with this—and this. Herbert. Was not the people’s bless- ing as we past Heart-comfort and a balsam to thy blood? Thou art BECKET. 699 Becket. The people know their Church a tower of strength, A bulwark against Throne and Baronage. Too heavy for me, this; off with it, Herbert ! flerbert. Is it so much heavier than thy Chancellor’s robe? Becket. No; but the Chancellor’s and the Archbishop’s Together more than mortal man can bear. flerbert. Not heavier than thine armour at Thoulouse ? Becket. O Herbert, Herbert, in my chancellorship I more than once have gone against the Church. flerbert. To please the King ? Becket. Ay, and the King of kings, Or justice; for it seem’d to me but just The Church should pay her scutage like the lords. But ‘hast thou heard this cry of Gilbert Foliot That I am not the man to be your Primate, For Henry could not work a miracle— Make an Archbishop of a soldier ? flerbert. Ay, For Gilbert Foliot held himself the man. Becket. AmIthe man? My mother, ere she bore me, Dream’d that twelve stars fell glittering out of heaven Into her bosom. Herbert. Ay, the fire, the light, The spirit of the twelve Apostles enter’d Into thy making. Becket. And when I was a child, The Virgin, in a vision of my sleep, Gave me the golden keys of Paradise. Dream, Or prophecy, that ? Herbert. | Well, dream and prophecy both. Becket. And when I was of Theobald’s household, once— The good old man would sometimes have his jest— He took his mitre off, and set it on me, 700 BHCK IAL, ~ And said, ‘ My young Archbishop—thou _ wouldst make A stately Archbishop!’ Jest or prophecy there? Herbert. Both, Thomas, both. Becket. AmIthe man? That rang Within my head last night, and when I slept Methought I stood in Canterbury Minster, And spake to the Lord God, and said, *OMord: I have been a lover of wines, and delicate meats, And secular splendours, and a favourer Of players, and a courtier, and a feeder Of dogs and hawks, and apes, and lions, and lynxes. Am JZ the man?’ And the Lord answer’d me, ‘Thou art the man, and all the more the man.’ And then I asked again, ‘O Lord my God, Henry the King hath been my friend, brother, And mine uplifter in this world, nad chosen me For this thy great archbishoprick, be- lieving That I should go against the Church with him, And I shall go against him with the Church, And I have said no word of this to him : Am / the man?’ And the Lord answer’d me, ‘Thou art the man, and all the more the man.’ And thereupon, methought, He drew to- ward me, Andsmote me down upon the Minster floor, I fell. Herbert. God make not thee, but thy foes, fall. Becket. J fell. Why fall? Why did He smite me? What? Shall I fall off—to please the King once more ? Not fight—tho’ somehow traitor to the King— Mytruest and mine utmost for the Church? Herbert. Let traitor be ; For how have fought thine utmost for th 1 Church, Save from the throne of thine archbishop rick ? And how been made Archbishop hadst_ . thou told him, -*T mean to fight mine utmost for the Church, Against the King’? Becket. But dost thou think the King Forced mine election ? fLerbert. I do noe the King Was potent in the election, and why not? — Why should not Heaven have so inspired the King ? q Be comforted. Thou art the man—be . thou aa A mightier Anselm. ts Becket. Y do believe thee, then. I am the man. And yet I seem appall’d—on such a ; sudden At such an eagle-height I stand and see The rift that runs between me and the King. I served our Theobald well when I was with him ; I served King Henry well as Chancellor ; I am his no more, and I must serve the — +. Church: This Canterbury is only less than Rome, And all my doubts I fling from me like dust, Winnow and scatter all scruples to the wind, And all the puissance of the warrior, And all the wisdom of the Chancellor, And all the heap’d experiences of life, I cast upon the side of Canterbury— Our holy mother Canterbury, who sits With tatter’d robes. thro’ The random gifts of careless kings, have graspt Her livings, her advowsons, granges, farms, And goodly acres—we will make her whole ; Thou canst not fall that way. ; aa ‘a . j Laics and barons, = : = SCENE I, Not one rood lost. And for these Royal customs, These ancient Royal customs—they ave Royal, Not of the Church—and let them be anathema, And all that speak for them anathema. Herbert. Thomas, thou art moved too much, Becket. O Herbert, here I gash myself asunder from the King, Tho’ leaving each, a wound; mine own, a grief To show the scar for ever—his, a hate Not ever to be heal’d. Linter ROSAMUND DE CLIFFORD, flying Jrom StR REGINALD. FITZURSE. Drops her veil. Becket. Rosamund de Clifford ! Rosamund. Save me, father, hide me —they follow me—and I must not be known. Becket. Pass in with Herbert there. [Axeunt Rosamund and Herbert by side door. Linter FITZURSE. Fitzurse. The Archbishop! Becket. Ay! what wouldst thou, Regi- ee ald? ” Fitzurse. Why—why, my lord, I fol- low’d—follow’d one—— Becket. And then what follows ? me follow thee. Fitzurse. It much imports me I should know her name. Becket. What her? Fitzurse. The woman that I follow’d hither. Becket. Perhaps it may import her all as much Not to be known. Fitzurse. And what care I for that ? Come, come, my lord Archbishop ; I saw that door Close even now upon the woman. Becket. Well? Fitzurse (making for the door). Nay, let me pass, my lord, for I must know. Let BECKET. 701 Becket. Litzurse. and what she is. Becket. Art thou so sure thou fol- lowedst anything ? Go home, and sleep thy wine off, for thine eyes Glare stupid-wild with wine. Fitzurse (making to the door). and will. I care not for thy new archbishoprick. Becket. Back, man, I tell thee! What! Shall I forget my new archbishoprick And smite thee with my crozier on the Back, man! Then tell me who I must skull ? ’Fore God, I am a mightier man than thou. fitzurse. It well befits thy new arch- bishoprick To take the vagabond woman of the street Into thine arms! Becket. O drunken ribaldry! Out, beast! out, bear! Litzurse. I shall remember this. Becket. Do, and begone! [Zxet Fitzurse. [Gong to the door, sees De Tracy. Tracy, what dost thou here ? De Tracy. My lord, I follow’d Reginald Fitzurse. Becket. Follow him out! De Tracy. I shall remember this Discourtesy. [Zxzt. Becket. Do. ‘These be those baron- brutes That havock’d all the land in Stephen’s day. Rosamund de Clifford. Re-enter ROSAMUND and HERBERT. Rosamund. Here am I. Becket. Why here? We gave thee to the charge of John of Salisbury, To pass thee to thy secret bower to- morrow. Wast thou not told to keep thyself from sight ? 702 BECKET. Rosamund. Poor bird of passage! so I was';: but, father, They say that you are wise in. winged things, And know the ways of Nature. Bar the * bird From following the fled summer—a chink —he’s out, Gone! And there stole into the city a breath Full of the meadows, and it minded me Of the sweet woods of Clifford, and the walks Where I could move at pleasure, and I thought Lo! I must out or die. Becket. Or out and die. And what hast thou to do with this Fitzurse ? Rosamund. Nothing. He sued my ‘ hand. I shook at him. He found me once alone. Nay—nay— I cannot Tell you: my father drove him and. his friends, De Tracy and De Brito, from our castle. I was but fourteen and an April then. I heard him swear revenge. Becket. Why will you court it By self-exposure ? flutter out at night ? Make it so hard to save a moth from the fire ? Rosamund. y) I have saved many of em. You catch ’em,. so, Softly, and fling them out to the free air. They burn themselves zw2thz-door. Becket. Our good John Must speed you to your bower at once. The child © Is there already. Rosamund. Yes—the child—the child— O rare, a whole long day of open field. Becket. Ay, but you go disguised. Rosamund. O rare again ! We'll baffle them, I warrant. What shall it be? Tl go as a nun. Becket. No. Rosamund. What, not good enough 7 : Even to play at nun? i Becket. - Dan John with a nun, — That Map, and these new railers at the =a Church May plaister his clean scurrilous rhymes ! No! Go like a monk, cowling and clouding up — That fatal star, thy Beauty, from the squint Of lust and glare of malice. Good night! good: night ! Rosamund. Father, I am so tender to all hardness ! Nay, father, first thy blessing. Becket. Wedded ? Rosamund, Father ! Becket. Well, well! I ask no more. Heaven bless thee! hence ! Rosamund, thou seest him next, Commend me to thy friend. Becket. What friend ? _ Rosamund. The King. Becket. Werbert, take out a score of — armed men To guard this bird of passage to her cage; And watch, Fitzurse, and if he follow thee, Make him thy prisoner. I am Chancellor yet. * [Zxeunt Herbert and Rosamund. Poor soul! poor soul ! My friend, the: King! ave. Great Seal of England, Given me by my dear friend the King of England— ' We long have wrought together, thou and [— Now must I send thee as a common friend To tell the King, my friend, I am against him. We are friends no more: he will say that, not I. The worldly bond between us is dissolved, Not yet the love: can I be under him As Chancellor? as Archbishop over him? Go therefore likea friend slighted by one That hath climb’d up to nobler company, name with ~ O, holy father, when O thou — SCENE II. BECKET. 793 Not slighted—all but moan’d for: thou must go. I have not dishonour’d thee—I trust I have not; Not mangled justice. May the hand that next Inherits thee be but as true to thee As mine hath been! O, my dear friend, the King ! O brother !—I may come to martyrdom. I am martyr in myself already.— Herbert ! flerbert (re-entering). My lord, the town is quiet, and the moon Divides the whole long street with light and shade, No footfall—no Fitzurse. We have seen her home. Becket. The hog hath tumbled himself into some corner, Some ditch, to snore away his drunken- ness Into the sober headache,—-Nature’s moral Against excess. Let the Great Seal be sent Back to the King to-morrow. flerbert. Must that be? The King may rend the bearer limb from limb. Think on it again. Becket. Against the moral excess No physical ache, but failure it may be Of all we aim’d at. John of Salisbury Hath often laid a cold hand on my heats, And Herbert hath rebuked me even now. I will be wise and wary, not the soldier As Foliot swears it.—John, and out of breath ! Linter JOHN OF SALISBURY. John of Salisbury. Thomas, thou wast not happy taking charge Of this wild Rosamund to please the King, Nor am I happy having charge of her— The included Danaé has escaped again Her tower, and her Acrisius—where to seek ? I have been about the city. Becket. Thou wilt find her Back in her lodging. Go with her—at once— To-night—my men will guard you to the gates. Be sweet to her, she has many enemies. Send the Great Seal by daybreak. Both, good night ! SCENE II.—StTrREET in NORTHAMP- TON LEADING TO THE CASTLE. ELEANOR’S RETAINERS and BECKET’S RETAINERS fighting, Enter ELEANOR and BECKET from opposite streets. Eleanor. Peace, fools! Becket. Peace, friends! what idle brawl is this ? Retainer of Becket. They said—her Grace’s people—thou wast found— Liars! I shame to quote ’em—caught, my lord, | With a wanton in thy lodging—Hell requite ’em ! Retainer of Eleanor. My liege, the Lord Fitzurse reported this In passing to the Castle even now. keetainer of Becket. And then they mock’d us and we fell upon ’em, For we would live and die for thee, my lord, However kings and queens may frown on thee. Becket to his Retainers. more of this! Eleanor to her Retainers. Away !— (Zxeunt Retainers) Fitzurse—— Go, go—no Becket. Nay, let him be. Lleanor. No, no, my Lord Archbishop, ’Tis known you are midwinter to all women, But often in your chancellorship you served The follies of the King. Becket. No, not these follies! Lleanor. My lord, Fitzurse beheld her in your lodging. Becket. Whom? 704 BECKET. Eleanor. Well—you know—the minion, Rosamund. Becket. He had good eyes! Eleanor. Then hidden in the street He watch’d her pass with John of Salis- bury And heard her cry ‘ Where is this bower of mine ?” Becket. Good ears too! Eleanor. You are going to the Castle, _ Will you subscribe the customs ? Becket. I leave that, Knowing how much you reverence Holy Church, My liege, to your conjecture. Lleanor. I and mine— And many a baron holds along with me— Are not so much at feud with Holy Church But we might take your side against the customs— So that you grant me one slight favour. Becket. What ? Eleanor. — To that—to what ? Margery (behind scene). he knows, Whoop—but he knows. Rosamund. O God! some dreadful truth is breaking on me— Some dreadful thing is coming on me. [Znter Geoffrey. Geoffrey ! Geoffrey. What are you crying for, when the sun shines ? Rosamund, Wath not thy father left us to ourselves ? Geoffrey. Ay, but he’s taken the rain with him. I hear Margery: IJ’ll go play with her. [Axct Geoffrey. Rosamund. Rainbow, stay, Gleam upon gloom, Bright as my dream, Rainbow, stay! But it passes away, Gloom upon gleam, Dark as my doom— O rainbow stay. Bird mustn’t Whoop—but SCENE II.—-OvuTsIpDE THE Woops NEAR ROSAMUND’S BOWER. ELEANOR. FITZURSE. Eleanor. Up from the salt lips of the land we two Have track’d the King to this dark inland wood ; And somewhere hereabouts he vanish’d. Here His turtle builds; his exit is our adit: Watch ! he will out again, and presently, Seeing he must to Westminster and crown Young Henry there to-morrow. Fitzurse. We have watch’d So long in vain, he hath pass’d out again, And on the other side. [A great horn winded. Hark ! Madam ! Eleanor. Ay, How ghostly sounds that horn in the black wood ! [A countryman flying. Whither away, man? what are you flying from ? Countryman. The witch! the witch! she sits naked by a great heap of gold in the middle of the wood, and when the horn sounds she comes out as a wolf. Get you hence! a man passed in there to-day: I holla’d to him, but he didn’t hear me: he’ll never out again, the witch has got him. I daren’t stay—I daren’t stay! Eleanor. Kind of the witch to give thee warning tho’. [Man flies. Is not this wood-witch of the rustic’s fear Our woodland Circe that hath witch’d the King? [Horn sounded. Another flying. Fitzurse. Again! stay, fool, and tell me why thou fliest. Countryman. Fly thou too. The King keeps his forest head of game here, and when that horn sounds, a score of wolf-dogs are let loose that will tear thee piecemeal. Linger not till the third horn. Fly! [Zxze. Eleanor. This is the likelier tale. We have hit the place. Now let the King’s fine game look to itself. [ Horn. Fitzurse. Again !— And far on in the dark heart of the wood I hear the yelping of the hounds of hell. Eleanor. I have my dagger here to still their throats. Fitzurse. Nay, Madam, not to-night —the night is falling. What can be done to-night ? Eleanor. Well—well—away. 728 SCENE III.—TRAIror’s MEADOW AT FRETEVAL. PAVILIONS AND TENTS OF THE ENGLISH AND FRENCH BARONAGE. BECKET avd HERBERT OF BOSHAM. Becket. fTerbert. What’s here? Becket. A notice from the priest, To whom our John of Salisbury com- mitted The secret of the bower, that our wolf- Queen Is prowling round the fold. back In England ev’n for this. fTerbert. These are by-things In the great cause. Becket. The by-things of the Lord Are the wrong’d innocences that will cry From all the hidden by-ways of the world In the great day against the wronger. I know Thy meaning. Perish she, I, all, before The Church should suffer wrong ! flerbert. Do you see, my lord, There is the King talking with Walter Map? Becket. We hath the Pope’s last letters, and they threaten The immediate thunder-blast of interdict : Yet he can scarce be touching upon those, Or scarce would smile that fashion. LTerbert. Winter sunshine ! Beware of opening out thy bosom to it, Lest thou, myself, and all thy flock should catch An after ague-fit of trembling. Look! He bows, he bares his head, he is coming hither. Still with a smile. See here ! I should be Enter KING HENRY and WALTER MAP, Henry. We have had so many hours together, Thomas, So many happy hours alone together, That I would speak with you once more alone. BECKET. ACT III. Becket. My liege, your will and happiness are mine. [Zxeunt King and Becket. flerbert. The same smile still. Walter Map. Do you see that great black cloud that hath come over the sun and cast us all into shadow? Herbert. And feel it too. Walter Map. And see you yon side- beam that is forced from under it, and sets the church-tower over there all a- hell-fire as it were? fTerbert. Ay. Walter Map. It is this black, bell- silencing, anti-marrying, burial-hindering interdict that hath squeezed out this side- smile upon Canterbury, whereof may come conflagration. Were I Thomas, I wouldn’t trust it. Sudden change is a house on sand; and tho’ I count Henry honest enough, yet when fear creeps in at the front, honesty steals out at the back, and the King at last is fairly scared by this cloud—this interdict. I have been more for the King than the Church in this matter—yea, even for the sake of the Church: for, truly, as the case stood, you had safelier have slain an archbishop than a she-goat: but our recoverer and upholder of customs hath in this crowning of young Henry by York and London so violated the immemorial usage of the Church, that, like the gravedigger’s child I have heard of, trying to ring the bell, he hath half-hanged himself in the rope of the Church, or rather pulled all the Church with the Holy Father astride of it down upon his own head. flerbert. Were you there? Walter Map. In the church rope >— no. I was at the crowning, for I have pleasure in the pleasure of crowds, and to read the faces of men at a great show. flerbert. And how did Roger of York comport himself ? Walter Map. As magnificently and archiepiscopally as our Thomas would have done: only there was a dare-devil in his eye—I should say a dare-Becket. He thought less of two kings than of one SCENE III. Roger the king of the occasion. Foliot is the holier man, perhaps the better. Once or twice there ran a twitch across his face as who should say what’s to follow? but Salisbury was a calf cowed by Mother Church, and every now and then glancing about him like a thief at night when he hears a door open in the house and thinks ‘the master.’ flerbert. And the father-king ? Walter Map. ‘The father’s eye was so tender it would have called a goose off the green, and once he strove to hide his face, like the Greek king when his daughter was sacrificed, but he thought better of it: it was but the sacrifice of a kingdom to his son, a smaller matter; but as to the young crownling himself, he looked so malapert in the eyes, that had I fathered him I had given him more of the rod than the sceptre. Then followed the thunder of the captains and the shouting, and so we came on to the banquet, from whence there puffed out such an incense of unctuosity into the nostrils of our Gods of Church and State, that Lucullus or Apicius might have sniffed it in their Hades of heathenism, so that the smell of their own roast had not come across it—-— Herbert. Map, tho’ you make your butt too big, you overshoot it. Walter Map. —F¥or as to the fish, they de-miracled the miraculous draught, and might have sunk a navy —— Herbert. There again, Goliasing and Goliathising ! Walter Map. —And as for the flesh at table, a whole Peter’s sheet, with all manner of game, and four-footed things, and fowls FHlerbert. things too ? Walter Map. —Well, there were Abbots—but they did not bring their women ; and so we were dull enough at first, but in the end we flourished out into a merriment; for the old King would act servitor and hand a dish to his son ; whereupon my Lord of York— And all manner of creeping BECKET: 729 his fine-cut face bowing and beaming with all that courtesy which hath less loyalty in it than the backward scrape of the clown’s heel—‘ great honour,’ says he, ‘from the King’s self to the King’s son.’ Did you hear the young King’s quip ? Herbert. No, what was it? Walter Map. Glancing at the days when his father was only Earl of Anjou, he answered :—‘ Should not an earl’s son wait on a king’s son?’ And when the cold corners of the King’s mouth began to thaw, there was a great motion of laughter among us, part real, part child- like, to be freed from the dulness—part royal, for King and kingling both laughed, and so we could not but laugh, as by a royal necessity—part childlike again—when we felt we had laughed too long and could not stay ourselves—many midriff-shaken even to tears, as springs gush out after earthquakes—but from those, as I said before, there may come a conflagration—tho’, to keep the figure moist and make it hold water, I should say rather, the lacrymation of a lamenta- tion; but look if Thomas have not flung himself at the King’s feet. They have made it up again—for the moment. Herbert. Thanks to the blessed Mag- dalen, whose day it is. Re-enter HENRY and BECKET. (During their conference the BARONS and BisHOPS of FRANCE and ENGLAND come in at back of stage.) Becket. Ay, King! for in thy king- dom, as thou knowest, The spouse of the Great King, thy King, hath fallen— The daughter of Zion lies beside the way— The priests of Baal tread her underfoot— The golden ornaments are stolen from her Henry. ave I not promised to restore her, Thomas, And send thee back again to Canter- bury ? 730 Becket. Send back again those exiles of my kin Who wander famine-wasted thro’ the world. Henry. ave I not promised, man, to send them back ? Becket. Yet one thing more. hast broken thro’ the pales Of privilege, crowning thy young son by York, London and Salisbury—not Canterbury. Flenry. York crown’d the Conqueror —not Canterbury. Becket. There was no Canterbury in William’s time. Flenry. But Hereford, you know, crown’d the first Henry. Becket. But Anselm crown’d Henry o’er again. flenry. And thou shalt crown my Henry o’er again. Becket. And is it then with thy good- will that I Proceed against thine evil councillors, And hurl the dread ban of the Church on those Who made the second mitre play the first, And acted me? FHlenry. ell, well, then—have thy way ! It may be they were evil councillors. What more, my lord Archbishop? What more, Thomas ? I make thee full amends. Say all thy Thou this say, But blaze not out before the Frenchmen here. Becket. More? Nothing, so thy promise be thy deed. Henry (holding out his hand). Give me thy hand. My Lords of France and England, My friend of Canterbury and myself - Are now once more at perfect amity. Unkingly should I be, and most un- knightly, Not striving still, however much in vain, To rival him in Christian charity. Herbert. All praise to Heaven, and sweet St. Magdalen! BECKET. ACT III. flenry. And so farewell until we meet in England. Becket. I fear, my liege, we may not meet in England. flenry. Wow, do you make me a traitor ? Becket. That be far from thee. Henry. Come, stay with us, then, Before you part for England. Becket. I am bound » For that one hour to stay with good King Louis, Who helpt me when none else. Herbert. He said thy life Was not one hour’s worth in England save King Henry gave thee first the kiss of peace. fTenry. Wesaid so? Louis, did he? look you, Herbert, When I was in mine anger with King Louis, I sware I would not give the kiss of peace, Not on French ground, nor any ground but English, Where his cathedral stands. friend, Thomas, I would there were that perfect trust between us, That health of heart, once ours, ere Pope or King Had come between us! who knows ?—- I might deliver all things to thy hand— If . .) but: I saymmoetmore Sagi eiare- well, my lord. 5 Becket, Farewell, my liege ! [Zxct Henry, then the Barons and Bishops. Walter Map. ‘Thereagain! when the full fruit of the royal promise might have dropt into thy mouth hadst thou but opened it to thank him. Becket. He fenced his royal promise with an zf Walter Map. And is the King’s 27 too high a stile for your lordship to over- step and come at all things in the next field ? No, indeed ! Mine old Even now— SCENE III. BECKET. 731 Becket, Ay, if this zf be like the Devil’s ‘zf Thou wilt fall down and worship me.’ Herbert. Oh, Thomas, I could fall down and worship thee, my Thomas, For thou hast trodden this wine-press alone. Becket. Nay, of the people there are many with me. Walter Map. I am not altogether with you, my lord, tho’ I am none of those that would raise a storm between you, lest ye should draw together like two ships in a calm. You wrong the King: he meant what he said _ to-day. Who shall vouch for his to-morrows? One word further. Doth not the few- ness of anything make the fulness of it in estimation? Is not virtue prized mainly for its rarity and great baseness loathed as an exception : for were all, my lord, _ as noble as yourself, who would look up to you? and were all as base as—who shall I say—Fitzurse and his following— who would look down upon them? My lord, you have put so many of the King’s household out of communion, that they begin to smile at it. Recket. At their peril, at their peril Walter Map. —For tho’ the drop may hollow out the dead stone, doth not the living skin thicken against perpetual whippings? This is the second grain of good counsel I ever proffered thee, and so cannot suffer by the rule of frequency. Have I sown it in salt? I trust not, for before God I promise you the King hath many more wolves than he can tame in his woods of England, and if it suit their purpose to howl for the King, and you still move against him, you may have no less than to die for it; but God and his free wind grant your lordship a happy home-return and the King’s kiss of peace in Kent. Farewell! I must follow the King. [Axze. Herbert. Ay, and I warrant the cus- toms. Did the King Speak of the customs ? Becket. No !—To die for it— I live to die for it, I die to live for it. The State will die, the Church can never die. The King’s not like to die for that which dies ; But I must die for that which never dies. It will be so—my visions in the Lord : It must be so, my friend! the wolves of England Must murder her one shepherd, that the sheep May feed in peace. False figure, Map would say. Earth’s falses are heaven’s truths. And when my voice Is martyr’d mute, and this man disappears, That perfect trust may come again between us And there, there, there, not here I shall rejoice To find my stray sheep back within the fold. The crowd are scattering, let us move away ! And thence to England. [Zxeunt. ACT LV. SCENE I.—THE OUTSKIRTS OF THE BOWER. Geoffrey (coming out of the wood). Light again ! light again! Margery? no, that’s a finer thing there. Howit glitters! Eleanor (entering). Come to me, little one. How camest thou hither? Geoffrey. On my legs. Eleanor. And mighty pretty legs too. Thou art the prettiest child I ever saw. Wilt thou love me ? Geoffrey. No; I only love mother. Eleanor. Ay; and whois thy mother ? Geoffrey. They call her—— But she lives secret, you see. Eleanor. Why? Geoffrey. Don’t know why. Eleanor. Ay, but some one comes to see her now and then. Who is he? 732 BECKET, ACT IVs Geoffrey. Can't tell. Eleanor. What does she call him ? Geoffrey. My liege. Eleanor, Pretty one, howcamest thou? Geoffrey. There was a bit of yellow silk here and there, and it looked pretty like a glowworm, and I thought if I followed it I should find the fairies. Eleanor. I am the fairy, pretty one, a good fairy to thy mother. Take me to her. Geoffrey. There are good fairies and bad fairies, and sometimes she cries, and can’t sleep sound o’ nights because of the bad fairies. Eleanor, She shall cry no more; she shall sleep sound enough if thou wilt take me to her. Iam her good fairy. Geoffrey. But you don’t look like a good fairy. Mother does. You are not pretty, like mother. Eleanor. We can’t all of us be as pretty as thou art—(aszde) little bastard. Come, here is a golden chain I will give thee if thou wilt lead me to thy mother. Geoffrey. No—no gold. Mother says gold spoils all. Love is the only gold. Eleanor. I love thy mother, my pretty boy. Show me where thou camest out of the wood. Geoffrey. By this tree; but I don’t know if I can find the way back again. Eleanor, Where’s the warder ? Geoffrey. Very bad. Somebody struck him. Eleanor. Ay? who was that? Geoffrey. Can’t tell. But I heard say he had had a stroke, or you’d have heard his horn before now. Come along, then? we shall see the silk here and there, and I want my supper. [Zxeunt. SCENE II.—RosAamMunp’s Bowe_Er. Rosamund. The boy so late; pray God, he be not lost. I sent this Margery, and she comes not back ; I sent another, and she comes not back. I go myself—so many alleys, crossings, Paths, avenues—nay, if I lost him, now The folds have fallen from the mystery, And left all naked, I were lost indeed. Enter GEOFFREY and ELEANOR. Geoffrey, the pain thou hast put me to! [Seezzg: Eleanor. Ha, you! How. came you hither? Eleanor. Your own child brought me hither ! Geoffrey. You said you couldn’t trust Margery, and I watched her and followed her into the woods, and I lost her and went on and on till I found the light and the lady, and she says she can make you sleep o’ nights. Rosamund. WHowdared you? Know you not this bower is secret, Of and belonging to the King of England, More sacred than his forests for the chase ? Nay, nay, Heaven help you; io: you hence in haste Lest worse befall you. Lleanor. Child, I am mine own self Of and belonging to the King. The King Hath divers ofs and ons, ofs and belong- ings, Almost as many as your true Mussulman— Belongings, paramours, whom it pleases him To call his wives; but so it chances, child, That I am his main paramour, his sultana. But since the fondest pair of doves will jar, Ev’n in a cage of gold, we had words of late, And thereupon he call’d my children bastards. Do you believe that you are married to him ? Rosamund. I should believe it. Eleanor. You must not believe it, Because I have a wholesome medicine here Puts that belief asleep. Your answer, beauty ! SCENE II. Do you believe that you are married to him ? Rosamund, Geoffrey, my boy, I saw the ball you lost in the fork of the great willow over the brook. Go. See that you do not fallin. Go. Geoffrey. And leave you alone with the good fairy. She calls you beauty, but I don’t like her looks. Well, you bid me go, and Ill have my ball anyhow. Shall I find you asleep when I come back ? Rosamund, Go. [Zx7it Geoffrey. Eleanor, He is easily found again. Do you believe it ? I pray you then to take my sleeping- draught ; But if you should not care to take it see! [Draws a dagger. ' What! have I scared the red rose from your face Into your heart? But this will find it there, And dig it from the root for ever. Rosamund, Help! help! Lleanor. They say that walls have ears; but these, it seems, Have none! and I have none—to pity thee. Rosamund. 1 do beseech you—my child is so young, So backward too; I cannot leave him | yet. I am not so happy I could not die my- self, But the child is so young. You have children—his ; And mine is the King’s child; so, if you love him— Nay, if you love him, there is great wrong done Somehow; but if you do not—there are those Who say you do not love him—let me go With my young boy, and I will hide my face, Blacken and gipsyfy it; none shall know me ; The King shall never hear of me again, But I will beg my bread along the world BECKET: 733 With my young boy, and God will be our guide. I never meant you harm in any way. See, I can say no more. Eleanor. Will you not say you are not married to him? Rosamund, Ay, Madam, I can say it, if you will. Eleanor. Then is thy pretty boy a bastard ? Rosamund, No. Lleanor. And thou thyself a proven wanton ? Rosamund. No. I am none such. I never loved but one. I have heard of such that range from love to love, Like the wild beast—if you can call it love. I have heard of such—yea, even among those Who sit on thrones—I never saw any such, ' Never knew any such, and howsoever You do misname me, match’d with any such, I am snow to mud. Eleanor. The more the pity then That thy true home—the heavens—cry out for thee Who art too pure for earth. Linter FITZURSE. fitzurse. Give her to me. Lleanor. The Judas-lover of our passion-play Hath track’d us hither. Fitzsurse. Well, why not? I follow’d You and the child: he babbled all the way. Give her to me to make my _ honey- moon. Eleanor. Ay, as the bears love honey. Could you keep her Indungeon’d from one whisper of the wind, Dark even from a side glance of the moon, And oublietted in the centre—No! I follow out my hate and thy revenge. 734 Fitzsurse. You bad me take revenge another way— To bring her tothe dustic.. Come with me, love, And I will love thee. . . . Madam, let her live. I have a far-off burrow where the King Would miss her and for ever. Eleanor. How sayst thou, sweetheart ? Wilt thou go with him? he will marry thee. Rosamund. Give me the poison; set me free of him! [Eleanor offers the vial. No, no! I will not have it. Eleanor. Then this other, The wiser choice, because my sleeping- draught May bloat thy beauty out of shape, and make Thy body loathsome even to thy child; While this but leaves thee with a broken heart, A doll-face blanch’d and bloodless, over which If pretty Geoffrey do not break his own, It must be broken for him. Rosamund. O I see now Your purpose is to fright me—a trouba- dour You play with words. used so many, You had never Not if you meant it, I am sure. The child -..4 No... mercy! No! (kmeels.) Eleanor. Play ina that bosom never Heaved under the King’s hand with such true passion As at this loveless knife that stirs the riot, Which it will quench in blood! Slave, if he love thee, Thy life is worth the wrestle for it: arise, And dash thyself against me that I may slay thee! The worm! shall I let her go? ha! what’s here? By very God, the cross I gave the King! His village darling in some lewd caress But BECKET, ACT IV, Has wheedled it off the King’s neck to her own. By thy leave, beauty. Ay, the same! I warrant Thou hast sworn on this my cross a hundred times Never to leave him—and that merits death, False oath on holy cross—for thou must leave him To-day, but not quite yet. Fitzurse, The running down the chase is kindlier sport Ev’n than the death. that thy lover May plead so pitifully, that I may spare thee? Come hither, man stand there. (Zo Rosamund ) Take thy one chance; Catch at the last straw. JKneel to thy lord Fitzurse ; Crouch even because thou hatest him; fawn upon him For thy life and thy son’s. Rosamund (rising). Tama Clifford, My son a Clifford and Plantagenet. I.am to die then, tho’ there stand beside thee One who might grapple with thy dagger, if he Had aught of man, or thou of woman; or I Would bow to such a ees as would make me Most worthy of it: both of us will die, And I will fly with my sweet boy to heaven, And shriek to all the saints among the stars : ‘Eleanor of Aquitaine, Eleanor of Eng- land! Murder’d by that adulteress Eleanor, Whose doings are a horror to the east, A hissing in the west!’ Have we not heard Raymond of Poitou, thine own uncle— na Geoffrey Plantagenet, thine own husband’s father— My good Who knows but SCENE II, Nay, ev’n the accursed heathen Salad- deen——. Strike ! I challenge thee to meet me before God. Answer me there. Lleanor (raising the dagger). thy bosom, fool, And after in thy bastard’s! This in Enter BECKET from behind. Catches hola of her arm. Becket. Murderess ! [Zhe dagger falls; they stare at one another. After a pause. Eleanor. My lord, we know you proud of your fine hand, But having now admired it long enough, We find that it is mightier than it seems— At least mine own is frailer: you are laming it. Becket. And lamed and maim’d to dislocation, better Than raised to take a life which Henry bad me Guard from the stroke that dooms thee after death To wail in deathless flame. Eleanor. Nor you, nor I Have now to learn, my lord, that our good Henry Says many a thing in sudden heats, which he Gainsays by next sunrising—often ready To tear himself for having said as much. My lord, Fitzurse—— Becket. Hetoo! what dost thou here? Dares the bear slouch into the lion’s den? One downward plunge of his paw would rend away Eyesight and manhood, life itself, from thee. Go, lest I blast thee with anathema, And make thee a world’s horror. Litzurse. My lord, I shall Remember this. Becket. I do remember thee; Lest I remember thee to the lion, go. [Zxz¢t Fitzurse. Take up your dagger; put it in the sheath, BECKET, 735 Eleanor. Might not your courtesy stoop to hand it me? But crowns must bow when mitres sit so high. Well—well—-too costly to be left or lost. [Picks up the dagger. I had it from an Arab soldan, who, When I was there in Antioch, marvell’d at Our unfamiliar beauties of the west; But wonder’d more at my much constancy To the monk-king, Louis, our former burthen, From whom, as being too kin, you know, my lord, God’s grace and Holy Church deliver’d us. I think, time given, I could have talk’d him out of His ten wives into one. Look at the hilt. What excellent workmanship. In our poor west We cannot do it so well. Becket. We can do worse. Madam, I saw your dagger at her throat; I heard your savage cry. Eleanor. Well acted, was it? A comedy meant to seem a tragedy— A feint, a farce. My honest lord, you are known Thro’ all the courts of Christendom as one That mars a cause with over-violence. You have wrong’d Fitzurse. I speak not of myself. We thought to scare this minion of the King Back from her churchless commerce with the King To the fond arms of her first love, Fitzurse, Who swore to marry her. You have spoilt the farce. My savage cry? Why, she—she—when I strove To work against her license for her good, Bark’d out at me such monstrous charges, that 736 The King himself, for love of his own sons, If hearing, would have spurn’d her; whereupon I menaced her with this, as when we threaten A yelper with a stick. Nay, I deny not That I was somewhat anger’d. Do you hear me? Believe or no, I care not. lost Thesear of the King.0 eI have: it.-2 2 My lord Paramount, Our great High-priest, will not your Holiness Vouchsafe a gracious answer to your Queen ? Becket. Rosamund hath not answer’d you one word; Madam, I will not answer you one word. Daughter, the world hath trick’d thee. Leave it, daughter ; Come thou with me to Godstow nunnery, And live what may be left thee of a life Saved as by miracle alone with Him Who gave it. You have Re-enter GEOFFREY, Geoffrey. Mother, you told mea great fib: it wasn’t in the willow. Becket. Follow us, my son, and we will find it for thee— Or something manlier. [Exeunt Becket, Rosamund, and Geoffrey. Eleanor. The world hath trick’d her —that’s the King; if so, There was the farce, the feint—not mine. And yet I am all but sure my dagger was a feint Till the worm turn’d—not life shot up in blood, But death drawn in ;—(looking at the vial) thzs was no feint then? no. But can I swear to that, had she but given Plain answer to plain query? nay, me- thinks Iiad she but bow’d herself to meet the wave BECKET. ACT IV. Of humiliation, she © loathed, ; I should have let her be, scorn’d her too much To harm her. this— To take my life might lose him Aquitaine. Too politic for that. Imprison me? No, for it came to nothing—only a feint. Did she not tell me I was playing on worshipt’ whom Henry—Becket tells him her ? T’ll swear to mine own self it was a feint. Why should I swear, Eleanor, who am, or was, A sovereign power? out their eyes Who anger him, and shall not I, the The King plucks Queen, Tear out her heart—kill, kill with knife or venom One of his slanderous harlots? ‘ None of such ?? I love her none the more. chance gone, She lives—but not for him; one point is Tut, the gain’d. O I, that thro’ the Pope divorced King Louis, Scorning his monkery,—I that wedded Henry, Honouring his manhood—will he not mock at me The jealous fool balk’d of her will—with him ? But he and he must never meet again. Reginald Fitzurse! Re-enter FITZURSE. Fitzurse. Here, Madam, at your pleasure. Eleanor. My pleasure is to have a man about me. Why did you slink away so like a cur? fetzurse. Madam, I am as much man as the King. Madam, I fear Church-censures like your King. Eleanor. He grovels to the Church when he’s black-blooded, SCENE II, BECKET. 737 But kinglike fought the proud archbishop, —kinglike Defied the Pope, and, like his kingly sires, The Normans, striving still to break or bind The spiritual giant with our island laws And customs, made me for the moment proud Ev’n of that stale Church-bond which link’d me with him To bear him kingly sons. sure But that I love him still. man! No more of that; we will to France and be Beforehand with the King, and brew from out This Godstow-Becket intermeddling such A strong hate-philtre as may madden him —madden Against his priest beyond all hellebore. I am not so Thou as much ACT..V. SCENE I.—CASTLE IN NORMANDY. KING’s CHAMBER. HENRY, ROGER OF YORK, FOLIOT, JOCELYN OF SALISBURY. Roger of York. Nay, nay, my liege, He rides abroad with armed followers, Hath broken all his promises to thyself, Cursed and anathematised us right and left, Stirr’d up a party there against your son— flenry. Roger of York, you always hated him, Even when you both were boys at Theobald’s. Roger of York. always hated bound- less arrogance. In mine own cause I strove against him there, And in thy cause I strive against him now. flenry. 1 cannot think he moves against my son, Knowing right well with what a tender- ness He loved my son. hoger of York. Before you made him king. But Becket ever moves against a king. The Church is all—the crime to be a king. We trust your Royal Grace, lord of more land Than any crown in Europe, will not yield To lay your neck beneath your citizen’s heel. Henry. Not to a Gregory of my throning! No. fFoliot. My royal liege, in aiming at your love, It may be sometimes I have overshot My duties to our Holy Mother Church, Tho’ all the world allows I fall no inch Behind this Becket, rather go beyond In scourgings, macerations, mortifyings, Fasts, disciplines that clear the spiritual eye, And break the soul from earth. Let all that be. I boast not: but you know thro’ all this quarrel I still have cleaved to the crown, in hope the crown Would cleave to me that but obey’d the crown, Crowning your son; for which our loyal service, And since we likewise swore to obey the customs, York and myself, and our good Salisbury here, Are push’d from out communion of the Church. Jocelyn of Salisbury. Becket hath trodden on us like worms, my liege ; Trodden one half dead; one half, but half-alive, Cries to the King. Flenry (aside). O King. Take care o’ thyself, ce) 738 Jocelyn of Salisbury. Being so crush’d and so humiliated We scarcely dare to bless the food we eat Because of Becket. Henry. What would ye have me do? Roger of York. Summon your barons; take their counsel: yet I know—could swear—as long as Becket breathes, Your Grace will never have one quiet hour. Henry. NVhatese ata Aye 28 aint pray you do not work upon me. T'see*your drift’... Sit. may besos, and yet You know me easily anger’d. Will you hence ? He shall absolve you . . . you shall have redress. I have a dizzying headache. Let me rest. Pll call you by and by. [Zxeunt Roger of York, Foliot, azd Jocelyn of Salisbury. Would he were dead! I have lost all love for him. If God would take him in some sudden way— Would he were dead. [Lzes down. Page (entering). My liege, the Queen of England. Henry. God’seyes! [Starting up. Enter ELEANOR. Lleanor. Of England? Say of Aquitaine. Iam no Queen of England. I had dream’d I was the bride of England, and a queen. Henry. And,—while you dream’d you were the bride of England, — Stirring her baby-king against me? ha! Eleanor. The brideless Becket is thy king and mine: I will go live and die in Aquitaine. Henry. Except I clap thee prison here, Lest thou shouldst play the wanton there again, into BECKET. ACT V. Ha, you of Aquitaine! O you of Aqui- taine ! You were but Aquitaine to Louis—no wife; You are only Aquitaine to me—no wife. Eleanor. And why, my lord, should- I be wife to one That only wedded me for Aquitaine ? Yet this no wife—her six and thirty sail Of Provence blew you to your English throne; And this no wife has born you four brave sons, And one of them at least is like to prove Bigger in our small world than thou art. flenry. Ay— Richard, if he de mine—I hope him mine. But thou art like enough to make him thine. Eleanor. Becket is like enough to make all his. Henry. Methought I had recover’d of the Becket, That all was planed and bevell’d smooth again, Save from some hateful cantrip of thine own. Eleanor. I will go live and die in Aquitaine. I dream’d I was the consort of a king, Not one whose back his priest has broken. fenry. What ! Is the end come? You, will you crown my foe I will be The end: is My victor in mid-battle ? Sole master of my house. mine. What game, what juggle, what devilry are you playing ? Why do you thrust this Becket on me again ? Eleanor. Why? for I am true wife, and have my fears Lest Becket thrust you even from your throne. Do you know this cross, my liege ? Hlenry (turning his head). Away! Not I. SCENE I, BECKET. 739 Eleanor. Not ev’n the central dia- mond, worth, I think, Half of the Antioch whence I had it. Flenry. That ? Eleanor. 1 gave it you, and you your paramour ; She sends it back, as being dead to earth, So dead henceforth to you. Hlenry. Dead! you have murder’d her, Found out her secret bower and murder’d her. Eleanor. Your Becket knew the secret of your bower. Henry (calling out). Ho there! thy rest of life is hopeless prison. Eleanor. And what would my own - Aquitaine say to that? First, free thy captive from “er hopeless prison. | ‘Henry. O devil, can I free her from the grave? Eleanor. You are too tragic: both of us are players In such a comedy as our court of Pro- vence Had laugh’d at. lay Of Walter Map: the lady holds the cleric That’s a delicate Latin Lovelier than any soldier, his poor tonsure A crown of Empire. Will you have it again ? (Offering the cross. He dashes it down.) St. Cupid, that is too irreverent. Then mine once more. (2s zt on.) Your cleric hath your lady. Nay, what uncomely faces, could he see you! Foam at the mouth Thomas, lord Not only of your vassals but amcurs, Thro’ chastest honour of the Decalogue Hath used the full authority of his Church To put her into Godstow nunnery. flenry. To put her into Godstow nunnery ! He dared not—liar! yet, yet I remem- ber— because King I do remember. He bad me put her into a nunnery— Into Godstow, into Hellstow, Devilstow ! The Church ! the Church ! God’s eyes! I would the Church were down in hell ! [ Avi. Eleanor. Aha! Enter the four KNIGHTS. Fitzurse. What made the King cry out so furiously? Lileanor. Our Becket, who will not absolve the Bishops. I think ye four have cause to love this Becket. Fitzurse. I hate him for his insolence to all. De Tracy. And TI for all his insolence to thee. De Brito. IT hate him for I hate him is my reason, And yet I hate him for a hypocrite. De Morville. J do not love him, for he did his best To break the barons, and now braves the King. Eleanor. Strike, then, at once, the King would have him—See! Re-enter HENRY. Hlenry. No man to love me, honour me, obey me! Sluggards and fools ! The slave that eat my bread has kick’d his King ! The dog I cramm’d with dainties worried me ! The fellow that on a lame jade came to court, A ragged cloak for saddle—he, he, he, To shake my throne, to push into my chamber— My bed, where ev’n the slave is private = he T’ll have her out again, he shall absolve The bishops—they but did my will—not you— Sluggards and fools, why do you stand and stare ? 740 BECKET. a — — eee You are no King’s men—you—you—you are Becket’s men. Down with King Henry! up with the Archbishop ! Will no man free me from this pestilent priest ? [Zxd. [Zhe Knights draw their swords. Eleanor. Are ye king’s men? J am king’s woman, I. The Knights, King’s men! men ! King’s SCENE II.—A Room IN CANTER- BURY MONASTERY. BECKET and JOHN OF SALISBURY, Becket. York said so? John of Salisbury. Yes: a man may take good counsel Ev’n from his foe. Becket. York will say anything. What is he saying now? gone to the King And taken our anathema with him. York ! Can the King de-anathematise this York ? John of Salisbury. Thomas, I would thou hadst return’d to England, Like some wise prince of this world from his wars, With more of olive-branch and amnesty For foes at home—thou hast raised the world against thee. Becket. Why, John, my kingdom is not of this world. John of Salisbury. If it were more of this world it might be More of the next. —there ! . [Becket puts on the mitre. The Pall ! Will you wear Becket. I go to meet my King! [Puts on the pall. Grim. To meet the King? [Crashes on the doors as they go out. John of Salisbury. Why do you move with such a stateliness ? Can you not hear them yonder like a storm, Battering the doors, and breaking thro’ the walls? Becket. Why do the heathen rage? My two good friends, What matters murder’d here, or murder’d there ? And yet my dream foretold my martyr- dom In mine own church. Go on. Nay, drag me not. to fly. It is God’s will. We must not seem SCENE III.—NortTH TRANSEPT OF CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL. On the right hand a flight of steps leading to the Choir, another flight on the left, leading to the North Aisle. Winter afternoon slowly darkening. Low thunder now and then of an approach- ing storm. MONKS heard chanting the service. ROSAMUND kneeling. Rosamund. O blessed saint, O glori- ous Benedict,— These arm’d men in the city, these fierce faces— Thy holy follower founded Canterbury— Save that dear head which now is Can- terbury, Save him, he saved my life, he saved my child, SCENE III. Save him, his blood would darken Henry’s name; Save him till all as saintly as thyself He miss the searching flame of purgatory, And pass at once perfect to Paradise. [Worse of steps and voices in the cloisters. Hark! Is it they? Coming! He is not here— Not yet, thank heaven. O save him ! [Goes up steps leading to chotr. Becket (entering, forced along by John of Salisbury and Grim). No, I tell you ! I cannot bear a hand upon my person, Why do you force me thus against my will? Grim. My lord, we force you from your enemies. Becket. As you would force, a king from being crown’d. John of Salisbury. We must not force the crown of martyrdom. [Servece stops. Monks come down from the stairs that lead to the chotr. Monks. Here is the great Arch- bishop! He lives! he lives! Die with him, and be glorified together. Becket. Yogether? . get you back ! go on with the office. Monks. Come, then, with us to vespers. Becket. How can I come When you so block the entry? Back, I say ! Go on with the office. Shall not Heaven be served Tho’ earth’s last earthquake clash’d the minster-bells, And the great deeps were broken up again, And hiss’d against the sun ? [Norse in the cloisters. Monks. The murderers, hark ! Let us hide ! let us hide! Becket. | What do these people fear ? Monks. Those arm’d men in the cloister. Becket. Be not such cravens ! I will go out and meet them. Grim and others. Shut the doors ! BECKET. 747 We will not have him slain before our face. [Zhey close the doors of the transept. Knocking. Fly, fly, my lord, before they burst the doors ! [ Knocking. Becket. Why, these are our own monks who follow’d us ! And will you bolt them out, and have them slain ? Undo the doors: castle: Knock, and it shall be open’d. deaf? What, have I lost authority among you ? Stand by, make way ! [Opens the doors. from cloister. Come in, my friends, come in ! Nay, faster, faster ! Monks. Oh, my lord Archbishop, A score of knights all arm’d with swords and axes— To the choir, to the choir ! [Monks divide, part flying by the stairs on the right, part by those on the left. The rush of these last bears Becket along with them some way up the steps, where he ts left standing alone. Becket. Shall I too pass to the choir, And die upon the Patriarchal throne Of all my predecessors ? John of Salisbury. No, to the crypt ! Twenty steps down. Stumble not in the darkness, Lest they should seize thee. Grim. To the crypt ? no—no, To the chapel of St. Blaise beneath the roof ! John of Salisbury (pointing upward and downward). That way, or this! Save thyself either way. Becket. Oh, no, not either way, nor any way Save by that way which leads thro’ night to light. Not twenty steps, but one. And fear not I should stumble in the darkness, the church is not a Are you Enter Monks 748 Not tho’ it be their hour, the power of darkness, But my hour too, the power of light in darkness ! I am not in the darkness but the light, Seen by the Church in Heaven, the Church on earth— The power of life in death to make her free ! [Enter the four Knights. John of Salisbury jizes to the altar of St. Benedict. fitzurse. Here, here, King’s men! [Catches hold of the last fying Monk. Where is the traitor Becket ? Monk. Iam not he! I am not he, my lord. I am not he indeed ! Fitzurse. Hence to the fiend ! [Pushes him away. Where is this treble traitor to the King? De Tracy. Where is the Archbishop, Thomas Becket ? Becket. Here No traitor to the King, but Priest of God, Primate of England. [Descending tnto the transept. I am he ye seek. What would ye have of me? fitzurse. Your life. De Tracy. Your life. De Morville. Save that you will absolve the bishops. Becket. Except Never, — they make submission to the Church. You had my answer to that cry before. De Morville. Why, then you are a dead man; flee! Becket. I will not. I am readier to be slain, than thou to slay. Hugh, I know well thou hast but half a heart To bathe this sacred pavement with my blood. God pardon thee and these, but God’s full curse Shatter you all to pieces if ye harm One of my flock ! BECKET. fiutzurse. shut ? They are thronging in to vespers—half the town. We shall be overwhelm’d, and carry him ! Come with us—nay—thou art our pri- soner—come ! De Morville. Ay, make him prisoner, do not harm the man, [Fitzurse Jays hold of the Arch- bishop’s Zadi, Becket. ‘Touch me not ! De Brito. How the good priest gods himself ! He is not yet ascended to the Father. Fitzurse. I will not only touch, but drag thee hence. Was not the great gate Seize him Becket. Thou art my man, thou art my vassal. Away! [flings him off till he reels, almost to falling. De Tracy (lays hold of the pail). Come; as he said, thou art our prisoner. Becket, Down ! [Throws him headlong, Fiteurse (advances with drawn sword). I told thee that I should re- member thee! Becket. Profligate pander ! Litzurse. Do you hear that ? strike, strike. [Strikes off the Archbishop’s mztre, and wounds hin in the forehead. Becket (covers his eves with his hand). I do commend my cause to God, the Virgin, St. Denis of France and St. Alphege of England, And all the tutelar Saints of Canterbury. [Grim wraps hts arms about the Archbishop. Spare this defence, dear brother, [Tracy has arisen, and approaches, hesttatingly, with his sword raised, Fitsurse. Strike him, Tracy! Rosamund (rushing down steps from the choir). No, No, No, No} ACT vV, @ SCENE III. BPHOCKET. 749 Fitsurse. This wanton here. De Becket (falling on his knees). At the Morville, right hand of Power— Hold her away. De Morville. I hold her. Rosamund (held back by De Morville, and stretching out her arms). Mercy, mercy, As you would hope for mercy. Lfitzurse. Strike, I say. Grim. O God, O noble knights, O sacrilege ! Strike our Archbishop in his own cathe- dral ! The Pope, the King, will curse you—the whole world Abhor you; ye will die the death of dogs ! Nay, nay, good Tracy. [Lz/ts his arm. Litzurse. Answer not, but strike. De Tracy, There is my answer then. [Sword falls on Grim’s arm, and glances from it, wounding Becket. Grim. Mine arm is sever’d. I can no more—fight out the good fight —die ‘Conqueror. [Staggers into the chapel of St. Benedict. Power and great glory—for thy Church, O Lord— Into Thy hands, O Lord—into Thy hands ! [Szaks prone. De Brito. This last to rid thee of a world of brawls! (A7zd/s him.) The traitor’s dead, and will arise no more. fitzurse. Nay, have we still’d him? What ! the great Archbishop ! Does he breathe? No? De Tracy. No, Reginald, he is dead. [Storm bursts. De Morville. Will the earth gape and swallow us? De Brito. Away! [De Brito, De Tracy, Fitzurse, rash out, crying ‘ King’s men!’ De Morville follows slowly. Flashes of lightning thro’ the Cathedral. Rosamund seez kneeling by the body of Becket. 1 A tremendous thunderstorm actually broke over the Cathedral as the murderers were leav- ing tt. The deed’s done— Nile Gide Cube: A TRAGEDY. DRAMATIS PERSON. GALATIANS. SyNORIX, an ex-Tetrarch. SINNATUS, @ Tetrarch. Maid. PHBE. Attendant, Cama, wife of Sinnatus, afterwards Boy. Priestess in the Temple of Artemis. ROMANS. ANTONIUS, a Roman General. Nobleman. PUBLIUS. Messenger. ACT I. The weakness and the dissonance of our SCENE I.—DIsrantT VIEW OF A CITY OF GALATIA. As the curtain rises, Priestesses are heard singing in the Temple. Loy discovered on a pathway among Rocks, picking grapes. A party of Roman Soldiers, guarding a prisoner in chains, come down the pathway and exeunt. Enter SYNORIX (looking round). Singing ceases. Synortx. Pine, beech and plane, oak, walnut, apricot, Vine, cypress, poplar, myrtle, bowering-in The city where she dwells. She past me here Three years ago when I was flying from My Tetrarchy to Rome. I almost touch’d her — A maiden slowly moving on to music Among her maidens to this Temple— O Gods! She is my fate—else wherefore has my fate Brought me again to her own city ?— married Since—married Sinnatus, the Tetrarch here— But if he be conspirator, Rome will chain, Orslay him. I may trust to gain her then When I shall have my tetrarchy restored By Rome, our mistress, grateful that I show’d her clans, And how to crush them easily. Wretched race ! And once I wish’d to scourge them to the bones. But in this narrow breathing-time of life Is vengeance for its own sake worth the while, If once our ends are gain’d? and now this cup— I never felt such passion for a woman. [Brings out a cup and scroll from under his cloak. ° What have I written to her? [keading the scroll. ‘To the admired Camma, wife of Sinnatus, the Tetrarch, one who years ago, himself an adorer of our great god- dess, Artemis, beheld you afar off worship- ping in her Temple, and loved you for it, sends you this cup rescued from the burning of one of her shrines in a city thro’ which he past with the Roman army: it is the cup we use in our marriages. Receive it from one who cannot at present write himself other than ‘A GALATIAN SERVING BY FORCE IN THE ROMAN LEGION.’ [Zurns and looks up to Boy. dost thou know the house of Sinnatus ? Boy. These grapes are for the house of Sinnatus— Close to the Temple. Boy, i 100 ty apn, tt. en SCENE I. THE SYNOrIX. Yonder ? Boy. — Yes. Synorix (aside). That I With all my range of women should yet shun To meet her face to face at once! My boy, . [Boy comes down rocks to him. Take thou this letter and this cup to Camma, The wife of Sinnatus. Boy. Going or gone to-day To hunt with Sinnatus. Synorix. That matters not. Take thou this cup and leave it at her doors. [Geves the cup and scroll to the Boy. Boy. Iwill, my lord. [Zakes his basket of grapes and exit. Enter ANTONIUS. Antonius (meeting the Boy as he goes out). Why, whither runs the boy? Is that the cup you rescued from the fire ? Synorix. I send it to the wife of Sinnatus, One half besotted in religious rites. You come here with your soldiers to enforce The long-withholden tribute: you suspect This Sinnatus of playing patriotism, Which in your sense is treason. You have yet No proof against him: now this pious cup Is passport to their house, and open arms To him who gave it; and once there I warrant I worm thro’ all their windings. Antonius. If you prosper, Our Senate, wearied of their tetrarchies, Their quarrels with themselves, their spites at Rome, Is like enough to cancel them, and throne One king above them all, who shall be true To the Roman: and from what I heard in Rome, This tributary crown may fall to you. CUP. vice Synortx. The king, the crown! their talk in Rome? is it so? [Antonius zzods. Well—I shall serve Galatia taking it, And save her from herself, and be to Rome More faithful than a Roman. [Zurns and sees Camma coming. Stand aside, Stand aside; here she comes ! [Watching Camma as she enters with her Maid. Camma (to Maid). Where is he, girl? Mard, You know the waterfall That in the summer keeps the mountain side, But after rain o’erleaps a jutting rock And shoots three hundred feet. Camma. The stag is there ? Maid. Seen in the thicket at the bottom there But yester-even. Camma. Good then, we will climb The mountain opposite and watch the chase. [Zhey descend the rocks and exeunt. Synorix (watching her). (Aside.) The bust of Juno and the brows and eyes Of Venus; face and form unmatchable ! Antonius. Why do you look at her so lingeringly? Synortx. To see if years have changed her Antonius (sarcastically). you? Synortx. I envied Sinnatus when he married her. Love her, do Antonius. Sheknows it? Ha! Synorix. She—no, nor ev’n my face. Antonius. Nor Sinnatus either ? Synorix. No, nor Sinnatus. Antonius. Hot-blooded! I have heard them say in Rome, That your own people cast you from their bounds, For some unprincely violence to a woman, As Rome did Tarquin. Synortx. Well, if this were so I here return like Tarquin—for a crown, 752 THE Antonius. And may be foil’d like Tarquin, if you follow Not the dry light of Rome’s straight-going policy, But the fool-fire of love or lust, which well May make you lose yourseif, may even drown you In the good regard of Rome. Synorix. Tut—fear me not ; I ever had my victories among women. I am most true to Rome. Antonius (aside). I hate the man ! What filthy tools our Senate works with ! Still I must obey them. (4/loud.) Fare you well. [ Going. Synorix. Farewell ! Antonius (stopping). A moment! If you track this Sinnatus In any treason, I give you here an order [Produces a paper. To seize upon him. Let me sign it. (Szgzs zt.) There ‘ Antonius leader of the Roman Legion.’ [Hands the paper to Synorix. Goes up pathway and exit. Synorix. Woman again !—but I am wiser now. No rushing on the game—the net,—the net. [Shouts of *Sinnatus ! Sinnatus!’ Then horn. Looking off stage.| He comes, a rough, bluff, simple-looking fellow. If we may judge the kernel by the husk, Not one to keep a woman’s fealty when Assailed by Craft and Love. Jl] join with him : I may reap something from him—come upon her Again, perhaps, to-day—/er. Who are with him ? I see no face that knows me. Shall I risk it? I am a Roman now, they dare not touch me. I will. “inter Sinnatus, Huntsmen and hounds. GUE: ACT T, Fair Sir, a happy day to you! You reck but little of the Roman here, While you can take your pastime in the woods. Sinnatus. Ay, ay, why note would you with me, man? Synorix. Iam a lifetlong lover of the chase, And tho’ a stranger fain would be allow’d To join the hunt. Sinnatus. Synortx. Stnnatus. Synorix. know That we Galatians are both Greek and Gaul. [Shouts and horns in the distance. Sinnatus. Hiullo, the stag! (Zo Synorix.) What, you are all un- furnish’d ? Give him a bow and arrows—follow— follow. i [2xzt, followed by Huntsmen. Synorix. Slowly but surely—till I see my way. It is the one step in the dark beyond Our expectation, that amazes us. [Distant shouts and horns. Hillo! Hillo! [#xzt Synorix. What Your name ? Strato, my name. No Roman name ? A Greek, my lord; you Shouts and horns. SCENE IJ.—A Room IN THE TETRARCH’S HOUSE. Frescoed figures on the walls. Evening. Moonlight outside. A couch weth cushions on it. A small table with a jiagon of wine, cups, plate of grapes, etc., also the cup of Scene Ll. A chair with drapery on it. CAMMA enters, and opens curtains of window. Camma. No Sinnatus yet—and there the rising moon. [Zakes up a cithern and sits on couch. Plays and sings. SCENE Il. THE CUP. 753 Moon on the field and the foam, Moon on the waste and the wold, Moon bring him home, bring him home Safe from the dark and the cold, Home, sweet moon, bring him home, Home with the flock to the fold— Safe from the wolf (Zistening.) Is he coming? I thought I heard A footstep. No not yet. They say that Rome Sprang from a wolf. I fear my dear lord mixt With some conspiracy against the wolf. This mountain shepherd never dream’d - of Rome. (Simgs.) Safe from the wolf to the fold And that great break of precipice that runs Thro’ all the wood, where twenty years ago Huntsman, and hound, and deer were all neck-broken ! Nay, here he comes. Enter SINNATUS followed by SYNORIX. Sinnatus (angrily). I tell thee, my good fellow, My arrow struck the stag. Synortx. But was it so? Nay, you were further off: besides the wind “Went with my arrow. Sinnatus. I am sure 7 struck him. Synortx. And I am just as sure, my lord, Z struck him. (Aszde.) And I may strike your game when you are gone. Camma. Come, come, we will not quarrel about the stag. I have had a weary day in watching you. Yours must have been a wearier. Sit and eat, And take a hunter’s vengeance on the meats. Sinnatus. No, no—we have eaten —we are heated. Wine! Camma. Who is our guest ? Sinnatus. Strato he calls himself. [Camma offers wine to Synorix, while Sinnatus helps himself. Stnnatus. I pledge you, Strato. [Driaks. Synortx. And I you, my lord. [Drenks. Stnnatus (seeing the cup sent to Camma). What’s here? ‘ Camma. A strange gift sent to me to-day. A sacred cup saved from a. blazing shrine Of our great Goddess, in some city where Antonius past. I had believed that Rome Made war upon the peoples not the Gods. Synortx. Most like the city rose against Antonius, Whereon he fired it, and the sacred shrine By chance was burnt along with it. Stnnatus. Had you then No message with the cup? Camma. Why, yes, see here. [Gives him the scroll. Sinnatus (reads). ‘To the admired Camma,—beheld you afar off—loved you —sends you this cup—the cup we use in our marriages—cannot at present write himself other than ‘A GALATIAN SERVING BY FORCE IN THE ROMAN LEGION.’ Serving by force! Were there no boughs to hang on, Rivers to drown in? No force Could make me serve by force. Serve by force ? Synorex. How then, my lord ? The Roman is encampt without your city— The force of Rome a thousand-fold our own. Must all Galatia hang or drown her- self? And you a Prince and Tetrarch in this province— Stnnatus. Province! Synortx. Well, well, they call it so in Rome. Sinnatus (angrily). Province! 3C 754 Synortx. A noble anger! but An- tonius To-morrow will demand your tribute— you, Can you make war? Have you alliances? Bithynia, Pontus, Paphlagonia ? We have had our leagues of old with Eastern kings. There is my hand—if such a league there be. What will you do? Sinnatus. Not set myself abroach And run my mind out to a random guest Who join’d me in the hunt. You saw my hounds True to the scent; and we have two. legg’d dogs Among us who can smell a true occasion, And when to bark and how. Synorix. My good Lord Sinnatus, I once was at the hunting of a lion. Roused by the clamour of the chase he woke, Came to the front of the wood—his monarch mane Bristled about his quick ears—he stood there Staring upon the hunter. dogs Gnaw’d at his ankles: at the last he felt The trouble of his feet, put forth one paw, Slew four, and knew it not, and so remain’d Staring upon the hunter: and this Rome Will crush you if you wrestle with her; then Save for some slight report in her own Senate Scarce know what she has done. (Aszde.) Would I could move him, Provoke him any way! (A/loud.) The Lady Camma, Wise I am sure as she is beautiful, Will close with me that to submit at once Is better than a wholly-hopeless war, Our gallant citizens murder’d all in vain, Son, husband, brother gash’d to death in vain, A score of LPHE COL, ACT I. And the small state more cruelly trampled ~ on Than had she never moved. ; Camma. Sir, I had once A boy who died a babe; but were he living And grown to man and Sinnatus will’d it; t Would set him in the front rank of the fight With scarce a pang. (Azses,) Sir, if a state submit At once, she may be blotted out at once And _ swallow’d in the conqueror’s chronicle, Whereas in wars of freedom and defence The glory and grief of battle won or lost Solders a race together—yea—tho’ they fail, The names of those who fought and fell are like A bank’d-up fire that flashes out again From century to century, and at last May lead them on to victory—I hope so— Like phantoms of the Gods. Stnnatus. Well spoken, wife. Synorix (bowing). Madam, so well I yield. Sinnatus. I should not wonder If Synorix, who has dwelt three years in Rome And wrought his worst against his native land, Returns with this Antonius. Synorix. What is Synorix ? Stnnatus. Galatian, and not know? This Synorix Was Tetrarch here, and tyrant also—did Dishonour to our wives. Synorex. Perhaps you judge him With feeble charity : being as you tell me Tetrarch, there might be willing wives enough To feel dishonour, honour. Camma. Do not say so. I know of no such wives in all Galatia. There may be courtesans for aught I know Whose life is one dishonour. SCENE II. Linter ATTENDANT, Attendant (aside). Stnnatus (aside). faction ? Attendant (aside), Ay, my lord. Synorix (overhearing). (Aside.) 1 have enough—their anti-Roman faction. Stnnatus (aloud). Some friends of mine would speak with me with- My lord, the men! Our anti- Roman out. You, Strato, make good cheer till I return. [Axzi. Synortx. I have much to say, no time to say it in. First, lady, know myself am that Galatian Who sent the cup. Camma. Synortx. Then that I serve with Rome to serve Galatia. That is my secret; keep it, or you sell me To torment and to death. [Comzng closer. For your ear only— I love you—for your love to the great Goddess. The Romans sent me here a spy upon you, To draw you and your husband to your doom. I’d sooner die than do it. [Takes out paper given him by Antonius. This paper sign’d Antonius—will you take it, read it? there ! Camma, (LReads.) on Sinnatus,—i Synorix. (Snatches paper.) Nomore. What follows is for no wife’s eyes, O Camma, Rome has a glimpse of this conspiracy ; Rome never yet hath spar’d conspirator. ‘You are to seize > Horrible! flaying, scourging, crucify- ing Camma. Iam tender enough. Why do you practise on me? Synorix. Why should I practise on you? How you wrong me! I am sure of being every way malign’d. I thank you from my heart. | THE CUP. = And if you should betray me to your husband Camma. Will you betray him by this order ? Synortx. I tear it all to pieces, never dream’d Of acting on it. [ Zears the paper. Camma. I owe you thanks for ever. Synovix. Hath Sinnatus never told you of this plot ? Camma, What plot ? Synorix. A child’s sand- castle on the beach For the next wave—all seen, —all calcu- See, lated, All known by Rome. No chance for Sinnatus, Camma. Why said you not as much to my brave Sinnatus ? Synorix. Braye—ay—too brave, too over-confident, Too like to ruin himself, and you, and me ! Who else, with this black thunderbolt of Rome Above him, would have chased the stag to-day In the full face of all the Roman camp? A miracle that they let him home again, Not caught, maim’d, blinded him. [Camma shudders. (Aszde.) I have made her tremble. (Aloud.) I know they mean to torture him to death. I dare not tell him how I came to know is I durst not trust him with—my serving Rome To serve Galatia: you heard him on the letter. Not say as much? I all bunt said as much. Iam sure I told him that his plot was folly. I say it to you—you are wiser—Rome knows all, But you know not the savagery of Rome. Camma. O-—have you power with Rome? use it for him ! 756 THE COL ACT I. I have no ‘such All that Synortx. Alas! power with Rome. Lies with Antonius. [As 2f struck by a sudden HG Comes over to her. He will pass to-morrow In the gray dawn before the Temple doors. You have beauty, —O great beauty, —and Antonius, So gracious toward women, never yet Flung back a woman’s prayer. Plead to him, I am sure you will prevail. Camma. Still—I should tell My husband. Synortx, Will he let you plead for him To a Roman ? Camma. I fear not. Synortx. Then do not tell him. Or tell him, if you will, when you return, When you have charm’d our general into mercy, And all is safe again. O dearest lady, [Murmurs of *Synorix! Synorix!’ heard outside, Think, —torture,—death,—and come. Camma. I will, I will. And I will not betray you. Synorix (aside). (As Sinnatus enters.) Stand apart. Enter SINNATUS and ATTENDANT. Stnnatus. Thou art that Synorix ! One whom thou hast wrong’d Without there, knew thee with Antonius. They howl for thee, to rend thee head from limb. Synortx. I am much malign’d. I thought to serve Galatia. Stnnatus. Serve thyself first, villain ! They shall not harm My gues within my house. There! (points to door) there ! this door Opens upon the forest! Out, begone ! Henceforth I am thy mortal enemy. Synorix, However I thank thee (draws his sword); thou hast saved my life. [Axze. Stnnatus. (Zo Attendant.) Return and tell them Synorix is not here. [Aaxit Attendant. What did that villain Synorix say to you? Camma. Stmnatus, doubt it ? One of the men there knew him. Camma. Only one, And he perhaps mistaken in the face. Stunatus. Come, come, could he deny it? What did he say? Camma. What should he say ? Sinnatus. What shozld he say, my wife ! He should say this, that being Tetrarch once His own true people cast him from their doors Like a base coin. . Camma. Not kindly to them ? Stnnatus. Kindly ? O the most kindly Prince in all the world ! Would clap his honest citizens on the back, Bandy their own rude jests with them, be curious About the welfare of their babes, their wives, O ay—their wives—their wives. should he say? He should say nothing to my wife if I Is he—that—Synorix ? Wherefore should you What Were by to throttle him! He steep’d himself In all the lust of Rome. How should you guess What manner of beast it is ? | Camma. Yet he seem’d kindly, And said he loathed the cruelties that Rome Wrought on her vassals. Stnnatus. Did he, honest man? Camma. And you, that seldom brook the stranger here, Have let him hunt the stag with you to- day. Stnnatus. I warrant you now, he said he struck the stag. SCENE III, THE. CUP, 707 Camma. Why no, he never touch’d upon the stag. Sinnatus. Why so I said, my arrow. Well, to sleep. [Goes to close door. Camma. Nay, close not yet the door upon a night That looks half day. Sinnatus. True; and my friends may spy him And slay him as he runs. Camma. He is gone already. Oh look,—yon grove upon the mountain, —white In the sweet moon as with a lovelier snow! But what a blotch of blackness under- neath ! Sinnatus, you remember—yea, you must, That there three years ago—the vast vine- bowers Ran to the summit of the trees, and dropt Their streamers earthward, which a breeze of May Took ever and anon, and open’d out The purple zone of hill and heaven; there You told your love; and like the sway- ing vines— Yea,—with our eyes,—our hearts, our prophet hopes Let in the happy distance, and that all But cloudless heaven which we have found together In our three married years! You kiss’d me there For the first time. Sinnatus, kiss me now. Sinnatus. First kiss. (A7sses her.) There then. You talk almost as if it Might be the last. Camma. Will you not eat a little ? Sinnatus. No, no, we found a goat- herd’s hut and shared His fruits and milk. Liar! You will believe Now that he never struck the stag——a brave one Which you shall see to-morrow. Camma. I rise to-morrow In the gray dawn, and take this holy cup To lodge it in the shrine of Artemis. Sinnatus. Good! Canma. If I be not back in half an hour, Come after me. Stnnatus. What! is there danger? Camma. Nay, None that I know: ’tis but a step from here To the Temple. Stnnatus. All my brain is full of sleep. Wake me before you go, I'll after you— After me now! [Closes door and exit. Camma (drawing curtains). Your shadow. Synorix— His face was not malignant, and he said That men malign’d him. Shall I go? Shall I go? Death, torture— ‘He never yet flung back a woman’s prayer ’>— I go, but I will have my dagger with me. [Zxze. SCENE Liy==SAME@AS SCENE -L. DAWN. Music and Singing in the Temple. Enter SYNORIX watchfully, after him PUBLIUS avd SOLDIERS. Publius ! Here! Do you re- Synorix. Publius. Symorix. member what I told you? Publius. When youcry ‘Rome, Rome,’ to seize On whomsoever may be talking with you, Or man, or woman, as traitors unto Rome. Synortx. Right. Back again. ~How many of you are there? Publius. Some half a score. [Exeunt Soldiers and Publius. 758 Synorix. I have my guard about me. I need not fear the crowd that hunted me Across the woods, last night. I hardly gain’d The camp at midnight. Will she come to me Now that she knows me Synorix? Not if Sinnatus Has told her all the truth about me. Well, I cannot help the mould that I was cast in. I fling all that upon my fate, my star. I know that I am genial, I would be Happy, and make all others happy so They did not thwart me. Nay, she will not come. Yet if she be a true and loving wife She may, perchance, to save this husband. Ay! See, see, my white bird stepping toward the snare. ; Why now I count it all but miracle, That this brave heart of mine should shake me so, As helplessly as some unbearded boy’s When first he meets his maiden in a bower. [Enter Camma (wth cup). The lark first takes the sunlight on his wing, But you, twin sister of the morning Star, Forelead the sun. Camma. Where is Antonius ? Synorix. Not here as yet. You are too early for him. [She crosses towards Temple. Synorix. Nay, whither go you now? Camma. To lodge this cup Within the holy shrine of Artemis, And so return. Synorix. To find Antonius here. [She goes into the Teniple, he looks after her. The loveliest life that ever drew the light From heaven to brood upon her, and enrich LS COL ACT I. Earth with her shadow! I trust she zzd/ return. These Romans dare not violate the Temple. No, I must lure my game into the camp. A woman I could live and die for. What! Die for a woman, what new faith is this ? I am not mad, not sick, not old enough To doat on one alone. Yes, mad for her, Camma the stately, Camma the great- hearted, So mad, I fear some strange and evil chance Coming upon me, for by the Gods I seem Strange to myself. Re-enter CAMMA., Camma. _ Where is Antonius? Synortx. Where? As I said before, you are still too early. Camma. Too early to be here alone with thee; For whether men malign thy name, or no, It bears an evil savour among women. Where is Antonius? (Lozd.) Synorix. Madam, as you know The camp is half a league without the city ; If you will walk with me we needs must meet Antonius coming, or at least shall find him There in the camp. Camma. No, not one step with thee. Where is Antonius? (Louder.) Synorix (advancing towards her). Then for your own sake, Lady, I say it with all gentleness, And for the sake of Sinnatus your husband, I must compel you. Camma (drawing her dagger). Stay! —too near is death. Synorix (disarming her). Is it not easy to disarm a woman? SCENE III. THE Enter SINNATUS (seizes him from behind by the throat). Synorix (throttled and scarce audible). Rome! Rome! Stnnatus. Adulterous dog! Synorix (stabbing him with Camma’s dagger). What! will you have it? [Camma utters a cry and runs to Sinnatus. Sinnatus (falls backward). I have it in my heart—to the Temple— fly— For my sake—or they seize on thee. Remember ! Away—farewell ! [Dies. Camma (runs up the steps into the Temple, looking back). Farewell! Synorix (seeing her escape).| The women of the Temple ne her in. Publius! Publius! No, Antonius would not suffer me to break Into the sanctuary. She hath escaped. [Looking down at Sinnatus. ; Adulterous dog!’ that red-faced rage at me! Then with one quick short stab—eternal peace. So end all passions. passions ? To warm the cold bounds of our dying life And, lest we freeze in mortal apathy, Employ us, heat us, quicken us, help us, keep us From seeing all too near that urn, those ashes Which all must be. serve us well. T heard a saying in Egypt, that ambition Is like the sea wave, which the more you drink, The more you thirst—yea—drink too much, as men Have done on rafts of wreck—it drives you mad. I will be no such wreck, am no such gamester As, having won the stake, would dare the chance Then what use in Well used, they COP: 750 Of double, or losing all. The Roman Senate, For I have always play’d into their hands, Means me the crown. And Camma for my bride— The people love her—if I win her love, They too will cleave to me, as one with her. There then I rest, Rome’s tributary king. [Looking down on Sinnatus. Why did I strike him ?—having proof enough Against the man, I surely should have left That stroke to Rome. He saved my life too. Did he? It seem’d so. I have play’d the sudden fool. And that sets her against me—for the moment. Camma—well, well, I never found the woman I could not force or wheedle to my will. She will be glad at last to wear my crown. And I will make Galatia prosperous too, And we will chirp among our vines, and smile At bygone things till that (focnting to Sinnatus) eternal peace. Rome ! [Znter Publius anzd Soldiers. Twice I cried Rome. Why came ye not before ? Publius. Why come we now? Whom shall we seize upon? Synorix (pointing to the body of Sin- natus). The body of that dead traitor Sinnatus. Bear him away. Music and Singing tn Temple. Rome ! AC adi: SCENE.—INTERIOR OF THE TEMPLE oF ARTEMIS. Small gold gates on platform in front of the veil before the colossal statue of the Goddess, and in the centre of the 760 THE GOP, ACT II, Temple a tripod altar, on which ts a lighted lamp. Lamps (lighted) sus- pended between each pillar. Tripods, vases, garlands of flowers, etc., about stage. Altar at back close to Goddess, with two cups. Solemn music. Priest- esses decorating the Temple. Linter a PRIESTESS. Priestess. Phoebe, that man from Synorix, who has been So oft to see the Priestess, waits once more Before the Temple. Phebe. We will let her know. [Szers to one of the Priestesses, who goes out. Since Camma fled from Synorix to our Temple, And for her beauty, stateliness, and power, Was chosen Priestess here, have you not mark’d Her eyes were ever on the marble floor ? To-day they are fixt and bright—they look straight out. Hath she made up her mind to marry him ? Priestess. To marry him who stabb’d her Sinnatus. You will not easily make me credit that. Phebe. Ask her. Enter CAMMA as Priestess (in front of the curtains). Priestess. You will not marry Synorix ? Camma. My girl, I am the bride of Death, and only Marry the dead. Priestess. Not Synorix then ? Camma. My girl, At times this oracle of great Artemis Has no more power than other oracles To speak directly. Phebe. Will you speak to him, The messenger from Synorix who waits Before the Temple ? Camma. Why not? Let him enter. [Comes forward on to step by tripod. Enter a MESSENGER. Messenger (kneels). Greeting and health from Synorix ! More than once You have refused his hand. When last I saw you, : You all but yielded. He entreats you now For your last answer. When he struck at Sinnatus— As I have many a time declared to you— He knew not at the moment who had fasten’d About his throat—he begs you to for- get it As scarce his act :—a random stroke: all else Was love for you: he prays you to be- lieve him. Camma. 1 pray him to believe— that I believe him. Messenger. Why that is well. mean to marry him ? Camma. J mean to marry him—if that be well. Messenger. This very day the Romans crown him king For all his faithful services to Rome. He wills you then this day to marry him, And so be throned together in the sight Ofall the people, that the world may know You twain are reconciled, and no more feuds Disturb our peaceful vassalage to Rome. Camma. To-day? Too sudden. I will brood upon it. When do they crown him ? You Messenger. Even now. Camma. And where ? Messenger. Here by your temple. Camma. Come once more to me Before the crowning, —I will answer you. [Axzt Messenger. Phebe. Great Artemis! O Camma, can it be well, Or good, or wise, that you should clasp a hand Red with the sacred blood of Sinnatus? Camma. Good! mine own dagger driven by Synorix found ie f RTT Te WISHES All good in the true heart of Sinnatus, And quench’d it there for ever. Wise ! Life yields to death and wisdom bows to Fate, Is wisest, doing so. Speak well? Rome, But he and I are Bath Galatian-born, And tributary sovereigns, he and I Might teach this Rome—from knowledge of our people— Where to lay on her tribute—heavily here And lightly there. Might I not live for Did not this man We cannot fight imperial that, And drown all poor self-passion in the sense Of public good ? Phebe. I am sure you will not marry him. Camma. Are you so sure? I pray you wait and see. [Shouts (from the distance), | ‘Synorix ! Synorix !’ Camma. Synorix, Synorix! So they cried Sinnatus Not so long since—they sicken me. One Who shifts his policy suffers something, must Accuse himself, Many Will feel no shame to give themselves the lie. Phebe. Most like it was the Roman soldier shouted. Camma. ‘heir shield-borne patriot of the morning star Hang’d at mid-day, their traitor of the dawn The clamour’d darling of their afternoon! And that same head they would have play’d at ball with And kick’d it featureless—they now would crown. [Flourish of trumpets. The excuse himself; the Enter a Galatian NOBLEMAN wth crown on a cushion. Noble (kneels). from Synorix. Greeting and health He sends you CUP. 761 This diadem of the first Galatian Queen, That you may feed your fancy on ae glory of it, And join your life this day with his, and wear it Beside him on his throne. your answer. Camma. Tellhim there is one shadow among the shadows, One ghost of all the ghosts—as yet so new, So strange among them—such an alien there, So much of husband in it still—that if The shout of Synorix and Camma sit- ting Upon one throne, should reach it, z¢ would rise— . . HE, with that red star between the ribs, And my knife there—and blast the king and me, And blanch the crowd with horror. I dare not, sir ! Throne him—and then the marriage—ay and tell him That I accept the diadem of Galatia— [All are amazed. Yea, that ye saw me crown myself withal. [Puts o1 the crown. I wait him his crown’d queen. Noble. So will I tell him. [Zxzt. Music. Two Priestesses go up the steps before the shrine, draw the curtains on either side (adtscovering the Goddess), then open the gates and remain on steps, one on either side, and kneel. A priestess goes off and returns with a veil of marriage, then assists Phebe to vel Cammia. At the same time Priestesses enter and stand on either szde of the Temple. Cammaand all the Priestesses kneel, ratse their hands to the Goddess, and bow down. He waits BLEW All rise. Camma. Fling wide the doors and let the new-made children Of our imperial mother see the show. [Sunlight pours through the doors. [Shouts, ‘Synorix ! Synorix !’ 762 I have no heart to do it. (Zo Phebe). Look for me ! [Crouches. Phoebe looks out. [ Shouts, ‘Synorix ! Synorix !’ Phebe. Heclimbs the throne. Hot blood, ambition, pride So bloat and redden his face—O would it were His third last apoplexy! O bestial! O how unlike our goodly Sinnatus. Camma (on the ground). You wrong him surely ; far as the face goes A goodlier-looking man than Sinnatus. Phebe: (aside). How dare she say it ? I could hate her for it But that she is distracted. [A flourish of trumpets. Camma. Is he crown’d ? Phebe. Ay, there they crown him. [Crowd wethout shout, ‘Synorix! Synorix !’ [4 Priestess brings a box of spices to Camma, who throws them on the altar-flame. Camma. Rouse the dead altar-flame, fling in the spices, Nard, Cinnamon, amomum, benzoin. Let all the air reel into a mist of odour, As in the midmost heart of Paradise. Lay down the Lydian carpets for the king. The king should pace on purple to his bride, And music there to greet my lord the king. [Mustc. (Zo Phebe). Dost thou remember when I wedded Sinnatus ? Ay, thou wast there—whether from . maiden fears Or reverential love for him I loved, Or some strange second-sight, the mar- riage cup Wherefrom we make libation to the Goddess So shook within my hand, that the red wine Ran down the marble and lookt like blood, like blood. Phebe. I do remember your first- marriage fears. LAE: COL ACT 1. Camma. I have no fears at this my second marriage. See here—lI stretch my hand out—hold it there. How steady it is ! Phebe. Steady enough to stab him ! Camma. O hush! O peace! This violence ill becomes The silence of our Temple. Gentleness, Low words best chime with this solem- nity. Enter a procession of Priestesses and Children bearing garlands and golden goblets, and strewing flowers. Linter SYNORIX (as King, with gold laurel- wreath crown and purple robes), fol- lowed by ANTONIUS, PUBLIUS, /Vod/e- men, Guards, and the Populace. Camma. Hail, King! Synortx. Hail, Queen ! The wheel of Fate has roll’d me to the top. I would that happiness were gold, that I Might cast my largess of it to the crowd! I would that every man made feast to- day Beneath the shadow of our pines and planes ! For all my truer life begins to-day. The past is like a travell’d land now sunk Below the horizon—like a barren shore That grew salt weeds, but now all drown’d in love And glittering at full tide—the bounteous bays And havens filling with a blissful sea. Nor speak I now too mightily, being King And happy! happiest, Lady, in my power To make you happy. Camma. Yes, sir. Synorex. Our Antonius, Our faithful friend of Rome, tho’ Rome may set A free foot where she will, yet of his courtesy Entreats he may be present at our marriage. ACT Il, THE Camma. Let him come —a legion with him, if he will. (Zo Antonius.) Welcome, my lord An- tonius, to our Temple. (To Synorix.) Youon this side the altar. (Zo Antonius.) You on that. Call first upon the Goddess, Synorix. [All face the Goddess. Priestesses, Children, Populace, and Guards kneel—the others remain standing. Synorix. O Thou, that dost inspire the germ with life, The child, a thread within the house of birth, And give him limbs, then air, and send him forth The glory of his father—-Thou whose breath Is balmy wind to robe our hills with grass, And kindle all our vales with myrtle- blossom, And roll the golden oceans of our grain, And sway the long grape-bunches of our vines, And fill all hearts with fatness and the lust Of plenty—make me happy in my marriage ! Chorus (chanting). Artemis, Artemis, hear him, Jonian Artemis ! Camma. O Thou that slayest the babe within the womb Or in the being born, or after slayest him As boy or man, great Goddess, whose storm-voice Unsockets the strong oak, and rears his root Beyond his head, and strows our fruits, and lays Our golden grain, and runs to sea and makes it Foam over all the fleeted wealth of kings And peoples, hear. Whose arrow is the plague—whose quick flash splits The mid-sea mast, and rifts the tower to the rock, And hurls the victor’s column down with him CUP. 763 That crowns it, hear. Who causest the safe earth to shudder and gape, And gulf and flatten in her closing chasm Domed cities, hear. Whose lava-torrents blast and blacken a province To a cinder, hear. Whose winter-cataracts find a realm and leave it A waste of rock and ruin, hear. I call thee To make my marriage prosper to my wish ! Chorus. Artemis, Artemis, hear her, Ephesian Artemis ! Camma. Artemis, Artemis, hear me, Galatian Artemis ! I call on our own Goddess in our own Temple. Chorus. Artemis, Artemis, hear her, Galatian Artemis ! [Zhunder. All rise. Synorix (astde). Thunder! Ay, ay, the storm was drawing hither the hills when I was being crown’d. Across | I wonder if I look as pale as she? Camma. Art thou—still bent—on marrying ? Synorex. Surely—yet These are strange words to speak to Artemis. Camma. Words are not always what they seem, my King. I will be faithful to thee till thou die. Synortx. I thank thee, Camma,—I thank thee. Canima (turning to Antonius). tonius, Much graced are we that our Queen Rome in you Deigns to look in upon our barbarisms. [Zurns, goes up steps to altar before the Goddess. Takes a cup from off the altar. Holds ut towards Antonius. Antonius goes up ¢o the foot of the steps opposite to Synorix. You see this cup, my lord. [Grves tt to hin. An- 764 Antonius. Most curious ! The many-breasted mother Astemis Emboss’d upon it. Camma. It is old, I know not How many hundred years. Give it me again. It is the cup belonging our own Temple. [Puts 2¢ back on altar, and takes up the cup of Act 1. Showing it to Antonius. Here is another sacred to the Goddess, The gift of Synorix; and the Goddess, being For this most grateful, wills, thro’ me her Priestess, In honour of his gift and of our mar- riage, That Synorix should drink from his own cup. pag Synortx. I thank thee, Camma,—I thank thee. Camma. For—my lord— It is our ancient custom in Galatia That ere two souls be knit for life and death, They two should drink together from one cup, In symbol of their married unity, Making libation to the Goddess. Bring me The costly wines we use in marriages. [Zhey bring in a large jar of wine. Camma fours wine into cup. (Zo. Synorix,);,.Seexhere, 1 fill ifao Antonius.) Will you drink, my lord ? Antonius. I? Why should I? I am not to be married. Camma. But that might bring a Roman blessing on us. Antonius (refusing cup). Thy pardon, Priestess ! Camma. Thou art in the right. This blessing is for Synorix and for me. See first I make libation to the Goddess, [Wakes libatzon. And now I drink. [Drinks and fills the cup again. Thy turn, Galatian King. Drink and drink deep—our marriage will be fruitful. THE CUP, ACT AE Drink and drink deep, and thou wilt make me happy. [Synorix goes up to her. She hands him the cup. He drinks. Synorix. There, Camma! _ I have almost drain’d the cup— A few drops left. Camma. Libation to the Goddess. [He throws the remaining drops on the altar and gives Camma the cup. Camma (placing the cup on the altar). Why then the Goddess hears. [Comes down and forward to tripod. Antonius follows. Antonius, Where wast thou on that morning when I came To plead to thee for Sinnatus’s life, Beside this temple half a year ago? Antonius. I never heard of this re- quest of thine. Synorix (coming forward hastily to foot of tripod steps). I sought him and I could not find him. Pray you, Go on with the marriage rites. Camma. Antonius ‘Camma !’ who spake? Antonius. Not I. Phebe. Nor any here. Camma. Iam all but sure that some one spake. Antonius, If you had found him plotting against Rome, Would you have tortured Sinnatus to death ? Antonius. No thought was mine of torture or of death, But had I found him plotting, I had counsell’d him To rest from vain resistance. Rome is fated To rule the world. Then, if he had not listen’d, I might have sent him prisoner to Rome. Synorix. Why do you palter with the ceremony? Go on with the marriage rites. Camma. They are finish’d. Synorix. How ! NOPHTY. ELLE. Camma. Thou hast drunk deep enough to make me happy. Dost thou not feel the love I bear to thee Glow thro’ thy veins ? Synortx. The love I bear to thee Glows thro’ my veins since first I look’d Peon thee: But wherefore slur the perfect ceremony? _ The sovereign of Galatia weds his Queen. Let all be done to the fullest in the sight Of all the Gods. Nay, rather than so clip The flowery robe of Hymen, we would add Some golden fringe of gorgeousness beyond Old use, to make the day memorial, when Synorix, first King, Camma, first Queen o’ the Realm, Drew here the richest lot from Fate, to live And die together. This pain—what is it >—again ? I had a touch of this last year—in— Rome. Yes, yes. (Zo Antonius.) Your arm— a moment—lIt will pass. I reel beneath the weight of utter joy— This all too happy day, crown—queen at once. [ Staggers. O all ye Gods—Jupiter !—Jupiter ! [Falls backward. Camma. Dost thou cry out upon the Gods of Rome? Thou art Galatian-born. Our Artemis Has vanquish’d their Diana. Synorix (on the ground) I am poison’d, She—close the Temple door. Let her not fly. Camma (leaning on tripod). Have I not drunk of the same cup with thee ? Synortx. Ay, by the Gods of Rome and all the world, She too—she too— the Queen ! and J— Monstrous ! I that loved her. Camma. I loved Azm. Synortx. O murderous mad-woman ! I pray you lift me bride! the CUP. 765 And make me walk awhile. I have heard these poisons May be walk’d down. [Antonius azd Publius raise him up. My feet are tons of lead, They will break in the earth—I am sinking—hold me— Let me alone. [They leave him; he sinks down on ground, Too late—thought myself wise— A woman’s dupe. Antonius, tell the Senate I have been most true to Rome—would have been true To her—if—if [alls as if dead. Camma (coming and leaning over hint). So falls the throne of an hour. Synortx (half rising). Throne? is it thou? the Fates are throned, not we— Not guilty of ourselves—thy doom and mine— Thou—coming my way too—Camma— good-night. [ Dies. Camma (upheld by weeping Priestesses). Thy way? poor worm, crawl down thine own black hole To the lowest Hell. Antonius, is he there ? I meant thee to have follow’d—better thus. Nay, if my people must be thralls of Rome, He is gentle, tho’ a Roman. [Sinks back into the arms of the Priestesses. Antonius. Thou art one With thine own people, and though a Roman I Forgive thee, Camma. Camma (raising herself). —why there again *“CAMMA !’ I am most sure that some one call’d. O women, Ye will have Roman masters. I am glad I shall not see it. Did not some old Greek Say death was the chief good? He had my fate for it, 766 THE CUP Poison’d. (Szzks back again.) Have I the crown on? I will go To meet him, crown’d! crown’d victor of my will—- On my last voyage—but the wind has fail’d— Growing dark too—but light enough to row. Row to the blessed Isles! the blessed Isles !— Sinnatus ! ACT II, Why comes he not to meet me? It is the crown Offends him—and my hands are too sleepy To lift it off. [Phoebe ¢akes the crown off. Who touch’d me then? I thank you. [Azses, with outspread arms. There—league on league of ever-shining shore Beneath an ever-rising sun—I see him— ‘Camma, Camma !’ Sinnatus, Sinnatus! [Dees. abi THE FALCON. DRAMATIS PERSON/E. THE CounT FEDERIGO DEGLI ALBERIGHI. Fivippo, Count’s foster-brother. Tue Lapy GIOVANNA. ELISABETTA, the Count’s nurse. COTTAGE. SEEN SCENE An’ ITALIAN CASTLE AND MOUNTAINS THROUGH WINDOW. ELISABETTA discovered seated on stool in window darning. The Count with Falcon on his hand comes down through the door at back. A withered wreath on the wall, Elisabetta. So, my lord, the Lady Giovanna, who hath been away so long, came back last night with her son to the castle. Count, Hear that, my bird! Art thou not jealous of her? My princess of the cloud, my plumed purveyor, My far-eyed queen of the winds—thou that canst soar Beyond the morning lark, and howsoe’er Thy quarry wind and wheel, swoop down upon him Eagle-like, lightning-like—strike, make his feathers Glance in mid heaven. [Crosses to chair, I would thou hadst a mate! Thy breed will die with thee, and mine with me: I am as lone and loveless as thyself. [Sets 22 chair. Giovanna here! Ay, ruffle thyself—de jealous! Thou should’st be jealous of her. Tho’ I bred thee The full-train’d marvel of all falconry, And love thee and thou me, yet if Giovanna Be here again—No, no! bird! Buss me, my The stately widow has no heart for me. Thou art the last friend left me upon earth— No, no again to that. [Azses and turns. My good old nurse, I had forgotten thou wast sitting there. Elisabetta. Ay, and forgotten thy foster-brother too. Count. Bird-babble for my falcon! Let it pass. What art thou doing there ? . Elisabetta. Darning your lordship. We cannot flaunt it in new feathers now: Nay, if we z7// buy diamond necklaces To please our lady, we must darn, my lord. This old thing here (pocnts to necklace round her neck), they are but blue beads—my Piero, God rest his honest soul, he bought ’em for me, Ay, but he knew I meant to marry him, How couldst thou do it, my son? How couldst thou do it? Count. She saw it at a dance, upon a neck Less lovely than her own, and long’d for it. Elisabetta. She told thee as much? Count. No, no—a friend of hers. Elisabetta. Shame on her that she took it at thy hands, She rich enough to have bought it for herself! Count. She would have robb’d me then of a great pleasure. Llisabetta. But hath she yet return’d thy love? Count. Not yet! 768 THE FALCON. Elisabetta. She should return thy necklace then. Count. Ay, if She knew the giver; but I bound the seller To silence, and I left it privily At Florence, in her palace. Lelisabetta. And sold thine own To buy it for her. Shenot know? She knows There’s none such other Count. Madman anywhere. Speak freely, tho’ to call a madman mad Will hardly help to make him sane again. Enter FILIPPO. Filippo. Ah, the women, the women! Ah, Monna Giovanna, you here again! you that have the face of an angel and the heart of a—that’s too positive! You that have a score of lovers and have not a heart for any of them—that’s positive- negative: you that have zo¢ the head of a toad, and zo¢ a heart like the jewel in it—that’s too negative; you that have a cheek like a peach and a heart like the stone in it—that’s positive again—that’s better ! Llisabetta. Sh—sh—Filippo! Filippo (turns half round). Here has our master been a-glorifying and a-velvet- ing and a-silking himself, and a-peacock- ing and a-spreading to catch her eye for a dozen year, till he hasn’t an eye left in his own tail to flourish among the pea- hens, and all along o’ you, Monna Gio- vanna, all along o’ you! , Llisabetta, Sh—sh—Filippo! Can’t you hear that you are saying behind his back what you see you are saying afore his face ? Count. Let him—he never spares me to my face! Filippo. No, my lord, I never spare your lordship to your lordship’s face, nor behind your lordship’s back, nor to right, nor to left, nor to round about and back to your lordship’s face again, for I’m honest, your lordship. Count. Come, come, Filippo, what is there in the larder ? [Elisabetta crosses to fireplace and puts on wood. Filippo. Shelves and hooks, shelves and hooks, and when I see the shelves I am like to hang myself on the hooks. Count. No bread? Lilippo. “alfa breakfast for a rat! Count. Milk? | Filippo. Three laps for a cat! Count. Cheese? filippo. A supper for twelve mites. Count. Eggs? filippo. One, but addled. Count. No bird? filippo. alfa tit and a hern’s bill. Count. Let be thy jokes and thy jerks, man! Anything or nothing? Filippo. Well, my lord, if all-but- nothing be anything, and one plate of dried prunes be all-but-nothing, then there is anything in your lordship’s larder at your lordship’s service, if your lord- ship care to call for it. Count. Good mother, happy was the prodigal son, For he return’d to the rich father; I But add my poverty to thine. And all Thro’ following of my fancy. Pray thee make Thy slender meal out of those scraps and shreds Filippo spoke of. As for him and me, There sprouts a salad in the garden still. (Zo the Falcon.) Why didst thou miss thy quarry yester-even ? To-day, my beauty, thou must dash us down Our dinner from the skies. Filippo! [Zxzt, followed by Filippo. Away, Elisabetta. I knew it would come to this. She has beggared him. I always knew it would come to this! (Goes up to table as if to resume darning, and looks out of window.) Why, as I live, there is Monna Giovanna coming down the hill from the castle. Stops and stares at our cottage. Ay. ay! stare at THE FALCON. 769 it: it’s all you have left us. Shame on you! Ske beautiful: sleek as a millers mouse! Meal enough, meat enough, well fed; but beautiful—bah! Nay, see, why she turns down the path through our little vineyard, and I sneezed three times this morning. Coming to visit my lord, for the first time in her life too! Why, bless the saints! I'll be bound to confess her love to him at last. I forgive her, I forgive her! I knew it would come to this—I always knew it must come to this! (Going up to door during latter part of speech and opens zt.) Come in, Madonna, come in. (Retires to front of table and curtseys as the Lady Giovanna enters, then moves chair towards the hearth.) Nay, let me place this chair for your ladyship. | [Lady Giovanna moves slowly down stage, then crosses to chair, looking about her, bows as she sees the Madonna over fireplace, then sits in chair. Lady Giovanna. the Count ? Elisabetta. Ay, my lady, but won’t you speak with the old woman first, and tell her all about it and make her happy? for I’ve been on my knees every day for these half-dozen years in hope that the saints would send us this blessed morning ; and he always took you so kindly, he always took the world so kindly. When he was a little one, and I put the bitters on my breast to wean him, he made a wry mouth at it, but he took it so kindly, and your ladyship has given him bitters enough in this world, and he never made a wry mouth at you, he always took you so kindly—which is more than I did, my lady, more than I did—and he so handsome—and bless your sweet face, you look as beautiful this morning as the very Madonna her own self—and better late than never—but come when they will—then or now—it’s all for the best, come when they will—they are made by the blessed saints—these marriages. [Raises her hands. Can I speak with Lady Giovanna. Marriages? I shall never marry again! Elisabetta (rises and turns). Shame on her then! Lady Giovanna. Elisabetta, To fly his falcon. Lady Giovanna. sa I come to breakfast with him. Elisabetta. Holy mother! To breakfast! Oh sweet saints! one plate of prunes! Well, Madam, I will give your message to him. [Axe Lady Giovanna. His falcon, and I come to ask for his falcon, The pleasure of his eyes—boast of his Where is the Count ? Just gone Call him back and hand— Pride of his heart—the solace of his hours— His one companion here—nay, I have heard That, thro’ his late magnificence of living And this last costly gift to mine own self, [Shows diamond necklace. He hath become so beggar’d, that his falcon Ev’n wins his dinner for him in the field. That must be talk, not truth, but truth or talk, How can I ask for his falcon ? [Rzses and moves as she speaks. O my sick boy! My daily fading Florio, it is thou Hath set me this hard task, for when I sa What nd I do—what can I get for thee ? He answers, ‘ Get the Count to give me his falcon, And that will make me well.’ Yet if I ask, He loves me, and he knows I know he loves me! Will he not pray me to return his love— To marry him ?—(fazwse)—I can never marry him. His grandsire struck my grandsire in a brawl 3D 77° — THE FALCON. At Florence, and my grandsire stabb’d | My liberality perforce is dead him there. The feud between our houses is the bar I cannot cross; I dare not brave my brother, Break with my kin. him, scorns The noblest-natured man alive, and I— Who have that reverence for him that I scarce Dare beg him to receive his diamonds back— How can I, dare I, ask him for his falcon? [Puts diamonds in her casket. My brother hates Re-enter COUNT and FILIPPO. COUNT turns to FILIPPO. Count. Do what I said; I cannot do it myself. Filippo. Why then, my lord, we are pauper’d out and out. Count. Do what I said! [Advances and bows low. Welcome to this poor cottage, my dear lady. Lady Giovanna. And welcome turns a cottage to a palace. Count. ’Tis long since we have met! Lady Giovanna. To make amends I Gome this day to break my fast with you. Count. Jam much honour’d—yes— [Zurns to Filippo. Do what I told thee. Must I do it my- self? Filippo. Twill, I will. fellow! [ Axe. Count. Lady, you bring your light into my cottage Who never deign’d to shine into my palace. My palace wanting you was but a cottage; My cottage, while you grace it, is a palace. Lady Giovanna. In cottage or in palace, being still Beyond your fortunes, you are still the king Of courtesy and liberality. Count. I trust I still maintain my courtesy ; (Szghs.) Poor '(Aside.) Thro’ lack of means of giving. Lady Giovanna. Yet-i-come To ask a gift. [Moves toward him a little. Count. It will be hard, I fear, - To find one shock upon the field when all The harvest has been carried. Lady Giovanna. But my boy— No, no! not yet—I cannot! Count. Ay, how is he, That bright inheritor of your eyes—your boy ? Lady Giovanna. Alas, my Lord Federigo, he hath fallen Into a sickness, and it troubles me. Count. Sick! is it so? why, when he came last year To see me hawking, he was well enough: And then I taught him all our hawking- phrases. Lady Giovanna. Oh yes, and once you let him fly your falcon. Count. How charm’d he was! what wonder ?—A gallant boy, A noble bird, each perfect of the breed. Lady Giovanna (sinks in chair). What do you rate her at? Count. My bird ? a hundred Gold pieces once were offer’d by the Duke. I had no heart to part with her for money. Lady Giovanna. No, not for money. [Count turns away and sighs. Wherefore do you sigh? Count. I have lost a friend of late. Lady Giovanna. I could sigh with you For fear of losing more than friend, a son}; And if he leave me—all the rest of life— That wither’d wreath were of more worth to me. [Looking at wreath on wall. Count. That wither’d wreath is of more worth to me Than all the blossom, all the leaf of this New-wakening year. [Goes and takes down wreath, Lady Giovanna, And yet I never saw THE FALCON. — 771 The land so rich in blossom as this year. Count (holding wreath toward her). Was not the year when this was gather’d richer ? Lady Giovanna. How long ago was that ? Count. Alas, ten summers ! A lady that was beautiful as day Sat by me at a rustic festival With other beauties on a mountain meadow, And she was the most beautiful of all ; Then but fifteen, and still as beautiful. The mountain flowers grew thickly round about. I made a wreath with some of these; I ask’d A ribbon from her hair to bind it with ; I whisper’d, Let me crown you Queen of Beauty, And softly placed the chaplet on her head. A colour, which has colour’d all my life, Flush’d in’ her face; then I was call’d away ; : And presently all rose, and so departed. Ah! she had thrown my chaplet on the ‘grass, And there I found it. [Lets his hands fall, holding wreath despondingly. Lady Giovanna (after pattse). long since do you say? Count. That was the very year before you married. Lady Giovanna, When I was married you were at the wars. Count. Had she not thrown my chaplet on the grass, It may be I had never seen the wars. [Replaces wreath whence he had taken it. Lady Giovanna. Ah, but, my lord, there ran a rumour then That you were kill’d in battle. tell you True tears that year were shed for you in Florence. Count. It might have been as well for me. Unhappily How I can I was but wounded by the enemy there And then imprison’d. Lady Giovanna. Happily, however, I see you quite recover’d of your wound. Count. No, no, not quite, Madonna, not yet, not yet. Re-enter FILIPPO. Filippo. My lord, a word with you. Count. Pray, pardon me ! [Lady Giovanna crosses, and passes behind chair and takes down wreath ; then goes to chair by table, Count (to Filippo). lippo ? Filippo. What is it, Fi- Spoons, your lordship. Count. Spoons ! Filippo. Yes, my lord, for wasn’t my lady born with a golden spoon in her ladyship’s mouth, and we haven’t never so much as a silver one for the golden lips of her ladyship. Count. Have we not half a score of silver spoons ? Filippo. Talfo’ one, my lord ! Count. How half of one? Lilippo. I trod upon him even now, my lord, in my hurry, and broke him. Count. And the other nine ? Filippo. Sold! but shall I not mount with your lordship’s leave to her lady- ship’s castle, in your lordship’s and her ladyship’s name, and confer with her ladyship’s seneschal, and so descend again with some of her ladyship’s own appur- tenances ? Count. Why—no, man. Only see your cloth be clean. [ Zxz¢ Filippo. Lady Giovanna. Ay, ay, this faded ribbon was the mode In Florence ten years back. here? a scroll Pinned to the wreath. My lord, you have said so much Of this poor wreath that I was bold enough To take it down, if but to guess what flowers Had made it ; and I find a written scroll What’s 772 THE FALCON. That seems to run in rhymings. I read ? Might Count. Ay, if you will. Lady Giovanna. It should be if you can. (Reads.) ‘Dead mountain.’ Nay, for who could trace a hand So wild and staggering ? Count. Close to the grating on a winter morn In the perpetual twilight of a prison, When he that made it, having his right hand Lamed in the battle, wrote it with his left. Lady Giovanna. O heavens! very letters seem to shake With cold, with pain perhaps, poor prisoner! Well, Tell me the words—or better—for I see There goes a musical score along with the them, Repeat them to their music. Count. You can touch No chord in me that would not answer you In music. Lady Gutovanna. said. [Count zakes guitar, Lady Gio- vanna szts listening with wreath in her hand, and quietly removes scroll and places tt on table at the end of the song. Count (sings, playing guitar). ‘Dead mountain flowers, dead mountain- meadow flowers, Dearer than when you made your moun- tain gay, Sweeter than any violet of to-day, Richer than all the wide world-wealth of That is musically May, To me, tho’ all your bloom has died away, You bloom again, dead mountain-meadow flowers.’ Enter ELISABETTA with cloth. Elisabetta. lord ! Count (singing). ‘Omountain flowers!’ A word with you, my This was penn’d, Madonna, | Elisabetta, A word, my _ lord! (Louder). Count (sings). ‘Dead flowers !’ Llisabetta. A word, my lord ! (Louder). Count. I pray you pardon me again! [Lady Giovanna looking at wreath. Count (to Elisabetta). What is it? Elisabetta. My lord, we have but one piece of earthenware to serve the salad in to my lady, and that cracked ! Count. Why then, that flower’d bowl my ancestor Fetch’d from the farthest east—we never use it For fear of breakage—but this day has brought A great occasion. You can take it, nurse! Elisabetta. 1 did take it, my lord, but what with my lady’s coming that had so flurried me, and what with the fear of breaking it, I did break it, my lord : it is broken! Count. My one thing left of value in the world ! No matter! see your cloth be white as snow ! Elisabetta (pointing thro window). White? I warrant thee, my son, as the snow yonder on the very tip-top o’ the mountain. Count. And yet to speak white truth, my good old mother, I have seen it like the snow on the moraine. Llisabetta. Wow can your lordship say so? There my lord! [Lays cloth. O my dear son, be not unkind to me. And one word more. [Gotng—returns. Count (touching guitar). Good!. let it be but one. Elisabetta. Hath she return’d thy love ? Count. Not yet! Elisabetia. And will she ? Count (looking at Lady Giovanna). I scarce believe it ! Elisabetta. Shame upon her then ! [Zxet. THE FALCON. 773 Count (sings). ‘Dead mountain flowers’ Ah well, my nurse has broken The thread of my dead flowers, as she has broken My china bowl. My memory is as dead. [Goes and replaces guitar. Strange that the words at home with me so long Should fly like bosom friends when needed most. So by your leave if you would hear the rest, The writing. Lady Giovanna (holding wreath toward him). There! my lord, you are a poet, And can you not imagine that the wreath, Set, as you say, so lightly on her head, Fell with her motion as she rose, and she, A girl, a child, then but fifteen, however Flutter’d or flatter’d by your notice of her, Was yet too bashful to return for it? Count. Was it so indeed? was it so? was it so? [Leans forward to take wreath, and touches Lady Giovanna’s hand, which she withdraws hastily; he places wreath on corner of chair. Lady Giovanna (with dignity). I did not say, my lord, that it was so ; I said you might imagine it was so. Luter FILiPpo with bowl of salad, which he places on table. Filippo. Were’s a fine salad for my lady, for tho’ we have been a soldier, and ridden by his lordship’s side, and seen the red of the battle-field, yet are we now drill-sergeant to his lordship’s lettuces, and profess to be great in green things and in garden-stuff. Lady Giovanna. Filippo. I thank thee, good [Zxzt Filippo. Enter ELISABETTA with bird on a dish which she places on table. Elisabetta (close to table). Here’s a fine fowl for my lady; I had scant time to do him in. I hope he be not underdone, for we be undone in the doing of him. Lady Giovanna. I thank you, my good nurse. Filippo (re-entering with plate of prunes). And here are fine fruits for my lady— prunes, my lady, from the tree that my lord himself planted here in the blossom of his boyhood—and so I, Filippo, being, with your ladyship’s pardon, and as your ladyship knows, his lordship’s own foster- brother, would commend them to your ladyship’s most peculiar appreciation. [Puts plate on table. Llisabetta. Filippo! Lady Giovanna (Count leads her to table). Nill you not eat with me, my lord ? Count. I cannot, Not a morsel, not one morsel. I have broken My fast already. I will pledge you. Wine! Filippo, wine ! [Szts near table; Filippo brings flask, fills the Count’s goblet, then Lady Giovanna’s ; Elisabetta s¢azds at the back of Lady Giovanna’s chazr. Count. It is but thin and cold, Not like the vintage blowing round your castle. We lie too deep down in the shadow here. Your ladyship lives higher in the sun. [They pledge each other and drink. Lady Giovanna. If I might send you down a flask or two Of that same vintage? There is iron in it. It has been much commended as a medicine. I give it my sick son, and if you be Not quite recover’d of your wound, the wine Might help you. yet The story of your battle and your wound. Lilippo (coming forward). I can tell you, my lady, I can tell you. Llisabetta. Filippo! will you take the word out of your master’s own mouth ? None has ever told me 774 Filippo. Wasit there totake? Put it there, my lord. Count. Giovanna, my dear lady, in this same battle We had been beaten—they were ten to one. The trumpets of the fight had echo’d down, I and Filippo here had done our best, And, having passed unwounded from the field, Were seated sadly at a fountain side, Our horses grazing by us, when a troop, Laden with booty and with a flag of ours Ta’en in the fight—— Lilippo. Ay, but we fought for it back, And kil?d—— Lilisabetta. Filippo ! Count. A troop of horse—— Filippo. Five hundred ! Count. Say fifty! Filippo. And we kill’d ’em by the score ! Elisabetta, Filippo! Lilippo. Well, well, well! I bite my tongue. Count. We may have left their fifty less by five. However, staying not to count how many, But anger’d at their flaunting of our flag, We mounted, and we dash’d into the heart of ’em. I wore the lady’s chaplet round my neck ; It served me for a blessed rosary. I am sure that more than one brave fellow owed His death to the charm in it. Llisabetta. Hear that, my lady! Count. I cannot tell how long we strove before Our horses fell beneath us; down we went Crush’d, hack’d at, trampled underfoot. The night, As some cold-manner’d friend may strangely do us The truest service, had a touch of frost That help’d to check the flowing of the blood. My last sight ere I swoon’d was one sweet face THE FALCON. Crown’d with the wreath. to come and go. They left us there for dead ! Elisabetta. Hear that, my lady! Filippo. Ay, and I left two fingers there fordead. See,mylady! (Showeng hts hand.) Lady Giovanna. I see, Filippo! Filippo. And I have small hope of the gentleman gout in my great toe. Lady Giovanna. And why, Filippo? [Smeling absently. Filippo. J left him there for dead too! Elisabetta. She smiles at him—how hard the woman is! My lady, if your ladyship were not Too proud to look upon the garland, you Would find it stain’d-—— Count (rising). Silence, Elisabetta ! Elisabetta. Stain’d with the blood of the best heart that ever Beat for one woman. [Points to wreath on chair. Lady Giovanna (rising slowly). I can eat no more ! Count. You have but trifled with our homely salad, But dallied with a single lettuce-leaf ; Not eaten anything. Lady Giovanna. Nay, nay, I cannot. You know, my lord, I told you I was troubled. My one child Florio lying still so sick, I bound myself, and by a solemn vow, That I would touch no flesh till he were well Here, or else well in Heaven, where all is well. [Elisabetta clears table of bird and salad: Filippo snatches up the plate of prunes and holds them to Lady Giovanna. filippo. But the prunes, my lady, from the tree that his lordship—— Lady Giovanna. Not now, Filippo. My lord Federigo, Can I not speak with you once more alone ? Count. Youhear, Filippo? fellow, go! That seem’d My good THE FALCON. filippo. But the prunes that your lordship—— Elisabetta, Filippo! Count. Ay, prune our company of thine own and go! Elisabetta. Filippo! Filippo (turning). Well, well! the women ! [Axer. Count. And thou too leave us, my dear nurse, alone. Elisabetta ( folding up cloth and going. And me too! Ay, the dear nurse will leave you alone; but, for all that, she that has eaten the yolk is scarce like to swallow the shell. [Zurns and curtseys stiffly to Lady Giovanna, then exit. Lady Gio- vanna fakes out diamond necklace Srom casket. Lady Giovanna. good nurse; servants Are all but flesh and blood with those they serve. My lord, I have a present to return you, And afterwards a boon to crave of you. Count. No, my most honour’d and long-worshipt lady, Poor Federigo degli Alberighi Takes nothing in return from you except Return of his affection—can deny Nothing to you that you require of him. Lady Giovanna. Then I require you to take back your diamonds— [Offering necklace. I doubt not they-are yours. No other heart Of such magnificence in courtesy Beats—out of heaven. They seem’d too rich a prize To trust with any messenger. In person to return them. [Count draws back. If the phrase ‘Return’ displease you, we will say— exchange them For your—for your—— Count (¢akes a step toward her and then back). For mine—and what of mine? I have anger’d your these old-world I came 775 Lady Giovanna. Well, shall we say this wreath and your sweet rhymes ? Count. But have you ever worn my diamonds ? Lady Giovanna. No! For that would seem accepting of your love. I cannot brave my brother—but be sure That I shall never marry again, my lord ! Count. Sure? Lady Giovanna. Yes4 Count, Is this your brother’s order ? Lady Giovanna. No! For he would marry me to the richest man In Florence ; but I think you know the saying— ‘ Better a man without riches, than riches without a man.’ Count. A noble saying—and acted on would yield A nobler breed of men and women. Lady, I find you a shrewd _ bargainer. wreath That once you wore outvalues twenty- fold The diamonds that you never deign’d to wear. i But lay them there for a moment ! [Poznts to table. Lady Giovanna places necklace on table. And be you Gracious enough to let me know the The boon By granting which, if aught be mine to grant, I should be made more happy than I hoped Ever to be again. Lady Giovanna. wreath, But you will find me a shrewd bargainer still. I cannot keep your diamonds, for the gift I ask for, to wzy mind and at this present Outvalues all the jewels upon earth. Count. It should be love that thus outvalues all. Then keep your 776 THE. FALCON. You speak like love, and yet you love me not. I have nothing in this world but love for you. Lady Giovanna. Love? it zs love, love for my dying boy, Moves me to ask it of you. Count. What ? my time ? Is it my time? Well, I can give my time To him that is a part of you, your son. Shall I return to the castle with you? Shall I Sit by him, read to him, tell him my tales, Sing him my songs? You know that I can touch The ghittern to some purpose. Lady Giovanna. No, not that ! I thank you heartily for that—and you, I doubt not from your nobleness of nature, f Will pardon me for asking what I ask. Count. Giovanna, dear Giovanna, I that once The wildest of the random youth of Florence Before I saw you—all my nobleness Of nature, as you deign to call it, draws From you, and from my constancy to you. No more, but speak. Lady Giovanna. sick people, More specially sick children, have strange fancies, Strange longings; and to thwart them in their mood May work them grievous harm at times, may even Hasten their end. son ! It might be easier then for you to make Allowance for a mother — her — who comes To rob you of your one delight on earth. How often has my sick boy yearn’d for this ! I have put him off as often ; but to-day TI will. You know I would you had a I dared not—so much weaker, so much worse For last day’s journey. I was weeping | for him ; He gave me his hand: ‘I should be well again If the good Count would give me——’ Count. Give me. Lady Giovanna. His falcon. My falcon ! Yes, your falcon, Count (starts back). Lady Giovanna. Federigo ! Count. Alas, I cannot! Lady Giovanna. Cannot? Evenso! I fear’d as much. O this unhappy world ! How shall I break it to him? how shall I tell him ? The boy may die: more blessed were the rags Of some pale beggar-woman seeking alms For her sick son, if he were like to live, Than all my childless wealth, if mine must die. I was to blame—the love you said you bore me— My lord, we thank you for your entertain- ment. [With a stately curtsey. And so return—Heaven help him !—to our son. [Zurns. Count (rushes forward). Stay, stay, Iam most unlucky, most unhappy. You never had look’d in on me before, And when you came and dipt your sovereign head Thro’ these low doors, you ask’d to eat with me. I had but emptiness to set before you, No not a draught of milk, no not an ese, Nothing but my brave bird, my noble falcon, My comrade of the house, and of the field. She had to die for it—she died for you. Perhaps I thought with those of old, the | nobler The victim was, the more acceptable Might be the sacrifice. I fear you scarce ft eet ee THE FALCON. Will thank me for your entertainment now. Lady Giovanna (returning). with him no longer. I bear Count. No, Madonna ! And he will have to bear with it as he may. Lady Giovanna. I break with him for ever ! Count. Yes, Giovanna, ~ But he will keep his love to you for ever ! Lady Giovanna. You? you? not you! My brother! my hard brother ! O Federigo, Federigo, I love you ! Spite of ten thousand brothers, Federigo. [alls at his feet. Count (impetuously). Why then the dying of my noble bird Hath served me better than her living— then [ Zakes diamonds from table. These diamonds are both yours and mine —have won Their value again—beyond all markets —there 777 I lay them for the first time round your neck. [Lays necklace round her neck. And then this chaple-—No more feuds, but peace, Peace and conciliation! I will make Your brother love me. See, I tear away The leaves were darken’d by the battle— [Pulls leaves off and throws them down. —crown you Again with the same crown my Queen of Beauty. [Places wreath on her head. Rise—I could almost think that the dead garland Will break once more into the living blossom. Nay, nay, I pray you rise. [Raises her with both hands. We two together Will help to heal your son—your son and mine— We shall do it—we shall do it. [Embraces her. The purpose of my being is accomplish’d, And I am happy! Lady Giovanna. And I too, Federigo. THE PROMISE, OT i ‘A surface man of theories, true to none.’ DRAMATIS PERSONA. FARMER DosBson. Mr. Puicie Epcar (afterwards Mr HArRo._p). FARMER STEER (Dora and Eva’s Father). Mr. Wi son (a Schoolmaster). Hiccins JAMES Dan SMITH JACKSON ALLEN Dora STEER. Eva STEER. SaLty ALLEN MILLy Farm Labourers. } Farm Servants. Farm Servants, Labourers, etc. AGE 4; SCENE.—BEFORE FARMHOUSE. Farming Men and Women. Farming Men carrying forms, etc., Women carrying baskets of knives and forks, ete. 1st Farming Man. Be thou a-gawin’ to the long barn ? 2nd Farming Man. Ay, to be sewer ! Be thou ? 1st Farming Man. Why, ©’ coorse, fur it be the owd man’s birthdady. He be heighty this very daay, and ’e telled all on us to be?’ the long barn by one o’clock, fur he’ll gie us a big dinner, and haafe th’ parish “Il be theer, an’ Miss Dora, an’ Miss Eva, an’ all ! 2nd Farming Man. Miss Dora be coomed back, then? 1st Farming Man. Ay, haafe an hour ago. She bein theer now. (Ponting to house.) Owd Steer wur afeard she wouldn’t be back i’ time to keep his birthdaay, and he wur in a tew about it all the murnin’; and he sent me wi’ the gig to Littlechester to fetch ’er; and ’er an’ the owd man they fell a kissin’ o’ one another like two sweet’arts i’ the poorch as soon as he clapt eyes of ’er. 2nd Farming Man. Foilks says he likes Miss Eva the best. 1st Farming Man. Naay, I knaws nowt o’ what foalks says, an’ I cadres nowt neither. Foalks doesn’t hallus knaw thessens; but sewer I be, they be two o’ the purtiest gels ye can see of a summer murnin’, 2nd Farming Man. Beant Miss Eva gone off a bit of ’er good looks o’ laate? 1st Larming Man. Noi, not a bit. 2nd Farming Man. Why coom awaay, then, to the long barn. [Lxeunt. DorA looks out of window. Enter DOBSON. Dora (stinging). The town lay still in the low sun-light, The hen cluckt late by the whitefarm gate, The maid to her dairy came in from the cow, The stock-dove coo’d at the fall of night, The blossom had open’d on every bough ; O joy for the promise of May, of May, ‘O joy for the promise of May. (Modding at Dobson.) down, Mr. Dobson. yet. I’m coming I haven’t seen Eva Is she anywhere in the garden? AL hy Dobson. ’er neither. Nod, Miss. I ha’n’t seed Dora (enters singing). But ared fire woke in the heart of the town, And a fox from the glen ran away with the hen, And a cat to the cream, and a rat to the cheese; And the stock-dove coo’d, till a kite dropt down, And a salt wind burnt the blossoming trees; O grief for the promise of May, of May, O grief for the promise of May. I don’t know why I sing that song; I don’t love it. Dobson. voice, Miss Dora. ye that? Dora. In Cumberland, Mr. Dobson. Dobson. An’ how did ye leave the owd uncle i’ Coomberland ? Dora. Getting better, Mr. Dobson. But he’ll never be the same man again. Dobson. An’ how d’ye find the owd man ’ere? Dora. . As well as ever. to keep his birthday. Dobson. Well, I be coomed to keep his birthdaay an’ all. The owd man be heighty to-daay, beant he? Dora. Yes, Mr. Dobson. And the day’s bright like a friend, but the wind east like anenemy. Help me to move this bench for him into the sun. (7Zzhey move bench.) No, not that way—here, under the apple tree. Thank you. Look how full of rosy blossom it is. [Pointing to apple tree. Dobson. Theer be redder blossoms nor them, Miss Dora. Blessings on your pretty Wheer did they larn I came back Dora. Where do they blow, Mr. Dobson ? Dobson. Under your eyes, Miss Dora. Dora. Do they? Dobson. And your eyes be as blue as—— Dora. What, Mr. Dobson? —(a/oud) fly with me to- day. No! Philip, Philip, if you do not marry me, I shall go mad for utter shame and die. Edgar. Then, if we needs must be conventional, When shall your parish-parson bawl our banns Before your gaping clowns? Eva. Not in our church— I think I scarce could hold my head up there. Is there no other way? Ladgar. Yes, if you cared To fee an over-opulent superstition, Then they would grant you what they call a licence Lua. To marry. Do you wish it? Eva. Do I wish it ? Lidgar. In London. £va. You will write to me? Edgar. . I will. fva. And I will fly to you thro’ the night, the storm— Yes, tho’ the fire should run along the ground, As once it did in Egypt. Oh, you see, I was just out of school, I had no mother— My sister far away man, Told me to trust you: yes, in every- thing— That was the only ¢vwe love; and I trusted— Oh, yes, indeed, I would have died for you. How could you—Oh, how could you ?— nay, how could I? But now you will set all right again, and I Shall not be made the laughter of the village, And poor old father not die miserable. 3 E and you, a gentle- 786 THE PROMISE OF MAY. ACT II. ee nL EEE EEE PE aaa; ae Dora (singing in the distance). O joy for the promise of May, of May, O joy for the promise of May. Edgar. Speak not so loudly; that must be your sister. You never told her, then, of what has past Between us. Eva. Never! Edgar. Do not till I bid you. Eva. No, Philip, no. [Zurns away. Edgar (moved). How gracefully there she stands Weeping—the little Niobe! What! we prize The statue or the picture all the more When we have made them ours! Is she less loveable, Less lovely, being wholly mine? stay— Follow my art among these quiet fields, Live with these honest folk—— And play the fool! No! she that gave herself to me so easily Will yield herself as easily to another. Eva. Did you speak, Philip ? Edgar. Nothing more, farewell. [ Zhey embrace. Dora (coming nearer). O grief for the promise of May, of May, O grief for the promise of May. Ldgar (still embracing her). Keep up your heart until we meet again. If that should break before we meet again? fdgar. Break! nay, but call for Philip when you will, And he returns. £va. Heaven hears Edgar ! Edgar (moved). And he would hear you even from the grave. Ifeaven curse him if he come not at your calt! [Zxzt. To Eva. you, Philip LEinter DORA. Well, Eva! Oh, Dora, Dora, how long you Dora. Eva, have been away from home! Oh, how often I have wished for you! It seemed to me that we were parted for ever. Dora. For ever, you foolish child! What’s come over you? We parted like the brook yonder about the alder island, to come together again in a moment and to go on together again, till one of us be married. But where is this Mr. Edgar whom you praised so in your first letters ? You haven’t even mentioned him in your last ? Lva. He has gone to London. Dora. Ay, child; and you look thin and pale. Is it for his absence? Have you fancied yourself in love with him? That’s all nonsense, you know, such a baby as you are. But you shall tell me all about it. Eva. Not now—presently. Yes, I have been in trouble, but I am happy—I think, quite happy now. Dora (taking Eva’s hand). Come, then, and make them happy in the long barn, for father is in his glory, and there is a piece of beef like a house-side, and a plum-pudding as big as the round hay- stack, But see they are coming out for the dance already. Well, my child, let us join them. EVA szés STEER Linter all from barn laughing. reluctantly under apple tree. enters smoking, stts by EVA. Dance. ACTUAL Live years have elapsed between Acts 1 GH TT. SCENE.—A MEADOW. ON ONE SIDE A PATHWAY GOING OVER A RUSTIC BripGe. AT BACK THE FARMHOUSE AMONG TREES. IN THE DISTANCE A CHURCH SPIRE. DOBSON and DORA. Dobson. Sothe owduncle i? Coomber- land be dead, Miss Dora, beant he? AGT iT. THE PROMISE OF MAY. 787 Dora. Yes, Mr. Dobson, I’ve been attending on his deathbed and his burial. Dobson. It be five year sin’ ye went afoor to him, and it seems to me nobbut tother day. Hesn’t he left ye nowt ? Dora. No, Mr. Dobson. Dobson. But he were mighty fond o’ ye, warn’t he? Dora. Fonder of poor Eva—like everybody else. Dobson (handing Dora basket of roses). Not like me, Miss Dora; and I ha’ browt these roses to ye—I forgits what they calls ’em, but I hallus gi’ed soom on ’em to Miss Eva at this time o’ year. Will ya taake ’em? fur Miss Eva, she set the bush by my dairy winder afoor she went to school at Littlechester—so I allus browt soom on ’em to her; and now she be gone, will ye taike em, Miss Dora? Dora, I thank you. They tell me that yesterday you mentioned her name too suddenly before my father. See that you do not do so again! Dobson. Noa; I knaws a deal better now. I seed how the owd man wur vext, Dora. sake. [Zakes basket, places some in her dress. Dobson. Eva’s saike. Yeas. Poor gel, poor gel! I can’t abear to think on ’er now, fur I’d ha’ done owt fur ’er my- sen; an’ ony 0’ Steer’s men, an’ ony 0’ my men ’ud ha’ done owt fur ’er, an’ all the parish ’ud ha’ done owt fur ’er, fur we was all on us proud on’er, an’ them theer be soom of her oan roses, an’ she wur as sweet as ony on ’em—the Lord bless ’er—’er o&n sen; an’ weant ye taike ’em now, Miss Dora, fur ’er saake an’ fur my saake an’ all? Dora. Do you want them back again? Dobson. Noai,noa! Keep ’em. But I hed a word to saiay to ye. Dora. Why, Farmer, you should be I take them, then, for Eva’s in the hayfield looking after your men; you couldn’t have more splendid weather. Dobson. I be a going theer; but I thowt I’d bring tha them roses fust. The weather’s well anew, but the glass be a bit shaaky. S’iver we’ve led moist on it. Dora. Ay! but you must not be too sudden with it either, as you were last year, when you put it in green, and your stack caught fire. Dobson. I were insured, Miss, an’ I lost nowt by it. But I weant be too sudden wi’ it; and I feel sewer, Miss Dora, that I ha’ been noan too sudden wi’ you, fur I ha’ sarved for ye well nigh as long as the man sarved for ’is sweet’art i Scriptur.. Weant ye gi’e me a kind answer at last ? | Dora. Ihave no thought of marriage, my friend. We have been in such grief these five years, not only on my sister’s account, but the ill success of the farm, and the debts, and my father’s breaking down, and his blindness. How could I think of leaving him? Dobson. Eh, but I be well to do; and if ye would nobbut hev me, I would taake the owd blind man to my oan fire- side. You should hev him allus wi’ ye. Dora. You are generous, but it cannot be. I cannot love you; nay, I think I never can be brought to love any man. It seems to me that I hate men, ever since my sister left us. Oh, see here. (Pulls out a letter.) I wear it next my heart. Poor sister, I had it five years. ago. ‘Dearest Dora,—I have lost my- self, and am lost for ever to you and my poor father. I thought Mr. Edgar the best of men, and he has proved himself the worst. Seek not for me, or you may find me at the bottom of the river. — Eva.’ Dobson. Be that my fault ? Dora. No; but how should IJ, with this grief still at my heart, take to the milking of your cows, the fatting of your calves, the making of your butter, and the managing of your poultry? Dobson. Nady, but I hev an owd woman as ’ud see to all that; and you should sit i’ your oan parlour quite likea laidy, ye should! Dora. It cannot be. Dobson, And plaay the pianner, if ye 788 liked, all dady long, like a laddy, ye should an’ all. Dora. It cannot be. Dobson. And I would loove tha moor nor ony gentleman ’ud loove tha. Dora. No, no; it cannot be. Dobson. And p’raps ye hears ’at I soomtimes taikes a drop too much; but that be all along o’ you, Miss, because ye wednt hev me; but, if ye would, I could put all that o’ one side easy anew. Dora. Cannot you understand plain words, Mr. Dobson? I tell you, it can- not be. Dobson. Eh, lass! Thy feyther eddi- cated his darters to marry gentlefoalk, and see what’s coomed on it. Dora. That is enough, Farmer Dob- son. You have shown me that, though fortune had born yoz into the estate of a gentleman, you would still have been You had better attend Good afternoon. [Zxz¢. Dobson. ‘Farmer Dobson!’ Well, I be Farmer Dobson; but I thinks Farmer Dobson’s dog ’ud ha’ knaw’d better nor to cast her sister’s misfortin inter ’er teeth arter she’d been a-readin’ me the letter wi’ ’er voice a-shaakin’, and the drop in ’er eye. Theer she gods! Shall I foller ’er and ax ’er to maake it up? Noa, not yet. Let ’er cool upon it; I likes ’er all the better fur taakin’ me down, like a laddy, as she be. Farmer Dobson! I be Farmer Dobson, sewer anew; but if iver I cooms upo’ Gentleman Hedgar agean, and doant lady my cartwhip athurt ’is shou’ders, why then I beant Farmer Dobson, but summun else—blaadme’t if I beant! Farmer Dobson. to your hayfield. Enter HAYMAKERS with a load of hay. The last on it, eh? 1st Haymaker. Yeas. Dobson. WHoadm wi’ it, then. [Lact surlily. 1st Haymaker. Well, it be the last load hoam. 2nd Haymaker. Yeas, an’ owd Dobson THE PROMISE OF MAY. ACT Il. should be glad on it. What maakes im allus sa glum? Sally Allen. Glum! he be wuss nor glum. He coom’d up to me yisterdaay i? the haayfield, when mea and my sweet’art was a workin’ along o’ one side wi’ one another, and he sent ’im awaay to t’other end o’ the field; and when I axed ’im why, he telled me ’at sweet’arts niver worked well togither ; and I telled ’zm ’at sweet’arts allus worked best togither ; and then he called me a rude nadme, and I can’t abide ’im. James. Why, lass, doant tha knaw he be sweet upo’ Dora Steer, and she weant sa much as look at ’im? And wheniver ’e sees two sweet’arts togither like thou and me, Sally, he be fit to bust hissen wi’ spites and jalousies. Sally. Let ’im bust hissen, then, for owt J cares. Ist Haymaker. Well but, as I said afoor, it be the last load hodm ; do thou and thy sweet’art sing us hoim to supper —‘ The Last Load Hoam.’ All, Ay! ‘The Last Load Hoam.’ Song. What did ye do, and what did ye saay, Wi’ the wild white rose, an’ the wood- bine sa gaay, An’ the midders all mow’d, an’ the sky sa blue— What did ye saay, and what did ye do, When. ye thowt there were nawbody watchin’ o’ you, And you an’ your Sally was forkin’ the haay, At the end of the daay, For the last load hoam ? What did we do, and what did we saay, Wi the briar sa green, an’ the willer sa graay, An’ the midders all mow’d, an’ the sky sa blue— ‘Do ye think I be gawin’ to tell it to you, What wemowtsaay, and what wemowt do, When me an’ my Sally was forkin’ the haay, ACT II. THE PROMISE OF MAY. 789 At the end of the daay, For the last load hoam ? But what did ye saidy, and what did ye do, Wi the butterflies out, and the swallers at plaay, An’ the midders all mow’d, an’ the sky sa blue? Why, coom then, owd feller, I’ll tell it to you ; For me an’ my Sally we swear’d to be true, To be true to each other, let ’appen what maay, 2 Till the end of the daay And the last load hoam. All, Well sung! James. Fanny be the naamei’ the song, but I swopt it fur she. [Pointing to Sally. Sally. Let ma aloan afoor foalk, wilt tha? Ist Haymaker. Ye shall sing that agean to-night, fur owd Dobson ’ll gi’e us a bit o’ supper. Sally. I weant goa to owd Dobson ; he wur rude to me i’ tha hadayfield, and he’ll be rude to me agean to-night. Owd Steer’s gotten all his grass down and wants a hand, and I’ll goa to him. Ist Haymaker. Owd Steer gi’es nubbut cowd tea to ’zs men, and owd Dobson gi’es beer. Sally. But I'd like owd Steer’s cowd tea better nor Dobson’s beer. Good-bye. [Gozng. Gi’e us a buss fust, lass. Sally. I tell’d tha to let ma aloan ! James. Why, wasn’t thou and me a-bussin’ 0’ one another t’other side o’ the haaycock, when owd Dobson coom’d upo’ us? I can’t let tha aloan if I would, Sally. [Offering to kiss her. Sally. Gitalong wi’ ye,do! ([£-xzz. [All laugh ; exeunt singing. ‘To be true to each other, let ’appen what maay, Till the end o’ the daady An’ the Jast load hoam.’ James. Enter HAROLD. flarold. Not Harold! ‘Philip Edgar, Philip Edgar !’ Her phantom call’d me by the name she loved. I told her I should hear her from the grave. Ay! yonder is her casement. I re- member Her bright face beaming starlike down upon me Thro’ that rich cloud of blossom. Since I left her Here weeping, I have ranged the world, and sat Thro’ every sensual course of that full feast That leaves but emptiness. Song. “To be true to each other, let ’appen what maay, To the end o’ the daay An’ the last load hoam.’ flarold. Poor Eva! O my God, if man be only A willy-nilly current of sensations— Reaction needs must follow revel—yet— Why feel remorse, he, knowing that he must have Moved in the iron grooves of Destiny ? Remorse then is a part of Destiny, Nature a liar, making us feel guilty Of her own faults. My grandfather—of him They say, that women— O this mortal house, Which we are born into, is haunted by The ghosts of the dead passions of dead men ; And these take flesh again with our own flesh, And bring us to confusion. He was only A poor philosopher who call’d the mind Of children a blank page, a ¢adzla rasa. There, there, is written in invisible inks ‘Lust, Prodigality, Covetousness, Craft, 790 THE PROMISE OF MAY. ACT II, Cowardice, Murder ’—and the heat and fire Of life will bring them out, and black enough, So the child grow to manhood: better death With our first wail than life— Song (further off). ‘Till the end o’ the daay An’ the last load hoam, Load hoam.’ This bridge again! (Steps on the bridge.) How often have I stood With Eva here! The brook among its flowers ! Forget-me-not, meadowsweet, willow- herb. I had some smattering of science then, Taught her the learned names, anatomized The flowers for her—and now I only wish This pool were deep enough, that I might plunge And lose myself for ever. Enter DAN SMITH (szzging). Gee oop! who’! Gee oop! whoa! Scizzars an’ Pumpy was good uns to goa Thruf slush an’ squad When roads was bad, But hallus ud stop at the Vine-an’-the- Hop, Fur boath on ’em knawed as well as mysen That beer be as good fur ’erses as men. Gee oop! whoa! Gee oop! whoa! Scizzars an’ Pumpy was good uns to goa. The beer’s gotten oop into my ’ead. S’iver I mun git along back to the farm, fur she tell’d ma to taike the cart to Littlechester. Enter DORA. Half an hour late! why are you loiter- ing here? Away with you at once. [Zxz¢ Dan Smith. (Seezng Harold on bridge.) Some madman, is it, Gesticulating there upon the bridge ? I am half afraid to pass. Harold. Sometimes I wonder, When man has surely learnt at last that all His old-world faith, the blossom of his youth, ' Has faded, falling fruitless—whether then All of us, all at once, may not be seized With some fierce passion, not so much for Death As against Life! all, all, into the dark— No more !—and science now could drug and balm us Back into nescience with as little pain As it is to fall asleep. | This beggarly life, This poor, flat, hedged-in field—no dis- tance—this Hollow Pandora-box, With all the pleasures flown, not even Hope Left at the bottom ! Superstitious fool, What brought me here? To see her grave? her ghost ? Her ghost is everyway about me here. Dora (coming forward), Allow me, sir, to pass you. farold, Eva ! Dora. Eva ! Harold. What are you? Where do you come from ? Dora. From the farm Here, close at hand. fTarold, Are you—you are—that Dora, The sister. I have heard of you. The likeness Is very striking. Dora. You knew Eva, then? Harold. Yes—I was thinking of her when—O yes, Many years back, and never since have met Her equal for pure innocence of nature, And loveliness of feature. Dora, No, nor I, trina ACT II. THE PROMISE OF MAY. “791 Harold, Except, indeed, I have found it once again In your own self. Dora. You flatter me. Dear Eva Was always thought the prettier. Harold, And fer charm Of voice is also yours; and I was brood- ing Upon a great unhappiness when you spoke. Dora. Indeed, you seem’d in trouble, sir. fTarold. And you Seem my good angel who may help me from it. Dora (aside), How worn he looks, poor man! who is it, I wonder. How can IThelp him? (A/oud.) Might I ask your name? Harold. Warold. Dora. Inever heard her mention you. ffarold, I met her first at a farm in Cumberland— Her uncle’s. Dora. She was there six years ago. ffarold, And if she never mention’d me, perhaps The painful circumstances which I heard— I will not vex you by repeating them— Only last week at Littlechester, drove me From out her memory. She has dis- appear’d, They told me, from the farm—and darker news. Dora. She has disappear’d, poor darling, from the world— Left but one dreadful line to say, that we Should find her in the river; and. we drage’d The Littlechester river all in vain: Have sorrow’d for her all these years in vain. And my poor father, utterly broken down By losing her—she was his favourite child— Has let his farm, all his affairs, I fear, But for the slender help that I can give, Fallinto ruin. Ah! that villain, Edgar, If he should ever show his face among us, Our men and boys would hoot him, stone . him, hunt*him With pitchforks off the farm, for all of them Loved her, and she was worthy of all love. Flarold. They say, we should forgive our enemies. Dora. Ay, if the wretch were dead I might forgive him ; We know not whether he be dead or living. fTarold, What Edgar? Dora. Philip Edgar of Toft Hall In Somerset. Perhaps you know him? Flarold. Slightly. (Aside.) Ay, for how slightly have I known myself. Dora. This Edgar, then, is living? flarold. Living? well— One Philip Edgar of Toft Hall in Som- erset Is lately dead. Dora. Dead !—is there more than one ? Harold. _Nay—now—not one, (aszde) for I am Philip Harold. Dora. That one, is he then—dead ! fTarold, (Astde.) My father’s death, Let her believe it mine; this, for the moment, Will leave me a free field. Dora. Dead! and this world Is brighter for his absence as that other Is darker for his presence. fTarold. Is not this To speak too pitilessly of the dead ? Dora, My five-years’ anger cannot die at once, Not all at once with death and him. I trust I shall forgive him — by-and- by — not now. O sir, you seem to have a heart; if you Had seen us that wild morning when we found Her bed unslept in, storm and shower lashing Her casement, her poor spaniel wailing for her, 792 That desolate letter, blotted with her tears, ‘ Which told us we should never see her more— Our old nurse crying as if for her own child, My father stricken with his first paralysis, And then with blindness—had you been one of us And seen all this, then you would know it is not So easy to forgive—even the dead. Harold. But sure am I that of your gentleness You will forgive him. for, seem’d A miracle of gentleness—would not blur A moth’s wing by the touching; would not crush The fly that drew her blood; ee were she living, Would not—if penitent—have Ricken She, you mourn him her Forgiveness. And perhaps the man himself, When hearing of that piteous death, has suffer’d More than we know. But wherefore waste your heart In looking on a chill and changeless Past ? Tron will fuse, and marble melt; the Past Remains the Past. But you are young, and—pardon me— As lovely as your sister. Who can tell What golden hours, with what full . hands, may be Waiting you in the distance? Might I call Upon your father—I have seen the world— And cheer his blindness with a traveller’s tales? Dora. Call if you will, and when you will. I cannot Well answer for my father; but if you Can tell me anything of our sweet Eva When in her brighter girlhood, I at least Will bid you welcome, and will listen to you. Now I must go. THE PROMISE OF MAY. ACT II. FTarold. But give me first your hand: I do not dare, like an old friend, to shake it. I kiss it as a prelude to that privilege When you shall know me better. Dora. (Aszde.) How beautiful His manners are, and how unlike the farmer’s ! You are staying here? FTarold. Yes, at the wayside inn Close by that alder-island in your brook, ‘The Angler’s Home.’ Dora. Are you one? Harold. No, but I Take some delight in sketching, and the country Has many charms, altho’ the inhabitants Seem semi-barbarous. Dora. I am glad it pleases you ; Yet I, born here, not only love the country, But its inhabitants too; and you, I doubt not, Would take to them as kindly, if you cared To live some time among them. fTarold. If I did, Then one at least of its inhabitants Might have more charm for me than all the country. Dora. That one, then, should be grateful for your preference. fTarold. 1 cannot tell, tho’ standing in her presence. (Aside.) She colours! Dora. Sir ! Harold. Be not afraid of me, For these are no conventional flourishes. I do most earnestly assure you that Your likeness—— [Shouts and cries wished Dora. What was that? my poor blind father— Enter FARMING MAN. Farming Man. Miss Dora, Dan Smith’s cart hes runned ower a laady i’ the holler laine, and they ha’ ta’en the body up inter your chaumber, and they be all a-callin’ for ye. AGT 11; Dora, The body !—Heavens! I come! Harold. But you are trembling. Allow me to go with you to the farm. [Lxeunt. Enter DOBSON, Dobson. What feller wur it as ’a’ been a-talkin’ fur haafe an hour wi’ my Dora? (Looking after him.) Seeims I ommost knaws the back on ’im—drest like a gentleman, too. Damn all gentlemen, says I! I should ha’ thowt they’d hed anew o’ gentlefoalk, as I telled ’er to-daay when she fell foul upo’ me. Minds ma o’ summun. I could swear to that ; but that be all one, fur I haates im afoor I knaws what ’e be. Theer! he turns round. Philip Hedgar 0’ Soomerset! Philip Hedgar o’ Soomer- set !—Noa—yeas—thaw the feller’s gone and maade such a litter of his fadce. Eh lad, if it be thou, I'll Philip tha! a-plaayin’ the sadme gaime wi’ my Dora I'll Soomerset tha. I’d like to drag ’im thruff the herse- pond, and she to be a-lookin’ at it. I'd like to leather ’im black and blue, and she to be a-laughin’ at it. Id like to fell im as dead asa bullock! (Clenching Ais fist.) But what ’ud she sady to that? She telled me once not to meddle wi’ ’im, and now she be fallen out wi’ ma, and I can’t coom at ’er. It mun be fiw. Noa! Fur she'd niver ’a been talkin’ haafe an hour wi the divil ’at killed her odn sister, or she beant Dora Steer. Yeas! Fur she niver knawed ’is faace when ’e wur ’ere afoor; but I’ll maake ’er knaw! J’ll madke ’er knaw! fFinter HAROLD. Naay, but I mun git out on ’is waay now, or I shall be the death on ’im. [Zxit. flarold. Wow the clown glared at me! that Dobbins, is it, With whom I used to jar? but can he trace me THE PROMISE OF MAY. 793 Thro’ five years’ absence, and my change of name, The tan of southern summers and the beard ? I may as well avoid him. Ladylike! Lilylike in her stateliness and sweetness ! How came she by it ?>—a daughter of the fields, This Dora! She gave her hand, unask’d, at the farm-gate ; I almost think she half return’d the pressure Of mine. What, I that held the orange blossom Dark as the yew? but may not those, who march Before their age, turn back at times, and make Courtesy to custom? andnow the stronger motive, Misnamed free-will—the crowd would call it conscience— Moves me—to what? I am dreaming ; for the past Look’d thro’ the present, Eva’s eyes thro’ hers— A spell upon me! Surely I loved Eva More than I knew! or is it but the past That brightens in retiring? Oh, last night Tired, pacing my new lands at Little- chester, I dozed upon the bridge, and the black river Flow’d thro’ my dreams—if dreams they were. She rose From the foul flood and pointed toward the farm, And her cry rang to me across the years, ‘T call you, Philip Edgar, Philip Edgar! Come, you will set all right again, and father Will not die miserable.’ his age A comfort to him—so be more at peace With mine own self. Some of my former friends I could make 794 Would find my logic faulty; let them. Colour Flows thro’ my life again, and I have lighted On a new pleasure. Anyhow we must Move in the line of least resistance when The stronger motive rules. But she hates Edgar. May not this Dobbins, or some other, Spy Edgar in Harold ? make her Love Harold first, and then she will for- give Edgar for Harold’s sake. self She would forgive him, by-and-by, not now— For her own sake ¢hen, if not for mine— not now— But by-and-by. Well then, I must She said her- Enter DOBSON behind. Dobson. By-and-by—ch, lad, dosta knaw this padper? Ye dropt it upo’ the road. ‘Philip Edgar, Esq.’ Ay, you be a pretty squire. I ha’ fun’ ye out, I hev. Eh, lad, dosta knaw what tha means wi’ by-and-by? Fur if ye be goin’ to sarve our Dora as ye sarved our Eva—then, by-and-by, if she weant listen to me when I be a-tryin’ to saave ’er—if she weant— look to thysen, for, by the Lord, I’d think na moor o’ madkin’ an end o’ tha nor a carrion craw—noa—thaw they hanged ma at Size fursit. Harold. Dobbins, I think! Dobson. JI beant Dobbins. ffarold. Nor am I Edgar, my good fellow. Dobson. Tha lies! What hasta been sadyin’ to my Dora? flarold, J have been telling her of the death of one Philip Edgar of Toft Hall, Somerset. Dobson. ‘Tha lies! Harold (pulling out a newspaper). Well, my man, it seems that you can read. Look there—under the deaths. Dobson. *O’ the 17th, Philip Edgar, THE PROMISE OF MAY. ACT III, o’ Toft Hall, Soomerset.’ thou to be sa like ’im, then? Harold, Naturally enough; for I am closely related to the dead man’s family. Dobson. An’ ow coom thou by the letter to ’im ? Hlarold. Naturally again; for as I used to transact all his business for him, I had to look over his letters. Now then, see these (¢akes out letters), Half a score of them, all directed to me— Harold. How coom Dobson. ’Arold! ’Arold! ’Arold, so they be. Flarold. My name is Harold! Good day, Dobbins! | [Exze. Dobson. ’Arold! The feller’s clean daazed, an’ maazed, an’ maated, an’ mud- dled ma. Dead! It mun be true, fur it wur i’ print as black as owt. Naay, but ‘Good daay, Dobbins.” Why, that wur the very twang on ’im. Eh, lad, but whether thou be Hedgar, or Hedgar’s business man, thou hesn’t naw business ere wi? my Dora, as I knaws on, an’ whether thou calls thysen Hedgar or Harold, if thou stick to she I’ll stick to thee —stick to tha like a weasel to a rabbit, I will. Ay! and Id like to shoot tha like a rabbit an’ all. ‘Good daay, Dobbins.’ Dang tha! : ACT III. SCENE.—A Room IN STEER’s House. DooR LEADING INTO BEDROOM AT THE BACK, Dora (ringing a handbell). Linter MILLY. Milly. Thelittle’ymn? Yeis, Miss; but I wur so ta’en up wi’ leddin’ the owd man about all the blessed murnin’ ’at I ha’ nobbut larned mysen haafe on it. Milly ! ‘O man, forgive thy mortal foe, Nor ever strike him blow for blow; For all the souls on earth that live To be forgiven must forgive. ee AOD TIT, Forgive him seventy times and seven; For all the blessed souls in Heaven Are both forgivers and forgiven.’ But [ll git the book agean, and larn mysen the rest, and saady it to ye afoor dark; ye ringed fur that, Miss, didn’t ye? Dora. No, Milly; but if the farming- men be come for their wages, to send them up to me. Milly. Yeis, Miss. [Exit. Dora (sitting at desk counting money). Enough at any rate for the present. (Znter Farming Men.) Good afternoon, my friends. I am sorry Mr. Steer still continues too unwell to attend to you, but the schoolmaster looked to the paying you your wages when I was away, didn’t he? Men. Yeas; and thanks to ye. Dora. Some of our workmen have left us, but he sent me an alphabetical list of those that remain, so, Allen, I may as well begin with you. Allen (with his hand to his ear). Halfabitical! Taake one o’ the young ’uns fust, Miss, fur I be a bit deaf, and I wur hallus scaared by a big word; least- waays, I should be wi’ a lawyer. Dora. I spoke of your names, Allen, as they are arranged here (shows book)— according to their first letters. Allen. Letters! Yeas, I sees now. Them be what they larns the childer’ at school, but I were burn afoor schoolin- time. Dora. But, Allen, tho’ you can’t read, you could whitewash that cottage of yours where your grandson had the fever. Allen. Tl hev it done o’ Monday. Dora. Else if the fever spread, the parish will have to thank you for it. Allen, Mead? why, it be the Lord’s doin’, noan o’ mine; d’ye think /’¢ gi’e ’em the fever? But I thanks ye all the saime, Miss. (Zakes money.) Dora (calling out names). Higgins, Jackson, Luscombe, Nokes, Oldham, Skipworth! (Ad take money.) Did you find that you worked at all the worse THE PROMISE OF MAY. 795 upon the cold tea than you would have done upon the beer ? Higgins. Noa, Miss; we worked naw wuss upo’ the cowd tea; but we’d ha’ worked better upo’ the beer. Dora. Come, come, you worked well enough, and I am much obliged to all of you. There’s for you, and you, and you. Count the money and see if it’s all right. Men. kindly. [Zxeunt Luscombe, Nokes, ham, Skipworth. Dora. Dan Smith, my father and I forgave you stealing our coals. [Dan Smith advances to Dora. Dan Smith (bellowing). Whoy, O lor, Miss! that wur sa long back, and the walls sa thin, and the winders brokken, and the weather sa cowd, and my missus a-gittin’ ower ’er lyin’-in. Dora. WDidn’t I say that we had for- given you? But, Dan Smith, they tell me that you—and you have six children —spent all your last Saturday’s wages at the ale-house; that you were stupid drunk all Sunday, and so ill in conse- quence all Monday, that you did not come into the hayfield. Why should I pay you your full wages? Dan Smith, Ibe ready to taake the pledge. Dora. And as ready to break it again. Besides it was you that were driving the cart—and I fear you were tipsy then, too—when you lamed the lady in the hollow lane. Dan Smith (bellowing). O lor, Miss! nod, nod, nod! Ye sees the holler laane be hallus sa dark i’ the arternoon, and wheere the big eshtree cuts athurt it, it gi’es a turn like, and ’ow should I see to laame the laidy, and mea coomin’ along pretty sharp an’ all? Dora. Well, there are your wages; the next time you waste them at a pot- house you get no more from me. (Zxzz¢ Dan Smith.) Sally Allen, you worked for Mr. Dobson, didn’t you ? All right, Miss; and thank ye Old- 796 Sally (advancing). Yeis, Miss; but he wur so rough wi’ ma, I couldn’t abide im. Dora. Why should he be rough with you ? You are as good as a man in the hay- field. What’s become of your brother ? Sally. ’Listed for a soadger, Miss, 7’ the Queen’s Real Hard Tillery. Dora. And your sweetheart—when are you and he to be married ? Sally. At Michaelmas, Miss, please God. Dora. You are an honest pair. I will come to your wedding. Sally. An’ I thanks ye fur that, Miss, moor nor fur the waage. (Going—returns.) ’A cotched ma about the waaist, Miss, when ’e wur ’ere afoor, an’ axed ma to be ’is little sweet- art, an sod I knaw’d ’im when I seed im agedn an I telled feyther on im. Dora. What is all this, Allen ? Allen. Why, Miss Dora, mea and my maites, us three, we wants to hev three words wi’ ye. Higgins. That be’im, and mea, Miss. Jackson. An’ mea, Miss. Allen. An’ we weant mention naw nadmes, we’d as lief talk o’ the Divil afoor ye as ’im, fur they says the master goias clean off his ead when he ’ears the nadme on’im; but us three, arter Sally’d telled us on ’im, we fun’ ’im out a-walkin’ i West Field wi’ a white ’at, nine o’clock, upo’ Tuesday murnin’, and all on us, wi’ your leave, we wants to leather ’im. Dora. Who? Allen. Wim as did the mischief here, five year’ sin’. Dora. Mr. Edgar? Allen. Theer, Miss! Youha’ nadimed ’im—not me. Dora. He’s dead, man—dead; gone to his account—dead and buried. Allen, J beant sa sewer o’ that, fur Sally knaw’d ’im; Now then? Dora. Yes; it was in the Somerset- shire papers. Allen. Then yon mun be his brother, an’ we'll leather °2772. Dora. I never heard that he hada THE PROMISE OF MAY. brother. Some man for his brother’s fault? That were a wild justice indeed. Let bygones be bygones. exeunt.) I have once more paid them all. The work of the farm will go on still, but for how long? We are almost at the bottom of the well: little more to be - drawn from it—and whatthen? Encum- bered as we are, who would lend us any- thing? We shall have to sell all the land, which Father, for a whole life, has been getting together, again, and that, I am sure, would be the death of him. What am I to do? Farmer Dobson, were I to marry him, has promised to keep our heads above water; and the man has doubtless a good heart, and a true and lasting love for me: yet—though I can be sorry for him—as the good Sally says, ‘I can’t abide him ’—almost brutal, and matched with my Harold is like a hedge thistle by a garden rose. But then, he, too—will he ever be of one faith with his wife? which is my dream of a true marriage. Can I fancy him kneeling with me, and uttering the same prayer; standing up side by side with me, and singing the same hymn? I fear not. Have I done wisely, then, in accepting him? But may not a girl’s love-dream have too much romance in it to be realised all at once, or altogether, or anywhere but in Heaven? And yet I had once a vision of a pure and perfect marriage, where the man and the woman, only differing as the stronger and the weaker, should walk hand in hand to- gether down this valley of tears, as they call it so truly, to the grave at the bottom, and lie down there together in the dark- ness which would seem but for a moment, to be wakened again together by the light of the resurrection, and no more partings for ever and for ever. (Walks up and down. She sings.) ‘O happy lark, that warblest high Above thy lowly nest, ACT III. foolish mistake of | Sally’s; but what! would you beat a — ‘ i Gohome! Good-night! (4 ACT III. O brook, that brawlest merrily by Thro’ fields that once were blest, O tower spiring to the sky, O graves in daisies drest, O Love and Life, how weary am I, And how I long for rest.’ There, there, I am a fool! Tears! I have sometimes been moved to tears by a chapter of fine writing in a novel; but what have I to do with tears now? All depends on me—Father, this poor girl, the farm, everything; and they both love me—I am all in all to both; and he loves me too, I am quite sure of that. Courage, courage! and all will go well. (Goes to bedroom door; opens it.) How dark your room is! Let me bring you in here where there is still full daylight. (Brings Eva forward.) Why, you look better. Zva. And I feel so much better, that I trust I may be able by-and-by to help you in the business of the farm; but I must not be known yet. Has anyone found me out, Dora? Dora. Oh, no; you kept your veil too close for that when they carried you in; since then, no one has seen you but myself. Lva. Yes—this Milly. Dora. Poor blind Father’s little guide, Milly, who came to us three years after you were gone, how should she know you? But now that you have been brought to us as it were from the grave, dearest Eva, and have been here so long, will you not speak with Father to-day? £va. Doyouthink that I may? No, not yet. Iam not equal to it yet. Dora. Why? Do you still suffer from your fall in the hollow lane? Eva. Bruised; but no bones broken. Dora. I have always told Father that the huge old ashtree there would cause an accident some day; but he would never cut it down, because one of the Steers had planted it there in former times. Eva. If it had killed one of the THE PROMISE OF MAY. 797 Steers there the other day, it might have been better for her, for him, and for you. Dora. Come, come, keep a good heart! Better for me! That’s good. How better for me? L£va. You tell me you have a lover. Will he not fly from you if he learn the story of my shame and that I am still living? Dora. No; I am sure that when we are married he will be willing that you and Father should live with us; for, in- deed, he tells me that he met you once in the old times, and was much taken with you, my dear. Eva. Taken with me; who was he? Have you told him I am here? Dora. No; do you wish it? fva. See, Dora; you yourself are ashamed of me (weefs), and I do not wonder at it. Dora. But I should wonder at my- self if it were so. Have we not been all in all to one another from the time when we first peeped into the bird’s nest, waded in the brook, ran after the butter- flies, and prattled to each other that we would marry fine gentlemen, and played at being fine ladies? Zva. That last was my Father's fault, poorman. And this lover of yours —this Mr. Harold—is a gentleman? Dora. That he is, from head to foot. I do believe I lost my heart to him the very first time we met, and I love him so much— fva, Poor Dora! Dora. That I dare not tell him how much I love him. f£va. Better not. Has he offered you marriage, this gentleman? Dora. Could I love him else? £va. And are you quite sure that after marriage this gentleman will not be shamed of his poor farmer’s daughter among the ladies in his drawing-room ? Dora. Shamed of me in a drawing- room! Wasn’t Miss Vavasour, © our schoolmistress at Littlechester, a lady born? Were not our fellow-pupils all 798 THE PROMISE OF MAY. ladies? Wasn’t dear mother herself at Dora. Take them, dear. Say that least by one side a lady? Can’t I speak | the sick lady thanks him! Is he here? like a lady; pena letter like a lady; talk a little French like a lady; play a little like a lady? Can’t a girl when she loves her husband, and he her, make herself anything he wishes her to be? Shamed of me in a drawing-room, indeed! See here! ‘I hope your Lordship is quite recovered of your gout?’ (Cwurtstes.) ‘Will your Ladyship ride to cover to-day? (Curtsies.) I can recommend our Volti- geur.’ ‘I am sorry that we could not attend your Grace’s party on the roth !’ (Curtszes.) There, I am glad my non- sense has made you smile ! va. Ihave heard that ‘your Lord- ship,’ and ‘your Ladyship,’ and ‘your Grace’ are all growing old-fashioned ! Dora. But the love of sister for sister can never be old-fashioned. I have been unwilling to trouble you with questions, but you seem somewhat better to-day. We found a letter in your bedroom torn into bits. I couldn’t make’ it’ out: What was it ? fiva. From him! from him! He said we had been most happy together, and he trusted that some time we should meet again, for he had not forgotten his promise to come when I called him. But that was a mockery, you know, for he gave me no address, and there was no word of marriage; and, O Dora, he signed himself ‘ Yours gratefully ’—fancy, Dora, ‘gratefully’! ‘Yours gratefully’! Dora, Infamous wretch! (Aszde.) Shall I tell her he is dead? No; she is still too feeble. iva. Hark! Dora, some one is com- ing. I cannot and I will not see anybody. Dora. It is only Milly. Enter MILLY, with basket of roses. Dora. Well, Milly, why do you come inso roughly? The sick lady here might have been asleep. Milly, Please, Miss, Mr. Dobson telled me to sady he’s browt some of Miss Eva’s roses for the sick lady to smell on. Milly. Yeas, Miss; and he wants to speak to ye partic’lar. Dora. Tell him I cannot leave the sick lady just yet. Milly. Yeds, Miss; but he says he wants to tell ye summut very partic’lar. Dora. Not to-day. What are you staying for ? Milly. Why, Miss, I be afeard I shall set him a-swearing like onythink. Dora, And what harm will that do you, so that you do not copy his bad manners? Go, child. (Zxz¢ Milly.) But, Eva, why did you write ‘Seek me at the bottom of the river’? Eva. Why? because I meant it !-— that dreadful night ! that lonely walk to Littlechester, the rain beating in my face all the way, dead midnight when I came upon the bridge; the river, black, slimy, swirling under me in the lamplight, by the rotten wharfs—but I was so mad, that I mounted upon the parapet Dora. You make me shudder ! £va. To fling myself over, when I heard a voice, ‘ Girl, what are you doing there?’ It wasa Sister of Mercy, come from the death-bed of a pauper, who had died in his misery blessing God, and the Sister took me to her house, and bit by bit—for she promised secrecy—I told her all. Dora. And what then? £va. She would have persuaded me to come back here, but I couldn’t. Then she got me a place as nursery governess, and when the children grew too old for me, and I asked her once more to help me, once more she said, “Go home;’ but I hadn’t the heart or face to doit. And then—what would Father say? I sank so low that I went into service—the drudge of a lodging- house —and when the mistress died, and I appealed to the Sister again, her answer— I think I have it about me—yes, there it is ! Dora (reads). ‘My dear Child,—I ACT IIL. Ma pds 7 (Gok pe ieee — ———e ACT III, can do no more for you. I have done wrong in keeping your secret; your Father must be now in extreme old age. Go back to him and ask his forgiveness before he dies.—SISTER AGATHA.’ Sister Agatha is right. Don’t you long for Father’s forgiveness ! _ £va. I would almost die to have it ! Dora. And he may die before he gives it; may drop off any day, any hour. You must see him at once. (Azvgs dell. Enter Milly.) Milly, my dear, how did you leave Mr. Steer? Milly. He’s been a-moanin’ and a- groanin’ in ’is sleep, but I thinks he be wakkenin’ oop. Dora. Tell him that I and the lady here wish to see him. You see she is lamed, and cannot go down to him, Milly. Yeas, Miss, I will. [Zxzt Milly. Dora. I ought toprepare you. You must not expect to find our Father as he was five years ago. He is much altered; but I trust that your return—for you know, my dear, you were always his favourite—will give him, as they say, a new lease of life. Eva (clinging to Dora). Dora ! Enter STEER led by MILLY. t Oh, Dora, Steer. Hes the cow cawved ? Dora. No, Father. Steer. Be the colt dead? Dora. No, Father. Steer. We wur sa bellows’d out wi’ the wind this murnin’, ’at I tell’d ’em to gallop ’im. ~Be he dead? Dora. Not that I know. Steer. What hasta sent fur me, then, fur ? Dora (taking Steer’s arm). Father, I have a surprise for you. Steer. 1 haniver been surprised but once i’ my life, and I went blind upon it. Dora. Steer. river? Well, Eva has come home. Hoim? fro’ the bottom o’ the THE PROMISE OF MAY. 799 Dora. No, Father, that was a mis- take. She’s here again. Steer. The Steers was all gentlefoalks i’ the owd times, an’ I worked early an’ laate to maake ’em all gentlefoalks agean. The land belonged to the Steers i’ the owd times, an’ it belongs to the Steers agean: I bowt it back agein; but I couldn’t buy my darter back agean when she lost hersen, could I? I eddicated boath on ’em to marry gentlemen, an’ one on ’em went an’ lost hersen 7’ the river. Dora. No, Father, she’s here. Steer. Here! she moant coom here. What would her mother saay? If it be her ghoast, we mun abide it. We can’t keep a ghoast out. Lva (falling at his feet). me ! forgive me ! Steer. Who said that? Taadke me awaay, little gell. It be one o’ my bad daays. [Zxct Steer led by Milly. Dora (smoothing Eva’s forehead). Be not so cast down, my sweet Eva. You heard him say it was one of his bad days. He will be sure to know you to-morrow. O forgive Eva. It is almost the last of my bad days, I think. I am very faint. I must lie down. Give me your arm. Lead me back again. [Dora takes Eva into inner room. Enter MILLY. Milly. Miss Dora! Miss Dora ! Dora (returning and leaving the bed- room door ajar). Quiet! quiet! What site Milly. Mr. ’Arold, Miss. Dora. Below ? Milly. Yeas, Miss. He be saayin’ a word to the owd man, but he’ll coom up if ye lets ’im. Dora. Tell him, then, that I’m wait- ing for him. Milly. Yeas, Miss. [Zxit. Dora sits pensively and waits. Lenter HAROLD. Harold. You are pale, my Dora! but the ruddiest cheek 800 That ever charm’d the Pores of your wolds Might wish its rose a lily, could it look But half as lovely. I was speaking with Your father, asking his consent—you wish’d me— That we should marry: he would answer nothing, I could make nothing of him; but, my flower, You look so weary and so worn! What is it Has put you out of heart ? Dora. It puts me in heart Again to see you; but indeed the state Of my poor father puts me out of heart. Is yours yet living ? fTarold. No—I told you. Dora. When ? Harold. Confusion !—Ah well, well! the state we all Must come to in our spring-and-winter world If we live long enough! and poor Steer looks The very type of Age in a picture, bow’d To the earth he came from, to the grave he goes to, Beneath the burthen of years. Dora. More like the picture Of Christian in my ‘ Pilgrim’s Progress’ here, Bow’d to the dust beneath the burthen of sin. flarold, Sin! What sin? Dora. Not his own. fTarold, That nursery-tale Still read, then ? Dora. Yes; our carters and our shepherds Still find a comfort there. Harold, Carters and shepherds! Dora. Scorn! I hate scorn, A soul with no religion— My mother used to say that such a one Was without rudder, anchor, compass— might be Blown everyway with every gust and wreck THE PROMISE OF MAY. ACT III. On any rock; and tho’ you are good and gentle, Yet if thro’ any want— ; Harold. Of this religion ? Child, read a little history, you will find The common brotherhood of man has been Wrong’d by the cruelties of his religions More than could ever have happen’d thro’ the want Of any or all of them. Dora. —But, O dear friend, If thro’ the want of any—I mean the true one— And pardon me for saying it—you should ever Be tempted into doing what might seem Not altogether worthy of you, I think That I should break my heart, for you have taught me To love you. Harold. What is this? some one been stirring 5 Against me? he, your rustic amourist, The polish’d Damon of your pastoral here, This Dobson of your idyll? Dora. No, Sir, no! Did you not tell me he was crazed with jealousy, Had threaten’d ev’n your life, and would say anything ? Did / not promise not to listen to him, Nor ev’n to see the man? Harold. Good; then what is it That makes you talk so dolefully? Dora. I told you— My father. Well, indeed, a friend just now, One that has been much wrong’d, whose griefs are mine, Was warning me that if a gentleman Should wed a farmer’s daughter, he would be Sooner or later shamed of her among The ladies, born his equals. Harold. More fool he! What I that have been call’d a Socialist, A Communist, a Nihilist—what you will! Dora. What are all these? ACT III, Harold, Utopian idiotcies. They did not last three Junes. Such rampant weeds Strangle each other, die, and make the soil For Czesars, Cromwells, and Napoleons To root their power in. I have freed myself From all such dreams, and some will say because I have inherited my Uncle. Let them. But—shamed of you, my Empress! I should prize : The pearl of Beauty, even if I found it Dark with the soot of slums. Dora. But I can tell you, We Steers are of old blood, tho’ we be fallen. See there our shield. on mantelpiece. ) For I have heard the Steers Had land in Saxon times; and your own name Of Harold sounds so English and so old I am sure you must be proud of it. (Pointing to arms Harold, Not I! As yet I scarcely feel it mine. I took it For some three thousand acres. I have land now And wealth, and lay both at your feet. Dora. And what was Your name before ? fTarold. Come, come, my girl, enough Of this strange talk. I love you and you me. True, I have held opinions, hold some still, Which you would scarce approve of: for all that, I am a man not prone to jealousies, Caprices, humours, moods; but very ready To make allowances, and mighty slow To feel offences. Nay, I do believe I could forgive—well, almost anything— And that more freely than your formal priest, Because I know more fully than fe can What poor earthworms are all and each of us, THE PROMISE OF MAY. 8oI Here crawling in this boundless Nature. Dora, If marriage ever brought a woman happi- ness I doubt not I can make you happy. Dora. You make me Happy already. Harold. And I never said As much before to any woman living. Dora. No? flarold. No! by this true kiss, you are the first I ever have loved truly. [Zhey kiss each other. Eva (with a wild cry). Philip Edgar! Harold. The phantom cry! You— did you hear a cry? Dora. She must becrying out ‘ Edgar ’ in her sleep. ffarold. Who must be crying out ‘Edgar’ in her sleep? Dora. Your pardon for a minute. She must be waked. fTarold. (Who must be waked ? Dora. Jam not deaf: you fright me. What ails you ? flarold. Speak. Dora. You know her, Eva. ffarold. Eva! [Zva opens the door and stands in the entry. She! Zva. Make her happy, then, and I forgive you. [Falls dead. Dora. Wappy! What? Edgar? Is it so? Can it be? They told. meso. Yes, yes!\ I see it all now. O she has fainted. Sister, Eva, sister! He is yours again—he will love yoz again ; I give him back to you again. Look up! One word, or do but smile! Sweet, do you hear me? [Puts her hand on Eva’s heart. There, there—the heart, O God!—the poor young heart Broken at last—all still—and nothing left To live for. [Falls on body of her sister. 3 F 802 THE PROMISE OF MAY. ACT III. fTarold. Living . dead . She said ‘all still. Nothing to live for.’ She—she knows me—now ... (A pause.) She knew me from the first, she juggled with me, She hid this sister, told me she was dead— I have wasted pity on her—not dead now— No! acting, playing on me, both of them. They drag the river for her! no, not they! Playing on me—not dead now—a swoon —a scene— Yet—how she made her wail as for the dead! Einter MILLY. Milly. Please, Mister ’Arold. fLarold (roughly). Well? ' Milly. The owd man’s coom’d agean to ’issen, an’ wants To hev a word wi’ ye about the marriage. Flarold. ‘The what? Milly. The marriage. Flarold. The marriage ? Milly. Yeas, the marriage. Granny says marriages be madde i’ ’eaven. Flarold, She lies! They are made in Hell. Child, can’t you see ? Tell them to fly for a doctor. Milly. O law—yeias, Sir! Tl run fur im mysen. [Zxzt. Harold. All silent there, Yes, deathlike! Dead? look: if dead, Were it best to steal away, to spare my- self, And her too, pain, pain, pain? My curse on all This world of mud, on all its idiot gleams Of pleasure, all the foul fatalities That blast our natural passions into pains! I dare not Enter DOBSON. Dobson. You, Master Hedgar, Harold, or whativer They calls ye, for I warrants that ye goas By hadfe a scoor o’ nadames—out o’ the chaumber. [Dragging him past the body. Harold. Not that way, man! Curse on your brutal strength! I cannot pass that way. Dobson. Out o’ the chaumber! I’ll mash tha into nowt. Flarold. The mere wild-beast ! Dobson. Out o’ the chaumber, dang tha ! Harold. Lout, churl, clown! [While they are shouting and strug- gling Dora rises and comes be- tween them. Dora(to Dobson). Peace, let him be: it is the chamber of Death! Sir, you are tenfold more a gentleman, A hundred times more worth a woman’s love, Than this, this—but I waste no words upon him: His wickedness is like my wretchedness— Beyond all language. (Zo Harold.) You—you see her there! Only fifteen when first you came on her, And then the sweetest flower of all the wolds, So lovely in the promise of her May, So winsome in her grace and gaiety, So loved by all the village people here, So happy in herself and in her home—— Dobson (agitated). ‘Theer, theer! ha’ done. I can’t abear to see her. [Axzt. Dora. ¢ at i 1, i, ia ee bh i Hee fe Re a x oo is